View from South West of reserve power station

Description View from South West of reserve power station

Date 12/8/1996

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number SC 642742

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of D 3503 CN

Scope and Content Reserve power house, World War II Chain Home radar station, Whale Head, Sanday, Orkney Islands From the outbreak of World War II in 1939 early warning of the movement of enemy aircraft was based on Chain Home systems of Radio Direction Finding (RDF) or radar, as it became known, a technique which had been developed in secret since 1935. Forming part of an East Coast Chain Home series which provided long-range detection, two stations were installed in Orkney, one at Netherbutton on East Mainland, about 9.6km south of Kirkwall, and another at Whale Head, close to the north-eastern tip of Sanday. The main features of the stations were the receiver blocks and transmitter blocks with their associated masts and generators for the electricity power supply. In order to remain operational in the event of attack or damage, most Chain Home stations, including the two Orkney sites, also had standby generators and held duplicate equipment in reserve installations which were described as buried or remote. Fuller coverage of Orkney was also provided by a small number of Chain Home Low and Chain Home Extra Low stations, which, as their names imply, were designed to detect low-flying aircraft operating below the range of the Chain Home system. Although this substantial concrete structure stands close to the transmitter and receiver blocks at Whale Head Chain Home radar station, probably for decoy reasons it housed the reserve, not the main, set of generators which supplied electricity to the station. It now stands denuded of most of its earth-banked, blast-proof protective cover which would have been made up of loose and unstable sand. At the heart of the Orkney archipelago, Scapa Flow was the main fleet anchorage for the Royal Navy during both World Wars. Its vital importance led to the creation of one of the most concentrated defence networks in Britain. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/642742

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap