大象传媒

I have posted these recollections on behalf of my father, Harry Smith, now a sprightly 85 years old.

We were operating a radio location set on a site approx. two miles north of Mundesley-on-Sea. It was our secret weapon at the time, being a wave length of 10cms. We had a civilian scientist, or boffin as we called them, with us. There was a knock on the cabin door which was answered by the boffin. Outside was a staff officer complete with red tabs etc on his epaulettes. He said General So and So (I forget his name) would like to look around the set (he could be seen a little way off talking to three other staff officers). The civilian boffin, unhampered by any military etiquette, said he had no knowledge of such a visit and could not let the General into the cabin. The officer reported back to the General; there was another knock on the door, the red tabbed messenger again. He said the General would arrange to see the set on the following day. This did happen but the event helped to make our day.

Another event was during a spell of very good weather, August 1942. The sea being like glass, we noticed we were getting very good results from the set. We were picking up signals from German shipping off the Belgian coast, sixty/seventy miles away. These vessels were way below the horizon and should have been impossible to pick up. It was all due to a belt of atmosphere called the 鈥淰an Allen鈥� belt, which reflects wireless waves and had come down closer to earth, hence our exceptional results. We had boffins from Malvern and London coming to see this phenomenon. Our set at the time was about 40ft above sea level.

The North Sea off Great Yarmouth was very busy with shipping convoy, as many as 50 ships in a convoy, one going north, one going south plus escorts resulting in as many as a 100 plus ships in a relatively small area when the convoys crossed. Whenever Germans E boats tried to attack them, they were picked up by radio location and their movements relayed to naval escorts via Great Yarmouth plotting room. During the twelve months we were in that area they never once reached the convoys.

The last two events happened at a site at Corton, approx seven miles south of Great Yarmouth. We had moved there in April 1942. To get a greater range on shipping, the powers that be decided to build a steel tower on the radio location site. It was approx. 200ft high. The set would operate from the tower top complete with operators inside the cabin. The top was reached by a series of ladders and we entered the cabin by a trap door in the floor. One of the twelve man crew was scared of heights. No matter how he tried he couldn鈥檛 go past the first ladder, the top of which was 20ft above ground level. After a week he was moved to another site and we had a replacement.

A few yards from our tower was an RAF tower. It was for long range air craft detection but the crew operated it from the ground. We, of course, plotted shipping but we also picked up low flying air craft. RAF planes were fitted with IFF (Indicate Friend or Foe) which showed up on the cathode ray tube. Some of the planes came in quite low, especially if they had been damaged in a raid and we could tell how close they would be to our tower by the signal we got off them. We picked up one low flyer coming in whose bearing was steady in our direction. The strength of the signal indicated he was flying right down on the radio location beam. The chap on our plotting board said 鈥渋f this bloke don鈥檛 alter course he will be too close for comfort鈥�. Just after there was an almighty roar, the tower seemed to vibrate and the roar was gone as quickly as it came. The girl in the plotting room at Great Yarmouth asked what it was. When told it was a plane she said 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 think they came down that low鈥�. When we went off watch at 3.30 a.m the guard met us at the bottom of the tower and said 鈥測ou鈥檙e the luckiest blokes to be alive, that was a 鈥淲impy鈥� bomber and he went between the two towers鈥�. I regret not finding out what the space was between the towers and the often wondered what damage had been suffered by the crew and their plane whilst over Europe.

Putting the set at this height meant we could pick up E boats at 30,000 yards. We had noticed that we picked up rain storms and could plot their movements. We were going off duty one mid-day and had about half an hours鈥� walk to our billet. The snag was a rain storm coming in. We did a quick estimate and decided we could just about get there before the storm reached us, which is what happened. As we stepped inside our billet, down came the rain.

November 1942 we were sent to Gibraltar. This journey took seven to eight days instead of the usual three days, convoys having to go out into the Atlantic to distance themselves from the French coast. We set sail from Gourock, Scotland during Friday night/Saturday morning November 26th (?) with an escort of an aircraft carrier and its鈥� attendant cruisers and destroyers. Monday morning the carrier and its鈥� support craft had gone, our escorts were destroyers. Later that day a solitary aircraft came into view, keeping the convoy in sight but not coming too close. A destroyer went in its鈥� direction but the aircraft edged away obviously not wanting any contact. From then on it followed us every day 鈥榯il just before dusk, but every morning it was there when we got on deck. It left us on Thursday, dusk. We docked at Gibraltar Friday night.

Operating on 鈥淕ib鈥� was different to East Coast work. At home we operated 24 hours a day, ever day but with convoys we just gave a head and tail reading and bearing. If any ship strayed too near the edge of a swept channel it was reported to the naval plotting room at Great Yarmouth who would redirect them. On Gib we only operated with radio location during the hours of darkness or if there was a sea mist or fog. During daylight, visual plots were kept on all shipping from observation posts around the 鈥淩ock鈥�.

The 鈥淪traits鈥� were used by Spanish shipping and other nationalities, also our own convoys going in or out of the Med. At times there would be over 100 ships and a range and bearing given on every ship, even those in convoy. When the area we covered had been swept a fresh sweep was started so that an up to the minute position on the moving pattern of shipping was kept.
Earlier in the war an Italian merchant ship had gone into Algeciras harbour and been scuttled by its鈥� crew. This was the ship used as a base by Italian divers to attach limpet mines to British shipping anchored at Gib. When these attacks occurred we would be told to search certain areas but we never picked them up by radio location. After the war this ship was re floated and towed across to Gib and put into dry dock. It could then be clearly seen how the Italian divers got out of the ship to carry out their duties. A trap door was made in the port, or left hand side, of the ship鈥檚 bow. My remembered estimate is 3ft x 9ft.

We frequently had convoys going through the 鈥淪traits鈥� at night time and the Spanish would expose their coastal search lights, sweeping them along the whole length of the convoys easily seeing what type of shipping was going into or out of the Med and, of course, passing this information on to anyone they wanted to. I would point out this was Franco鈥檚, or the official, side of Spain. The Spanish people I met in Tangiers during the war were very friendly and helpful.

Next to our site in the windy flats area of Gibraltar was an RAF meteorological station, manned by civilian Gibraltarians. We started giving them plots on rainstorms which gave the size and direction they were moving. This we did for about three weeks, then we were told not to pass on any more plots, no reason being given. This must have been an early attempt at weather forecasting by radio location.

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