Y-stations

Not to be confused with Yankee Station.

Y-stations were British signals intelligence collection sites established during the First World War and used again during the Second World War. The sites were operated by a range of agencies including the Army, Navy and RAF plus the Foreign Office (MI6 and MI5), General Post Office and Marconi Company receiving stations ashore and afloat.

Background

The "Y" stations tended to be of two types, Interception and Direction Finding. Sometimes both functions were operated at the same site, with the direction finding (D/F) hut being a few hundred metres from the main interception building, because of the need to minimise interference. The sites collected radio traffic which was then either analysed locally or if encrypted, passed for processing initially to Admiralty Room 40 in London and during World War II to the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire.

File:1943 Arkley View Front.jpg

Arkley View 1943

In the Second World War a large house called "Arkley View" on the outskirts of Barnet (now part of the London Borough of Barnet) acted as a data collection centre, where traffic was collated and passed to Bletchley Park and it also acted as a Y station. Many amateur radio (ham) operators supported the work of the Y stations, being enrolled as "Voluntary Interceptors". Much of the traffic intercepted by the Y stations was recorded by hand and sent to Bletchley by motorcycle couriers and later by teleprinter, over post office land lines. The name derived from Wireless Interception (WI). The term was also used for similar stations attached to the India outpost of the Intelligence Corps, the Wireless Experimental Centre (WEC) outside Delhi.

Direction finding Y stations

File:1945 Lydd HF DF Station - Louis Varney G5RV second from left.jpg

Lydd HF Direction Finding Station 1945 Captain Louis Varney G5RV 2nd from left

Specially constructed Y stations undertook direction finding on wireless transmissions. This became particularly important in the Battle of the Atlantic where locating U-boats was vital. Admiral Dönitz told his commanders that they could not be located if they limited their wireless transmissions to under 30 seconds but skilled D/F operators were able to locate the origin of their signals in as few as six seconds.

The design of land-based D/F stations preferred by the Allies in World War II was the U-Adcock system, which consisted of a small, central operators' hut that was surrounded by four 10-metre-high (33 ft) vertical aerial poles, usually placed at the four compass points. Aerial feeders ran underground and came up in the centre of the hut and were connected to a direction finding goniometer and a wireless receiver, that allowed the bearing of the signal source to be measured. In the UK some operators were located in an underground metal tank. These stations were usually in remote places, often in the middle of farmers' fields. Traces of World War II D/F stations can be seen as circles in the fields surrounding the village of Goonhavern in Cornwall.

Y station sites in Britain

The National HRO communication receiver was extensively used by the RSS & Y service

• Beachy Head, Sussex
• Beaumanor Hall, near Loughborough, Leicestershire
• Beeston Hill, Beeston Regis, Norfolk
• Bishop's Waltham, Hampshire
• Brora, Sutherland
• RAF Canterbury, Kent
• RAF Cheadle, Cheadle, Staffordshire
• RAF Chicksands, Bedfordshire
• RAF Clophill, Bedfordshire
• Cromer, Norfolk
• G.P.O. Transatlantic Radiophone Station Kemback, near Cupar Fife
• Foreign Office Denmark Hill, Camberwell (Metropolitan Police)
• Met Office Dunstable, Bedfordshire
• Felixstowe, Suffolk
• Gilnahirk, Belfast
• Gorleston, Norfolk
• Hall Place, Kent
• Harpenden, Hertfordshire (Army, No. 1 Special Wireless Group)
• Hawklaw, Fife
• HMS Flowerdown, Winchester, Hampshire
• HMS Forest Moor, Harrogate, Yorkshire
• Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
• RAF Kingsdown, Hollywood Manor, West Kingsdown, Kent
• RAF Monks Risborough, Monks Risborough, Buckinghamshire
• Foreign Office Knockholt, Kent
• Army Markyate, Hertfordshire
• Newbold Revel, RAF 'Y' Service Secret Intelligence and German Telephony Communications Base, Warwickshire.
• North Walsham, Norfolk
• Foreign Office Sandridge, Hertfordshire
• Saxmundham, Suffolk
• Army Shenley Brook End Milton Keynes
• South Walsham, Norfolk
• Southwold, Suffolk
• Stockland Bristol Nr Bridgwater, Somerset
• Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland
• HMS Ventnor, Rew Down, Isle of Wight
• RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire

See also

• High frequency direction finding (Huff-Duff)

External links

• Garats HaY - Y Services
• Beaumanor Park - Leicestershire
• Bletchley Park - Official Website
• Chicksands in WW2 - BBC 3CR
• Bomber Command 'Y' - AWM