RAF Sopley: History from 1941 to 1945 During WW2

I was recently given a document that was researched and written by Pat (Patricia) Sparks in 1990. Pat was a WAAF serving at RAF Sopley in Hampshire during the Second World War. RAF Sopley was a WW2 radar station codenamed Starlight which opened in 1940. It eventually closed as a station in 1974, having become an air traffic control radar station during the post-war period.

You can read Pat Spark’s written history of RAF Sopley below. It covers just the period that she was a serving WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) during WW2, and not the post-war period. It’s a fantastic account.

I hope you enjoy it.

Foreword from John Cunningham & Roderick Chisholm in July 1990

RAF Sopley made it possible for the 604 Squadron night fighters from Middle Wallop to intercept the German night bombers.

Those of us who operated from Middle Wallop look back with pride and pleasure to the success achieved by Sopley in leading the way in the control of night fighters and enabling the night fighters to achieve their very considerable number of successful interceptions in the early part of 1941.

John Cunningham DSO, DEC
Harpenden, Hertfordshire.

A memory of Sopley

I was abroad when the war started and extraction from there and my return to the squadron demanded a course at Flight Training School (FTS), South Cerney; thus it was in July 1940 that I eventually rejoined 604.

Mike, the C.O., explained that there was a shortage of aircraft for the fitting of what he described as ‘Magic Mirrors’. This meant little to me such was the novelty of an operational squadron; much was new and strange, and deadly serious.

Then came the move from Northolt to Gravesend and Middle Wallop. I graduated uncertainly to flying patrols in the Blenheim, following patrol lines, seen or imaginary, haunted a bit by how to get home and wondering about the usefulness of all this particular tightrope walking.

The Blenheims were superseded by the Beaufighters and there were other startling changes. After take-off, a change of frequency introduced another voice; it had conviction. We became part of a plan instead of a symbol on the Sector Operations board. The new voice told us of the whereabouts of the ‘bandit’ and, coincidental with a greater familiarity with the dark, we saw our part in the plan – a long, long way from the anxious blunderings in Blenheims.

It was not always that the manoeuvres requested by the new voice achieved our arrival in the Hun’s proximity and, in fact, sometimes there was a hopeless chase. Once, I recall exhortation from the voice for more speed was answered by a frustrated pilot with “OK I’ll get out and push”. However, the ‘Magic Mirror’ experience on the ground and in the air compounded and the tally of Huns destroyed rose to near lethal heights.

Roderick Chisholm, Air Commadore, C.B.E., D.S.O., D.P.C.
Alresford, Hampshire.

Acknowledgements by Pat Sparks in September, 1990.

My grateful thanks are extended to so many people who have helped produce this booklet:

To Myrtle Bygrave, Brindley Boon, Denis Steet and Fred Bowler and many more who were at Sopley, and to Geoffrey Larkby for recalling Christmas 1940 and the setting up of Sopley.

To Curtis Brown, and to Peters, Fraser and Dunlop for their permission to quote from ‘Night Fighter’, and to Jeremy Howard-Williams, Norman Cordingly and Sam Morris for their permission to quote from their books.

To Major Michael Hickey (Retired) of the Museum, Middle Wallop, for permission to use the photograph of John Cunningham and King George VI, and to Keith Geddes for the early photography of Sopley. 

Also, thanks to Roy Davis for the cartoon used throughout the reunion of 1990.

Last, but not least, my thanks to my daughter for so painstakingly typing my script.

Pat Sparks
September 1990.

I would like to dedicate this booklet to all those who served at RAF Sopley, 1941 to 1945

Chapter 1: Technicalities           

Geoffrey Larkby was commissioned on 12 December 1940 when the Air Ministry requested the help of two engineers from the BBC. He was a member of a small team of engineers stationed in London to keep the BBC going throughout the Blitz, and reported together with another colleague, R.E. Young.

They were sent to H.Q. 60 Group at Leighton Buzzard and were assigned to Section TM2A, who were responsible for Chain Home Low (CHL) Stations. They were given a day’s lectures on radar, by Group Captain Wilson, Chief Engineer of the Group, then told to report to a unit called Air Defence Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE) at Christchurch, Hampshire.

