RCAF Personnel in WWII

-North Atlantic Region-

Prepared by Douglas Gooderham

,9 North Atlantic Region

,9 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

,9 North Atlantic Region

PREFACE

This essay focuses on the role played in World War II, in the North Atlantic Region, by RCAF radar personnel.

As background to the work and experiences of individuals, a brief outline is provided of the military strategies and events that gave rise to the deployment of the numerous air squadrons and ground radar stations on which Canadian radar personnel served.

,9 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 sea bases on the Norwegian coast right up to Cape North, the threat to Allied merchant shipping using the high latitude routes across the North Atlantic increased significantly; and Scapa Flow, the Royal Navy’s home base in the Islands, was within easy range of German long-range aircraft. Extension of ground radar cover northward and northeastward from Scotland became an urgent requirement, 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 our purposes. Pray make a weekly report. DCNS will supply you with the requirements. We must have an aerodrome and RDF (radar) at the very earliest moment, together with AA defence, and a few coastal 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 additional radar cover based on the Orkneys and was also recognized. The Inter-Services RDF Committee called for immediate placement of three additional CH () on these two 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 of WWII, 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 German airlines to establish ‘commercial routes.’ But with WWII underway, Germany was freed from the constraint of “tipping its hand prematurely,” and Allied planners had to assume that German occupation of Iceland was imminent, with dire consequences for Allied trans-Atlantic shipping: the Allies would be denied potentially valuable bases from which to launch attacks on U-boats; and German long-range aircraft would be able to reach Allied convoys sailing on routes previously threatened 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 time pledging to respect Iceland’s independence. A similar treaty between the U.S.A and Iceland, made public in July 1941, enabled the U.S. to augment, and subsequently relieve British forces for service elsewhere.

. * 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 based on the Orkneys, Shetlands, Faroes and Iceland, with special note of the part played by Canadian radar personnel serving on RAF ground radar stations and on RCAF and RAF squadrons.

British Air Ministry records* reveal that “...... to increase the range of radar cover over the North Atlantic sea routes, radar sites were selected by radar reconnaissance parties during Dec. 1941 (sic. actually 1940) in the Faroe Islands and in Iceland . . .”

Orkneys: The Royal Navy’s base at Scapa Flow ensured that the Orkneys had high priority when it came to ground radar coverage and, as early as the second week of July 1940, a CHL radar was operational at Gaitnip, complementary to a 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 no evidence that Canadians ever served on these Orkney stations. Nor is there any record of additional ground radars being established in the Orkneys; emphasis was quite rightly placed on potential sites to 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 as indicated : Eide (N), Nolsoy (E), Suduroy (S), Sandoy (W). Each site was to have ASV (Air to Surface Vessels) radar gear coupled to a rotatable Yagi aerial array, to provide early warning (no heights) 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/ RN Control Centre in Torshavn, a major town located on the southeast end of Streymoy Island; most, if not all of these six radars became operational by mid-1942. At least six RCAF radar men served on Faroe ground radars at one time or another. Two officers, Hal Cairns of Penticton and Rus Robinson of London, Ont. arrived in Feb. 1943, and initially shared the task of providing technical supervision and administrative support for the five units named above. Robinson left in June of 1943 on assignment to TRE Malvern; Cairns stayed on as ‘O.C. Radar in the Faroes’ until mid Feb. 1944 when the last two units were closed; (ironically, some units were receiving orders to close at the same time as others were being up-graded with new gear!)

Some of the NCO’s in charge of the Faroe radar units were Canadians. In early 1942, Sgt. Clarence MacDonald, RCAF, found himself in Torshavn in charge of a 16-man crew comprised of Radar Mechanics and Operators, Cooks, and other admin. support personnel. He and his crew moved by small boat to the Island of Sandoy where they set up an “ASV plus Yagi” at the previously chosen site. Promoted to W01 in 1943, MacDonald remained with the unit, as NCO i/c , until it closed in late 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 from 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 Island over seas so rough that their small boat could not tie up to Nolsoy’s small dock, forcing the luckless passengers 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 feet higher! 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 mechanics had 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 top performance. 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 Norwegian gun-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, which frequently made it necessary to ‘lash’ the Yagi array for protracted periods, with consequent serious loss of radar coverage. However, during set-up trials on some new gear, plots on aircraft were observed despite the fact that the antennae was inside a wooden building. Sgt. Moore proposed that a comprehensive trial be done near the RAF’s flying-boat base at nearby Vagar lake; sheets of plexiglass 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 despite high winds. Eureka!: Nolsoy had invented the Radome! (the event was later dubbed, somewhat unkindly, ‘Faroe Madness’!). Sgt. Moore was then directed to do similar ‘radome’ installations at other 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 site and home town not recorded).

Shetlands : The vulnerability of Scapa Flow, particularly after German forces gained control of the entire western coast of Norway, caused the Royal Navy to extend the coverage provided by the two Orkney radar stations (previously mentioned) by putting one radar unit on midway between Orkneys 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 which applied) led to the Navy asking for RAF radar mechanics; this request resulted in several RCAF radar men doing service on the three Naval stations mentioned above.

