Category: news

While those who served at RAF Bawdsey certainly worked hard, plenty of time was found for recreation too! While many remember travelling across on the Ferry to Felixstowe to visit the cinema, many activities were put on for service personnel at the Station. Bill Walker, who was camped at RAF Bawdsey in 1943, told of a sports day that was put on, featuring a ‘‘marathon’ of umpteen circuits of the field in front of’ the manor. The greatest applause, Bill remembers, went not to the winners, but to Corporal Jack Pike, who, although finishing last, showed great determination and will to complete the event. More of Bill’s memories can be found here: https://www.bawdseyradar.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/bill-walker-factsheet.pdf

Welcome to The 12 Days of Radar. We’d love you to countdown to Christmas with us starting tomorrow.

The 12 days are based around the following themes

Day 1-6 The people with 6 different personal stories 

Day 7-8 Transport around RAF Bawdsey

Day 9-10 Stories from the development of Radar at RAF Bawdsey

Day 11-12 Restoration work and the BRT Volunteers

The Block in the snow 2018

If you’d like to trace service records for a member of your family or relation, do take a look at this short film.

Lynette, David and Graham share what they found out about their dads’ service records both in the Second World War and during National Service.

We have a free information sheet with details about how and where to start tracing service records and a podcast, which you can download here

On the 18th October saw the one hundredth anniversary of the formation of the BBC. As part of the celebrations the BBC Amateur Radio Group activated a radio station at Daventry where the original Empire Short Wave Transmissions started in 1932. In 1935 these transmissions were used by Robert Watson-Watt and Arnold Wilkins to prove to the Air Ministry that radio waves could be used to detect aircraft and from this Radar was developed.

A team of scientists was established at Orfordness and in 1936 they moved to Bawdsey Manor where the world’s first operational radar station was built. Today, two of our volunteers established a radio station at Bawdsey in the building constructed in the late 1930s and contact was made with the BBC team at Daventry to commemorate the link between Daventry and Radar. Graham Murchie and John Brand operated the station and a message was passed reminding the people at Daventry of the historic occasion.

Bawdsey Radar Museum won the Innovation Award 2022 at the prestigious Suffolk Museum of the Year 2022 Award Ceremony, held at Suffolk Archives at The Hold on Monday 10th October. The award is for the production of a Virtual Reality “Climb the Tower Experience” which entertained and excited visitors to the museum this summer and at the Suffolk Show. The project was developed in collaboration with Bawdsey Radar by apprentices from BT at Adastral Park Martlesham.

You can view a trailer of the experience of climbing the tower here

Adam Morsman (left) Project Lead BT and Graham Murchie museum trustee,

with Georgy Jamieson from BBC Radio Suffolk, having just received the award at the ceremony.

Are you ready for a story of outstanding bravery and courage beyond belief?

Here is that story and it belongs to Jack Nissenthall.

Jack was born in Bow in 1919, a cockney Jewish East Ender and the son of a Polish Jewish immigrant.

Jack was always fascinated by electronics and radio and he left school to work at EMI (Electric and Musical Industries) in west London.

In 1936, aged 17, Jack volunteered as a civilian radar technician for the RAF and started workingd part-time in Robert Watson-Watt’s team at the top-secret experimental radar station at Bawdsey Manor.

As Jack’s daughter Linda Nissen Samuels tells us “Jack was part of the ‘weekend volunteers’ at Bawdsey working as a RAF radar technician. He would travel to Bawdsey in a Fiat Cub owned and driven by Bob Brown and they were accompanied by Peter Friese-Green”.

In 1940 Jack joined the RAF and his skill and expertise in radar grew and developed, and he assisted with the running of the Dowding System as well as making technical improvements. He was already an expert in the field and this led to Jack being considered, and chosen for a top-secret mission in August 1942.

Operation Jubilee, also known as the #DieppeRaid,  was a large-scale Allied combined operation on the port town of Dieppe.

Jack, aged 22, volunteered for an incredible and most dangerous mission: to break into the German Freya radar station at Pourville, to the west of Dieppe. His job was to prise open its secrets for the Allies and return to Britain with the information.

Jack was accompanied by 10 bodyguards of the Canadian South Saskatchewan Regiment who had direct orders not to allow him to fall alive into enemy hands.

During the raid, by climbing and cutting the German radar communication landline cables, whilst under direct, intense enemy fire, Jack enabled UK Radio Detectors across the Channel, to listen in to the secrets of how the radar worked, thus enabling the Allies to perfect how to intercept and neutralise the radars without the enemy knowing.