There with the help of civilian engineers from Malvern and Farnborough, they assembled the first ground-controlled interception (GCI) unit.

The basis was two army gun laying (GL) trackers fitted with 12 foot 4-bay 4-stack aerials.

One array was fed by a transmitter mounted on an RAF heavy lorry, this transmitter being a pulsed oscillator, i.e. two VT98 valves. The other aerial fed into the Ops wagon (a similar heavy RAF vehicle). The receiver fed a range display and a PPI display. The height finding facilities were rather hazy at that the split aerial technique had not been developed. The synchronizing of the two aerials was carried out using a simple Wheatstone bridge circuit, feeding two meters, one in each vehicle, one aerial being the master and the other the slave (the slave always trying to zero his meter). The aerials were turned by ‘Binders’ sitting in the cabins, pedalling to nowhere, as described in a later chapter.

On completion of the equipment at Christchurch F/O Larkby was given a grid reference of a site at Sopley and was accompanied by the first of his crew. PC Knight met them near Sopley to give assistance with the convoy, and as they approached the site, which was a desolate field, one member of the crew enquired about billets.

Such administrative details had not been discussed with the technical officers, but the village policeman soon arranged for the men to be settled in local houses.

“We set up the convoy in the optimum layout and did our best to get power going” states Geoff. Night fell and with it the problem of guards, as this was perhaps the most secret equipment in England at that time. The Home Guard was turned out for the night, and AC Bowler remembers arriving with ‘Shorty’ Naylor and remaining on guard duty that first night with one pistol between them.

Soon the station received crews, controllers and airmen, and calibration runs were started. F/O Best took over the station and the story of Sopley is carried on by those who were posted there in the 1941 era and afterwards. F/O Young was posted to Wartling and F/O Larkby went to Sandwich, where their future work covered many GCI stations, updating them as time passed, before experimental work with FDT (a form of GCI on board ships) which was to prove so useful in 1944.

That was the beginning of radar and interception of enemy planes.

Chapter 2: First Arrivals               

Brindley Boon was posted to Sopley at Christmas, 1940, from Foreness CHL, together with Corporal Billy Pratley. At almost midnight they drew up outside the massive iron gates of a location they were to come to know as Sopley Park. The village policeman was expecting them and took them to the local inn, The Woolpack. Andrew Lane was not only the village innkeeper, but Churchwarden, bellringer and welcoming party to all who eventually went to RAF Sopley, together with his wife.

After borrowing a wheel barrow to convey their kitbags, they were taken to meet Charles and Annie Button, with whom they were to be billeted. They ran a small farm and Charlie delivered milk to outlying areas while his wife fed and watered the cattle, fed the poultry and other stock. Chickens had to be shooed off the kitchen table before a meal could be served. The cottage was very cold due to a general shortage of fuel and Annie went around the house singing “someday my coal will come” to the tune in ‘Snow White’.

Dennis Skeet was posted about the same time, frow Newquay, where his wife of a few weeks was also living. Conditions were primitive as he shared a bed at Sopley with a fellow AC2 in a country cottage with an earth privvy in the back garden, but they received a warm welcome from their landlady.

Brindley and his now wife were later billeted with Lord and Lady Manners’ butler and his wife Walter and Ciss Kitley at South Lodge, Avon Tyrrell. Tyrrells Ford was the wartime home of the Manners after they handed over their big house, Avon Tyrrell, to the military. A very fitting place for our reunion in 1990.

Myrtle Bygrave was housed in Wiltshire Lodge with the early WAAF posted to Sopley. The first group to arrive found the site extremely disconcerting as they had previously been stationed at big Ops Rooms throughout England. At this “ghastly new place” there was a very small number of people, no amenities, Sergeants Bowler and Skeet to tell them what to do, and last, but not least, the three watch system was very hard to operate. However, they quickly came to be very happily part of the system and eventually became the basis of the much larger group there. 

