RAF Gatwick and its bombing decoy Q site

I found reference to a 26 aircraft raid between 0100 and 0400 on 05/06 November 1940 described as having no apparent target but bombing over the general area of Redhill, Gatwick and south. My point being that and bomb craters identified with the decoy boundaries may have existed before the decoy site was commissioned.

The RAF Form 540 is titled Operations Record Book and was a day-to-day diary kept by RAF Stations and Units.

It is likely that the PRO has the F540's for Gatwick.

Thanks Peter

I think AIR 28/297 and 298 (discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4098302) would be the relevant items?

I have a huge shopping list of Home Guard docs at the PRO I'd like to see and I suspect these are going to double the amount of files! Could anyone give me an indication of what these docs would look like?

Are we talking bound diaries by day/week or loose forms?

On a connected note, there was a substantial fuel store at Rowfant 3 miles from the Beehive. Obviously a very broad question but would this have been run / guarded by the RAF, or would the local HG been involved?

Quick update to say a trip to the PRO yielded some progress on my search.

The daily/weekly summary 540 covered the whole war and most of it was typed. The other file contained lots of detailed info but there was nothing for Mar 42 - Dec 44. The summary mentioned the decoy in early 42 so the lack of detailed files is annoying to say the least!

Might have a look at the RAF Redhill files though I saw a ref in the papers for Col. Turner's Section that the decoy for Redhill was closed / abandoned.

So the trip to Kew is definitely worth it.

MikeAnton wrote:

'On a connected note, there was a substantial fuel store at Rowfant 3 miles from the Beehive. Obviously a very broad question but would this have been run / guarded by the RAF, or would the local HG been involved?'

The Rowfant thread is here:

www.airfieldresearchgroup.org.uk/forum/f.../1666-rowfant#155677

Rowfant was a reserve aviation fuel depot in support of the RAF but was operated by a civil commercial company, probably Shell or BP. In my view it was important enough and in a vulnerable location to warrant defence, in which case,regular Army personnel would have been responsible but with LDV support.

Thanks Peter but unfortunately I don't have access to that thread.

I have however semi answered my own question as the HG papers I photographed have a lot of info on defending Rowfant. My connected research on the area is more land based but I would be interested in reading that thread. How can I get access?

On the attached diary page, 25th Btn appears to be also known as 2 SR Btn, which I'm taking to mean Southern Railway.