The Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) was the main United Kingdom research and development organisation for radio navigation, radar, infra-red detection for heat seeking missiles, and related work for the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II and the years that followed. It was regarded as "the most brilliant and successful of the English wartime research establishments [under] Rowe, who saw more of the English scientific choices between 1935 and 1945 than any single man." The name was changed to Radar Research Establishment in 1953, and again to the Royal Radar Establishment in 1957. This article covers the precursor organisations and the Telecommunications Research Establishment up to the time of the name change. The later work at the site is described in the separate article about RRE.
History TRE is best known for work on defensive and offensive radar. TRE also made substantial contributions to radio-navigation and to jamming enemy radio-navigation. Radar dominated the organisation's activities. The organisation was originally at Bawdsey, later moving to Dundee and then to the small village of Worth Matravers around 4 miles (6.4 km) from Swanage, where it was renamed TRE. It subsequently moved to Malvern and then amalgamated with other establishments to become the Royal Radar Establishment.
Bawdsey The development of radar in the United Kingdom was started by Sir Henry Tizard's Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defence in 1935. Experimental work was begun under the direction of Robert Watson-Watt at Orfordness near Ipswich. Looking for a suitable permanent location, one of the team members recalled an empty manor house a short distance south of Orfordness and the location became Bawdsey Research Station (BRS) in 1936. At that time, the team became known as the Air Ministry Experimental Station (AMES).
Dundee Bawdsey was only a short E-boat dash across the North Sea from the Netherlands, a fact that was not lost on the Air Ministry. Watson-Watt planned to move the teams to a safer location in the event of war, and approached the rector of his alma mater, University College at Dundee. It is not clear whose fault it was, but when the war opened in 1939 the AMES teams rushed to Dundee they found the rector was only dimly aware of the earlier conversation and nothing had been prepared. By this time the students had returned for the autumn term and consequently there was little room for the researchers. In addition to lacking room at the University, the teams working on aircraft interception (AI) radar were sent to RAF Scone, a small, formerly civilian airfield near Perth that was entirely unsuited to the scale of their work. Complaints by one of the AI team members worked their way up to higher levels of the Ministry, which led to a search for a more suitable location. Late in the year, the AI team was moved to RAF St Athan in Wales, but ultimately found the location to be only marginally better than Perth. The "Army Cell" that had formed to take advantage of the AMES research initially followed their moves. In 1941, they moved to join their colleagues of the Air Defence Experimental Establishment who had recently moved from RAF Biggin Hill to Christchurch, Dorset on the south coast of England. The merged group became the Air Defence Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE).
Worth Matravers By the early part of 1940, it was clear that the location in Dundee was unworkable. A new location was ultimately selected west of Worth Matravers on the south coast of England, a short distance from the ADRDE teams. The location had a number of advantages, including good views over the English Channel, not unlike the ones they had at Bawdsey. There was also no infrastructure at the site, which had to be hurriedly prepared. As there was no real village at the site, the location is often referred to as Swanage, a seaside resort town around 4 mi (6.4 km) to the east. The move took place in late May 1940 and further annoyance was created when the careful planning for the move was upset with the AI team arrived first. On arrival, what was AMES was renamed again as the Ministry of Aircraft Production Research Establishment (MAPRE). It was established as the central research group for Royal Air Force (RAF) uses of radar. The name was once again changed to the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) in November 1940.
Malvern In parallel with these technical developments, the Ministry of Home Security developed a plan, early in 1939, "to evacuate the critical functions of government out of London" if a threat of air raids developed. A site was purchased in Malvern for the Ministry itself. Although it was not developed, the location had become well known to defence officials. The Air Ministry acquired jurisdiction, and used the site for a Signals Training Establishment, housed in prefabricated one storey buildings. In May 1942, the Radar Research and Development Establishment (RRDE) was set up on the site, to develop truck mounted early warning radars. In the second week of February 1942, the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau escaped from Brest in the Channel Dash. They were undetected until well into the English Channel because German ground forces had gradually increased the jamming of British radar over a period of weeks. The British command had not realised this was happening. In the aftermath, the Chief of Combined Operations, Lord Louis Mountbatten, and the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, approved plans for a raid on the German radar station at Bruneval, near Le Havre. The landing party included D. H. Preist, of TRE. The Bruneval raid (code-named Operation Biting) captured a German Würzburg radar system along with a radar operator, which were retrieved and subsequently studied at the TRE. During the weeks that followed, the British authorities became concerned that the Germans would retaliate in kind. Accordingly, the TRE relocated from the Swanage site. The former Telecommunications Research Establishment moved to Malvern, taking up residence in the buildings of Malvern College, an independent boys' boarding school. At the end of the conflict, TRE moved from Malvern College, to HMS Duke, a Royal Navy training school.
Research and development
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