{{distinguish|Yankee Station}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}} {{short description|British signals intelligence collection sites during WW1 and WW2}} {{EngvarB|date=April 2016}} The '''"Y" service''' was a network of British [[signals intelligence]] collection sites, the '''Y-stations'''. The service was established during the First World War and used again during the Second World War.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://antiqueradios.com/chrs/journal/intelligence.html|title=Radio Intelligence Developments|website=antiqueradios.com}}{{Dead link|date=December 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }}</ref> The sites were operated by a range of agencies including the [[British Army|Army]], [[Royal Navy|Navy]] and [[Royal Air Force|RAF]], and the [[Foreign Office]] ([[MI6]] and [[MI5]]). The [[General Post Office]] and the [[Marconi Company]] provided some receiving stations, ashore and afloat. There were more than 600 receiving sets in use at Y-stations during the Second World War.{{sfn|Kenyon|2019|p=24}}
==Role== [[File:1943 Arkley View Front.jpg|thumb|Arkley View, 1943]] The "Y" name derived from Wireless Interception (WI).<ref>{{cite book |last=McKay |first=Sinclair |title=The Secret Listeners |date=2012 |publisher=Aurum Press Ltd |isbn=978-1-78131-079-3 |location=London, UK}}</ref> The stations tended to be one of two types, for intercepting the signals and for identifying where they were coming from. Sometimes both functions were operated at the same site, with the [[direction finding]] (D/F) hut being a few hundred metres from the main interception building to minimise interference. The sites collected radio traffic which was then either analysed locally or, if [[encryption|encrypted]], passed for processing initially to the [[British Admiralty|Admiralty]] [[Room 40]] in London and then during World War II to the [[Government Communications Headquarters|Government Code and Cypher School]] at [[Bletchley Park]] in Buckinghamshire.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=1440534|title=Teleprinter Building, Bletchley Park|publisher=Pastscape|access-date=13 October 2018}}</ref>
In the Second World War a large house called "Arkley View" on the outskirts of [[Chipping Barnet|Barnet]] (now part of the [[London Borough of Barnet]]) acted as a data collection centre, where traffic was collated and passed to Bletchley Park; it also housed a Y station.<ref>{{cite book |last = Pidgeon |first = Geoffrey |title = The Secret Wireless War: The Story of MI6 Communications 1939–1945 |publisher = UPSO |url = http://www.upso.co.uk/ |year = 2003 |isbn = 1-84375-252-2 |oclc = 56715513 |chapter = 15. Box 25: The RSS and Hanslope |pages = 103–118 |archive-date = 31 March 2014 |access-date = 12 January 2014 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140331062108/http://www.upso.co.uk/ |url-status = dead }}</ref> Much of the traffic intercepted by the Y stations was recorded by hand and sent to Bletchley by motorcycle couriers, and later by [[teleprinter]] over Post Office [[Landline|landlines]].<ref>Nicholls, J., (2000) ''England Needs You: The Story of Beaumanor Y Station World War II'' Cheam, published by Joan Nicholls</ref> Many [[amateur radio]] operators supported the work of the Y stations, being enrolled as "Voluntary Interceptors".<ref>{{cite journal |journal=[[Popular Communications]] |date=December 2013 |volume=32 |issue=4 |title=The Secret Listeners of 'Box 25, Barnet' |author=R.B. Sturtevant, AD7IL |pages=22–26 |issn=0733-3315 |publisher=CQ Communications, Inc}}</ref>
The term was also used for similar stations attached to the India outpost of the Intelligence Corps, the [[Wireless Experimental Centre]] (WEC) outside [[Delhi]].<ref>Aldrich, Richard James (2000), Intelligence and the War Against Japan: Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service, Cambridge University Press</ref>
==Direction-finding Y stations== Specially constructed Y stations undertook [[high-frequency direction finding]] (D/F) of wireless transmissions. This became particularly important in the [[Battle of the Atlantic]] where locating [[U-boats]] was vital. [[Admiral Dönitz]] told his commanders that they could not be located if they limited their wireless transmissions to under 30 seconds, but skilled D/F operators were able to locate the origin of their signals in as few as six seconds.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://gifttonature.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Listening-to-the-enemy-1.pdf|title=Listening to the enemy|publisher=Ventnor and District Local History Society|access-date=12 February 2024}}</ref>
