Big thanks to Monk for letting us tag along on his trip here. By chance, we were heading to Brighton from Manchester to spend a bit of time by the sea at the same time this popped up a couple of weeks ago. This sort of stuff is right up my alleyway (ooer) so I frantically sent some PMs and we set our alarms for the following morning. MOFO and I had checked this out about two years ago when we both lived in Brighton but we just couldn't fathom out a way in and it kind of slipped off the radar.
From what Monk was telling us, it was due to open as a museum but never made it due to an stubborn resident on the topside who was having none of it. So here it sits in the cliffs waiting for some nosy people to come by and give it the attention it deserves. I love underground stuff, it's my absolute favourite type of place to go and rummage around. We had a little detour into the dinosaur museum and sweet shop to kill some time before meeting the others and I only just managed to resist buying a new fluffy friend. We did come away with some sherbet lemons and a stick of nougat though.
Lovely to meet up with some new and old people again. More of this please
This is a little information stolen from Wevsky's report:
HMS FORWARD maintained a comprehensive maritime surveillance of everything that moved on, under or over the English Channel from Dungeness to Selsey Bill. Ten coastal radar stations between Fairlight and Bognor Regis reported directly to HMS FORWARD. All information was filtered and plotted and also relayed by teleprinter to similar plots at Dover and Portsmouth.
HMS FORWARD was heavily involved in the saga of the German battle cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneiseneau and Prinz Eugen on 11 February 1942, the Dieppe Raid of 19 August 1942, D-Day, and nightly MTB harassment raids and commando 'snoops' on the occupied French coast. Air/sea rescue was also coordinated from here.
And here are the photos. If you don't like stairs, bananas or fishy eyes, look away now.
From what Monk was telling us, it was due to open as a museum but never made it due to an stubborn resident on the topside who was having none of it. So here it sits in the cliffs waiting for some nosy people to come by and give it the attention it deserves. I love underground stuff, it's my absolute favourite type of place to go and rummage around. We had a little detour into the dinosaur museum and sweet shop to kill some time before meeting the others and I only just managed to resist buying a new fluffy friend. We did come away with some sherbet lemons and a stick of nougat though.
Lovely to meet up with some new and old people again. More of this please
This is a little information stolen from Wevsky's report:
HMS FORWARD maintained a comprehensive maritime surveillance of everything that moved on, under or over the English Channel from Dungeness to Selsey Bill. Ten coastal radar stations between Fairlight and Bognor Regis reported directly to HMS FORWARD. All information was filtered and plotted and also relayed by teleprinter to similar plots at Dover and Portsmouth.
HMS FORWARD was heavily involved in the saga of the German battle cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneiseneau and Prinz Eugen on 11 February 1942, the Dieppe Raid of 19 August 1942, D-Day, and nightly MTB harassment raids and commando 'snoops' on the occupied French coast. Air/sea rescue was also coordinated from here.
And here are the photos. If you don't like stairs, bananas or fishy eyes, look away now.
