View of office from South.

Description View of office from South.

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

Catalogue Number SC 642954

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of D 21646 CN

Scope and Content Filter room, World War II Fighter Sector Headquarters, Inganess Road, Kirkwall, Mainland, Orkney Islands The hub of Orkney's intelligence gathering and wartime defences was the Fighter Sector Headquarters or Operations Block in Kirkwall which, in early 1944, was transferred to a purpose-built structure at the head of Inganess Road. Plotting and controlling aircraft movements, it was staffed mainly by Royal Air Force personnel but included facilities for all three services, including the Army's own gun operations room for the co-ordination of anti-aircraft defence throughout Orkney. One part of the main central area of the Fighter Sector Headquarters was dedicated to 'filtering' operations in which information from local radar stations was transmitted by landline to the filter room, shown here, and the data then converted to map positions on the plotting table. Sadly derelict, like the rest of the building, the exterior of the filter room still bears traces of wartime paintwork, including the outline of an adjacent stair. 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/642954

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap