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RCAF Radar Personnel in WWII

-North Atlantic Region-

Prepared by Douglas Gooderham

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North Atlantic Region

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North Atlantic Region

CONTENTS

Items Page(s) Preface...................................................................................................IV-4

Background...........................................................................................IV-5

Orkneys.................................................................................................IV-6

Faroes....................................................................................................IV-7 Shetlands..................................................................................IV- 8 to IV-9

Iceland....................................................................................IV-10 to IV-12

RCAF Radar (Air) Personnel in the North Atlantic...............IV-13 to IV-14

We were there.......................................................................................IV-15

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North Atlantic Region

PREFACE

This essay focuses on the role played in World WarII, in the North Atlantic Region, by RCAF radarpersonnel.

As background to the work and experiences ofindividuals, a brief outline is provided of the militarystrategies and events that gave rise to the deploymentof the numerous air squadrons and ground radarstations on which Canadian radar personnel served.

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North Atlantic Region

RCAF Radar Personnel in WWII North Atlantic Region

Background: When Germany invaded Denmark and then Norway in April 1940, and rapidly acquired air and seabases on the Norwegian coast right up to Cape North, the threat to Allied merchant shipping usingthe high latitude routes across the North Atlantic increased significantly; and Scapa Flow, the RoyalNavy’s home base in the Orkney Islands, was within easy range of German long-range aircraft.Extension of ground radar cover northward and northeastward from Scotland became an urgentrequirement, as witness a directive* issued by Churchill (then First Sea Lord) dated 16 April 1940: “ . . .you should now assume the duty of concerting action to make the Faroes satisfactory for ourpurposes. Pray make a weekly report. DCNS will supply you with the requirements. We must havean aerodrome and RDF (radar) at the very earliest moment, together with AA defence, and a fewcoastal guns. This will be a very tempting base for a raid . . .”

That particular directive dealt only with necessary action on the Faroes, but the need for additionalradar cover based on the Orkneys and Shetlands was also recognized. The Inter-Services RDF Committee called for immediate placement of three additional CH (Chain Home) radars on thesetwo island groups, together with complementary CHL (Chain Home Low) radars.

Iceland too was of great concern to Allied planners. It was known that, prior to the outbreak ofWWII, Germany had sent a large commission to Iceland to negotiate for air bases there.Fortunately, the Icelandic Cabinet had refused to grant any bases; nor would it allow Germanairlines to establish ‘commercial routes.’ But with WWII underway, Germany was freed from theconstraint of “tipping its hand prematurely,” and Allied planners had to assume that Germanoccupation of Iceland was imminent, with dire consequences for Allied trans-Atlantic shipping: theAllies would be denied potentially valuable bases from which to launch attacks on U-boats; andGerman long-range aircraft would be able to reach Allied convoys sailing on routes previouslythreatened by only U-boats.

Faced with this dangerous threat, Britain acted within a month of the German move into Denmark,sending a force of Royal Marines into Iceland to forestall any German invasion, at the same timepledging to respect Iceland’s independence. A similar treaty between the U.S.A and Iceland, madepublic in July 1941, enabled the U.S. to augment, and subsequently relieve British forces for serviceelsewhere.

.* Churchill’s Second World War Vol . 1

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What follows is a summary of the role played by radar in support of Allied sea and air forces basedon the Orkneys, Shetlands, Faroes and Iceland, with special note of the part played by Canadianradar personnel serving on RAF ground radar stations and on RCAF and RAF squadrons.

British Air Ministryrecords* reveal that “...... to increase therange of radar coverover the North Atlanticsea routes, radar siteswere selected by radarreconnaissance partiesduring Dec. 1941 (sic.actually 1940) in theFaroe Islands and inIceland . . .”

Orkneys: The Royal Navy’s base at Scapa Flowensured that the Orkneys had highpriority when it came to ground radarcoverage and, as early as the secondweek of July 1940, a CHL radar wasoperational at Gaitnip, complementary toa CH at Sandoy.

