BEACHLEY WW1 HISTORY Gloucestershire Village Severn NEW Shipyard Railway Wartime

In the early months of 1917 German U-Boats were sinking Allied merchant ships at a much faster rate than they could be replaced and Britain faced a real danger of being starved into surrender. One of the Government\u2019s responses to this crisis was to boost shipbuilding capacity by building three new national shipyards on the banks of the Severn Estuary, the largest of which was to be located on the rural Beachley Peninsula in Gloucestershire. On 3rd September 1917 the inhabitants of this quiet country parish were given ten days\u2019 notice to vacate their homes in order to allow thousands of Royal Engineers and German Prisoners of War to begin construction. The authors have painted a vivid picture of local life before the war, the impact of the evacuation on the community and the construction of the huge shipyard together with its associated housing schemes, army and POW camps. They also record, for the very first time, the history of the railway branch line and the numerous rail.