RAF Sopley was a World War II station, codenamed ''Starlight'', near the village of Sopley in

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

. The radar station was opened in December 1940. In 1959 it became an

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled air ...

radar station, and finally closed on 27 September 1974. Nearby Sopley Camp was built in the early 1950s as a domestic site for the radar station and is probably best known as the initial home of the

Vietnamese boat people Vietnamese boat people () were refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. This migration and humanitarian crisis was at its highest in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but continued well into the earl ...

, in 1979. The camp was sold in 1993 to a local partnership under the name Merryfield Park. Most of the old barracks site had been redeveloped as housing, but the two-storey building at the Sopley end has been converted into a museum and education centre by Friends of New Forest Airfields (FONFA). The museum opened in May 2016.

History

Sopley Camp - former military barracks - geograph

The site started out as an experimental

Ground Controlled Interception Ground-controlled interception (GCI) is an air defence tactic whereby one or more radar stations or other observational stations are linked to a command communications centre which guides interceptor aircraft to an airborne target. This tactic was ...

(GCI) radar station. Using systems developed in nearby Christchurch, a variety of lash-up systems were installed during 1940 and 1941. These were eventually put into production as the

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 ...

, which took over most aircraft direction and interception duties from about 1942 on. Sopley received its own Type 7 in 1943. It was a permanent fixture with rotating aerial array, transmitter equipment stored in an underground bunker, operations block, emergency backup power supply and guard hut. During the Second World War, the Sopley radar station worked with the Middle Wallop sector and RAF squadrons such as

125 125 may refer to: *125 (number), a natural number *AD 125, a year in the 2nd century AD *125 BC, a year in the 2nd century BC *125 (dinghy), a two person intermediate sailing dinghy *125 (New Jersey bus), a New Jersey Transit bus route *125 Liberatr ...

604 __NOTOC__ Year 604 ( DCIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 604 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe f ...

, and 406 (Canadian) squadrons. The station was responsible for over one hundred enemy aircraft shot down between 1941 and 1945. In 1943 an Advanced Landing Ground called RAF Winkton was constructed to the southeast of the radar station. RAF Winkton operated for less than a year and was officially closed in January 1945. In 1946 RAF Sopley was reclassified as a master GCI station and reserve Sector Operations Centre. As part of the UK's programme to update its air defences, Sopley underwent much modernisation during the 1950s including a new guardhouse providing access to a two-storey underground operations centre. It was also in the early 1950s that the domestic camp was built near Bransgore. In 1958 the School of Fighter Control moved in and from 1959 an Air Traffic Control Research Unit was established. The Fighter Control School disbanded in 1960 and the station was taken over by Air Traffic Control. RAF Sopley fulfilled a number of other roles before closing in September 1974. The two-level operations bunker was modernised in the 1970s when it was occupied by a Royal Signals unit from Signals Research and Development Establishment at Christchurch. The entire site transferred to the army soon after and for the duration 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 ...

was used by 2 Signals Brigade from the UK Land Forces at Wilton. The only surviving surface features of the site are the guardhouse, which has been refurbished, the generator building and a small blockhouse that doubles as an emergency exit for the bunker. The bunker too remains intact and is used by a private company for data storage.

References

External links

Subterranea Britannica website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sopley History of air traffic control Military air traffic control Royal Air Force stations in Hampshire