RCAF Radar Personnel in WWII -North Atlantic Region-

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the light-keepers houses which were to be their living quarters were on another ledge some 400 feet
higher! The houses having been reached, Sgt. Moore could see, at the top of yet another steep rise,
“.. .a Yagi array sticking up from the top of a small hut surrounded by an earth bomb blast wall . .
.” - his assigned radar station!
The ASV gear found in the little hut presented an immediate problem - none of his radar mechanics
had ever had even theoretical instruction on ‘airborne’ radar gear, and certainly no experience.
However, resort to secret documents and considerable ‘trial and error’ eventually got the gear to top
performance. Nolsoy radar routinely plotted local shipping and sometimes enemy aircraft - usually
‘Weather Willies.’ One ‘shipping’ plot, however, remained unidentified for some time. A ‘visual’
by Nolsoy’s personnel confirmed that the target was in fact a U-boat; quick reaction by a Norwegian
gun-boat and a British corvette resulted in the German sub being “ . . . blown out of the
water . . ..” It was ‘thumbs - up’ for the Nolsoy radar crew!
Actually, the major enemy at Nolsoy (and at the other radar units in the Faroes) was WIND, which
frequently made it necessary to ‘lash’ the Yagi array for protracted periods, with consequent serious
loss of radar coverage. However, during set-up trials on some new gear, plots on aircraft were
observed despite the fact that the antennae was inside a wooden building. Sgt. Moore proposed that
a comprehensive trial be done near the RAF’s flying-boat base at nearby Vagar lake; sheets of
plexiglass known to be held in Vagar Stores would be mounted on wooden frames to form a rigid
‘wind-shield’ around the Yagi aerial array. Authorities approved, and an entry in Moore’s diary,
dated 18 Aug. 1943, reads “ . . .windscreen up, and gear going as good as ever . . .” Formal trials,
using aircraft of known size as targets, indicated ‘normal performance.’ The plexiglass ‘windshield’
appeared not to be interfering with the radar beam, and it did enable normal antenna rotation despite
high winds. Eureka!: Nolsoy had invented the Radome! (the event was later dubbed, somewhat
unkindly, ‘Faroe Madness’!). Sgt. Moore was then directed to do similar ‘radome’ installations at
other sites before returning to the UK and Canada.
Hal Cairns memoirs contain references to two other RCAF radar men who served in the Faroes:
Craig Knudsen of Toronto, who served on the Naval radar at Eide, and Peter Moon (his Faroe site
and home town not recorded).
Shetlands :
The vulnerability of Scapa Flow, particularly after German forces gained control of the entire
western coast of Norway, caused the Royal Navy to extend the coverage provided by the two
Orkney radar stations (previously mentioned) by putting one radar unit on Fair Isle midway between
Orkneys and Shetlands and two on the Shetlands, using three CHL radars borrowed from the RAF.
A shortage of Naval radar technicians, or lack of experience on CHL gear, (it is not clear which
applied) led to the Navy asking for RAF radar mechanics; this request resulted in several RCAF
radar men doing service on the three Naval stations mentioned above.
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