Cruden Bay was included in both the April and October 1941 lists of vulnerable beaches. The height of the dunes and the cliffs behind meant that in the central and Northern parts of the beach an anti-tank barrier was required only as possible exits from the beach, while the Southern section needed a near continuous barrier. There were seven pillboxes in this relatively short stretch of beach. This is the only surviving pillbox on the beach and is of the simple bulletproof Type 24, with no gun table and small embrasures for Bren or Lewis guns.
The port facilities at Port Erroll were blocked, first by a massive concrete roadblock to prevent access round the East end of the harbour and, second, by a concrete wall to prevent vehicle access up a ramp from the outer harbour to the quay. A pillbox lay South-East of the harbour but the exact position is not known. The only vulnerable section of the frontage of Port Erroll was obstructed by a single line of anti-tank cubes, which joined the end of a double line of concrete-filled sewer pipes blocking the mouth of the river.
The Northern part of the beach was obstructed in two places by a single line of cubes about 270m long and a line 150m long that blocked a gap in the dunes formed by an unnamed burn. The Southernmost part of the bay was blocked by a short line of cubes covering the mouth of a burn and then to the South a continuous line of cubes, almost 1km long, ending in a short seaward turn onto a rock platform.
