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HMS Abatos

History of SouthamptonMilitary installations closed in 1946Military installations established in 1943Royal Navy bases in HampshireRoyal Navy shore establishments
Ship infoboxes without an image

HMS Abatos was a Royal Navy shore establishment responsible for the planning of Operation Pluto, the construction of the undersea pipeline that supplied the Allied troops with fuel during the liberation of Europe in 1944, after D-Day. There was another Operation Pluto training establishment at Tilbury, under the name HMS Abastor. The Admiralty requisitioned the remains of the Supermarine factory in Woolston, Southampton in 1943. The base was commissioned on 21 September 1943 as a tender to HMS Shrapnel. Just before D-Day, the force established headquarters at 21 Upper Vicarage Road, Woolston The headquarters had shifted to Norfolk House by 1945, and moved again on 26 November 1945 to Rex House. Abatos was paid off in March 1946, though no new appointments had been made in the navy list of October 1945. The establishment had one designated depot ship, the Naval Auxiliary Boat Gondolier Prince.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article HMS Abatos (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

HMS Abatos
Church Road, Southampton Woolston

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N 50.893 ° E -1.378 °
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Church Road 82
SO19 9FS Southampton, Woolston
England, United Kingdom
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Itchen Ferry village
Itchen Ferry village

Itchen Ferry village was a small hamlet on the East bank of the River Itchen in Hampshire. The village took its name from the small fishing boats that were also used to ferry foot passengers across the river. An Ordnance Survey map of 1911 (NC/03/17894) shows the village to be situated in the area roughly bounded by Sea Road, Oakbank Road, the River Itchen and the railway line in modern Woolston, but also extending along Sea Road towards Peartree Green on the other side of the railway, which cut the village in half in 1866. Neighbouring streets on that same map, Defender Road, Britannia Road and Shamrock Road have a more structured layout and are clearly part of the Victorian enlargement of Woolston. The same map clearly shows the housing in Itchen Ferry village to have a more random layout. An even older map, of 1842 pins Itchen Ferry village more tightly to the area between Sea Road and Vicarage Road. Itchen ferrymen were granted permission to ferry passengers and goods across the River Itchen by the lords of the manors of Woolston and Southampton. Lords of the manor of Woolston were paid in cash. Lords of the manor of Southampton received free passage.The village lost a large part of its livelihood when the Floating Bridge was introduced in 1836, but continued to operate a night service until the late 19th century. The inhabitants always remained fishermen and seafarers. A memorial to Richard Parker of Itchen Ferry village can be seen in the graveyard of Jesus Chapel on Peartree Green. The desperate situation that led to his death in 1884 was the subject of a significant murder trial, Regina v. Dudley & Stephens, that changed English law. Already absorbed into its larger neighbour, Woolston, and subsequently into the borough of Southampton in 1920, Itchen Ferry village was destroyed beyond repair by the Luftwaffe on 26 September 1940 due to its misfortune of being a stone's throw from the Supermarine factory and a short distance up-river from the John I. Thornycroft & Company shipyard. There were over 100 casualties in this one raid.But that was not the only raid. The Luftwaffe had targeted the area on a number of previous occasions. An air raid shelter in the lower region of Sea Road near the railway line is reported as receiving a direct hit on 24 September 1940.The area was subsequently used for training troops that would be fighting in similar ruined villages during the invasion of Europe in 1944.