Fort Perch Rock cannon
FORT Perch Rock in Wirral marked 70 years since the Second World War was declared today by firing seven shots from a cannon.
The coastal defence battery in New Brighton was used as an army base during the conflict and is thought to have fired some of the first shots of the war.
Fifteen minutes after Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced Britain was at war with Germany, Fort battery commander Colonel C.J Cocks ordered two shots to be fired across the bow of a vessel seen entering the closed Rock Channel.
His notes from the day of the event read: "I fired two rounds across the bows and probably these were the first shots of the war."
Around 500 people braced stormy conditions on New Brighton promenade to watch the cannon being fired - each shot representing a decade - and pay their respects to those killed during the war.
Curator of Fort Perch Rock, Doug Darroch, said: "Today was about remembering the loss of life which lay ahead over the six years after war was declared. Colonel Cocks wrote that he could have fired the first shots but I think it's important that we don't look on it as a competition."