*A.M. “Signals” Vol. IV, Chapter 11, page 153

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These events predated the arrival in the UK of RCAF radar personnel, and the writer has seen noevidence that Canadians ever served on these Orkney stations. Nor is there any record of additionalground radars being established in the Orkneys; emphasis was quite rightly placed on potential sitesto the North and North-East, i.e., in the Faroes and Shetlands.

Faroes: In 1942 an RAF radar siting party selected five sites in the Faroes with primary areas of coverage asindicated : Eide (N), Nolsoy (E), Suduroy (S), Sandoy (W). Each site was to have ASV (Air toSurface Vessels) radar gear coupled to a rotatable Yagi aerial array, to provide early warning (noheights) on aircraft out to medium ranges, and on ships or surfaced submarines out to short ranges.Eide, having a site on an 800 foot promontory, would also have a Navy radar capable of providing

accurate plots on ships/surfaced subs at ‘long’ ranges.All six radars were to pass their plots to an RAF/ RNControl Centre in Torshavn, a major town located onthe southeast end of Streymoy Island; most, if not allof these six radars became operational by mid-1942.At least six RCAF radar men served on Faroe groundradars at one time or another. Two officers, HalCairns of Penticton and Rus Robinson of London,Ont. arrived in Feb. 1943, and initially shared the taskof providing technical supervision and administrativesupport for the five units named above. Robinson leftin June of 1943 on assignment to TRE Malvern;Cairns stayed on as ‘O.C. Radar in the Faroes’ untilmid Feb. 1944 when the last two units were closed;(ironically, some units were receiving orders to closeat the same time as others were being up-graded withnew gear!)

Some of the NCO’s in charge of the Faroe radar unitswere Canadians. In early 1942, Sgt. Clarence

MacDonald, RCAF, found himself in Torshavn in charge of a 16-man crew comprised of RadarMechanics and Operators, Cooks, and other admin. support personnel. He and his crew moved bysmall boat to the Island of Sandoy where they set up an “ASV plus Yagi” at the previously chosensite. Promoted to W01 in 1943, MacDonald remained with the unit, as NCO i/c , until it closed inlate 1943. Earl Moore, RCAF, of St Thomas, Ont., has written an account of his service in the Faroes,opening with a graphic description of the ferocious winds encountered in Nov. 1942, enroute fromAberdeen to Torshavn - winds that led to his using the term ‘Radar Dome” in the title of his account.Earl and the 13 other men comprising the crew of his unit traveled from Torshavn to Nolsoy Islandover seas so rough that their small boat could not tie up to Nolsoy’s small dock, forcing the lucklesspassengers to splash ashore and climb, laden with kit, up a steep 20-30 foot cliff, only to find that

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the light-keepers houses which were to be their living quarters were on another ledge some 400 feethigher! The houses having been reached, Sgt. Moore could see, at the top of yet another steep rise,“.. .a Yagi array sticking up from the top of a small hut surrounded by an earth bomb blast wall . ..” - his assigned radar station!

The ASV gear found in the little hut presented an immediate problem - none of his radar mechanicshad ever had even theoretical instruction on ‘airborne’ radar gear, and certainly no experience.However, resort to secret documents and considerable ‘trial and error’ eventually got the gear to topperformance. Nolsoy radar routinely plotted local shipping and sometimes enemy aircraft - usually‘Weather Willies.’ One ‘shipping’ plot, however, remained unidentified for some time. A ‘visual’by Nolsoy’s personnel confirmed that the target was in fact a U-boat; quick reaction by a Norwegiangun-boat and a British corvette resulted in the German sub being “ . . . blown out of the water . . ..” It was ‘thumbs - up’ for the Nolsoy radar crew!

