Lookout

Fighter Control Commemorative Board Unveiled
By Anne Russell
A commemorative board has been unveiled
at the RAF School of Aerospace Battle
Management at RAF Boulmer.
Group Captain Tim Willbond, the initiator of the
honours board, explained the rationale behind
its creation.
“A Battle Honour is awarded by the sovereign to
a military unit for their achievements in specific
wars or operations of a military campaign and
the unit can emblazon the name of the battle
or operation on its colours or uniforms.
In general, Fighter Controllers have always been
embedded in other units or Force formations
such as happened during the First Gulf War. I
felt that the design of this campaign board was
the best way to capture the information in a
way that shows the Fighter Control Branch has
a special heritage. Hundreds were involved
in campaigns in every theatre of operations
from Burma, Crete, Malta and El Alamein to
Rhodesia, Iraq and Afghanistan. The board tells
a compelling and stimulating story and will
honour the contribution of our veterans and
engender an esprit de corps among Fighter
Control veterans and the ABMs of today, and
give ABM students a sense of identity with
the past.”
Group Captain Mark Coleman with Group Captain Tim Willbond, Group Captain Martyn Bettel, Air
Commodore Ginge Crayford (all ex-RAF Boulmer Station Commanders), Wing Commander John Booth,
Officer Commanding School of Aerospace Battle Management, and Ian Walkerdine, Stu McCullouch and
Jules Tilley from the Fighter Control Association.
Cracking The Code By
Senior Aircraftman D Thwaites
Personnel from Brizlee Wood Radar site visited Bletchley Park,
home of the World War Two code breakers.
During the Second World War Bletchley Park was the
headquarters for the Government’s Code and Cypher School;
deciphering the German Enigma codes and more recently
made famous in the film The Imitation Game, staring Benedict
Cumberbatch as Alan Turing, who worked at the site.
The park is now open to the public and in addition to the large
museum you can also look around some of the restored prefab
huts used by the various units stationed there during the war,
and also the mansion house in the centre of the grounds.
We learned how the German signals were intercepted, the
number of ways in which they were deciphered and how the
information gained from them were later used. We also learned
about Alan Turing and his team’s development of the Bombe
(the large electronic deciphering machine) and saw a working
rebuilt version of one. There’s also a large section dedicated to
the recent film, with props, sets and costumes on display.
The visit opened our eyes to the huge number of people
involved and effort made in the intelligence side of the Second
World War.
The Bombe
16 THE LOOKOUT