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Fred Grahame, of Dundas,Ont., was attached to the Navy for duty at their CHL radar unit at Sumburgh Head on the extreme southern tip of the Shetlands. Here, as in the Orkneys, high winds made it necessary to ‘lash’ the aerial gantry to avoid damage to turning gear. In Nov. 1942, Grahame was sent to Navy’s most northerly CHL at Saxa Vord to assist in repairing its aerial turning gear (probably a wind victim).

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

Len MacMillan, RCAF, of Calgary, was attached to the Navy and served at the CHL radar on the Island of Clett.

Murdock Smith, RCAF, also of Calgary, encountered radars when his job at 70 Wing headquarters included quarterly inspections and special maintenance on CHL stations from Dundee north to Wick and on the Shetland Islands. While at one of the other Shetland stations “ . . .a Shetland storm stripped the antenna off the Sumburgh Head Station and deposited it somewhere in the North Sea . . .” Wing ordered Murdock to go to Sumburgh Head and repair the damage. The job, completed under very difficult circumstances, apparently improved Navy-Air Force relations in the Shetlands considerably.

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

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Iceland: By July 1941, when three crews and three sets of radar equipment arrived at Reykjavik, British Army engineers had nearly completed erection of Nissen Huts to house radar gear and domestic accommodation at three sites selected in Dec. 1940. A COL (Chain Overseas Low, with same gear as U.K. CHL’s ) was destined for Vik on the extreme southern tip of Iceland, a second COL for the site near Reykjavik, and a TRU (Transportable Radar Unit, with the same gear as used in Mobile Radar Units) was to go to Olfus, on a river delta some 30 miles southeast of Reykjavik. Two RCAF radar officers, John Cuninghame of Wiarton, Ont, and Doug Gooderham of Maryfield, Sask, were assigned to command the units at Vik and Olfus respectively.

Vik, located on the southernmost tip of Iceland, is only about 100 air miles from Reykjavik. But the 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 winches when trucks became stuck. Three nights sleeping under their trucks made the Icelandic village at Vik 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 feet above sea level. The technical site was roughly 1000 feet higher, ‘accessible’ via a switch-back road constructed by Royal Engineers. Much of this highway was so steep that trucks needed help from winches. The weighty radar transmitter proved to be too heavy even for the most powerful truck aided by winching, and the unit’s radar techs had to partially disassemble the transmitter, removing heavy 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 anchored by rocks. But the ferocious winds were not to be totally denied : the antenna gantry was routinely lashed whenever gale force winds were expected, but occasionally it suffered damage anyway (see picture) ; “ . . . 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 back to Reykjavik Ops, Royal Signals put in a line-of-sight ‘microwave’ system using a single relay located on the Vestmannaeyjar Islands (some 60 miles due west of Vik). John Cuninghame has visited 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 contours and so prevent ‘lift-off’; unit personnel did the manual labor involved. Adjustment to tower guy wires 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 been sent to West Africa - none ever arrived at Olfus. Somehow the job was done and Olfus became operational in late Aug. 1941; Headquarters Iceland said “ . . .bloody good show . . .” and the station settled into a routine of plotting Hudsons flying out of nearby Kaldadarnes; Mount Hecla, one of Iceland’s active volcanoes, provided a steady PE (permanent echo) - a useful indication of current plotting capability.

RAF OLFUS (looking inland)

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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 Corps officers, radar techs and radar operators who arrived in early 1942 to man the station, as provided by 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-1942 the RCAF radar presence in Iceland was entirely ‘Air.’

RCAF Radar (Air) Personnel in the North Atlantic Air operations in the North Atlantic during WWII were primarily anti-submarine and meteorological; 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 radar gear 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 at Reykjavik, 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 heavily on 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 airborne radar 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 “ . . .were glad to see a Canadian squadron arrive . . ..” He also mentions (with obvious pride) that his squadron received credit for 5 and a half ‘sub-sinkings’, that it was the first squadron to photograph a 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 radar beacon 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 at Wick, 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 pleasant drive 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 as silk 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 than be 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 aboard a patrol flight between Iceland and Greenland . . .spotted a blip at extreme range, 125 miles . . . a U-boat on the surface . . .disabled him with a straddle of depth charges . . .captured by a British destroyer 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 kids in our section, developed a choke which could suppress the sea return which could hide a target at a range of 5 miles . . .for this important development these fellows were Mentioned in Despatches and 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 radar mechanics encountered by him during his service with RAF Sqd 269 in Reykjavik, but who are not cited 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 of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Harry Hicocks of Niagara Falls, Dave MacLeod of Ft. Francis, Alex Merriman of NewWaterford, Wally Snow of Halifax, Bill Venn of Toronto, and Syd Wells of Ancaster Ont.

We Were There: Unfortunately, the writer has no details at hand of the service performed by some of the men named in this essay. Nor is it certain that the names cited, including those supplied by Keith Fraser, make up 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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