It is normal for radars to be calibrated at start-up and at intervals thereafter. Aircraft of a known size would fly at specific height on known tracks in the area of the radar, whilst those on the ground would monitor the radar receiver to see if, and when, the aircraft was detected by the radar. The initial calibration of the Skaw ACH was done using a Blenheim aircraft. (Left click on pictures to enlarge):
Freddie Flowers was the only Wireless Operator on
the Unit during the first Calibration and he recalled the occasion thus: " I
controlled the Blenheim during the calibration flights. As these fights went
out East for some distance towards Norway, a close watch had to be maintained
for any attacking enemy aircraft. Fortunately, there were none".
As soon as the equipment was ready in Jan '41, the
ACH began operating 24 hours a day, with the technical and operations personnel
working a 3 watch system. This next picture was taken by Frank Wells in Feb
'41 and I suspect that the people portrayed were glad of their issue sheepskin coats!
During Mar 41 German aircraft attacked the
station twice. At about 17.00 on 26 Mar an unidentified intruder approached
from the east at about 200'. It was snowing at the time and the visibility was
poor. Four bombs were dropped into the sea close to the ACH Transmitter Hut near the point of Lamba Ness. The aircrafts wing clipped a top corner
section of a 240' Receiver Tower, which was not yet operational. It is possible
that the bombs had been jettisoned when the pilot saw the tower suddenly looming
into view through the falling snow. Luckily, the Riley and Neat workmen who had
erected the tower, were still at Skaw and were able to repair the damage. The
following morning at about 08.15 there was another attack and this time the
enemy aircraft was identified - it was a JU88.
Two 250Kg bombs were dropped from around 400'. They hit the ground about
100 yards from the CH Transmitter block, which was still under construction,
and about 600 yards west of the ACH Ops/Tech site. The craters can be seen in
the following Flash Earth Image:
The next picture puts the distances into
perspective:
One of the results of the German attacks on the
base was unease amongst the civilian workforce. Arrangements were made to take
over part of a building at the north side of Baltasound for use as accommodation. It was owned by the
Sandisons, who also owned the pier and the shop in Baltasound called Skibhoul. The premises did not
prove popular with everyone (a number of servicemen were already billeted
there), so some sought alternative lodgings with the local Unst population.
There were many elements of the services based on the island in the war years
and the following photo shows some RAF personnel who crewed one of the Thorneycroft
High Speed Launches, which were deployed to Baltasound for air sea rescue
duties - they would have been accommodated in one of Sandisons north side
buildings as well:
During Apr 41 RAF Skaw, RAF Noss Hill and two
Shetland Chain Home Low radar stations were transferred to the control of 71 Wing,
based at Bucksburn on the western side of Aberdeen. 71 Wing also assumed Technical
responsibility for four Naval Coastal Defence U Boat units based in Shetland.
With these 8 extra units to look after 71 Wing decided to open a small Technical
detachment, with a central equipment store, in Shetland once they could find a
suitable location.
Like many RAF Stations before and since, some
individuals started up a Station Magazine. It was named appropriately "The
Out-Post" and the first edition came out in April 1941. Initially no
duplicator was available so every copy produced had to be typed or was a carbon
copy. By Aug 41 an airman called Harold Fisk managed
to procure a Roneo duplicator and, thereafter, the Out- Post had a much wider
circulation. Harold's interesting story will be told at a later date, but here
is time for one of his more famous anecdotes: "There
was a very comical interlude when a message came through to send a lorry down
to pick up the Countess of Ayr, so 2 or 3 boys polished up their buttons and
got ready to meet the Countess. When they got to Baltasound all they could see
was a little man in a bowler hat and he said "Well what do you want?"
and they said they were looking for the Countess of Ayr. He said "I don't
know anything about the Countess of Ayr but I am the County Surveyor,"
which went down very well!" I have some editions of the magazine and hope to write
at greater length on the subject in the future.
When the servicemen arrived on Unst there was no
mechanism for them to return home on leave. Indeed in the early months the CO, Flight
Lieutenant Swinney, said that he did not have the authority to approve leave and
had to refuse permission for one airman to return home to Liverpool for his
brothers funeral. Fortunately, the
situation was largely resolved soon afterwards when it was decreed that the
tour length would be set at 6 months for the early arrivals. Later on in the
life of the Unit I believe that leave was permitted.
