Isle of Purbeck during World War II

The areas of Worth Matravers and Langton Matravers in Purbeck were the scene of much pioneering work into the development of Radar during World War 2. Starting with the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) at Worth Matravers, the research expanded into Leeson House school at Langton Matravers and at Durlston (Swanage). The chalk hills at Ballard Down near Swanage were used for communications purposes, and old remains may still be seen. An underground exchange building near Knitson is still relatively intact, as are three underground halls at the top of the hill. Two of these are disused, but one was re-furbished for use with modern communications. Little remains of the extensive site at Worth, which once boasted many buildings and huts, several wooden and one steel lattice masts. For some years after the war part of the site was run as a GEE navigational station transmitting on 30.7 Mc/s.

Probably the best personal account of the war years at Worth are described in an excellent book by R.G.P. Batt. This is entitled "The Radar Army" and is published by Robert Hale

In addition to the radar work which later involved Swanage locations, a less well known activity was carried on. This involved R.W. Daw, who was during the WW2 period, the Chief Booking Clerk at Swanage railway station. He was also a keen radio listener and an excellent morse operator and some suspicious signals he heard in the early period of the war were brought to the attention of the police. As a result of this he was approached by the Radio Security Service and asked if he would care to do more of the same on an official footing! He readily agreed and was equipped with a Hallicrafters receiver. He never knew the final destination of the messages he received, but we now know that this was to be Bletchley Park and in all probability, the messages he supplied were "Enigma" coded text, most successfully de-crypted by the team at Bletchley.

The beaches, heaths and dunes of Studland were used for training purposes in the run-up to the D-day invasion. Training was carried out with live ammunition and the beaches were mined, making parts of the dunes a no-go area well after the war had long ended. I can remember mines being exploded as late as 1963. The area retains many memories of this period including a pill box in the small bay, and a strong concrete observation bunker on the cliff at the foot of the Manor House Hotel grounds. A small low-level bunker can also be located well back on the heath to the inland side of the Ferry Road. Studland also proudly boasted a flame defence system, whereby oil was piped into the sea and could then be ignited.
The rusting remains of some of the oil feed pipes may be found jutting out from the cliffs close to Harry Warren House. In the fortunate absence of an invasion, the system was never used in anger, but was well tested. This operation caused the sea life to be polluted and the fishing only started to recover around the late 50's.

For a good pictorial account of military remains from the WW2 period I would recommend the following book:
"Military Dorset Today", by Colin A. Pomeroy (ISBN 1-85794-077-6) published by the author.

This book is not only well researched, but has useful descriptions of the route to take in order to locate the many points of interest.