A TV documentary has been filmed on Burnham-On-Sea beach this week featuring the town’s fire crews taking part in a unique World War 2 re-enactment.

Burnham’s fire crews were filmed liquifying sand with water hoses in order to bury wooden stakes in the ground to form sea defences, just as was done in the war.

Burnham fire officer Dick Solomon told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “In the war, the Germans constructed sea defences along the coast of Normandy to repel attacks.”

“They buried 3,000 wooden stakes in the sand along the beaches so mines could be held on top of them.”

“The Germans quickly found that manually digging in each of the stakes takes about 45 minutes so they used high pressure water instead to liquify the sand around the stake while it was pushed downwards. This reduced the installation time to around three and a half minutes.”

“Since Burnham’s sand is so similar to Normandy’s coastline, we were asked by the film crew to see if we could repeat the job with our high-pressure water hoses while they filmed.”

“The mud prevented the wooden stakes going in more than two metres deep, but we were able to install the stakes in about two and a half minutes so we managed to beat the Germans!”

The London-based production company filmed the scenes on Burnham beach, next to the jetty, for the documentary to be broadcast on US television.

 
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