The
"standard" East Coast CH Transmitting Tower, which was used at the
early sites was very different from the later towers used at what were known as
the West Coast sites The East Coast Tower was designed to be just under 360'
high, with 3 cantilevers (the bits sticking out) at 50', 200' and 350'). In May
41, a letter was sent to Skaw from No 2. Installation Unit at RAF Kidbrooke
(London area), instructing the removal of the cantilevers at 50 and 200' in
order to be able to hang a different transmitting aerial array. The picture
below show a standard Transmitter Tower on the left and the actual Skaw Towers
on the right, extracted from a photo taken by Derek Lucas, who was there in 1944. The alterations were to provide a change to the area of radar cover.
At the beginning of June 41 the Air Ministry
Research Establishment, based at Worth Matravers near Swanage in Dorset,
decided that a remote reserve site for RAF Skaw should be built
"particularly since the station had shown itself liable to attack". The
purpose of the Reserve site would have been to take over if the main site
became non-operational due to bomb damage, etc. It was arranged that a siting
party should set out to review the options on 9 Jun 41. The RAF Skaw Remote
Reserve will be the subject of a future section in this history so I will
return to this story later. Enemy activity was not confined to military camps
on Unst. On the morning of 13 Jun a hostile
aircraft machine gunned some crofters and their cottages about 2 miles away
from the Station.
Whilst the RAF would have had its own medical
orderlies, the civilian population of Unst had a local Nurse, Jemima Sutherland
(known as Mima), who had been born at the Westing in the SW of the island and
Dr Saxby, from Uyeasound, who lived at
Baltasound. Incidentally, Dr Saxby's son Stephen was in the RAF and was based
at RAF Sullom Voe (Sunderlands, Catalinas & Walrus) during the war. Stephen
became well known to many servicemen of a later generation as he spent many
years working in MT at RAF Saxa Vord. As mentioned in Part 1 of this story, James Palmer was the
Air Ministry Clerk of Works for the Skaw Project and, when sent to Unst, he was
accompanied by his wife Pauline. Long after the war Pauline Palmer sent the
photo below to my late mother-in-law, Lexie McMeechan. It shows a group of the
first airmen who were posted to RAF Skaw, in the area just inside the camp
gates at the western end of the site. Looking at the surroundings and the
clothes being worn I would think the photo was taken in the Spring of 1941.
Pauline had
been advised that Skaw was not a place for families but she chose to remain
with her husband, even after she became pregnant. As midsummer approached she
was being helped by Mrs Clark, the widow of a Muckle Flugga Lighthouse keeper.
On 21 Jun the Dr & Nurse were summoned, only to be refused entry to the
camp as there was an active air raid
warning at the time. James Palmer was also away from the house at his emergency
post. Eventually the Dr and Nurse were permitted entry and the child was safely
delivered at 03.45 on the 22 Jun 41. He
was christened James Spellisey Palmer and his mother was persuaded to take him
to a safer place soon after. As far as it is known the child was the only one
to be born on the station during the 5 year operational life of RAF Skaw. The
picture of mother and child below was taken soon after they left Skaw:
Another type of arrival caused some upheaval to the
lives of servicemen on Unst and on a number of other Shetland Islands.
Following the German invasion of Norway in Apr 40 and the countries
capitulation in June, significant numbers of Norwegian citizens attempted to
leave their occupied country and sail across the North Sea in small boats.
Although these refugees have been written about elsewhere, I have added a short
note at the end of this section. (See Note 1.)
Initially there was no suitable source of clean
drinking water available near the station so it was brought up the Floggie (the hill from Norwick) on
trucks. A pipe was laid from a small burn at Velzie (Valie, Velyie - various spellings), to near the foot
of the hill, where the water was put into
a water bowser or into containers and loaded on to the back of wagons. The
water problem was solved later when a small dam was built high up on the Burn
of Skaw, seen in this Mike Pennington photo, with the outlet pipe to the bottom
left of the small water fall.
