The Drumnessie Decoy is a small bunker covered in earth, so that it almost seems to be underground. It would certainly have been very difficult, if not impossible to see from the air. It’s completely invisible in satellite images from Google and other mapping agencies. There is a blast-protecting wall in front of the entrance, and the unwelcoming nature of that entrance is a taster for what the bunker’s two rooms are like. I always feel very uneasy walking down that entrance hallway, wondering who or what awaits me in those two rooms!
The room to the left contains a rusted set of rungs leading up to an observation (or escape?) hole, while the room to the right contains mountings for a generator. I can only imagine the noise in that small room when the generator was on. The rooms also contain several ducts, and I’d love to know where they lead to.
It’s an unwelcoming place today, but surely it would have been even less welcoming during the war. This was the control bunker for decoys that were used to confuse enemy pilots. Records say the Drumnessie Decoy was a night-time decoy, its classification of QL indicating that it controlled decoy lighting systems. However analysis suggests that it was a QF site, used for controlling decoy fires. This description from SecretScotland gives us a glimpse of what it would have been like in action:
"Using techniques borrowed from stage and film, the decoy sites [across the UK] simulated factories, railway yards, docks, urban layouts such as cities and towns, airfields, and the effects of incendiaries and bombs. Many of these sites were designed and built by Sound City Films at Shepperton Studios, whose General Manager was Campbeltown born Scot Norman Louden.
A number of sites were located in Scotland, with four being established around Edinburgh, nine around Glasgow and Lanarkshire, and one on the north end of the Isle of Bute. The decoys used a number of special effects to achieve their aims, for example: lighting would be laid out in the shape of streets (or runways as appropriate), and left on until attackers had a chance to see them from a distance, then extinguished as if in response to an air raid warning. The real area would have been blacked out well in advance, thanks to advance warning by Britain's closely guarded secret radar system, and sightings reported by the Observer Corps. Flash bombs would be detonated to simulate tram power lines arcing, and the Starfish sites would ignite various forms of controlled fire, laid out to simulate the plan view of shipyards and production facilities, which again would have been blacked out in advance of the attacker's arrival. The fires could be relatively simple fuels pools, ignited as required; fire baskets containing materials soaked in an mixture oil and pitch; and more sophisticated burners, where burning oil and water could be mixed, resulting in a brilliant flare as the water changes to steam and expands rapidly, converting the dense, slow-burning fuel oil into a fast-burning mist."
See SecretScotland for more information on the Drumnessie Decoy.
The cache isn’t hidden inside the bunker, but take a look inside and imagine the atmosphere when it was operational.
Now, on a lighter note, young Lucy loved the recce trips to this site. Kids will love it! She devised the final hide that you’re now looking for after several other ideas were impractical for one reason or another. You’ll know what I mean when you find it. Good luck!