What was Unit 606 up to in the desert?
Why was Fred so guarded about what he wrote in his memoir, and why was the explicit purpose of Unit 606 in the desert so effectively concealed? Fred was engaged in the second most secret aspect of warfare after the Bletchley Park decrypts – namely, radar.7 Radar, or Radio Detection and Direction Finding (RDF), had been developed by the British Air Ministry in the 1930s to provide a fixed chain of stations along the east and south coasts of Britain facing the Low Countries, France and the anticipated aggressor, Germany, to give efficient air-raid warnings (The Air Ministry 1952).
After the fall of France in 1940 it became imperative to protect British territories and interests in the Middle East from Vichy French and Italian colonies in North Africa, and 5 stations were identified for installation in the area of the Nile Delta and along the Suez Canal in Egypt. Because of the delay in delivering equipment, a mobile set of instruments was brought into operation during early 1941 in Alexandria at Ikingi Mariut, and mobile equipment in vehicles was supplied to Ikingi Mariut, Aboukir (adjacent to Alexandria), and El Daba, to the west of El Alamein (The Air Ministry 1950).
The Air Ministry acknowledged that ‘with so few stations in such a vast territory it was inevitable that from the operational viewpoint the outlook was very parochial’ (The Air Ministry 1950, 161). In the vast areas between stations radar coverage could be obtained only by the development of Mobile Radio Units (MRU), which took four hours to go operational and days to erect and dismantle. By December 1940, two MRUs were deployed in the Western Desert Campaign, often concentrating on the main ports of Tobruk and Benghasi, and reporting to 258 Fighter Wing – but ‘it was practice never to deploy RDF units in very forward positions’(The Air Ministry 1950, 172) (Fig. 7).
Although all Mobile Radio units were adequately briefed on the destruction of their equipment to prevent it from falling into enemy hands, unnecessary risks could not be taken. Security was not the only factor to consider in this respect; the marked insufficiency of RDF apparatus within the Middle East Command at that time precluded the adoption of any policy which would unnecessarily jeopardise the equipment (Air Ministry 1950, 172).
By the autumn of 1941 45 radar units were operational in the Middle East (23 of them in Egypt and one in Libya at Tobruk) and while ‘the coastal chain was fairly satisfactory, … the Suez Canal defences were still in an embryo state’ (The Air Ministry 1950, 179). Some 50 Air Ministry Experimental Stations (AMES) were either already in operation or in transit from Britain, or waiting despatch to the region. Among them were more than 25 Mobile Radio Units (MRU), radar units of the Type 2 series with ‘floodlight facilities’, and 15 Type 5 series Chain Overseas Low (COL) units (some mobile), which could detect low-flying aircraft (The Air Ministry 1950, Appendix 14, 564). The COL units could engage in Ground Control Interception (GCI) by calling up a fighter and guiding it to attack the target plane.
In addition, five Type 6 series (604, 605, 606, 607 and 608) AMES units were listed on 30 November 1941 as ‘in the course of manufacture’–Fred’s unit was 606 (The Air Ministry 1950, Appendix no. 14, 564). Fred joined 606 in September 1942 (roughly 10 months later), which was a measure of the lead time required to get British kit and men operational in the Western-Desert theatre – given that the only acceptably safe supply route from Britain to Egypt was via South Africa. The Type 6 stations, with their Light Warning Sets (LWS), were capable of erecting their equipment within one hour, and of going operational within two. It was their mobility over the ground and the speed of ‘going operational’ that made Unit 606 (and its sister units) so crucial to the defence of the Advanced Landing Grounds.
At all stages the Light Warning units were used as forward RDF screen for the longer-range COL/GCI equipment. Being smaller, more mobile, and taking far less time to become operational after arrival on site, the LWS’s were better able to take advantage of rapid military gains which were occurring. In addition, being smaller and less valuable equipment, the permissible margin of security was less. The forward siting of Light Warning Sets on COL type sites thus provided the best possible low cover over the battle area at all stages (Air Ministry 1950, 297).
Lightweight portable radar units had originally been developed by the Radio Branch at Middle East Headquarters at Cairo, and were used successfully in Crete in early 1941. Technical plans were sent back to Britain for prototype production, and the kit was subsequently adapted in Egypt for operating at high temperatures. With these improvements, the Light Warning Sets were subsequently manufactured in the UK. Units 601 and 602, with pack-sets ‘suitable for mule or camel transport in the absence of motor transport’ (The Air Ministry 1950, 180), had been made up from Airborne Surface Vessel (ASV) sets – radar for maritime patrol aircraft. They were deployed for the first time in November 1941, when they provided radar cover for RAF advanced landing grounds on the Egyptian-Libyan border.
