SPOTTING BY RADAR

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 49, 27 August 1945, Page 4

SPOTTING BY RADAR

CLEARING OF THE CHANNEL Rec. 9 a.m. LONDON, August 26.

The invention of special radar equipment for recording the fall of shot cleared the English Channel of German shipping, says a Press Association correspondent, revealing for the first time some of Dover's wartime secrets. Radar completely changed the role of coastal batteries from a merely defensive to an offensive role. Guns are noAV able to engage anything within range, whatever the weather, and hoAvever dark it may be. Radar was used at Dover for the first time early in 1942 and scored its first success Avhen it picked up the Scharnhorst and Prinz Eugen' dashing northwards through the fog. Although the Scharnhorst Avas at a range of 29,000 yards and travelling at 30 knots, 9-inch guns Avere able to fire-thirty-three rounds during the brief period she Avas within range, and scored three hits. Fairly late in 1943, Mr. Churchill, looking out over the enemy-infested Channel from the cliffs of Dover, declared: "They must be cleared from the Channel." Soon afterwards the first "radar model for recording the fall of shot" was sent to DoA>_r. After, that, attempts by German shipping to slip along the coast Avere doomed, and enemy convoys were practically eliminated. When enemy technicians tried to leave Boulogne" after D Day, the gunners claimed ten of their craft. The correspondent says: "It is fascinating to watch the fall-of-shot detector in action. Each round is registered by a flash in the cathode ray tube. It can easily be determined if a shell is 200 yards short at a range of. 20,000 yards." By the end of the Avar, 16----inch guns had been installed at Dover in addition to 9-inch guns.