E.K.Cole Southend-on-Sea & Malmesbury 1939-71

WW2 Secret Radar and the Shadow Factory
Collecting and preserving the history of EKCO Electronics / Avionics 1939-1971
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Dave Smith – Reminisces

I worked at EKCO Southend from 1957 to 61 in the R&D labs (the white curved cornered one at Priory Park) and have fond memories of the scanner hut on the top of our labs and spent many happy hours in there. Also on the airfield at Southend with the old AVRO 'Annie' Anson that was our test bed.

My department was headed by Peter Harvey but my immediate boss was Eric Fielder, a super guy who didn't exactly control us but sort of directed us, if that was possible.

As you entered our lab, mounted on the wall was a small wooden frame surrounding a pair of blue velvet curtains and gold tassels as seen on most commemorative plaques. These curtains were always closed, but if a visitor had the temerity to open them, they were confronted by a photograph of E. K. Cole framed in a plastic toilet seat (Courtesy of the plastics division) under which was written "OUR FOUNDER" We also had a most ornate electric kettle fitted with a pair of eagle's wings! Wonderful place to work, if a little eccentric!

The names of the colleagues that I can put names to are:

  • Norman Diver
  • Bernard Hutchins
  • Bernard 'Johnnie' Walker
  • Jack Spratt
  • Alan Acres
  • Clive Brown
  • Bob Salmon
  • Dan Brennan
  • Peter Bliss
  • Ken Crispin

There are more but alas I can't remember their names!

The mathematician was Max Callendar (Of 'Callendar's Steam Tables' fame) who had a body thermostat problem and lived in his office in sweater and overcoat, heating turned on full, all year.

Oh yes and the most important person was the tea trolley girl called Hettie.

Johnnie Wallace, Bill Clements, Alan Tuffin, et al were engineers working in adjacent labs.

Before joining EKCO I served for my NS in the Royal Navy air-sea rescue helicopter squadron at Lee-on-Solent and our VHF radios were TR 1934, TR1935 and TR1936, all four channel crystal-controlled sets and TR 1520 a ten channel covering the whole band.

When I joined EKCO I found I was in the lab that had designed them but there was nobody remaining from that team. Within weeks, a problem occurred with the RAF using these sets and my baptism of fire was to be sent to RAF Cranwell to sort it out.

I arrived at the railway station together with a whole herd (I choose my words) of new recruits. Outside the station was a fierce NCO who had a grudge against everybody and he proceeded to bellow at these new lads and herd them towards their transport, sort of cattle-trucks.

As I didn't respond to his shouting he viewed me with suspicion and as he was obviously one short he marched purposefully towards me. At that moment a large RAF staff car swept into the station yard, pulled up beside me and the staff driver leapt out smartly to open the door and help me in. I looked back at this bewildered NCO who had stopped in mid stride and was contemplating just how close he had come to death! He had no idea who I was (indeed neither did I) but a staff car obviously made a huge impression on him.

The RAF thought I was some whiz engineer from the designers and I was treated royally. Fortunately the problem turned out to be straightforward and I returned home to triumph, my new job at EKCO secured.

I have never seen any of that equipment from that day on. It was affectionately known at the "goinge goinge wheeee" machine on account of the noise it made when changing channels. It had a rotary transformer that doubled as motor to drive the crystal turret. The "wheee" was the 1K tuning freq. heard for one second.

The Radar Equipment being worked on at EKCO at that time was a manual GCA unit designed for small mobile airfields.

It was mounted in a MONAB (sort of four wheeled towable chicken shed) It resembled a tall filing cabinet mounted on a central spindle so that it could rotate 360 deg., controlled from a pair of twist-grip handles mounted one each side, similar to a submarine periscope.

Rotating the whole equipment gave azimuth and twisting the handles controlled the elevation of the dish attached to the equipment spindle on the roof. Display was "A" type with a 6-inch CRT in front of the operator's eyes. Range was displayed by an engraved graticule (and I think there were range markers too).

The method of use consisted of the operator rotating the scanner round 360 deg. looking for a return 'blip' on the screen which, if located would be maximised by dish elevation control. Once the range and dish angle was identified, charts were consulted that would give altitude of the target. If a fixed radar location could be determined, cams were cut on both elevation and direction and limit switches fitted.

Of course, if the equipment was mounted right on the end of the runway, no cams were required but this was a very unhealthy place to be as the first successful talk down would take the dish away!

This equipment was delivered to us for the inclusion of a VHF direction finding and communication set so that the operator could talk directly with the aircraft.

This set had a rotating Adcock aerial (about four revs per sec) and a second CRT was added above the "A" presentation which was a PPI with suppressed brilliance (a bit like me really!) so that an aircraft calling on the approach frequency would appear as an illuminated line on the screen in the direction of the transmission. This could be switched from QTE to QDM and gave the operator the exact bearing for him to turn the radar for location and the precise direction for the aircraft to fly to the base.

I took one of these to the 1960 Farnborough Air Show to demonstrate its abilities. Several days into the show we were visited by three senior American military personnel, one from the USAF, one from US Army Air force and one from US Navy and they were obviously not impressed by the simplicity and basic design of the kit and were loudly verbal about it (I think "Mickey Mouse" was mentioned!).

Nevertheless, they asked me to show them how it worked, now each day at the show, a Coastal Command Shackleton took off from the airfield for a 24 hour patrol and this had become airborne about fifteen minutes earlier to great acclaim from the air show commentator.


Coastal Command Shackleton - Photograph by Dave Smith

Now it just so happened that I knew that the previous day's flight was always stacked about twenty miles downwind awaiting clearance to make it's landing as soon as the current flight was airborne so I did a slow sweep of the sector and sure enough, at twenty miles was a large 'blip'.

I proceeded to show them how the 'blip' was maximised and how range and altitude was achieved but they were clearly not impressed. So I then explained that the character of the 'blip' told me a lot about the nature of the aircraft. This got their attention. I looked carefully and said "First of all this is a four-engined, propeller driven aircraft" Now I had their complete attention.

As the range of the aircraft closed I gave a clear description of the aircraft I had seen take off the day before and as it entered finals, they stepped outside to see the exact aircraft I had described land and taxi away.

A very subdued trio came in again and looked in awe at this now state of the art radar identifier and took away all the info they could, after thanking me profusely and shaking me by the hand. I often wonder if they went away to describe this miracle radar that the 'Limeys' had to their appropriation departments.

Editors note:

Circa 1960, the EKCO film unit recorded the visit to Southend Airport of the Mayor of Coventry and a delegation to view the Airport equipment described above. This copy of the film was rescued from a rubbish bin when the works closed down in 1971 and remained on a garage shelf for the best part of 25 years before being converted to VHS and more recently to DVD. The film can be viewed by clicking here.

This GCA equipment at Southend Airport was in constant use up until the early 1980's whenever there was poor visibility as well as for crew training. It was phased out with the introduction of ILS. It was however retained as a back-up and was certainly used into the early 1990's It did give a very accurate talk-down but it did need an experienced operator.

Ted O'Flynn was one of the key designers of the GCA and D/F equipment described here. His memories can be accessed here.

Dave Smith Photographs








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