Coast Artillery Battery
The present-day caravan site at Penrhyn Ychen was the location of Fishguard six-inch coast artillery battery in WWII, and several of the wartime buildings have been converted into facilities for the holiday camp.
Two three-inch UP rocket launcher bases can still be seen, while several of the caravans are on the footings of former buildings associated with the battery.
The TV room and launderette was once the battery observation post, while the remains of two searchlight emplacements can also be seen. On the hillside behind the former battery, the old minefield can be distinguished in the pattern of the gorse, the bushes nestling in the hollows where the mines were once buried.
Coast artillery searchlight unit at Fishguard battery; note the stones set into the concrete roof for camouflage
It is said that on one occasion the battery fired an inert ‘bring-to’ round across the bows
of a vessel entering Fishguard which failed to show the correct signal lights. The shell - which wasn’t armed - was misdirected and actually hit the bow section of the mystery
boat before skimming across the water and landing on the beach opposite. It later emerged that the vessel was an RAF launch which made it safely to harbour, despite considerable damage to its forward section. The crew of the launch returned the shell to the artillery battery the following day!
