Where RADAR was born
If you are driving on the A5 in the English Midlands, between Weedon and Towcester, look out for the turning west to the village of Litchborough. Drive 0.7km to a bend in the road, and note the rough-hewn stone on the right. It marks the point where history was made in the 1930s; it is a memorial to a proof of concept that quite possibly changed the outcome of World War 2.
RADAR – RAdio Detection And Ranging – was a phenomenon known to exist in the mid-1930s. In the field opposite the memorial, Robert (later Sir Robert) Watson-Watt and Arnold Wilkins (he later got an OBE) proved aircraft could be detected and tracked by radio. Their work was otherwise known as The Daventry Experiment, because the BBC’s Empire Service radio transmitter on nearby Daventry’s Borough Hill was a vital part of the day’s operation.
The memorial is an incised granite plaque attached to a rough hewn stone plinth. The aircraft used was a Handley Page Heyford bomber, flying at 6,000 feet, registration K6902 flown by Flight Lieutenant R. S. Blucke. An engraving of the Heyford bomber is below the inscription.
BIRTH OF RADAR MEMORIAL
ON 26th FEBRUARY 1935, IN THE FIELD OPPOSITE
ROBERT WATSON WATT AND
ARNOLD WILKINS
SHOWED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN BRITAIN THAT
AIRCRAFT COULD BE DETECTED BY BOUNCING
RADIO WAVES OFF THEM. BY 1939 THERE WERE
20 STATIONS TRACKING AIRCRAFT AT DISTANCES
UP TO MORE THAN 100 MILES. LATER KNOWN
AS RADAR, IT WAS THIS INVENTION, MORE
THAN ANY OTHER, THAT SAVED THE RAF
FROM DEFEAT IN THE 1940 BATTLE OF BRITAIN.
An adjacent notice-board explains how the radar system worked. The stone plinth was donated by a local quarry. The private company that succeeded the government research agency employing Wilkins at the time of the discovery, QinetiQ, donated £3,000 towards the memorial. Arnold Wilkins’ widow also contributed funds.