Author Topic: RAF camp - Nr Hastings  (Read 5708 times)

Offline Martin Briscoe

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Re: RAF camp - Nr Hastings
« Reply #9 on: Wednesday 24 January 18 19:59 GMT (UK) »
Not familiar with RAF Grangewood, must look it up.

Have you tried the ARG forum?  You will have register but worth having a look.

BRISCOE - Bolton, Heaton Norris, Rochdale, Oldham, Chadderton, Blackburn
POUNDER - Middleton Tyas, Kirkbymoorside, Stokesley, Lambeth, Bolton, Newcastle on Tyne, Leeds
HAMMOND - Quebec, Laverton, Masham, Grantley
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O'Shea - Quebec
PARRY - Caerhun, Deiniolen, ClwtyBont, Brynrefail, TalySarn, Brynrefail, Bethesda
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Offline Martin Briscoe

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Re: RAF camp - Nr Hastings
« Reply #10 on: Wednesday 24 January 18 20:38 GMT (UK) »
From RAF Signals 1939-1945

Eastern Gee-H Chain
26 Nov 19942, Beachy Head was rejected because too close to some vitally important wireless equipment.  A new site was chosen at Fairlight, which was renamed Grangewood to avoid confusion with the CHL station. 
Seems to have become operational 1st July 1943
At the end of 1943 intelligence sources warned of a new pilotless weapon so coverage was wanted over France and two prototype light mobile stations with reserves were sited at Worth Matravers and Grangewood.

BRISCOE - Bolton, Heaton Norris, Rochdale, Oldham, Chadderton, Blackburn
POUNDER - Middleton Tyas, Kirkbymoorside, Stokesley, Lambeth, Bolton, Newcastle on Tyne, Leeds
HAMMOND - Quebec, Laverton, Masham, Grantley
SWALES - Laverton, Masham
O'Shea - Quebec
PARRY - Caerhun, Deiniolen, ClwtyBont, Brynrefail, TalySarn, Brynrefail, Bethesda
EVANS - Llanfihangel Bryn Pabuan, Maesmynis, Dowlais, Stockton on Tees, Hartlepool, Trealaw
HARVEY - Trentham, Sheriffhales, Llanfyllin, Llanferres, Minera

Offline Farleigh9

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Re: RAF camp - Nr Hastings
« Reply #11 on: Wednesday 24 January 18 23:45 GMT (UK) »
 This is a summary of what I have about RAF Grangewood.  Some of this detail I owe to Mike Dean whose knowledge of RAF radar is encyclopaedic.
This station’s history is shorter than that of its sister station RAF Fairlight but it was every bit as important. The two stations were less than a mile apart.
It came into being early in 1943 at a time when electronic measures were being developed to aid allied bombers to reach targets in occupied Europe more effectively.
It opened officially on 19 February 1943 in a requisitioned house and adjacent grounds, then called Poppylands on Hill Road at Fairlight.  The site was on the crest of an east/west ridge overlooking the sea.  It took the name Grangewood from the nearby 17th century rectory though there is no evidence that the old rectory premises were ever used for any military purpose. 
Peter Harrild, who served at the station from 24 April to November 1944 (from 11 May as OC), writing in 1993, recalls the location, equipment and personnel.
“The main unit in Hill Road was in existence from about February 1943 – Dec 1944.  It had two 90ft wooden towers (for aerials) & a number of Nissen huts housing the equipment, & the entrance in Hill Road had a guard hut with RAF police manning the gate.  Also in the compound was a small house (called at that time “Poppylands”) which, in 1943, was empty & had been requisitioned by the RAF for use as a store & rest area & for somewhere to cook for those on watch.  Neither of the radar units in Fairlight had living accommodation & the personnel were therefore billeted in Hastings, Ore, Fairlight  or Fairlight Cove.
At that time the Radar equipment we were operating was extremely secret (it was in fact a very accurate Navigational Aid System called G-H, or Type 100, used for blind bombing over France and Germany).   There were probably only 45-50 personnel on the unit, of which 20 or so were women (WAAF Radar Operators). And, maybe because of the secrecy of our work & the comparatively small number of people involved, we were a very close-knit & happy crowd, & a lot of our social life was with others on the same unit (tennis on the courts in Alexandra Park, a cricket team which, in 1944, played about 20 matches against local sides, mostly on the Hastings County Ground, visits to the theatre in Hastings, in Eastbourne, & in Brighton etc.).”
A scatter of Nissen huts was erected in the garden of Poppylands to support the mobile and fixed equipment which was installed over the spring and summer.  The first operation involving RAF Grangewood took place on 4 October – unsuccessfully. However, the first successful operation occurred a few days later between 22.30 and 23.15 hours on 7 October 1943.
Operations, exercises, training and testing continued during the autumn and the site was camouflaged on 17 November.  In December a site to the west of the nearby coastguard station was chosen as location for the station’s mobile equipment and shortly after, on New Year’s Day 1944 a permanent guardroom was commissioned.  Air Marshal Roderic Hill, the then Chief of Fighter Command and thus the senior officer responsible for the Air Defence of Great Britain, visited the site soon after on 14 January.  In February work was started on installations in the land around Poppylands including weapons pits and other ‘hard’ items.  Remnants of these are still visible.
Grangewood was active in the spring and early summer of 1944 supporting offensive raids, especially by the USAAF, in France.  The station played an important role in the air operations on D-Day being operational from 23.45 on 5th June to 04.45 on the 6th.  Then, on 15 June 1944, the first ‘pilotless planes’ were observed over the site.  This was the start of the V1 (Doodlebug) campaign and Fairlight rapidly started to bristle with Anti-Aircraft guns, including along the Hill Road ridge where RAF Grangewood was sited.
As the summer wore on and the invasion front moved deeper into France, Grangewood played more of a training role and mobile equipment was redeployed elsewhere in the UK and into France.  The station ceased operations at 18.00 hours on 30 November 1944.
On 2 January 1945 orders were issued detailing how Grangewood was to be put on a Care and Maintenance basis pending further decisions.
On 24 July 1945 authority was received for the closing down of the AMES type 100 at Grangewood w.e.f 6 July.  Buildings were to be cleared and authority was given to de-requisition the site if it were not required for future commitments. [AIR 26/119]
So the brief but intense period of service of RAF Grangewood came to an end.  The equipment was dispersed, fences were dismantled and the house returned to civilian use.  When Peter Harrild organised a reunion of Grangewood personnel in 1993 he found little had changed; even the wartime owner was still there.  “I had expected that the site would have had houses built all over it & be unrecognisable, but apart from large trees & undergrowth over part of it it has changed very little – the concreted tracks right across the site still there and also the concrete foundations of what used to be the Transmitter & Receiver buildings (Nissens).” [Letter to Cathy Walling, Hastings Museum, 30 Aug 1993, file in Hastings Museum]