BBC - Lough Erne, Bismarck 1941 & Radio - UPDATE

Another BBC TV series Dig WW2 with Dan Snow is due soon. It will feature the Catalina flying boats from RAF Killadeas that searched for the Bismarck with radio help in May 1941.  

They found her and she was sunk next day. Then and for many years after, the story was that the finding was a matter of luck. Today, we know it was not luck but radio. Bismarck’s signals were monitored, sent for decoding, and used to fix her position by direction finding stations including Gilnahirk above Belfast.

Historian, George Busby researched the Gilnahirk station and radio amateurs here who were ‘voluntary interceptors’ secretly monitoring German CW traffic.  George has given interesting talks to amateur radio and history clubs and was stationed at RAF Castle Archdale when it closed in the 1950s.

Most VIs were around Belfast. However, George Noblett, EI9D monitored from a hill top on the Mayo coast. A daughter lives in Enniskillen and remembers the tabulated logs he prepared and sent to a London suburban address by ordinary letter post. An article in Echo Ireland describes the EI9D station in the 1930s.

Past RSGB President, Angus Annan MM1CCR on a recent visit to Fermanagh met LEARC's Michael Mi5MTC and Alan Gi6PYP. They took him to the present-day Lough Erne Yacht Club, which occupies the former RAF Killadeas site along the north shore of Gublusk Bay on Lower Lough Erne.

Angus stood on Gublusk shore looking over at a surviving WW2 Catalina, left after the Seaplane Festival. He stood near the slipway where on TV this February we may see Dan Snow stand to tell the story to camera of that historic Catalina sortie from that Lough Erne shore over 70 years ago.

There is more history here  RAF Killadeas WW2

Postscript - The Catalina has flown back to Paris - click here