WHAT AERODROME QUIZ - Vol 1

So from August 1941, Exeter was not the Sector station controlling Bolt Head, Charlton Horethorn, Church Stanton, Harrowbeer plus the GCI stations at Exminster and Wrafton, or is this a case of certain AiX members (like Hollywood) rewriting history LOL. Hugoj-air is correct, the airfield is Exeter Bypass.

I looked at Exeter but couldn't match the location. Even if I had I wouldn't have known what it was called.
Well done Hugoj-air.

Stevo you are quite right, my mistake, trouble is that posts are posted too quick for me, by the time I have written mine in response to an earlier one, there are two or three more - I just cant keep up with you chaps.

Is it confusing cause it is not known who has won, or because Exeter is a Sector station? Read below:

After June 1940, Fighter Command was organised into four fighter groups, Nos. 10, 11, 12 and 13. For tactical control purposes each group was sub-divided geographically into sectors. Each sector contained a main fighter station and sector headquarters with its operations room and direction-finding stations linked to it. A sector station also controlled one or more satellite airfields containing either complete squadrons or flights based on them.

On 1 June 1940, 10 (Fighter) Group was formed while on 8 July it became operational. The geographical area of responsibility was for the fighter protection of South-West England – the area west of Southampton to just west of Oxford, and south of a line drawn from the latter point to just south of Aberystwyth. Initially this area was covered by only four large sectors – Middle Wallop, Filton (soon to be transferred to the new airfield at Colerne), St Eval (later replaced by Portreath) and Pembrey (later replaced by Fairwood Common). The areas covered by Middle Wallop and Filton stretched back from the south coast to the northern edge of the 10 Group area.

These areas very soon proved to be far too large and inflexible and on 15 December 1940, the Fighter Command ORB states that Exeter was unsatisfactory under the control of Filton/Colerne. Subsequently, on 19 December the Fighter Command file AIR 16/386 records that some of the (10 Group) sectors are too large. Also that 'the organisation of a new sector at Exeter, comprising that part of the Filton Sector south of a line running approximately east-west through Minehead to Highbridge, is being worked out'.

The first positive reference to the fact that the Exeter Sector had commenced to function is on 7 February 1941, in the Appendix to the 10 Group ORB, which means that it must have been formed at sometime between 19 December 1940 and 7 February 1941.

In the Fighter Command ORB (AIR 24/508) there is a list of important correspondence written by AOC in C (Sholto Douglas), and one December 1940 item concerned the location of the Gunnery Research Unit, which Fighter Command did not want at Exeter. The AOC states 'Two fighter squadrons are at Exeter and a third may be added. This means that the aerodrome is very overcrowded. Also Exeter has been made a sector station, controlling a sector of its own. For these reasons it would be advisable to move the GRU.'

If this is taken literally, it appears that the sector started to function before the end of the year. Although this presumably not impossible it seems more likely that the AOC in C was referring to something which was planned to happen – his point being that the station would have no room for lodger units such as the GRU.

Even in wartime it took time to set up all the necessary telephone/teleprinter lines and radio equipment required for a sector to function. Unless work was, in fact already under way when the need was first documented between the 15 and 19 December 1940, it seems rather more likely that the actual date that Exeter became a sector station, is sometime after the beginning of 1941.

An entry in the station ORB for 20 April 1941, records that the operations room (which had previously been temporally located within the camp buildings) has moved to Brockhill House, Broad Clyst. It is quite likely therefore, as it was common practice after 1940 to locate the sector operations room away from the sector airfield that sometime during April 1941 is the date that Exeter became a sector station.

On 2 July 1942 the change-over took place from the old operations room at Brockhill House to the new sector operations room at Poltimore Park. The new operations room became fully manned and operational at 12.30hrs, while the old one was relegated to Emergency Operations Room status and became unmanned and immobilised. This was to prevent its un-authorised use, but could easily be brought back on-line should the need arise. On 12 July a Royal visit to the station took place when HRH Duke of Kent (his second visit to the station) also had a guided tour of the new sector operations room.

So Mawganmad, what general RAF records are you talking about? You cannot get more general tha the Fighter Command ORB.