Chain Home Radar Station

Just outside the port of Dover lies the site of former RAF Swingate which was established in 1936 and was a site for Chain Home Radar transmitter and receiver masts. The site was the second of 32 sites to be built after the experimental site at Bawdsey in Essex.
Chain Home Radar was an important factor in the defeat of the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. The site was surveyed by the airship Graf Zeppelin 11 in 1938/9 and was viewed by Goering with binoculars from across the channel. This led to the site being bombed on 'Adlertag' on 12/13 Aug 1940 and on subsequent occasions.
The site also has an early Identification Friend or Foe installation and was also part of the Gee Radio navigation system that led to improved bombing results. In 1944 the station was fitted with cathode-ray direction finding equipment to detect V2 missile launchers under Operation Big Ben.

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Source

• Text: Sharky Ward
• Photos: Anthony (Sharky) Ward (1, 2), Dover Historian, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (3)