The Battle of Britain: Five Months That Changed History; May-October 1940 by Holland James

Author:Holland, James [Holland, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2015-10-19T16:00:00+00:00

Air Chief Marshal Dowding was also continuing to make good use of the respite, for with the rapidly changing situation since 10 May his defensive system had needed urgent and considerable modifications. This system, so carefully developed and refined ever since Dowding became C-in-C of Fighter Command, had become a highly efficient and effective means of co-ordinating all his resources to their best capabilities. A key facet was the radar chain, but this was only one cog in the system. Chain Home and Chain Home Low were an effective demonstration of the benefit of new science but it was when they were linked to other cogs that their benefit really came to the fore.

One of these other cogs was the Royal Observer Corps and its vast telephone network. Its roots went back to 1917, during the German Zeppelin and Gotha raids. Major-General Ashmore set up a warning system for London using various defence units which reported through a new telephone network to an Operations Room at Ashmore’s headquarters. A few years after the war, Ashmore refined the system again, using volunteer civilians to man a series of experimental posts between Tonbridge and Romney Marsh in Kent. These proved successful, so he was authorized to set up an observer network that covered all of Kent and Sussex. Dividing the two counties into a number of zones, each zone was then given a number of observer posts, each connected by a direct telephone line to an observer centre, which was in turn linked to Air Defence HQ. Once again, Ashmore’s system worked well, so the Home Office authorized the establishment of the Observer Corps, which gradually grew and grew into a network of ‘Groups’, which were then attached to nearby fighter stations. Thus No. 1 Group, based in Maidstone, for example, was attached to Biggin Hill.

By the summer of 1939, there were still gaps in the Observer coverage, in north-west Scotland, west Wales and Cornwall, but there were now more than 1,000 posts and some 30,000 observers, all managed by the police. Observers remained volunteers and trained on evenings and at weekends, but from 24 August, when the Corps was mobilized, they were expected to carry out round-the-clock manning of posts. They also came under the direct control and administration of the Air Ministry. Pay was introduced, although many never claimed their hourly rate, but apart from their tin helmets they were not issued with any uniform.

Each area was divided into groups. Within each group were a number of posts, whose observation area was a concentric ring around the post, and which overlapped with neighbours so that every part of the sky above was covered. These would be given a letter and a number dependent on where they were on the group grid, such as ‘R2’ or ‘J3’, for example. There were usually thirty to thirty-four posts in a group, each manned by around fourteen to twenty observers. Each post consisted of a hut, in which there were a telephone, binoculars, logbook, tea-making facilities and a pantograph that looked a bit like a giant sextant.

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