Actually, the major enemy at Nolsoy (and at the other radar units in the Faroes) was WIND, whichfrequently made it necessary to ‘lash’ the Yagi array for protracted periods, with consequent seriousloss of radar coverage. However, during set-up trials on some new gear, plots on aircraft wereobserved despite the fact that the antennae was inside a wooden building. Sgt. Moore proposed thata comprehensive trial be done near the RAF’s flying-boat base at nearby Vagar lake; sheets ofplexiglass known to be held in Vagar Stores would be mounted on wooden frames to form a rigid‘wind-shield’ around the Yagi aerial array. Authorities approved, and an entry in Moore’s diary,dated 18 Aug. 1943, reads “ . . .windscreen up, and gear going as good as ever . . .” Formal trials,using aircraft of known size as targets, indicated ‘normal performance.’ The plexiglass ‘windshield’appeared not to be interfering with the radar beam, and it did enable normal antenna rotation despitehigh winds. Eureka!: Nolsoy had invented the Radome! (the event was later dubbed, somewhatunkindly, ‘Faroe Madness’!). Sgt. Moore was then directed to do similar ‘radome’ installations atother sites before returning to the UK and Canada.

Hal Cairns memoirs contain references to two other RCAF radar men who served in the Faroes:Craig Knudsen of Toronto, who served on the Naval radar at Eide, and Peter Moon (his Faroe siteand home town not recorded).

Shetlands : The vulnerability of Scapa Flow, particularly after German forces gained control of the entirewestern coast of Norway, caused the Royal Navy to extend the coverage provided by the twoOrkney radar stations (previously mentioned) by putting one radar unit on Fair Isle midway betweenOrkneys and Shetlands and two on the Shetlands, using three CHL radars borrowed from the RAF.A shortage of Naval radar technicians, or lack of experience on CHL gear, (it is not clear whichapplied) led to the Navy asking for RAF radar mechanics; this request resulted in several RCAFradar men doing service on the three Naval stations mentioned above.

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Fred Grahame, of Dundas,Ont., wasattached to the Navy for duty at their CHLradar unit at Sumburgh Head on theextreme southern tip of the Shetlands.Here, as in the Orkneys, high winds madeit necessary to ‘lash’ the aerial gantry toavoid damage to turning gear. In Nov.1942, Grahame was sent to Navy’s mostnortherly CHL at Saxa Vord to assist inrepairing its aerial turning gear (probablya wind victim).

Another RCAF radar mechanic, P.T.Valeriote of Guelph, Ont., was posted to“H” Mess, HMS Fox, which turned out tobe Saxa Vord on the Island of Unst.

Len MacMillan, RCAF, of Calgary, wasattached to the Navy and served at theCHL radar on the Island of Clett.

Murdock Smith, RCAF, also of Calgary,encountered Shetland radars when his jobat 70 Wing headquarters includedquarterly inspections and specialmaintenance on CHL stations fromDundee north to Wick and on the ShetlandIslands. While at one of the otherShetland stations “ . . .a Shetland stormstripped the antenna off the SumburghHead Station and deposited it somewherein the North Sea . . .” Wing orderedMurdock to go to Sumburgh Head and

repair the damage. The job, completed under very difficult circumstances, apparently improvedNavy-Air Force relations in the Shetlands considerably.

Murdock was then sent to Fair Isle (previously mentioned), where the Navy had two CHL’s, toinstall a new, late model receiver. The job was not made easier when the piano-sized receiver, inits packing case, was accidentally dunked in the sea while being unloaded from a steamer into asmall boat. Yatesbury radar school had not gone into what to do with mundane problems such assalt-coated terminal boards! Once again, Canadian resourcefulness helped to foster good Navy-AirForce relations.

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Iceland: By July 1941, when threecrews and three sets of radarequipment a r r i ved a tReykjavik, British Armyeng ineers had near lycompleted erection of NissenHuts to house radar gear anddomestic accommodation atthree sites selected in Dec.1940. A COL (Chain OverseasLow, with same gear as U.K.CHL’s ) was destined for Vikon the extreme southern tip ofIceland, a second COL for thesite near Reykjavik, and aTRU (Transportable RadarUnit, with the same gear as used in Mobile Radar Units) was to go to Olfus, on a river delta some30 miles southeast of Reykjavik. Two RCAF radar officers, John Cuninghame of Wiarton, Ont, andDoug Gooderham of Maryfield, Sask, were assigned to command the units at Vik and Olfusrespectively.