As this was an innovation untried in previous desert operations, a wireless observer screen, also reporting back to Wing Operations, was thrown round the Advanced Landing Ground Area. The Air Officer Commanding, Air Headquarters Western Desert, was notified that the portable RDF sets provided might be of little use, and that it was clearly better to make all plans assuming no RDF cover in the forward area (Air Ministry 1950, 180).
Fears about the unreliability of the equipment belonging to Units 601 and 602 proved initially correct, since the range-finding they obtained for planes was inadequate for early warning, and the sets were returned to Cairo as ‘useless’ in December 1941, and categorized as ‘undergoing special inspection’ (The Air Ministry 1950, Appendix No. 14, 564). However, it was soon realized that the units had been operating on low-altitude sites, and tests subsequently carried out at Matruh (Fig. 6) showed that the equipment could produce ranges of 30 to 40 miles on aircraft of unknown height, and an aircraft flying at only 500 feet was observed up to 20 miles away (The Air Ministry 1950, 182).
While the problems with AMES 601 and 602 were being sorted out, No. 510 COL station, which had been made fully mobile, was moved forward in December 1941 to locate near El Agheila (Fig. 8). It quickly had two ‘kills’ to its credit in addition to the provision of satisfactory early warning. In January 1942 Wing Commander J. A. Tester, ‘took command of the station personally with the intention of controlling fighter aircraft directly from the site of the COL station’ (The Air Ministry 1950, 182 and 1952, iii-iv). But the next Axis military advance drove the British out of Libya and 510 COL with it.
By the time the fifth iteration of retreat and advance in the Western Desert War had brought Rommel to his siege of El Alamein in 1942 (Fig. 6), a great deal had been learned by the British about desert warfare: the necessity for co-ordinating army and air force operations at Burg el Arab (Montgomery, as soon as he took command, had brought the two headquarters close together); the need for mobility and the importance of speed of communications, largely by wireless, which required that signals and radar operators would become conversant with one another’s procedure and practice (The Air Ministry 1950, 185). As a result of these attempts at coordination, the Ministry of Defence claimed, ‘there could be little doubt that when the moment arrived for our ground forces to launch their counter-offensive, the experience and technical efficiency of the mobile RDF units would be adequate to meet all calls upon them’ (The Air Ministry 1950, 189).
Montgomery’s massive counter-attack of 23 October 1942 at El Alamein led to the breakout in early November, which involved the 5 mobile radar units that were already under Western Desert Command and were battle-hardened – 220 MRU, Numbers 510, 515, 522 and 526 COL, plus 5 MRUs, three mobile COL units for fighter control and two Type 8 Ground Controlled Interception (GCI) units specializing in night-fighter control (The Air Ministry 1950, 191). This was, of course, as the Air Ministry later commented, ‘a ridiculously small number viewed by home standards but to the Western Desert Air Force it was a luxury’ (1950, 191).
In addition, however, th
ere were the Type 6 stations with their Light Warning Sets, essential to the defence of the landing grounds in a fast-moving desert war of the kind envisaged. It is possible that as many as ten 600 Units, each with the crew and kit carried in a three-ton Crossley waggon, were deployed in the advance from El Alamein, though I have seen concrete evidence for the use of only seven – Units 602, 606, 607, 608, 609, 610 and 629.8 However, there were
occasions when early warning by RDF equipment might be required before it was possible to reach an Advanced Landing Ground by motor transport. In keeping with the policy of manning such Advanced Landing Grounds by personnel and equipment flown in by air, two LWS and crew were prepared, suitable for air-lift in either Bombay or Hudson aircraft (The Air Ministry 1950, 190–91).
On 18 December, for example, one of the Type 6 stations was flown into the Marble Arch landing ground (Fig. 8) in the vicinity of Fred’s 606, which was being delayed in its progress along the coast by landmines. The airborne unit’s Bofors gunners were killed in an explosion soon after landing, and the radar operators had difficulty in getting clear of the field and escaping to safety (War’s Nomads, 155; The Air Ministry 1950, 192).
