The Battle of the Knickerbine Beams
(Radio Beams used by the Luftwaffer to guide their night bombers to targets in
England during the Second World War)
The following are notes taken from a talk on Professor R V Jones (a member of
British Scientific Intelligence during WW2) given to the Charley Heritage Group by
one of our members, Mr Michael Froggatt.
The main sources of his research for the talk were the book, Most Secret War by R V
Jones and published by Hamish Hamilton (ISBN 0 241 89746 7) and the BBC TV
programme “The Secret War” (now on video) in which R V Jones spoke about his
wartime work that included the discovery and the “bending” of the Knickerbine
Radio Beams.
“The Beam Bender Station that was situated within the Parish of Charley near to St
Josephs has significance in the Knickerbine Beams being rendered ineffective at a
very crucial point in time in WW2, not least of which were the prevention of the
bombing of Derby and the Rolls Royce aircraft engine factories and the Ruddington
ordinance factories. These targets had been on the Luftwaffer target list from the
earliest days of the war.
R V Jones’s efforts in proving the existence and detecting the beams along with his
other wartime projects saved many thousands of lives by preventing the Nazis
inflicting their planed complete destruction of our towns and cities.
Winston Churchill was obviously the person leading the campaign against the beams,
but when you read R V Jones’s account of his part in this, you realize that his,
fortitude, clever deductions, natural persuasion and knowledge, helped by other
people around him and in other departments, was crucial. This enabled many correct
decisions to be made and some lucky events to take place without which our defence
against this Nazi campaign would not been as anywhere near effective or timely.
In his book R V Jones also takes the time to point out the invaluable part that Winston
Churchill played in the backing he gave and the crucial way he pulled everyone
together into a determined team to stand up against the almost overwhelming odds
against which we were fighting.
It is interesting to note that it is a good job that R V Jones stood up to the adverse and
outdated opinions of some of his superiors, because if he had not, we would at best
been many months behind in our grasp of the situation that we were in and at worst
would have lost the War. This did not only applied to the Knickerbine Beams but
also to his other projects relating to Radar, the V1 and V2 terror weapons which many
of our so called experts said could not exist.
I do not think he was given the credit he so richly disserved; unfortunately this
attitude, held by the Government, also applies to the other people and fails to
appreciate their efforts that literally saved us from defeat i.e. Hue Dowding, Alex
Parks, “Bomber” Harris, Barnes Wallis, R V Mitchell, Sidney Camm, Montgomery, R
A Watson Watt and many more.
On reading R V Jones’s book several things struck me, that by, destiny, good fortune,
luck, or what ever you attribute it to, even from the beginning of WW2 we always
seemed to have the right people in the right place at the right time. Also that
decisions that in the first place had no indication as to which would be the most
preferable, were taken in such a way, as to have had the most far reaching benefit and
fortuitous outcome for us in the defence and fight against the Nazis in the war.
Truly R V Jones was the right man, in the right place, at the right time!”
During his talk, Michael also explained how the beams were discovered, operated and
how they were made ineffective by strong radio signals transmitted from our “Beam
Bender” and similar stations at other locations in England.