Royal Air Force Hope Cove or more simply RAF Hope Cove is a former

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

. It is located about south west of

Salcombe Salcombe is a resort town in the South Hams district of Devon, south west England. The town is close to the mouth of the Kingsbridge Estuary, mostly built on the steep west side of the estuary. It lies within the South Devon Area of Outstand ...

on the south

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

coast,

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, co-located with the former

RAF Bolt Head Royal Air Force Bolt Head or more simply RAF Bolt Head is a former Royal Air Force satellite station south west of Salcombe on the south Devon coast, England from 1941 to 1945. During the Second World War it was used as a satellite for RAF Ex ...

airstrip, which was the RAF closed in 1945 but remains in service for

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations except for commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services for other ...

to this day. Hope Cove was originally built in 1941 to host an

AMES Type 7 The Air Ministry Experimental Station, AMES Type 7, also known as the Final GCI, was a ground-based radar system introduced during World War II by the Royal Air Force (RAF). The Type 7 was the first truly modern radar used by the Allies, providing ...

ground control interception (GCI) station. In the 1950s it joined the

ROTOR ROTOR was an elaborate air defence radar system built by the British Government in the early 1950s to counter possible attack by Soviet bombers. To get it operational as quickly as possible, it was initially made up primarily of WWII-era syst ...

network and was upgraded with an

AMES Type 80 The Air Ministry Experimental Station, AMES Type 80, sometimes known by its development rainbow code Green Garlic, was a powerful early-warning radar, early warning (EW) and ground-controlled interception (GCI) radar developed by the Telecommuni ...

radar. It was one of six Type 80 stations that featured a R6 bunker, which was semi-sunken. When the GCI role was moved to the new Master Radar Stations, the bunker was made redundant and taken over by the

Home Office The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...

as a regional seat of government (RSG) bunker. Plans to move this station to Norton Manor Camp were never carried out, and it remained in use as a RSG (although the name change on occasion) until 1994 with the ending of the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. The bunker is currently a Grade II Listed Building.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hope Cove Royal Air Force stations in Devon Royal Air Force stations of World War II in the United Kingdom Radar stations