RAF 'Y' Stations etc. Discussion Thread

Thanks, mbriscoe, for the V-2 BIG BEN update.

I still trying to identify if/whether Kent College Canterbury had anything to do with the BIG BEN activity. The way you describe it, probably not but we'll see. What has come to light is that there was an RAF Canterbury from mid-1944 until possibly the end of the war. TNA archives remove all doubt about the Canterbury site's role in the Y-service, yet no other researcher seems to have picked it up It would have been typical of the 'system' that a cock-and-bull misleading leak would have been about to protect the real goings-on after West Kingsdown Y station took a V-1 for lunch.

I'll post anything related that I unearth.

from behind the Greendoor

www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205196707

6811th Signal Security detachment Bexley Heath, Kent.

Elsewhere I have had to apologize for confusing Bromley GEE site disused aerial field with what has turned out to be the American Army sigint static 'field' site at Bexley Heath, Kent. Interesting that this site does not feature in most of the accepted Y-site lists even though it was quite substantial. Now, however, the historical fact of the unit's existence is in the public domain.
There was certainly an American Y-site called 6811th Signal Security detachment operating from early 1944 thro' to war's end from an Elizabethan manor house called Hall Place, Bexley Heath, Kent. It was feeding raw intercept back to Bletchley Park for processing. See the link:

< www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/2007...WS01/70921012/‎; >

By May 45, there were about 500 Americans doing sigint in UK
Sorry for duff-gen, I've posted a correction on the Bromley thread.

from behind the Greendoor

Fayrenees Kingsgate is right alongside the Radar station that was RAF Foreness which was in use from 1939 until the late 1950s. This was a busy area during ww2. with signal statins at North Foreland and st.stephens college [ a signals squadron moved from Keston near Biggin Hill.] Have not come across a y station at Kingsgate, but we are checking some maps that the works and bricks guys found when they were tidying up. [ one shows a listening post , entrance road, hut, aerial ww2 vintage nothing else] over to you on that one.

Have looked through the Y lists and perhaps am missing it but somewhere in the very back of my mind i seem to remember having once seen mention in a book or article that there was a WW2 intercept station in Radlett, Hertfordshire? Or was this a later Cold War station?

Cornishpete;140932 wrote:

Have looked through the Y lists and perhaps am missing it but somewhere in the very back of my mind i seem to remember having once seen mention in a book or article that there was a WW2 intercept station in Radlett, Hertfordshire? Or was this a later Cold War station?

I now have a better source than the one obtained from Bletchley (which was stated to be incomplete). From TNA HW41/4
01, List of Y Stations (WWII) there is no mention of Radlett. The nearest two were the Foreign Office station at Sandridge, St Albans and the Army site at Harpenden. Both were intercept stations in Eastern Command.

Carnaby;140941 wrote:

I now have a better source than the one obtained from Bletchley (which was stated to be incomplete). From TNA HW41/101, List of Y Stations (WWII) there is no mention of Radlett. The nearest two were the Foreign Office station at Sandridge, St Albans and the Army site at Harpenden. Both were intercept stations in Eastern Command.

I dug deeper and came across this at goldbeach.org.uk/Y%20service/SWS1.htm
"Special Wireless Section (SWS) Voluntary Intercept service formed at Radlett.
It was formed at Radlett, England for the jamming of the enemy's wireless and radar transmissions. This was an ATS unit
Would still be interested to know where exactly.

Thank you so much, I appreciate your help and have placed an order for a used copy through Amazon.