The design of land-based D/F stations preferred by the [[Allies in World War II|Allies]] during the Second World War was the [[Adcock antenna|U-Adcock system]], where a small operators' hut was surrounded by four {{cvt|10|ft|m|adj=mid|-high}} vertical aerial poles, usually placed at the [[points of the compass]]. Aerial feeders ran underground, surfaced in the centre of the hut and were connected to a direction finding [[goniometer]] and a wireless receiver, that allowed the bearing of the signal source to be measured. In the UK some operators were located in an underground metal tank. These stations were usually in remote places, often in the middle of farmers' fields. Traces of Second World War D/F stations can be seen as circles in the fields surrounding the village of [[Goonhavern]] in Cornwall.<ref>[http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=hendra%20croft&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl The operators huts can still be seen in the centre of the circles].</ref>
==Y station sites in Britain== [[File:National HRO shortwave communications receiver.png| thumb|The ''[[National HRO]]'' communication receiver was extensively used by the [[Radio Security Service|RSS]] and Y service]] * [[Beachy Head]], Sussex * [[Beaumanor Hall]], near [[Loughborough]], Leicestershire (operated by the Army){{sfn|Kenyon|2019|p=24}} * [[Beeston Hill Y Station|Beeston Hill, Beeston Regis]], Norfolk * [[Bishop's Waltham]], Hampshire (operated by the Army)<ref name="HW50_82">{{cite web|url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATID=8444147&CATLN=6&Highlight=%2CBISHOPS%2CWALTHAM&accessmethod=0&Summary=True |title=The National Archives – Piece details HW 50/82 |access-date=2008-05-10}}</ref> * [[Brora Y Station|Brora]], [[Sutherland]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/276040/contribution/brora+radio+intercept+y+station+operations+building/FNL6094608358/?&z=8|title=Brora Intercept Y Station Operations Building|publisher=Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland|access-date=13 December 2014}}</ref> * [[RAF Canterbury]], Kent * [[Woodhead Hall|RAF Cheadle]], [[Cheadle, Staffordshire]] * [[RAF Chicksands]], Bedfordshire (operated by the RAF) * [[RAF Clophill]], Bedfordshire * [[Cromer]], Norfolk * Forest Moor, near [[Harrogate]] (operated by the Army) * G.P.O. Transatlantic Radiophone Station [[Kemback]], near [[Cupar]], Fife * [[Denmark Hill]], Camberwell (operated by the [[Metropolitan Police]] and [[General Post Office]] (GPO) for the Foreign Office) * Met Office [[Dunstable]], Bedfordshire * [[Felixstowe]], Suffolk * [[Gilnahirk]], Belfast<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/11/a8533811.shtml |title=Gilnahirk Y Station|access-date=2015-07-22 }}</ref> * [[Gorleston]], Norfolk * [[Hall Place]], Kent * [[Harpenden]], Hertfordshire (Army, No. 1 Special Wireless Group) * [[Hawklaw Y Station|Hawklaw]], Fife<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.buildingsatrisk.org.uk/details/907213|title=Hawklaw Intercept Y Listening Station|publisher=Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland|access-date=13 December 2014|archive-date=13 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141213165653/http://www.buildingsatrisk.org.uk/details/907213|url-status=dead}}</ref> * [[RAF Flowerdown|HMS Flowerdown]], [[Winchester]], Hampshire * [[HMS Forest Moor]], [[Harrogate]], Yorkshire<ref>{{cite news|title=HMS Forest Moor is Decommissioned|url=http://www.navynews.co.uk/articles/2003/0311/0003111701.asp|access-date=12 May 2014|newspaper=[[Navy News]]|date=17 November 2003|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110611051621/http://www.navynews.co.uk/articles/2003/0311/0003111701.asp|archive-date=11 June 2011}}</ref> * [[Kedleston Hall]], Derbyshire * [[RAF Kingsdown]], Hollywood Manor, [[West Kingsdown]], Kent * [[RAF Monks Risborough]], [[Monks Risborough]], Buckinghamshire * [[Knockholt]], Kent (run by the Foreign Office for non-Morse radiotelegraphy signals) * [[Markyate]], Hertfordshire (operated by the Army) * [[Newbold Revel]], RAF 'Y' Service Secret Intelligence and German Telephony Communications Base, Warwickshire.