Originally Posted by
POBJOY
I well remember the 'Simulated bomb target' at RAF Kenley, as is was very close to the officers mess and more importantly even closer to Kenleys original 'bungalow ops room' which had survived the war but was demolished in the 70's. The fact that it survived the 18th Aug low level Dornier raid in 1940 should have protected it from the latter day destruction by the RAF, as it was still in its original condition as a classic example of how we had to fight the BoB with very little in the way of 'protected' facilities. This was the ops room that was replaced by a former butchers shop in Caterham, and latterly by 'The Range ' country house near Coulsdon. An ops room main equipment requirement was to to have multiple telephone lines to accept all the incoming data from Fighter Command, radar plots, the observer corps, and the Squadrons operating. As a sector station Kenley had an important role yet the ops rooms were only a surface building with a simple bund around it. Worse than that they were not even dispersed away from the primary airfield facilities so as alluded the Kenley one was a very lucky survivor, and should have been preserved.
Small correction:
I well remember the 'Simulated bomb target' at RAF Kenley,
The RBSU was at Kenley with the simulated targets around London. I remember using Apsley House at Hyde Park Corner as an aiming point. Green Park and Hyde Park were well defined 'no show' areas and HPC was a good offset.