When Brindley first arrived, there were eight airmen and four WAAF, but when he left in 1944 the operational strength was 144. Initially there were six to a watch. Later there were over 40 personell to each of three watches. There was always the three-watch system which was the hardest of all watchkeeping to operate. We would start work  at 8am and leave at 1pm, returning for night duty at 11pm, through to 8am the next morning. A few hours’ sleep then on duty again 5 to 11pm, and then the third duty was from 1 until 5pm. So only one night off in three, with 36 hours pass every nine or twelve days. Leave was something we hardly dared to think about but just accepted when told we could go.

Sopley was a small, free and easy unit from first to last. In the beginning there were no parades (not even for pay or to the M.O.) As the station grew in number we did attend church parades on occasions, sitting in the north nave of Sopley Church and listened to the service given by the Rev. Charles Kirkham. Sick parade meant a cycle ride to Hurn and back so one was either sick enough to need the M.C. or too sick to bother! One such visit to Hurn was made in the pouring rain and the WAAF concerned became aware of a Jeep overtaking her with a sign ‘follow me’. She obeyed and on dismounting was taken to the control tower to be told she had been cycling along the main runway. 

There were RAF Police on the station but apart from guarding the main gate (and Jack Hardy shouting at me to put my on) they were not worked very hard. Doug Watling entertained us for many hours with his harmonica, and he also wrote poetry – one such poem I still have today. One letter I received was from a man living in Ripley at our time and his family billeted a RAF policeman. He often had to chase the boy from the field housing our equipment, sometimes ever late at night. Even more so after the Americans arrived with their candies and gum, I suspect. 

Discipline was very relaxed – haircuts were at the discretion of the individual and when Leslie Wise went on a course, he was asked where his violin was. As long as the WAAF rolled their hair off the collar for inspections, regulations were disregarded. In the latter days – when we had a ‘Queen Bee’ – this was tightened somewhat, but on the whole life was not very strict. Besides, only the operations personnel could enter the Ops Block, so the administrative officers were not considered very important, to our way of thinking.

As Sopley was the first GCI unit, there were many visitors. It soon became the eighth wonder of the world and everyone who was anyone came down to be entertained by the fascinating new toy. Churchill, Attlee and other Cabinet Ministers, war lords and foreign diplomats came, as well as service chiefs and military brass hats. Churchill was not in favour radar and much preferred LAM (or MUTTON as it was coded). This was a system whereby aircraft dropped mines connected to piano wires, in the stream of enemy bombers. The theory was that the hostile planes would get entangled in the wires and blow themselves up with the mine, but it never worked and was soon abandoned – as “dead as mutton in fact”.

Attlee came one evening and was glad to get away as soon as possible. A PPI was so utterly beyond anything that Eton could have taught him that he was simply bewildered.

Therefore, it could not serve any useful purpose – it was a perplexing toy, I must admit.

Those early days were a period of carefree routine – if indeed there was a routine, as Sopley Mark I was a small caravan which could easily be towed, even by a Mini. This caravan housed a couple of plan position indicators (PPIs) and had sufficient room for three people to plot and phone. There was also a Dennis truck which housed the usual primitive paraphernalia associated with radar screens and further into the field was the aerial which rather resembled a flattened bird cage. Inside the cabin at the base of the aerial sat two airmen – the Binders – who pedalled a contraption like a tandem but. going nowhere. This was the method used to turn the aerial and was controlled by the CO at the touch of a button, being stopped, reversed or sent in whatever direction the controller wished. In order to keep a complete coverage of the sky the aerial had to keep sweeping, but the erks inside did not even have the pleasure of seeing a blip. Some years later this was operated by power rather than manpower.

The whole area was patrolled by military or RAF Regiment, who taught the radar personnel to use firearms. This was in fact put into some operation after the raid on the German station at Bruneval in February 1942, when Wing Commander Charles Pickard led a force of airborne radar personnel to capture vital equipment from the Germans. Sopley was one of the stations considered to be a target for reprisal raids and Fred Bowler kept a pocket full of ammunition handy, just in case. No raid ever did take place though.

