RAF Portreath
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Remote Radar Head Portreath or RRH Portreath is an air defence radar station operated by the
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 ...
. It has a coastal location at Nancekuke Common, approximately north east of the village of
Portreath Portreath ( or ) is a civil parishes in England, civil parish, village and fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village is about three miles (5 km) west-north-west of Redruth. The village extends along ...
in
Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...
, England. Its radar (housed in a fibre glass or ''golf ball'' protective dome) provides long-range coverage of the south
western approaches The Western Approaches is an approximately rectangular area of the Atlantic Ocean lying immediately to the west of Ireland and parts of Great Britain. Its north and south boundaries are defined by the corresponding extremities of Britain. The c ...
to the United Kingdom.


Second World War

Previously known as RAF Portreath, the station was built during 1940, opened in March 1941 and had a varied career during the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, initially as a
RAF Fighter Command RAF Fighter Command was one of the commands of the Royal Air Force. It was formed in 1936 to allow more specialised control of fighter aircraft. It operated throughout the Second World War, winning fame during the Battle of Britain in 1940. The ...
station, from October 1941 as a ferry stop-over for aircraft bound to/from
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and the
Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
, as a temporary stop-over for
United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
and
Royal Canadian Air Force The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; ) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environmental commands within the unified Can ...
units, and then as a
RAF Coastal Command RAF Coastal Command was a formation within the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was founded in 1936, when the RAF was restructured into Fighter, Bomber and Coastal commands and played an important role during the Second World War. Maritime Aviation ...
station. By the end of the war, it had run down and in May 1950 was handed back to the government by the RAF. The following squadrons were here at some point: Units:


Chemical weapons centre

The base reverted to its local name Nancekuke and became an outstation of Chemical Defence Establishment (CDE)
Porton Down Porton Down is a science and defence technology campus in Wiltshire, England, just north-east of the village of Porton, near Salisbury. It is home to two British government facilities: a site of the Ministry of Defence's Defence Science and ...
. Manufacture of the
nerve agent Nerve agents, sometimes also called nerve gases, are a class of organic chemistry, organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanisms by which nerves transfer messages to organs. The disruption is caused by the blocking of acetylcholinesterase (ACh ...
Sarin Sarin (NATO designation GB nerve_agent#G-series.html" ;"title="hort for nerve agent#G-series">G-series, "B" is an extremely toxic organophosphorus compound.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 ...
. Periodically, small amounts of VX were also produced at Nancekuke. Production of VX agent was intended mainly for laboratory test purposes, but also to validate plant designs and optimise chemical processes for potential mass-production. However, full-scale mass-production of VX agent never took place. In the late 1950s, the chemical weapons production plant at Nancekuke was mothballed, but was maintained through the 1960s and 1970s in a state whereby production of chemical weapons could easily re-commence if required. In 2000 it was reported that former workers at the Nancekuke base had died as a result of exposure to nerve gas, and the matter was raised in the Houses of Parliament. It was alleged by
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
that toxic materials had been dumped in nearby mineshafts. Works to cleanse the site began in 2003.


Further uses

Many of the CDE buildings were demolished in 1979–1980. From 1978 to 1981, some buildings on the site were used by Pattern Recognition Munitions for small arms ammunition development. The company also constructed a 100-yard firing range for ammunition testing. The RAF re-opened parts of the site as a manned radar station in October 1980, a Control and Reporting Post (CRP) for UK Air Surveillance. In 1986 an underground CRP was built as part of the new
UKADGE The Improved United Kingdom Air Defence Ground Environment, normally shortened to either UKADGE or IUKADGE, was the Royal Air Force's (RAF) ground-controlled interception system covering the British Isles during the 1990s. It consisted of a numbe ...
(United Kingdom Air Defence and Ground Environment) project. New mobile
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 ...
systems manufactured by
Marconi Electronic Systems Marconi Electronic Systems Limited (MES), or GEC-Marconi as it was until 1998, was the defence arm of General Electric Company (GEC). It was split off from GEC and bought by British Aerospace (BAe) on 30 November 1999 to form BAE Systems. GEC ...
, including an S723 Martello (RAF Type 91), and telecommunication installations were added during the mid-1980s. In the late 1990s, the installation became remote operation, and the primary radar was replaced with the
British Aerospace British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft manufacturer, aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer that was formed in 1977. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. ...
(BAe) Type 101. The radar now in use at Portreath is a Type 102 Air Defence Radar. During May 1995, ceased as an independent RAF station and became a satellite of RAF St Mawgan. As part of a major upgrade of RRH sites around the U.K. the MOD began a programme titled HYDRA in 2020 to install new state of the art communications buildings, radar towers and bespoke perimeter security. The surrounding area is occasionally used for
rallying Rallying is a wide-ranging form of motorsport with various competitive motoring elements such as speed tests (sometimes called "rally racing" in United States), navigation tests, or the ability to reach waypoints or a destination at a prescribed ...
. Although data is sent and used by the UK's Control and Reporting centres, Portreath's parent station was RAF St. Mawgan for administration.


See also

*
Chemical weapons and the United Kingdom Chemical weapons were widely used by the United Kingdom in World War I. The use of poison gas was suggested by Winston Churchill and others in Mesopotamia during the interwar period, and also considered in World War II, although it appears that ...
*
Improved United Kingdom Air Defence Ground Environment The Improved United Kingdom Air Defence Ground Environment, normally shortened to either UKADGE or IUKADGE, was the Royal Air Force's (RAF) ground-controlled interception system covering the British Isles during the 1990s. It consisted of a numbe ...
– UK air defence radar system in the UK between the 1990s and 2000s *
Linesman/Mediator Linesman/Mediator was a dual-purpose civil and military radar network in the United Kingdom between the 1960s and 1984. The military side (Linesman) was replaced by the Improved United Kingdom Air Defence Ground Environment (IUKADGE), while the ...
– UK air defence radar system in the UK between the 1960s and 1984 *
List of Royal Air Force stations This list of Royal Air Force stations is an overview of all current stations of the Royal Air Force (RAF) throughout the United Kingdom and overseas. This includes front-line and training airbases, support, administrative and training station ...
*
NATO Integrated Air Defense System The NATO Integrated Air Defense System (short: NATINADS) is a command and control network combining radars and other facilities spread throughout the NATO alliance's air defence forces. It formed in the mid-1950s and became operational in 1962 as ...


References


Citations


Bibliography

* * * * Smith, Graham (2000). ''Devon and Cornwall airfields in the Second World War''. Countryside Books, 288pp, .


External links


Subterranea Britannica – Portreath Reporting Post
{{DEFAULTSORT:Portreath Air defence radar stations Royal Air Force stations in Cornwall Military installations established in 1941 1940 establishments in England