at Portsmouth and vice versa. Wrens operated the station on a continuous three-watch rota and were supplemented by RN ratings for special occasions. On D-Day, they were joined by RAF, WAAF, and ATS personnel. HMS Forward was heavily involved in the saga of the German battle cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen in February 1942; the Dieppe raid; the nightly naval Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) harassment raids on enemy harbours and waters; the frequent SAS commando ‘snoops’ on the occupied French coast; the D-Day landings; and, ultimately, the liberation of France. The centre was abandoned and neglected after the war, but on Ellis’ initiative the Newhaven Historical Society undertook a detailed survey of the complex, including photographs and videos. A model of the station was then produced which is on display at the Newhaven Local and Maritime Museum
American service personnel were a common sight in Britain during the latter years of the war, particularly airmen in East Anglia, soldiers in southern England, and sailors in the major ports. However, sailors were also a common sight in the small rural village of Hurley, by the Thames in Berkshire. Chosen because of its good reception for radio signals, it was Station Victor, the main UK communication centre of the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor of today’s CIA; it was used for communicating with OSS agents on the European mainland. Operating in great secrecy, the sailors claimed to be in training but were in fact skilled radio operators – local inhabitants thought the station’s transmitting and receiving towers to be elaborate radar equipment. As with HMS Forward, there is little in the official record about the station’s activities, and it came to light only when a local resident who had been told by his father-in-law about the American sailors in the village during the war decided to investigate its history.
Underground Hideaways
In addition to the numerous secret bunkers built for the Auxiliary Units in the counties deemed to be at risk of invasion (see Chapter 3), there was also a network of bunkers with hidden radio and other communications. Comprising a relatively small number of IN and OUT stations, these would have maintained two-way contact between the Units and higher authorities had the Germans invaded. Comparatively little was known about them until recently, when a station built under a tennis court in Norfolk was accidentally discovered. This was found to include a radio room, aerials on a nearby pine tree, a cast iron pipe (which researchers say may have been used by civilian informants to drop split tennis balls containing secret messages into the bunker), an escape tunnel, and a water tank.
Decoding of enemy signals was said to have shortened the war by two years…
BRITAIN’S TIMELINE TO DUNKIRK
1939
1 Sep Germany invades Poland.
3 Sep Britain and France declare war on Germany.
Phoney War (on land and in the air) begins.
Churchill appointed First Lord of the Admiralty.
Allies start naval blockade of Germany and mine approaches to English Channel and German ports.
German submarines (U-boats) and ocean raiders start attacking Allied shipping.
SS Athenia torpedoed off Ireland with loss of 112 lives (28 American).
Germans start laying magnetic mines off UK east coast resulting in many sinkings.
10 Sep Britain starts sending Army and RAF units to France.
17 Sep Aircraft carrier HMS Courageous torpedoed and sunk off Ireland.
15 Oct First World War battleship HMS Royal Oak torpedoed and sunk inside RN base at Scapa Flow; Britain then starts strengthening Scapa Flow’s defences.
22 Nov RN engineers recover and start to dismantle magnetic mine.
23 Nov HMS Rawalpimdi (armed merchant cruiser) sunk by German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau who then abort planned breakout into Atlantic.
13 Dec Battle of the River Plate when cruisers HMS Exeter and HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles engage the German pocket battleship Graf Spee. All four ships are damaged and Graf Spee retires to Montevideo harbour for repairs where it is eventually scuttled (a case where new German technology was outfought by superior tactics and traditional RN determination to engage the enemy more closely).
1940
8 Apr Britain lays mines off the Norwegian coast (to force shipping onto the high seas where it could be inspected by the RN).
9 Apr Germany invades Denmark and Norway.
Apr Naval engagements off Norway resulting in RN losing one carrier, two cruisers, seven destroyers, and four submarines and Germany losing three cruisers, ten destroyers, and three submarines.
11 Apr Allied troops land in Norway.
6 May Allied troops evacuated from central Norway.
9 June Last Allied troops evacuated from northern Norway.
10 May Germany invades Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg thus outflanking the French Maginot line and enabling them to attack France.
British and French troops enter Belgium to engage German forces.
Churchill succeeds Chamberlain as British Prime Minister.
26 May–3 June 338,000
British, French, and Belgian troops evacuated from Dunkirk – all their equipment destroyed or abandoned.
31 May British Cabinet decides to fight on, a decision supported by the British population.
22 June Franco-German Armistice signed.
LAND BATTLES LEAD TO DUNKIRK EVACUATION
But Britain wins naval victory
The disastrous first nine months of the war culminated in the heroic albeit desperate rescue of British troops from the beaches of Dunkirk at a time when early defeat stared Britain in the face. Within weeks of invading Denmark and Norway in April 1939, the Germans had invaded Holland, Belgium, and France with their new Blitzkrieg tactics – lightning-quick strikes with efficient communications so as to direct and coordinate its modern air force and mechanised army units. Attacking through Belgium and Holland, thus bypassing the Maginot Line, they achieved the overwhelming victory that led to the Dunkirk evacuation of more 300,000 British and French troops – and the French capitulation in June.
This was in fact the second humiliating evacuation within weeks, the inglorious Norwegian Campaign (April–June 1940) having ended with our defeated troops being picked up from central Norway in early May. Gordon Corrigan wrote: ‘If the history faculties at universities were to run a module on how not to conduct a military campaign … then they need look no farther than the Norwegian campaign of 1940, for as complete and utter cock-ups it would be difficult to better.’
During the retreat to Dunkirk the Royal Engineers (RE) demolished some 600 bridges, blew countless craters, and built improvised jetties on the beaches