The basic radar strategy after the breakout from El Alamein was to obtain early identification of the enemy from the Light Warning Sets belonging to radar units that could take advantage of rapid military gains, and use them to protect the advanced landing grounds; and then to bring in the RAF fighter-bombers using mobile COL stations with longer-range equipment. As the ground forces advanced westwards, some mobile radar units (not the Type 6s) would peel off the line of attack, and extend the defensive radar cover along the North African coast facing the Axis in Greece and Italy (The Air Ministry 1950, 191 and 297) (Fig. 6).
A similar strategy to that for radar was followed by the Desert Air Force, with RAF 211 Group combining with the Eighth Army in its attack on Tripoli (and later Tunisia), using Kittyhawk fighter-bombers (The Air Ministry 1950) (Fig. 9). At the same time 212 Group, with older Hurricanes – replaced by Spitfires only in New Year 1943 – were re-deployed after Christmas 1942 as a prelude to the Italian campaign which was being planned as the Western Desert War wound down (Jefford 2001). For example, some squadrons, such as 213, took up Mediterranean coastal duties, including convoy patrols, before falling back on Egypt in 1943.9
The experience of Unit 606 was unusual in that, after the fall of Tripoli, it proceeded to Tunisia with 211 Group and the Kittyhawks type III, as did Unit 609 – and Unit 629, which was held in reserve to assist the New Zealanders as they advanced north of Mareth10 (The Air Ministry 1950, 295). This extended tour of duty in February and March 1943 adds greatly to the value of Fred’s record. During this last phase of the war, 606 continued to work closely with the RAF squadrons of Kittyhawks – 260, 112, 250 and 450 (now 239 Wing), plus the Spitfire squadrons, 145, 601 and 92, and Hurricane squadron 73 (244 Wing), which were needed for the intense battles against Rommel around Mareth (Jefford 2001) (Fig. 9). In contrast, the ORBs for AMES Units 608 and 610 show that they were back in Egypt by February and March 1943 respectively.
One of the outstanding features of Fred’s Type 6 unit was its smallness and lack of commissioned officers. The normal establishment was 13 men, with two non-commissioned officers (NCOs) – Unit 606 had a changing complement of 8 or 9 airmen, plus a corporal and a sergeant. In addition to 6 radar operators, there were usually 2 wireless operators to report to the Wing or Group filter room, which would direct air operations against the enemy. When the station was operational, the operators usually worked shifts throughout the 24 hours, though the work period was often reduced to daylight hours. The remainder of the crew were radar and wireless mechanics, a motor mechanic and a cook. We know from his RAF record that Fred was a radar operator, and the text reveals the names of the cooks, technicians, handymen and photographer, but the remainder of the crew who are named, are perhaps deliberately not associated with specific military tasks.
Fred’s ‘Black Book’ refers to eating ‘all meals in the gharry – one half is operations room, one half common room’ (entry 8 or 9 September 1942), while his memoir explains that ‘the three-ton Crossley…served as our operational room’ (this book 106). Likewise, the evidence of Unit 610’s ORB for 13 November 1942 observes that ‘due to excessive heat in lorry from apparatus when operational attempted to improvise fans from windscreen wiper motors’.11 AMES 675, admittedly working in Algeria as part of Operation Torch, noted similar circumstances on 27 November 1942: ‘the equipment was installed in the front of the three ton lorry provided, and an Operations room and a Workshop was constructed in the rear’.12 In all these cases for which we have evidence it seems that the intention was to cut out the hour nominally spent assembling the station in a tent – an adaptation perhaps made in North Africa to accommodate the fast-moving nature of desert warfare.13
The aerial for picking up the signals of incoming aircraft was power rotated, and Unit 606 carried two petrol-operated generators for this purpose, which was standard issue. Key elements in the station itself were the control panel or screen on which aircraft could be detected, and a plotting board, which would show the relative position of enemy aircraft over time in two dimensions. This information would be reported to 239 Wing or 211 Group filter rooms, which would activate the response. Using its radio beam, the Type 6 unit could detect aircraft up to a distance of 50 miles with a limited height-finding capability up to about 5000 feet. Information about planes at higher altitudes was (theoretically) provided by fixed stations with masts (The Air Ministry 1950).