Sopley Mark II was known as the ‘Intermediate’ – a hutted mobile really. It was fitted with increased power and range; the PPIs were improved, and the height system grew better, as the operators improved with practice and technology.

Then came the Final – or ‘Happidrome’ as it was known. This was a permanent building designed for the purpose, with cabins for interception purposes, proper height-reading areas, and room housing a table showing the whole area covered, which was divided into grid squares. Plotters placed their metal arrows as directed, according to the colour-change clock. Details of the raids and flights were put up on a large screen, called the Tote, and plots were told back to Filter. Overlooking all this was the Controller’s Cabin, from where he had a complete view of the state of operations. A weather forecast was written up on a board, changing as frequently as necessary.

By this time, 1942, the equipment had improved, and the knowledge gained by ground staff and aircrews had been consolidated. The Intermediate was disbanded, and the site really became a permanent feature, complete with outside and inside guardrooms, restrooms, canteen and controller’s rest room. Tucked away amongst all this was a private branch exchange (PBX) room and an Apparatus Room with complete telecommunications. The long corridors were polished daily and buffered by the WAAF on duty, as no other personnel was allowed inside the Ops Block of course. I remember a notice posted up after a visit by ACM Sir Philip Joubert which stated, “When the tie comes to tell the story, Sopley will go out in a blaze of glory”.

Whether he meant the efficiency of the operations or the shine the corridors, I do not know.

Chapter 3: Work

The work of a GCI station was, of course, to ‘control’ the fighters from the ground until they had contact on their own AI and therefore bring about an interception with the enemy plane.

Sopley had many COs and even more controllers. The first was F/O Best a youthful looking Yorkshireman who was disrespectfully called ‘the boy’. Then came John Brown who really takes up another chapter. John McGrath was his s assistant and later took over command, having as his assistant Keith Geddes. Keith ‘Pop’ also became our CO and was then followed by John Seldon.

Keith Geddes was firstly a pilot with 604 Squadron and his record with them was four destroyed and one damaged between March and July 1941, controlled by John Brown from Sopley. Keith was posted to Sopley in December 1941 as F/Lt, where he stayed until April 1943 before going to Bolt Head and Treleaven. He returned to Sopley in December 1943 as CO, and was succeeded by John Seldon in March 1944 on his posting to H.Q. Fighter Command.

Keith Falkner was a well-known singer and was posted to Sopley as a trainee controller.  Somehow Brindley could never entice him to display his vocal talents in any of the amateur shows. Keith Falkner was knighted in 1967 and became director of the Royal College of Music.

Another distinguished pilot who became a controller at Sopley was Ada Vrana, who flew with 312 Czech Squadron in the Battle of Britain. He had escaped from his homeland via the French Air Force, through Poland and flew a Curtis P36 to North Africa and finally to Casablanca before sailing to join the RAF in time to participate in flying Hurricanes, his first scramble on 16th July 1940.

There were many others, of course, too numerous to mention, but  all served with distinction and were part of the general life on camp.

Already described are the technical details of radar, but it was something none of us really understood even in 1945, if we are to be honest. I do, however, include the comments of one prominent NCO of that time:

“The technical staff lived in a world of their own. For them these lovely condensers and resistors and wires leading in all directions were private toys. They almost never related the equipment to any operational purpose. It was simply heaven to play technical games, devising new bits, researching ideas, often just perfectly happily amusing themselves but getting nowhere. The result was that not infrequency they would ring through to say they were going off the air just as an important operational job was imminent; the must test transformer C3; the output was down on the reserve transmitter, or they had a bright idea for improving the sig/noise ratio. The friction between the officers in charge of these two halves of the station itself generated a high voltage. But we still won the war.”

Of course, Sopley worked with many Squadrons other than 604. Middle Wallop was our sector, but other satellite stations were very operational in the early days of 1941 to 1942. The first ‘kill’ was on 4th March 1941, although ‘damaged’ had been claimed before that date. In total Sopley GCI Station was responsible for over 100 enemy planes shot down between 1941 and 1945. 604 Squadron was the first squadron to be responsible for over 60 enemy aircraft, through Sopley and John Brown.

