Douvres
Map 1612OT N49 17.143 W000 24.160
This radar station came under the jurisdiction of the Luftwaffe, and over 200 officers and enlisted men served here The power for the radar and associated equipment came from diesel generators housed in underground bunkers. The earliest radar installed here was the Freya, which was completed in the autumn of 1940 and could only give a two dimensional picture: i.e. just the distance of ships or aircraft. In the case of shipping this was all that was needed, but for aircraft, one also needed to also know the altitude to be able to intercept. This development took some time and was available in late summer of 1941 and was called Wurzburg, and in its final form came in two sizes, the standard and the giant. The Chimney (Wassermann 3) was a later development of the Freya, but had the advantage of being able to give a three dimensional image. By D-day there were one Chimney, two Freyas and two Giant Wurzburg One of the latter is preserved here. All the radar's installed here were bombed before D-day, and were jammed during the Allied Landings. Apart from these radar stations, the Germans installed various radio guidance stations in Normandy, the Knickenbein and the later x & y beam based on the Cotentin Peninsula. After the war, the station was dismantled, and much of the equipment went to universities for research work including the making of the first radio telescope. Today the station is a museum dedicated to the development of radar.