A pipe was then laid about a mile to the western
side of the camp where tanks had been made to purify and contain the water,
whilst still providing enough height to allow a sufficient gradient for
the water to flow around the station as
required. The distance from the water tank to the CH Receiver Block was roughly
a mile and a half.
60 Group had been formed in March 1940 to control
Radar Stations and other Radio units in Fighter Command. It had a number of
subsidiary Wings, which in turn controlled designated Units. RAF Skaw came
under 70 or 71 Wing at different stages of the war. In the Spring of 1941 HQ 60
Group started publishing a monthly magazine titled "RDF" and in the
first issue the Skaw ACH was complimented for managing to plot an aircraft at
106 miles range. This is the first indication I have seen to show that the unit
was achieving a creditable performance.
The ACH was fully functional but the CH Site was
growing all around the operators & technicians as they performed their
duties. By the first week in April 1941 the two 360' Transmitter Towers and one
of the 240' Receiver Towers were in position, ready for fitting parties to
arrive to assemble and start to fit the electrical components.
The progress in completing both Shetland CH sites
(at Skaw and at Noss Hill), was much slower than at similar sized units on
mainland UK. Sir Robert Renwick, who was Chairman of the RDF Committee in the
Air Ministry, sent a representative, Robert Sayers, to Shetland in July '41. He
was to make exhaustive enquiries to see if anything could be done to speed up
the delivery of materials and electrical components. The long supply chain, frequent adverse weather and sailing conditions were obviously causing delays. On the 13th August the camp
was visited by the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Right Reverend J
Hutchison Cockburn. One of the airmen
remembers his visit with perhaps, a little envy: "I do remember the Moderator of the Church of
Scotland paid a visit. a very large bloke, very pleasant. He brought a little
team with him and they stayed the night. They had a good feed all laid out
special, but we didn't get any extra at all!" Another
visit to Skaw took place on 25 Aug when Air Marshall William Mitchell (like Mr
Sawyer in July, also from the RDF Committee) and a party of experts, arrived to check on progress. I don't know,
but I strongly suspect, that these high-powered visitors did not have to endure
the sea voyage from Lerwick but instead were delivered to Baltasound by Fleet
Air Arm Walrus amphibian aircraft, (see Note 2.)
An unusual event, considered interesting enough to
be recorded in the official records, occurred in Sep 41 when an airman, fishing
at Norwick, killed "a blue-nosed shark weighing about 3 cwts"
(236lb/153kg). I don't think there is such a species of shark - maybe it was
just cold or there was no expert available!
Work on the CH site,
which would also affect the ACH during this period, included the building of
the Power House and Standby Power House. I will be describing these buildings
in more detail in a later section but the records show that the Power House
generators were running as early as Oct 41 though, at that stage, not for 24
hours a day. At various places around the camp there are structures like the
one near the ACH area in the photo which follows. It was a position for light
anti-aircraft weapons (Browning machine guns).
It is possible that they were put-up when the Argyle and Sutherland
Highlanders arrived after the first air attacks, or, constructed
individually during the life of the camp.
By the autumn of 1941 it was decided that better
anti-aircraft defences were required and, during September, there were two
visits to examine possible sites for placing Bofors Guns. On the 5th September
Colonel Fenton from the Royal Artillery, accompanied by some of his men,
arrived to examine possible locations and a week later a party led by Colonel
MacIntosh, also from the Royal Artillery, continued the task. These weapons
were far more effective in the anti aircraft role than the small calibre
Browning Machine guns. The guns, Swedish in design though British made, would
have been effective LAA weapons, capable
of firing 120 x 40mm rounds a
minute (each high explosive round weighing about 2lb). They were able to engage
targets as high as 23,000ft. The picture of a 40mm Bofors gun below was not
taken in Unst!;
Four sites were selected and prepared before the
first 2 guns, with crews, arrived in Jan '42. The 4 gun positions are marked on
the Flash Earth image which follows:
Due to post war demolition it is difficult to
locate all the elements which formed these sites, but there were 5 elements at,
or near, each gun - hard standing for the gun, a crew shelter alongside, a
shelter for stores or ammunition close
by, a billet for the troops and ablutions. This is best illustrated with Flash Earth images of the
gun site numbered 3 in the previous picture.