Vik, located on the southernmost tip of Iceland, is only about 100 air miles from Reykjavik. Butthe 21-truck convoy carrying the unit’s technical gear and administrative supplies was ‘on the road’for nearly 4 days traversing a lava rock desert crisscrossed by rivers of various widths and depths.There being no bridges, rivers were forded using sand bars, where available, and employing wincheswhen trucks became stuck. Three nights sleeping under their trucks made the Icelandic village atVik a welcome sight for Cuninghame’s crew.

Road to Vik

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Domestic accommodation for the unit was erected near to the village which is only some 50 feetabove sea level. The technical site was roughly 1000 feet higher, ‘accessible’ via a switch-back roadconstructed by Royal Engineers. Much of this highway was so steep that trucks needed help fromwinches. The weighty radar transmitter proved to be too heavy even for the most powerful truckaided by winching, and the unit’s radar techs had to partially disassemble the transmitter, removingheavy components such as capacitors, and reassemble when everything eventually ‘reached the top.’

Buildings at the Tech site (Nissen huts) were held down by lengths of chain link fencing anchoredby rocks. But the ferocious winds were not to be totally denied : the antenna gantry was routinelylashed whenever gale force winds were expected, but occasionally it suffered damage anyway (seepicture) ; “ . . . we had to do a lot of repairs . . .they sent us another antenna, so Air Ministry said.. . . it never arrived . . .”

Antenna Wind Damage

It being impracticable to build a land-line telephone system on which to pass Vik’s radar plots backto Reykjavik Ops, Royal Signals put in a line-of-sight ‘microwave’ system using a single relaylocated on the Vestmannaeyjar Islands (some 60 miles due west of Vik). John Cuninghame hasvisited Vik in recent years and reports that the system is still in use serving the Icelandic community.

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Olfus, too, had wind problems. Nissen huts had to be banked with sod to streamline their contoursand so prevent ‘lift-off’; unit personnel did the manual labor involved. Adjustment to tower guywires was critical. Installation of the TRU gear and erection of towers was done by unit personnel( no fitting party!); the task was not made easier by the fact that ‘instructions’ appear to have beensent to West Africa - none ever arrived at Olfus. Somehow the job was done and Olfus becameoperational in late Aug. 1941; Headquarters Iceland said “ . . .bloody good show . . .” and the stationsettled into a routine of plotting Hudsons flying out of nearby Kaldadarnes; Mount Hecla, one ofIceland’s active volcanoes, provided a steady PE (permanent echo) - a useful indication of currentplotting capability.

RAF OLFUS (looking inland)

North Atlantic Region

IV-13

Winter weather came to be a bit monotonous - ‘snow and wind’ alternating with ‘rain and wind’.Spirits were raised when word leaked out that “ . . .the Americans are coming so we can go home. . .” The TRU’s ‘fixed aerials and goniometer’ system initially bemused the US Signal Corpsofficers, radar techs and radar operators who arrived in early 1942 to man the station, as providedby the terms of the UK-US treaty mentioned earlier. Sometime in April, ‘RAF Olfus’ became‘Camp Hughes.’ Similar take-overs took place at Vik, and at the COL near Reykjavik; by mid-1942the RCAF radar presence in Iceland was entirely ‘Air.’

RCAF Radar (Air) Personnel in the North AtlanticAir operations in the North Atlantic during WWII were primarily anti-submarine andmeteorological; no fighter, bomber or transport squadrons of either RCAF or RAF were based there.So the work of RCAF Radar (Air) personnel in that region was essentially that of maintaining radargear carried by RAF/RCAF Coastal squadrons flying Hudsons, Liberators and Cansos.