The most extraordinary aspect of ‘Erk in the Desert’ is the dedicated, relentless way in which the crew of Unit 606 participated in the chase of Rommel across the Western Desert – often with only the haziest idea of what was likely to happen next. Although the unit had no commissioned officer (except Sqn Ldr M. H. Young, who relinquished his command of 213 Squadron to lead Units 606 and 607 on the ground for the first two weeks after the breakout from El Alamein),14 their endeavours were so committed to the military action that there were apparently no disciplinary problems of any seriousness.
As the Air Ministry later reported, ‘with only a Senior NCO in charge, these small stations had to fend mostly for themselves’ (1950, 290). Fred himself comments at the end of his memoir that it was remarkable that Unit 606’s crew got on so well for more than 6 months, essentially on their own, though they were, of course, in constant radio contact with 211 Group or 239 Wing. Unit 606 was a vital if small cog in the military machine, linking ground-to-air-forces and defending the various squadrons’ landing grounds, in the last and victorious phase of the Western Desert campaign in Egypt and Libya, and in the defeat of the German forces in Tunisia.
Notes
1 Fred’s major books are listed by date of publication in Appendix 1.
2 AIR 27 1316, The National Archives, Public Record Office (TNA, PRO).
3 AIR 27 1537, TNA, PRO.
4 Farewell of Sqn Ldr Young.
5 AIR 29 183, TNA, PRO.
6 AIR 29 183, TNA, PRO.
7 A third secret aspect of the Western Desert campaign should be mentioned, namely the operations of the British Long Range Desert Group, which carried out guerrilla operations behind the German lines (Goudie, Wheels Across the Desert: Exploration of the Libyan Desert by motorcar, 1916–1942, 2008).
8 Fred was in 606, and they were with 607 at Alam El Osmaili. We have ORBs for 608 and 610, and 608’s ORB mentions 602, 607 and 609: 608 ORB, AIR 29 183, TNA, PRO. Unit 620 is mentioned only in Air Ministry, 1950, 295.
9 AIR 27 1316, TNA, PRO.
10 239 Wing ORB 22 and 26 March, 1943, AIR 25/849, TNA, PRO.
11 AIR 29 183, TNA, PRO.
12 AIR 29 183, TNA, PRO.
13 These field-accounts of going operational in the lorry are consistent with one another, but at variance with the accounts and photographs preserved in the RAF Radar Museum at Neatishead, themselves corroborated by Ministry of Defence’s 1950 volume
Radar in Raid Reporting. The latter volume notes that Light Warning Sets were ‘capable of erection in under one hour, housed in a tent on a collapsible metal framework’ (1950, 190). According to official sources, prior to going operational the Light Warning Set would be removed from the lorry to a tent, and the aerial removed from the roof of the lorry. Using the strength of the crew, the aerial system, consisting of two Yagi arrays, one mounted over the other, would be lifted on top of the tent. It seems likely that under the pressure to go operational in less than an hour in the Western Desert, not only was the radar equipment operated from inside the lorry, but the aerial was probably operated mechanically from the lorry roof. (See also Air Ministry 1950, 297 arguing why the equipment used in the tent could be transferred to ‘a lorry to increase its mobility’, though speed of going operational is not mentioned.)
14 ORB 213 Squadron, AIR 27 1316, TNA, PRO.
References
Commire, Anne (ed.) (1974) Something About the Author: Facts and Pictures about Contemporary Authors and Illustrators of Books for Young People, Vol. 6. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Book Tower.
Goudie, Andrew (2008) Wheels Across the Desert: Exploration of the Libyan Desert by Motorcar, 1916–1942. London: Silphium Books.
Grice, Frederick (1943) ‘Were Your Knees Brown?’, unpublished typescript.
Gumbridge, G. Q. (1968) A Short History of No 213 Squadron.
213squadronassociation.homestead.com/50anivbookletpages.html
Hastings, Max (2012) All Hell Let Loose: The World at War, 1939–1945. London: Harper Press.
Jefford, C. G. (2001 sec. ed.) RAF Squadrons: A Comprehensive Record of the Movement and Equipment of all RAF Squadrons and their Antecedents since 1912. Shrewsbury: Airlife Publishing.
Judge, J. W. B. (2009) Airfield Creation for the Western Desert Campaign.
wwwlaetusinpraesens.org/guests/jwbj/jwb1.htm
War's Nomads: A Mobile Radar Unit in Pursuit of Rommel during the Western Desert Campaign, 1942-3 Page 4