<ref>{{cite book|title=The King's Most Loyal Enemy Aliens: Germans Who Fought for Britain in the Second World War: Sidney Goldburg|first=Helen |last=Fry|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O8I7AwAAQBAJ&q=Newbold+Revel+Section+Y&pg=PT114|publisher=History Press|year=2007|isbn=978-0-7509-4700-8 |access-date=2015-07-22 }}</ref> * [[North Walsham]], Norfolk * [[Sandridge]], Hertfordshire (operated by the Foreign Office) * [[Saxmundham]], Suffolk * [[GCHQ Scarborough|Scarborough, Yorkshire]] (operated by the Royal Navy) * [[Shenley Brook End]] Milton Keynes (operated by the Army) * [[South Walsham]], Norfolk * [[Southwold]], Suffolk * [[Stockland Bristol]], near [[Bridgwater]], Somerset * [[Stockton-on-Tees]], Cleveland * HMS ''Ventnor'', [[Rew Down]], Isle of Wight * [[RAF Waddington]], Lincolnshire * [[Whitchurch, Shropshire]] in The Old Rectory, Claypit Street (operated by the Foreign Office)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://search.shropshirehistory.org.uk/collections/getrecord/CCS_MSA7242/|title=The Old Rectory, Claypit Street, Whitchurch|publisher=Exploring Shropshire's History|access-date=24 September 2018}}</ref> * Wick (operated by the RAF) * [[Higher Wincombe|Wincombe]], [[Donhead St Mary]], Wiltshire (operated by the GPO for the Foreign Office)<ref name="F14/428/25">{{cite report|url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/b09758b1-9f74-4775-997b-5ad2f67ff0fb |via=The National Archives|title=Government Wireless Station, Higher Wincombe Farm, Donhead St. Mary|id=F14/428/25 |year=1950}} Held at Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre</ref><ref name="HW 14/85">{{cite report|url=https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C5317602|publisher=Government Code and Cypher School: Directorate: Second World War Policy Papers|via=The National Archives| title=Report on E operations at BP|id=HW 14/85|first=William F.|last=Friedman |date=11–20 August 1943}}</ref> * [[Withernsea]], East Yorkshire from a pub, the St. Leonards, now known as Captain Williams<ref>{{cite web|url=https://bletchleypark.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/record_attachments/2425.pdf|title=Pat Davies, née Owtram |page=3|publisher=Bletchley Park Trust|access-date=19 July 2023}}</ref> * Woodcock Hill, [[Sandridge]], [[St Albans]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/19042350.tribute-d-day-veteran-len-davidge-died-winchester/|title=Tribute to D-Day veteran Len Davidge who died in Winchester|date=28 January 2021|newspaper=Hampshire Chronicle|access-date=15 January 2023}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Bibliography== {{refbegin}} * {{citation |last= Kenyon |first= David |author-link= David Kenyon |title= Bletchley Park and D-Day: The Untold Story of How the Battle for Normandy Was Won |date= 10 May 2019 |publisher= Yale University Press |isbn= 978-0-300-24357-4 }} * {{citation |last= McKay |first= Sinclair |title= Secret Listeners: How the Y Service Intercepted German Codes for Bletchley Park |date= 2012 |publisher= Aurum |isbn= 978-1-84513-763-2 }} * {{cite book |title=The Searchers: Radio Intercept in Two World Wars |last=Macksey |first=Kenneth |year=2003 |publisher=Cassell |location=London |isbn=0-304-36545-9}} {{refend}}
==External links== * [https://garatshay.org.uk/ 'Y' Services (Garats Hay) branch of the Royal British Legion] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20110720090831/http://www.leicestershire.gov.uk/index/education/community_activities/community_residential_services/beaumanorpark/beaumanor_park_y_station.htm Beaumanor Park], Leicestershire * [https://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/peoples_war/beds_secret_war.shtml#code Chicksands in WW2], BBC 3CR * [http://www.awm.gov.au/events/conference/2003/west.asp Bomber Command 'Y' Service] – 2003 conference, Australian War Memorial
[[Category:Cryptography organizations]] [[Category:Bletchley Park]] [[Category:Military history of Norfolk]] [[Category:Signals intelligence of World War I]] [[Category:Signals intelligence of World War II]] [[Category:Y service| ]]