Raf stoke holy cross (permission visit)

Mikeymutt · Apr 2, 2014

Raf stoke holy cross was a was a chain home system during World War Two..it consisted of two sites the first site consisted of four wooden masts.these were built in 1938 despite Neville chamberlains "peace in our time" speech in September of that year we were still gearing up war.the wooden ones were electro magnetically inert meaning no interference in the primitive radar..a little while later up the road the second site was constructed and consisted of four metal masts.the steel ones were the transmitting radars and the wooden ones were the receiving ones.there was a small camp a mile up the road and this housed mainly the WRaFS who did most of the work in our security of this country.during the war stoke holy cross was bombed in a German air raid 62 bombs were dropped on the village itself and 32 in neighbouring poringland..there is still a bullet hole in the pallaside fencing..there also remains some servicemens graffiti in one of the pillboxes..after the war the wooden ones were the first to be dismantled and were all gone by 1957,the demo men had never done anything like this before,they cut through the bottom and managed to put a hole. In the top and pull them down by a hand winch,these towers were 360 ft tall.the wood was sold to a local wood yard.and then the steel ones were dismantled and now all that remains is one mast.this can be seen ten miles away.on the 18th July 1942 a Blenheim bomber accidentally crashed into one of the steel masts killing all on board and completely destroying the mast,a new one was hurriedly put up.the owner showed me around and was living here during the war and remembers the bombing and the dismantling of the masts.

The original masts