406 Canadian Squadron, 465, 151, and 125 Squadrons all worked with Sopley and had good records, some operating from Hurn.

We were mainly operational for night fighter control but were not idle during daytime. Our radar did not distinguish between night and day by any means. From first light each morning until, perhaps, a stand-off for crews on ‘duff’ evenings, the tubes were manned, and the plotters carried out their duties of placing arrows on the table. Even on duff nights, a skeleton crew manned all stations. Air-sea rescue work was carried out and many nights were spent with planes stooging up and down the Channel looking for crews who had ditched in the sea. Or perhaps aircraft in difficulties on their return from bombing raids might need help. Our work might have been tedious at times, but we never felt that it was waste of time.

Aircrews came and went but most tried to visit Sopley to see how we worked and to associate a voice with a face. We were all there to do the same thing so why didn’t we meet up? We listened to them on the R/T and could put a face to a distorted voice, and at the same time knew what a friend was doing at that time. We girls all learned RAF jargon and overcame our blushes at some of the things on R/T. Many of pilots we worked with became famous as did John Cunningham, Keith Geddes and people like Per Bugge (who caused consternation in the WAAF ops in pronouncing his name). Jeremy Howard-Williams and Jimmy Rawnslay became famous after the war when they wrote books, but did mention Sopley or ‘Starlight’ in those tributes to us. Wing Commander Norman Cordingly describes a visit to the Ops room on 13 March 1941, just after our first ‘kill’, as:

“I met the controller and the staff on duty in the darkened room. There was very little space for most of the area was occupied by a large circular cathode ray tube, almost the size of a conventional TV screen today. I was glad I. had chosen that evening to visit the GCI as it turned out to be a gala night. That was the night Rory Chisholm shot down two Heinkels.”

The NCO triumvirate of Bowler, Skeet, and Boon flourished and the WAAF passed through trade tests from ACWII, ACWI, to LACW with bated breath. Sometimes a face was missing have been promoted, or had been granted a commission, but life in general went on undisturbed at Sopley – it seemed to some of us that once you were posted there you were there for the duration. Until after D-Day when we were left with practically no work and postings began in earnest. Our aircraft had been sent to France once the breakthrough had been established there and the work of a GCI was being done from mobile units or FDTs. I was one of the first to be posted and I think I was glad to go early, as I would not have liked to see my friends disappear one by one or two by two. I did return to Sopley in the Spring. 1945, after I was married, and my husband was still there with the mobile unit, but most of my friends had gone and the station seemed dead.

However, there was to be life after all.

Chapter 4: The Shop That Brown Built

Squadron Leader John Lawrence Brown was the Controller of RAP Sopley in 1941. He was pilot himself and could discuss problems experienced by the pilots of our fighter planes. He suggested that members of the squadron should visit Sopley and discover for themselves how a GCI unit worked. Small parties came down to Sopley on their stand-off nights and, as described in ‘Night Fighter’:

“It was not all easy to find and when we did get there it was not a very impressive sight. There were a few wooden huts, with some lorries scattered about, a caravan draped in a tarpaulin and a strange contraption which was the aerial slowing revolving on its base. Inside the cabin we found Brownie seated before the control panel which looked something like a desk, and grouped around him were several airmen and airwomen, all muffled up against the cold and all concentrating on their various duties. A second glance revealed that there were apparently more airwomen than airmen and that they were an unusually attractive lot of girls, good looking and alert.”

The beauty chorus was soon forgotten, however, when Brownie explained the workings of unit, as he went carefully over everything. It was reassuring to the aircrews that their guidance was in such safe hands, too.

In the centre or the control desk there was a large cathode ray tube on which had been painted the coastline of our area. On the tube all aircraft coming within range of the station produced a small blip which marked their position on the map. A GCI unit was able to use a larger aerial, and a more powerful radar set than could be carried in an aircraft, of course, and could thus see for a considerable distance.