- BACKGROUND TO THE WEB SITE -

Find out why a chance meeting between a local resident of Fife on the east coast of Scotland and a young university student researching early radar, indirectly led to the creation of this website.

 ~ Background ~

Combined Operations is one of the best kept secrets of WW2. Considering the enormity of its contribution to the war effort there was, and still is, little public awareness of this amazing and ubiquitous organisation. My interest was captured when, in the mid 1990s, my late father-in-law opened a Pandora's box of amazing events he was involved in while working under the Combined Operations Command in WW2.

He had been very secretive about his wartime service but, in 1991, a university student, researching early land based radar, visited the location of a WW2 radar station near Anstruther in Fife, Scotland. He chanced upon an elderly local man who knew little about the radar station but he did know someone who worked there in the early 40s. This was my father-in-law, John Glen, and the local man was a cousin of my father-in-law's wife! The student contacted John Glen for information and this was the start of a voyage to recall and record details of his war-time service.

At this time there was virtually no information about Combined Operations on the Internet and I set about writing a few web pages. What I had not anticipated was the extent of the interest in the subject and the support from veterans, their families, students and researchers, literally from around the world. From these modest beginnings the website has grown and the final chapters are as elusive as ever!

 ~ John Glen's Wartime Service ~

John Glen, was a radar technician on board Fighter Direction Tender (FDT) 217 which, together with FDT 216 and FDT 13, provided radar cover for allied aircraft during the D-day landings of June 1944. Before his posting to Combined Ops he worked on top secret prototype and early operational radar stations around the coast of Scotland.

He was in charge of a small team of five or six Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) volunteer servicemen and one or two British servicemen employed on radar and communications maintenance. Radar played a small but important role within the Combined Operations Command off the Normandy beaches.  However there was no information about Combined Operations on the Internet other than a medical procedure to perform more than one operation at a time on the same patient! With little more than a feeling that the Combined Operations story was worthy of an Internet presence, and with no sense of where it might lead, I started work on the website in the late Autumn of 2000 and published the first pages in the Spring of 2001.

 ~ Website Objectives ~

The website aims to;

•  preserve the memory of Combined Ops and the thousands of all nationalities who served,

•  provide a notice board for the posting of questions, comments, opinions and answers to questions,

•  provide a facility for authors, students and researchers to post questions and for visitors to answers them,

•  publish articles, stories, anecdotes, reminiscences, diary entries, poems photographs etc. sent in by visitors to the site or from our own resources,

•  provide links to other web sites specialising in the provision of relevant historical information, WW2 records and veterans' welfare.

 ~ Website Visits ~

The success of the website is due, in no short measure, to the large number of contributions, advice and comment received from visitors. These have added greatly to the quality and diversity of the content (see List of Members for information on the major contributors). For website statistics click here.

Thank you for your interest and for visiting the website.

Geoff Slee

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