20th October 2003.

Dear Valerie .....how wonderful to be able to find your site! 

My Grandmother was stationed at the top of the hill in High Salvington exactly 60 years ago! She was billeted in the large house just before the country lane, now called Mont Dore.  The path led to a brick building where they would be locked in and carry on their duties as radio operators bringing in the boys in the spitfires as they came home to RAF Tangmere.  She was there throughout the early part of the war.

 

We returned with her two weeks ago and it was such a moving experience.  We originally didn't know exactly where we were going or what we would find if anything. 

To our amazement she recalled the paths and the houses exactly and then as we pushed our way through a hedgerow we saw it!  The old brick building could not be seen, but a new transmitter stood in its position. It must have been the same place as it was the highest point around to get communications and radio traffic. 

Instead of a brick building that they were locked into - it was apparently a secret establishment, we saw a large mound and ascertained it was a covered bunker.  We realised that in the later part of the war it was probably covered over for defence against a blast impact from a V2, and it was also grassed over to provide camouflage from aerial reconnaissance flights.  It was the heart of the control operation for the fighter squadrons at RAF Tangmere.

 

She was upset not to find a plaque there as it is now owned by BT and British Water. 

I have read your site with great interest and although it mentions High Salvington and the fields in which the bunker was, perhaps you didn't know this place existed too!  It would be lovely to find out more for her, and hopefully tell you more too - she has so many stories and is such a funny and wonderful women (now 83). 

I would like to get an old photo of the area for her for xmas and wondered if you came across good sites.

 

Do let me know if we can help each other, it was lovely to read anyway, thank you.

 

Yours

 

Ian Farmer, Grandson of Hilda Gladys 'Bombie' Eustice - RT Operator High Salvington 1940 - 1943