大象传媒

In the early part of the Second World War the Germans began to use a radio beam system which they had been developing since the mid thirties. It was a guidance system, which used intersecting radio beams to direct aircraft to any particular target in Britain.
Radio beams were transmitted from a coastal site in occupied Europe, pointing at a target city in England. A bomber could fly along this beam and when it reached its target a further radio beam would signal this, and its bombs would be released. For months in early 1940 many British towns and cities had been bombed with reasonable accuracy, causing much death and destruction.
A brilliant scientist, Professor R V Jones, working for British Intelligence, was responsible for investigating the German application of this system, and to discover a means of countering it.
It became known as 鈥淭he Battle of the Beams.鈥�
During this time other British scientists had been able to break the Enigma code which the Germans used to send most secret messages.
On Sunday 10th November 1940 Professor Jones received a decoded message from a German Enigma signal being sent to a radio beam transmitter in France. It told the enemy stations to prepare for operations against three targets in England, numbers 51, 52 & 53 and it gave the beam settings for the three target towns.
It didn't take Professor Jones to discover that number 51 was Wolverhampton, 52 was Birmingham and number 53 was Coventry.
The following day another message was received which contained orders for what was evidently to be very major operations under the code name "Moonlight Sonata". However, no details were given regarding when and where.
No bombing raids were made on 11th/12th/13th November 1940, so everyone braced themselves for the following night 14th/15th.
If the raids were to be in number order, Wolverhampton could be the first target, but this could not be certain.
One word in German was mentioned in the deciphered message, "korn", this is German for corn and it was wondered if this was a code-name for Coventry and that might be the first target, but again, this was just a guess.
The following night a massive 鈥淢oonlight Sonata鈥� raid was made on Coventry. Heavy bombs and incendiaries were dropped causing huge fires and massive destruction. 554 civilians were killed and 865 seriously injured in just a few hours.
After Coventry, the Germans mounted a similar attack on Birmingham under the code-name of "Regeschirm". This is the German for umbrella, which was associated with Neville Chamberlain, who himself was associated with Birmingham.
The first target, number was 53, was Coventry, and the second target was Birmingham. It left only one remaining target - Wolverhampton.
At least we could be ready for that one.
Professor Jones urgently telephoned Anti-Aircraft Command and requested them to move all available guns to Wolverhampton. This was swiftly done and dozens of gun emplacements were formed in a circle around the town and surrounding area.
One gun emplacement was at the end of Five Fields Road, off Broadlane South, Wednesfield. This was about 400 yards from 176 Colman Avenue where I was living at the time. When enemy aircraft were overhead and the guns were firing, all the windows in the houses rattled and you could hear the shrapnel from the ack-ack guns falling back onto the roofs of the houses.
On the morning that Professor Jones had requested movement of the anti-aircraft guns to Wolverhampton, he made a point of going to see Air Marshall Sir Philip Joubert, to explain to him why he thought Wolverhampton was the next target for a massive air raid.
The Air Marshall reacted suitably, and the result wads that our defences were braced as never before, for a raid on a particular target.
And then 鈥� nothing happened!
It appeared that Professor Jones had alarmed and upset the defences of the whole country on a false deduction and he was heavily criticised for it.
However, shortly afterwards he had an enthusiastic telephone call from Squadron Leader Felkin, who said that a conversation between two German prisoners had been overheard. They said that the raid on Coventry had been very successful and so had the raid on Birmingham.
One of them then said that there was to have been a similar raid on Wolverhampton under the code-name 鈥淓inheitspreis鈥�. Felkin explained that 鈥淓inheitspreis鈥� meant 鈥渦nit price鈥�, as at Woolworth鈥檚 where most things cost sixpence, and this was an obvious link between the code-word and the target town.
It isn鈥檛 known at what stage the attack on Wolverhampton was cancelled, but it in a further check of information from the radio beam stations, it was discovered that German photographic reconnaissance had shown that many anti-aircraft batteries had been installed surrounding Wolverhampton, in anticipation of a large air raid. It was cancelled because the Germans expected very heavy losses of bomber aircraft and aircrew, which they could not afford to lose.
And so by the foresight and decision of one man, Professor R V Jones, in November 1940, the Wolverhampton area escaped the horror of a massive "Coventry-like" air raid.
The people of Wolverhampton were not aware of these facts at the time, but looking back they can consider themselves very fortunate indeed.

[This story was submitted to the People's War site by Wolverhampton Libraries on behalf of Geoff Lloyd and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions]

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