An account written by David Roumieu of Smithers, BC, who served on RAF Sqd.86 based atReykjavik, Iceland, in 1944, includes reference to earlier service at Aldergrove, Northern Ireland,where he was assigned to the Base Radar Section staffed by radar mechs from two RAF squadrons(86 and 59). David noted that the section was “ . . .95 percent Canadian . . .” This very high ratio,RCAF to RAF, was unusual, but it was a fact that RAF squadrons everywhere came to rely heavilyon RCAF radar mechs(air); ground radar which, in the UK, expanded earlier than did airborne radar,had nearly exhausted the supply of UK recruits possessing the qualifications for maintaining airborneradar which was brought into service later.

E.V. (Bud) MacLachlan, of Ingersol, Ont, served on RCAF Sqd.162 based at Reykjavik from Jan.1944, onward. He wrote of meeting Canadians there, serving on RAF squadrons, who “ . . .wereglad to see a Canadian squadron arrive . . ..” He also mentions (with obvious pride) that hissquadron received credit for 5 and a half ‘sub-sinkings’, that it was the first squadron to photographa U-boat Snorkel, and that one of the pilots won a VC.

Some RCAF radar mechs (air) drew ‘ground duties.’ Bill James, of Barrie Ont, maintained a radarbeacon used as a landing aid by his squadron when based at Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides;apparently he felt lonely - he was the only mech. and the only Canadian there! Another Canuck,Warren Guscott of Kleinburg, Ont. was assigned to RAF Sqd.519, a meteorological unit based atWick, Scotland, flying sorties up the coast of Norway, west to Iceland and back to Scotland.Warren’s ground chores - maintaining radar nav beacons - carried a bonus: it involved a pleasantdrive across moors and highlands with stops at crofters’ homes to buy real hens’ eggs ‘in the shell.’These, Warren reported, “ . . .were very popular when we went south on leave - almost as good assilk stockings . . .”

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Another Canadian radar man served RAF Hudsons in Iceland. Murray Garrett, of Etobicoke, Ont.,recalls a moment of pride when “ . . .our squadron captured a sub (which) surrendered rather thanbe sunk . . .”

A few Canadian radar men were occasionally required (contrived?) to fly on operational sorties.Leslie Shvemar of Downsview, Ont. recalls a flight aboard an RAF Liberator : “ . . .I was aboarda patrol flight between Iceland and Greenland . . .spotted a blip at extreme range, 125 miles . . . aU-boat on the surface . . .disabled him with a straddle of depth charges . . .captured by a Britishdestroyer and towed to Reykjavik harbour . . .”

Two RCAF radar mechs on Shvemar’s squadron ‘served with distinction’: to quote Leslie . .“Larry” Quebec (of Vancouver) and Hugh Carter (of Richmond Hill, Ont), a couple of whiz kidsin our section, developed a choke which could suppress the sea return which could hide a target ata range of 5 miles . . .for this important development these fellows were Mentioned in Despatchesand awarded Oak Leaves . . .”

Russ Hodgson, of Scoudouc, NB, also served with RAF Liberators based in Iceland, as witness the‘Brotherhood’ certificate reproduced below :

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The author is indebted to Keith Fraser of Ottawa for the following list of names of RCAF radarmechanics encountered by him during his service with RAF Sqd 269 in Reykjavik, but who are notcited in any of the preceding paragraphs: Alf Ashdown of St. Catherine’s, Paul Bordeau of (?),Garry Gonin of (?), (Frammy) Fram of Toronto, Merv Ginsberg of Flin Flon, Winston Greaves ofNiagara-on-the-Lake, Harry Hicocks of Niagara Falls, Dave MacLeod of Ft. Francis, AlexMerriman of New�Waterford, Wally Snow of Halifax, Bill Venn of Toronto, and Syd Wells ofAncaster Ont.

We Were There: Unfortunately, the writer has no details at hand of the service performed by some of the men namedin this essay. Nor is it certain that the names cited, including those supplied by Keith Fraser, makeup the full roll of those RCAF radar men, Ground and Air, who served in the North Atlantic Region.But, whether or not each and every one of ‘us’ is named in this essay -

WE WERE THERE!

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