...did it last for three hours... ...or two days??? Patrick Bishop notes that a "hit" on the main electricity net c. 1pm on the 30th of August 1940...he doesn't give the location...cut power to Rye, Pevensey, Foreness, Dover, Fairlight, Beachy Head, and Whitstable, knocking them out for three hours. Fighter Command could only control five squadrons against the next wave of raids - the 30th was the first day the Luftwaffe launched its ENTIRE strength available against the UK - and waves were coming over the Channel every twenty minutes - and a LOT of damage was done to RAF airfields and industrial targets that day. He THEN says, for the 31st, that the "NOW restored" radar stations picked up four wavers of attackers coming at 8 am... which would hint at them being down for longer than three hours on the afternoon of the day before! E.R. Hooton, however, in his "Eagle in Flames", the second part of his two-part history of the Luftwaffe, describes it as a TWO-DAY outage! Which is correct? And does anyone know where the damage occurred that caused the power failure?
Incidently - there is absolutely NO mention of the "radar hole "event or what cause it in the BoB campaign m diary online on www.raf.mod.uk!
Phylo, I also have a copy of E.R. Hooton's "Eagle in Flames", which I find good reading. I found a Forum with a lot of Time line on the BoB - http://alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?s=92ae218989a6dcea815d8689996fd381&t=103866&page=2 Post 27 August 21 came to be known as "the Hardest Day" among Fighter Command crews. The radar network was still badly degraded after the previous day's renewed pinpoint raids that, at the expense of four Stukas and two fighters, had destroyed the Dunkirk transmitter and severed Dover's power cables once more. The warning time was short and the data unclear. I would tend to lean towards Hooton. Regards Tom
Tom, that must be a WI. Wednesday the 21st was actually a relative lull with only very light raiding by pairs or trios of aircraft, as the Jagdgeschwader were busy reorganising and moving around to concentrate in the Pas de Calais. T the only damage done all day was on St Eval in Cornwall with a hangar hit and four Blenheims destroyed.
The stations were all provided with wall and roof protected standby set house and redundant telephone incomers. Pevensey certainly had the completed set house by July 1940 This is a link to a 1/144th model of the main buildings I made from Air Ministry Scale Drawings http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?129643-RDF-East-Coast-Chain-Home Regards Ross
Phylo, Another Quote from the same site but later post regarding the 1 September. The first massive daylight raid against London took place on September 1. The target were the Surrey Commercial Docks to the South of the Thames, and Kesselring had selected four somewhat understrength Gruppen to attack these, equipped with Heinkels and Dorniers. These 86 bombers flew out in a close square formation. They were escorted by 327 fighters, almost a 4:1 ratio. About a hundred of them flew ahead, with drop tanks, in a large Freijagd action to sweep the skies, while another third flew open cover high over the bombers. The remaining third served as close escort. But the British initially thought that the raid on London was way larger than this, and for a very good reason: while they crossed the Channel, the Germans had 71 bombers more and 163 fighters more, right behind the formation above. The British thought the whole air armada was heading for the docks, but actually, this second force split out over Sevenoaks to attack Kenley and Croydon. Kesselring was exploiting the cover of the London attack to keep up with his single-minded policy. As expected, the British reacted in strength. A single, high, very large signal on the Dunkirk screens (the station was back on line now) was something the battered Fighter Command could still deal with well. Nothing mentioned about the 30th August, but the post does imply that the Radar was offline a while. Regards Tom
This is from AIR 24/527 and is the Intell summary from HQ Fighter Command written the following day - 31st Aug 1940 and tells a different story on the number of squadrons sent to intercept post 13:00 hrs. http://www.rafaircraftaccidents.com/P3560687.JPG Regards Ross
Ross, thanks for that. I've just checked Bishop's wording again - and he says (my bad) only five contacted the incoming raids that came in during the radar outage. So that would be eight scrambled but only five found the enemy. But I note again that that Ops Report doesn't mention the radar outage!
Hi, The second page and the pages for 31st make it clear that many more interceptions took place over the next 24 hrs and that raids were tracked at night off the coast in the area of the alleged outage. http://www.rafaircraftaccidents.com/P3560688.JPG http://www.rafaircraftaccidents.com/P3560689.JPG http://www.rafaircraftaccidents.com/P3560690.JPG As I said before each of the sites had back up power and telephone so it is impossible for one hit on the grid to have knocked out all these sites. No mention is made of this supposed event in this contemporary secret summary and no indication of a radar hole is evident from the recorded events over the next 24 hours. Ross
Ross, If the Radar stations of Chain Home had their own back up power supply, then the reports of the Mains cables being destroyed at Dover are perhaps a Red Herring. Regards Tom
good day phylo_roadking.very senior member.yesterday 04:25.pm.re:30th august 1940 and a hole blown in the radar net.i am not familiar with damage to radar.and how it came about.but it could have been.elctrical.sabotage.enemy action futher up the line.they must have had some method of detecting the problem.i remember reeding of british comamdo's goieng ashore in occupied europe to blow up enemy radar instalations.maybe it happend in the u.k.but they were not want to tell the public.great post regards bernard85
By a happy co incidence today, 26th Feb, marks the date at Daventry in 1935 where Watson-Watt put together the equipment to show that reflected radio waves could be used to detect an aeroplane in flight. Four years later the operational system of 20 link Chain Home stations from Ventnor to Netherbutton and the full Command and Control infrastructure to bring selective interception to signal returns up to 80 miles from the transmitters came on line just before it was needed most. How long does it take an Operational Requirement to be developed for the armed forces today? Regards Ross
The odd thing about this story is where it appears - it surfaces not only in decent, reputable tertiary histories....it's even mentioned in the Imperial War Museum's "thin" BoB online chronology! So it must "have legs" from somewhere...
