Our arrival was not the first industrial incursion, as we learned that in the sixteenth century, shortly after the dissolution of the monasteries, a clothing manufacturer set up shop in the nave of the Abbey which had been left standing. It prospered for many years based on the Cotswold sheep until with the decline of the importance of Northleach, at that time the chief market for the Cotswold wool, clothing manufacture in the Abbey ceased.
The peace of this idyllic backwater, so rudely disturbed by our arrival, was further shattered on the outbreak of the shooting and bombing war when Norway, Holland, Belgium, Denmark and France were invaded, and a number of evacuees descended on the town. By this time we had about 60 employees, and were beginning to function as a factory, but still had no news of what we were really intended to make.
Just after Dunkirk I was hastily summoned to a conference at Southend-on-Sea, again on a Saturday morning. Air Commodore Beedham, (by then promoted from Group Captain, and now Director of Radio Production at the Ministry of Aircraft Production) was in charge, with four or five Air Force officers and a few civilian boffins. Eric Cole, Frank Dawe (boss of the Instrument Company) John Wyborn and Tony Martin (Deputy Chief Engineer to the Company) and a few others I cannot recollect, completed the party.
We of course, already knew of the chain of radio aircraft detection stations round the coast - in fact one of them was almost visible from the factory behind Rochford. I was now informed that a version of this system (then called Radiolocation) was being developed for installation in night fighters, to locate raiding bombers in the dark and a further derivative was to be a fleet air arm version for locating surface ships and submarines at night and in bad visibility. The fighter version was called AI (for Air Interception) and the Fleet Air Arm model was named ASV (Air to Surface Vessel), and these names with their various mark numbers, persisted right through the war.
The VHF radio communications system was only partly ready and Leedham impressed on us that, when the air onslaught on Britain really started, the VHF system was literally all that stood between victory and defeat, as we would be so short of fighter aircraft, that only the ability to direct the planes by radio to the interception path determined by the coastal chain of detection stations could save us.
Editors note:
It has recently been discovered that Eric Cole was associated with a retired Lt Cdr R.N by the name of M.J.W. Ellingworth who was given command of 'Y' (listening) stations at Chatham and Beaumanor Park as a Col Royal Signals. As a result of this, A.R. Knipe (electromechanical senior engineer allegedly recruited from the Admiralty Wireless Naval Department Chatham) developed a special short wave band radio and later got a chap called George Hart to do modifications to the R1155 and the Embassy 10 waveband Radio for use by 'Y' stations who in the early days of the war faced a shortage until Hallicrafter radios became available.
Other firms were making the ground VHF transmitters and aircraft sets; our first job was to complete all the ground VHF receivers and associated telecommunication racks and gear for communication with the day fighters, and subsequently when the AI was ready, with the night fighters. I was to utilise the Malmesbury factory to its utmost on this VHF work pending the completion of the prototype tests on AI and ASV. I must admit that on realising the responsibility this placed on my shoulders, my legs almost turned to jelly.
I asked what dispositions I could make and what authority I would have. I was promised a letter signed by Winston Churchill - who had just become Prime Minister - which would open all doors, and was given a code word - BRS (Bawdsey Research Station - which was the experimental Radiolocation laboratory established by Watson Watt on the East Anglian Coast some time earlier) and told to buy, beg, borrow or steal if necessary, anything and anyone necessary for the successful prosecution of my task.
Editors note:
Churchill is known to have considered Radar as one of the country's two crown jewels (the other being Enigma) in the fight against Germany and he is known to have visited both Cowbridge and WDU covertly during night-time on quite a few occasions to keep himself appraised of latest developments, these visits often occurring with very little notice getting Mike Lipman and Tony Martin out of bed to give him a briefing (many of the meetings taking place in 'top lab' at WDU in Malmesbury High street).
The Ekco Laboratories at Southend were to be dispersed, and a unit established in Malmesbury under control of Tony Martin as Engineer in Chief, known as WDU (Western Development Unit) which would act as the development, design and drawing office for such equipment as we were to produce, working from "string and sealing-wax" or "bread-board" models passed to us by the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough and the TRE (Telecommunications Research Establishment) at Malvern which had been set up in the Malvern School premises.
The main Ekco factory at Southend which had employed 5,000 workers, was to be evacuated with all plant and personnel (except the plastic plant) to Aylesbury and Rutherglen, and the remaining laboratories established themselves in one of the Rothschild Mansions at Aston Clinton under the Chief Engineer, John Wyborn. Thus, at last, given my brief and the powers to pursue it I set off once more for Malmesbury.