Jack was never officially recognised for his expertise nor his immense courage on the raid that day, where he exposed himself to death on many occasions during the battle. But he survived to tell the tale and his story is part of a brand-new exhibition ‘Dieppe 80’ at the Battle of Britain Bunker in Hillingdon.

The Bunker was home to No.11 Group Fighter Command in WW2 and fighter aircraft ops were controlled from there, and other Groups, notably during the Battle of Britain and D-Day using the integrated Dowding System of air defence.

Jack’s incredible story features in the exhibition alongside 5 other stories of astounding bravery, and is on till August 2023.

Linda Samuels @LindaSamu has written her father’s biography ‘The Man Under the Radar’ using Jack’s letters and accounts. The book is available from our museum shop at £9.99 or your usual bookseller.

@BofBBunker/@PolishEmbassyUK/ @bentley_priory

Paratroopers have gone back to the future, looking to their regimental history and Suffolk’s military heritage to train for potential missions as the British Army’s global response force.

B Company, 3^rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment carried out a simulated raid on Bawdsey Radar Museum, the world’s first operational radar station that is now a museum and home to an HM Coastguard radio mast. The training was to practise how paratroopers could knock out enemy air defence installations, which are key targets in the early phase of an operation to remove weapons and sensors threatening aircraft bringing in additional troops and equipment.

For the Colchester-based paratroopers, the action harked back to the February 1942 Bruneval Raid, the first parachute operation by British troops. Soldiers jumped into Northern France to capture German radar equipment to allow countermeasures to be developed.

RAF Bawdsey, on the Suffolk coast near Woodbridge, opened in 1937 just 18 months after experiments showed how radio waves could be used to detect aircraft. It played a key role in detecting German bombing raids during the Second World War, was itself bombed a dozen times and was protected from ground attack – such as what happened at Bruneval – by a network of trenches and pillboxes.

Major Rich Thorburn, Officer Commanding B Coy 3 PARA, said: “We’ve practised for what is a classic airborne forces operation – striking in the deep to knock out a key enemy installation and enable follow-up operations to take place. For our soldiers, training at places like Bawdsey, that are both relevant and unfamiliar to them adds realism and challenge.

“The achievements of the past set the standards we expect of our soldiers today – a message that is reinforced by looking back at Bruneval, its continuing relevance as a potential mission for us and how we would carry it out today. In the same era, RAF Bawdsey was positioned and protected against ground attack, and has presented a good practical challenge for our paratroopers to test themselves against.”

At Bawdsey Thu 29 Sept, paratroopers patrolled in under the protection of the powerful sensors and weaponry of Apache attack helicopters from Wattisham-based 4 Regiment Army Air Corps, to launch their attack. Once the facility was secured, sappers from Woodbridge-based 51 Parachute Squadron Royal Engineers were brought forward to plant demolition charges on the radio mast before the troops withdrew.

3 PARA’s Guardsman Will Smith said: “This is an operation we could be expected to do and where and how we’ve practised for it has been different and interesting. We know what’s expected of us as paratroopers, and we did it with speed and aggression.”The mission was theculmination of Exercise Blue Readiness, a week-long package of training based out of Rock Barracks, Woodbridge to refine the paratroopers core skills. Troops practised their drills for fighting in urban areas, launched a similar raid against Suffolk Aviation Heritage Museum in Kesgrave and qualified in fast roping out of RAF Puma helicopters.

Maj Thorburn said: “By looking at the local area, using our own initiative and imagination and with fantastic support from local landowners, HM Coastguard and the two museums, we’ve delivered realistic training that will make us more operationally effective.”

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On this day in 1937, RAF Bawdsey became the first fully operational RDF site in Great Britain, part of the chain of radar stations known as Chain Home. This network of radar stations proved vital in giving Fighter Command information about incoming enemy attacks during the Battle of Britain, allowing the outnumbered pilots of the RAF to effectively meet the Luftwaffe and defend the country.

Want to learn more about the development of Radar and the men and women who lived and worked at RAF Bawdsey? Visit the museum! Book your tickets here: https://bawdsey-radar.arttickets.org.uk/

Bawdsey Radar Trust are seeking a new Chair of Trustees to lead the Board. Please find further details here

We are deeply saddened to hear of the death of Her Majesty The Queen. All at Bawdsey Radar would like to express our condolences to His Majesty the King and the Royal Family. May Her Majesty rest in peace.