Biggin Hill

[Clive Maier]

Pals may be interested in plans to create a Biggin Hill Heritage Centre that will tell the story of the famous RAF station in Kent. Everyone knows Biggin Hill from its role in the Battle of Britain but it goes back much further than that. In 1916, it saw the first ever wireless communication between the ground and an aircraft in flight. In 1918, Bristol fighters operated from the station.

There is more information on the project website.

[Guest Ian Bowbrick]

Excellent news - nice to see that Biggin on the Bump will not disappear. Its name alone conjures some great images in the mind. Got a nice piccie of an SE5 parked outside what was the main hangar on my wall at home.

Ian

[MartinWills]

At the risk of nit picking I am puzzled by the reference to ground to air wireless contact in 1916 at Biggin Hill, when the experimental establishment did not move there until 1917!

I am sure this refers to wireless telephony (speech) achieved in 1917 and not wireless telegraphy (morse) which had, I believe, happened earlier

The early history of Biggin Hill is not well documented, indeed the early activities of the Wireless Experimental Establishment which transferred there early in 1917 are still shrouded in some secrecy. I do fear that anything developed on site will tend to draw the focus firmly towards the WW2 air battles. None the less I wish them well and hope the Great War will not be forgotten.

The WEE was an RFC unit but had a number of REs seconded to it and was always the poor relation to the active squadrons at the other end of the airfield. Amongst those who served with the WEE were Peter Eckersley who went on to become the Chief Engineer to the emergent BBC in the early 1920s and Frank White, gassed and wounded at Loos who served with the territorials from 1923 and became Lt. Col commanding London Division Signals in WW2.

As poor relation to active units the WEE had an assortment of "otherwise unwanted" aircraft and the poor seconded REs were often crammed into the observers seat together with crude and bulky boxes of radio equipment with the only saving grace that the new "valves" helped keep them warm. The development work on thermionic valves was also a feature of the WEEs work and no doubt paved the way for commercial broadcasting.

The story of early wireless development at Joyce Green and Biggin Hill is surely deserving of proper research and a book.

For those wanting to know more about the early days at Biggin Hill there is Graham Wallace's Book "Biggin Hill" though this says relatively little about the WEE.

Regards,

Martin

[Clive Maier]

Martin,

You may well be right. I am not competent in this area and did no more than paraphrase the site. The main idea was to establish the WWI credentials of Biggin Hill. There are a few relevant references on Procat but none earlier than 1918.