Defending the Realm - The Electronic Warfare Battle on Culver Cliff during WW2
During most of the Second World War the Isle of Wight was essentially a closed military camp supporting over 30 anti-aircraft batteries to protect Southampton and Portsmouth dockyards and an arsenal of coastal firepower to defend the Solent and the Island from Invasion.
It was a perilous time when the fate of the nation hung in the balance and the Isle of Wight was the new front line. Four hundred years after the French invasion of 1545 the battle hardened German forces had plans in place to conquer the Island in less than 72 hours.
After many years of detailed research Tim Wander has built up a fascinating picture of the varied technologies, buildings and systems - some of which have now all been forgotten - that were rushed into operation to protect the Island. From miles of undersea anti-submarine cables stretched out to the NAB tower and between the Solent Sea Forts, through to remote controlled minefields, nets, barbed wires, miles of anti-landing scaffolding barriers, mine fields, prototype radars, secret wireless stations, hydrophones and even beach flame barrages and perhaps poison gas. Each had their part to play in a vital integrated defence network that was assembled in haste after the disastrous retreat from Dunkirk.
Terrified of a Bruneval Type commando raid against the experimental radar installations on Bembridge Fort and the huge headland wireless station which would not only control D-Day but also was a vital “Y station”, intercepting messages for decoding at Bletchley Park, Culver Cliff became one of the most fortified parts of the South coast.
It bristled with guns and defences of every type, was staffed by over 300 men and women from all three services plus the Home Guard and radar engineers.
While barrage balloon floated over head for a few hours the very fate of the nation rested on young RAF engineers as they struggled to construct a temporary radar station rushed to the Island from London to mimic the destroyed Chain Home radar base at Ventnor. Their actions fooled General Wolfgang Martini, responsible for the development of the advanced German radar technology systems to convince Hermann Göring, Commander of the Luftwaffe to stop attacking British radar installations - a decision that crucially changed the course of the war.
The main 9.2 inch Culver Cliff and Nodes Point gun batteries protected the Solent entrances and the now lost Redcliff and Yaverland Forts provided a curtain of searchlights and weaponry to protect the high risk invasion beaches of Sandown and Shanklin below. By 1943 this protective shield made the Bay the obvious choice to install the fuel pumping stations for the ambitious engineering project that was codenamed PLUTO, the Pipeline Under The Ocean - designed to support the D-Day invasion.
