Telecommunications Research Establishment
The development of radar in the United Kingdom was started by Sir Henry Tizard's Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defence in 1935.
Watson-Watt planned to move the teams to a safer location in the event of war, and approached the rector of his alma mater, University College at Dundee.
It is not clear whose fault it was, but when the war opened in 1939 the AMES teams rushed to Dundee they found the rector was only dimly aware of the earlier conversation and nothing had been prepared.
Late in the year, the AI team was moved to RAF St Athan in Wales, but ultimately found the location to be only marginally better than Perth.
A new location was ultimately selected west of Worth Matravers on the south coast of England, a short distance from the ADRDE teams.
They were undetected until well into the English Channel because German ground forces had gradually increased the jamming of British radar over a period of weeks.
In the aftermath, Lord Mountbatten and Winston Churchill approved plans for a raid on the German radar station at Bruneval, near Le Havre.
When intelligence reported the arrival of a German paratroop battalion across the Channel in May, the staff of TRE pulled out of the Swanage site in a period of hours.
The move, which was carried out in great urgency, is described in detail by Reginald Jones in his book Most Secret War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939-1945.
[3] At the end of the war TRE moved from Malvern College, to HMS Duke, a Royal Navy training school,[4] about a mile away in St. Andrews Road adjacent to the area of Barnards Green.
R. J. Dippy devised the GEE (also called AMES Type 7000) radio navigation system at TRE, where it was developed into a powerful instrument for increasing the accuracy of bombing raids.
However, enclosed in its own pressurised container, (to prevent arcing of the high voltages inside), it was large and at 600 lb took up the entirety of the bomb bay of the Boeing Fortresses used by No.
The first tests had been carried out as early as 1936–7 using a Handley Page Heyford and later an Avro Anson at the initial suggestion of Henry Tizard then Chairman of the Aeronautical Research Committee.
Initial aircraft used operationally were Bristol Blenheims converted to fighters with belly gun packs, followed by a brief usage of the AI radar-equipped Turbinlite Douglas Havoc paired with Hawker Hurricanes, but later the Bristol Beaufighter was chosen, followed by the de Havilland Mosquito which later became the standard RAF night fighter for the remainder of the war.
ASV-equipped aircraft such as the Wellington, Sunderland, Catalina and Liberator, made a substantial contribution to winning the Battle of the Atlantic for the Allies.
The Oboe blind bombing system was designed and developed by Frank Jones at TRE in collaboration with Alec Reeves at the Royal Aircraft Establishment.
The Mosquito was chosen because the transponder device mounted in the airplane was not large, and its use required the aircraft to fly for 10 minutes on a straight and level course.
It was also fitted to the post-war Vickers Valiant, Avro Vulcan, Handley Page Victor, and bomber versions of the English Electric Canberra.
Known by the codename 'Village Inn', the AGLT was installed in a number of Lancasters and Halifaxes and used operationally during the war, and was also fitted on some post-war Avro Lincolns.
In July 2000 it was split into two entities comprising the private sector company QinetiQ, and the wholly government owned Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl).
