Published on May 15, 2025

World War II Incidents and Memories

Minesweepers visited Combe Martin Bay, and local children were allowed aboard, receiving treats from the sailors.

In 2005, John Bevan of Combe Martin recalled bombings near Little and Big Hangman. And the crash of an English bomber, which became a local spectacle. 

John told how one German plane mistakenly landed at RAF Chivenor (near Barnstaple and Braunton), and its pilot was captured. 

Agriculture and Prisoners of War

Food production: The Combe Martin area was heavily agricultural, with fields and allotments used to grow food for the war effort.

German prisoners of war and female agricultural workers ("Land Girls") worked on local farms. Some POWs integrated into the community after the war.

Local Institutions and War Effort

The Ilfracombe Collingwood Hotel was used by naval personnel, and the Ilfracombe Hotel housed the Pay Corps.

Air-sea rescue: Boats were stationed in Ilfracombe harbour for rescue missions in the Bristol Channel.

Royal Observer Corps: Local men, including John Bevan's uncle, manned observation posts at Combe Martin, to spot enemy aircraft.

American Troops and D-Day Preparations

The North Devon coast, including the area around Combe Martin, hosted American troops who trained intensively for the D-Day landings.

Their presence left a lasting impression on the local community, with military exercises and preparations becoming a part of daily life.

The arrival of these forces contributed to the region’s wartime activity, and fostered cultural exchanges between locals and Americans.

Evacuees and the Home Front

Combe Martin also welcomed evacuees from London, providing shelter to children and families escaping the Blitz.

Local residents supported the war effort through agricultural production, participation in the Home Guard, and various civil defence roles. This formed a significant era in Combe Martin's industrial heritage.

These contributions were vital to both local resilience and the broader national struggle.

Operation PLUTO: A Pioneering Wartime Project

A major wartime development near Combe Martin was Operation PLUTO (Pipe-Line Under the Ocean), an innovative Allied initiative to supply fuel to the advancing armies in France after D-Day.

In December 1942, a 30-mile experimental pipeline was laid across the Bristol Channel from Swansea to Watermouth, just west of Combe Martin, using a converted cable-laying ship^[1].

This successful test paved the way for the deployment of undersea pipelines across the English Channel, which proved crucial to the Allied advance in Europe.

Operation PLUTO, an acronym for Pipe Lines Under the Ocean, was an initiative run by British engineers, oil corporations, and the British military during World War II.

The objective was to build an underwater oil pipeline to supply the invasion of Normandy (Op Overlord). The hollow PLUTO pipelines were crafted from submarine telegraph cables with the central copper core and insulation removed.

Originally the brainchild of Lord Louis Mountbatten: on December 29, 1942 the civilian cable-laying vessel London—renamed HMS Holdfast—successfully laid the first H.A.I.S. pipeline across open water, from Queen's Dock, Swansea.

The distance spanned a full 30 miles across the turbulent Bristol Channel to Watermouth near Combe Martin.

The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company generously supplied the pumps located at the Swansea end, as well as the pipes that extended to the waterline and onwards to camouflaged pumping stations.

Under the Wartime Petroleum Department: among the most audacious and ingenious war engineering projects was the rapid development and manufacture, in complete secrecy, of the H.A.I.S. (Hartley-Anglo-Iranian-Siemens) Cable for Operation PLUTO.

After D-Day, June 6, 1944: military engineers installed two pipelines traversing the English Channel, linking Britain and France. These pipelines provided up to ten percent of the fuel requirements of the allied armies, until the end of World War II.

The government made it clear from the beginning that a cross-Channel delivery pipeline would be a back-up system, secondary to the primary use of shallow-draft tankers.

Source: Operation PLUTO: A Wartime Partnership for Petroleum - by Arnold Krammer (1992). JSTOR.

Security, Defences, and Lasting Reminders

The presence of military installations and fuel storage facilities brought heightened security and vigilance to Combe Martin. Wartime defences, such as pillboxes and anti-tank obstacles, were constructed around the village.

World War II German Spies in Combe Martin

A set of German documents was prepared for Operation Sea Lion, the planned Nazi invasion of England and Wales. There are archived German photographs of Combe Martin taken during the early 1940s, included in our photo gallery.

Therefore, German spies were taking pictures for Intelligence purposes, now archived.

Credits for these wartime German Intelligence images of Combe Martin are given to David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries.

In preparing to invade Britain, the German military preparations included the production of a series of military/geographical assessments, showing what might be found by those arriving.

This material was also used in a military evaluation of the regions of the British Isles, and assessed from the viewpoint of invasion.

The Nazi materials comprised 11 A4 sized folders, each containing maps and a book of photographs including 144 town maps and 1500+ photographs.

Also three thick A5 sized folders containing books with photographs, drawings and maps: Folder A: England and Wales; Folder B: London; Folder C: Coasts.

Local Legends and Unconfirmed Stories

There is a local tale, though unconfirmed, that German submarine crews used Sherrycombe Waterfall for water and washing. 

During the 1950s, a Captain Martens [poss. Märtens] returned to this area from Germany, and reportedly said that during World War Two he had commanded a U-boat patrolling the Irish Sea and Bristol Channel.

While this story has not been officially substantiated, it reflects the folklore that grew around wartime experiences in the area.

Sources

1. North Devon Coast National Landscape – Operation PLUTO

2. Bevan, John: "Wartime Ramblings!" WW2 People's War, BBC, 13 May 2005.   

3. BBC WW2 People's War – Local wartime memories

4. Combe Martin Village History Project

5. D-Day Revisited (online)

6. North Devon AONB – D-Day Booklet

7. THX News – Combe Martin’s heritage

8. Visit Devon – D-Day in Devon

9. North Devon Coast National Landscape – WWII heritage