As regards the extent of damage to a CH station that of Ventnor was the worse but was back on line after a few days.Others less affected were Poling and Rye.I thought I had the dates to hand of these outages but I cannot locate them...a chronological account of the B of B should reveal them. Rye might have had its primary electrical supply damaged and the emergency standby may have failed or been damaged. However where "mobiles and gap fillers" could cover for an outage of a CH station,these were adapted.For instance Poling (Littlehampton) was back on line after 36 hours when a mobile radar unit covered for it,being established in the woods nearby in the woods in Angmering....the signal level was not up to a CH rating but was sufficient to generate a signal for plotting and tracking.. While the transmission and receiving functions were dependent on local distribution electrical supplies,the transfer of data to the sector control room was undertaken by GPO landlines.It is on record of the outstanding service that the electrical distributing companies and the GPO gave to keep the CH stations on line.I would think that those working on the basic functions would not be privy to the importance of the "RDF" station..I would think that an 11kv supply would be required to give an adequate electrical capacity,supplied by the local electricity distribution company.then transformed to a 3 phase 415v supply for the station's function. Standby generators are fine for a straight forward loss of supply but if enemy action takes out the station infrastructure affecting the mains supply,emergency standby generator,connections and GPO landlines,it's a matter of replacing the station as quickly as possible by the "mobile or gap filler" with their own dedicated mobile electrical supply.and an connection established to the landline. Incidentally, a couple of years ago, saw a RAF mobile radar unit turn up at RAF Kirton Lindsey before it closed and set up their unit.....dishes facing east. After a few weeks they departed as quickly as they came.......like ships passing in the night.
Harry...IIRC the Ventnor, Poling and Rye attacks were the ones in the middle of August, weren't they? When Martini persuaded Goering to bomb the RDF stations for three days, then Goering decided the tactic wasn't doing much good and the order to desist was sent out on the morning of the 13th - JUST as the Luftwaffe was managing to do its worst damage yet to the RDF net!!! It reads more like the outage of the 30th was caused by damage somewhere other than an RDF station.
Gents, The damage to the RDF stations in mid August was noted in the HQ Fighter Command Intel digest eg 12th August http://www.rafaircraftaccidents.com/P3560559.JPG http://www.rafaircraftaccidents.com/P3560560.JPG If it merits comment on the station status here on the 12th then if the stations were offline on the 30th it would also be noted. The original statement was that not one but a number of stations in the vicinity of a single damage point were prevented from operation. This would be Dunkirk, Dover, Rye and Pevensey. Unless an air EMP burst was employed damage to the electricity network would not take out 4 widely spaced stand by sets and 4 sets of grid incomers . I bow to your superior secondary sources to see if the Luftwaffe had either air launched nuclear weapons or airborne hospital x-ray sets for jamming purposes over Kent. There was one limited case of CH jamming from Continent based sets but this was in Sept and caused little disturbance due to selection of alternate frequency transmitter aerials on the masts. Ross
Wonder if it's a corruption of the event on 15th August were a number of stray bombs in the vicinity of Hawkinge had the result of downing grid power on two geographic separate incomers to Rye CH and to the CHL at Dover and Foreness. Not three CH stations but one CH and two CHL all offline until the installed standby sets took over load. Due to this co-location of CH and CHL was discouraged. Ross
That was IIRC on the 14th of Spetember. Bad weather had meant no attempted repetition of the big raid(s) on London of the 7th, until the 11th...and again three days later - altjough on both the 11th and 14th they were smaller than the 7th's. Hooton notes that the raids on the 14th were "supported by a radar-jamming operation which degraded sensor performance without blinding the network." Nope, Bishops discusses this event separately to the events of the 30th. That temporary blind spot on the 15th let a raid by BF110s of Zerstoerergeschwader 76 through to hit Manston with two Spitfires from No 66 Sqn destroyed and 16 ground staff killed as they strafed the field.
This unit.I see, has been identified as No1 Air Control Centre,the RAF's only deployable ground based early warning and air control radar unit.
RAF Ventnor.Having looked at the situation here during the critical period. On 12 August 1940,Ventnor was attacked by 15 Junker 88s who dropped 72 HE bombs.10 were of the delayed action type and a further 5 failed to explode.Official reports declared that one person was injured but a reliable source quoted several WAAFs were killed.Within hours the station was returned to service. However on 16 August 1940,Ventnor was severely damaged when 6 Junker 87s raided the station and dropped 15 HE bombs,2 were accurate and caused damage to such an extent that the station was forced off the air and subsequently unrepairable in the short term.8 armourers were dispatched from Fort Grange airfield to deal with unexploded bombs...5 reported including one which detonated as it was being taken away.These armourers were recalled to Fort Grange as their unit became under attack.The station remained o/c for 2 months while repairs were undertaken but the gap was filled from 20 August by a mobile radar unit brought in from Kidbrook.The mobile unit was established at Bembridge and filled the gap, albeit at reduced power until repairs had been completed. Len Deighton records that the mobile unit performance was so poor that it only served to demonstrate to the Luftwaffe that no gap existed. As regards the outages from enemy action of the radar stations at Beachy Head,Whitstable Foreness,Rye,Dunkirk and Pevensey.Len Deighton records the event as occurring on the afternoon of 31 August 1940.The event was said to be short term for as soon as the raiders passed,recovery of the stations started and by nightfall,all the stations were back on line.
