Anti-aircraft guns from Yorkshire's Fort Paull start 2,000-mile journey to Malta

A pair of 1941 anti-aircraft guns from Fort Paull near Hull are en route to Malta after selling for £14,000 at auction.
The guns, which weight 10 tonnes, being craned awayThe guns, which weight 10 tonnes, being craned away
The guns, which weight 10 tonnes, being craned away

The 3.7-inch AA was Britain’s primary heavy anti-aircraft gun during World War II and remained in use until they were replaced by guided missiles in 1957.

On Thursday the guns - which weigh 10 tonnes - were being craned onto lorries for the start of their 2,000-mile journey by road and sea to the island.

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The island's strategic location in the Mediterranean made it centre-stage during WW2, and it was subject to some of the most intensive bombardments of the war.

Auctioneer Andrew Baitson said: “They were bought here 20 years ago as an attraction for the Fort. Now they are heading off to a museum in Malta.”

Yorkshire’s only Napoleonic fort, the site closed as a visitor attraction earlier this year.

In September its entire contents, including a giant Blackburn Beverley transport aircraft, went under the hammer.

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The Blackburn Beverley and the Hawker Hunter XF509, which started out with 54 Squadron in 1957 and came to Hull in 2005, where it was fixed on a pole outside the former Humbrol Airfix factory on Hedon Road, are still on the site. Also yet to be moved is a railway carriage once used by Elvis in Cold War Germany.