The Guildhall Project - Wartime Ops Room

With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 the Guildhall found itself set firmly in the front line. Despite the early development of RADAR technology the air defence of Britain was still largely reliant upon the information provided by lookout posts established by the Observer Corps. These units would visually identify aircraft and plot enemy movements, before passing the information on to regional Operations Rooms. Largely manned by civilian volunteers, these regional Operations Rooms gathered together all available information and passed it on to RAF Fighter Command, Anti-Aircraft Command and Civil Defence organisations. For the majority of Suffolk the Observer Corps Operations Centre was housed in the Guildhall at Bury St Edmunds.

The ‘Ops Room’ housed in the Guildhall was one of forty such centres established in the months leading up to the outbreak of hostilities. Situated in the former Council Chamber, the Ops Rooms monitored all air activity over central East Anglia and it was from this room that much of the air defence of Suffolk was co-ordinated. With each new ‘plot’ received, the controllers would mark the position of aircraft on large scale mapping tables, the calculated course, height and speed would then be passed on to alert fighters which could then be directed to intercept enemy bomber formations. During the dark months of the Battle of Britain the largest air battle in the history of Europe was laid out by local civilians on the tables in the Guildhall Ops Room.

Later in the war, as RADAR became more advanced, the Guildhall continued to play a major role in East Anglia’s air defence. The experimental RADAR station at Trimley Heath on the Suffolk coast was linked directly to the Guildhall Ops Room. This station was the first to develop and experiment with revolutionary Ground Intercept Radar (GIR). This system was far more accurate than standard RADAR information and allowed plotters at the Guildhall to accurately direct individual ‘intercept’ aircraft onto lone enemy targets approaching across the North Sea.

Of the forty Observer Corps Operations Rooms constructed at the beginning of the Second World War that at the Guildhall is the only one to survive intact. Still retaining its wartime layout the Ops Room at the Guildhall is a unique survival of Britain’s wartime heritage. It is the intention of the Guildhall Project to recreate exactly how this room would have looked during its operational life and to tell the story of the local people who worked there. Using many of the original fixtures and fittings, the project aims to bring to life the role of local civilians during one of Britain’s finest hours.

"It is important to note that at this time they (the Observer Corps) constituted the whole means of tracking enemy raids once they had crossed the coastline. Their work throughout was quite invaluable. Without it the air-raid warning systems could not have been operated and inland interceptions would rarely have been made."

Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding in his despatch upon the Battle of Britain