RAF Chicksands The
Crown Commissioners bought the Chicksands estate on 15 April 1936, later renting it to Gerald Bagshawe, who lived there until it was requisitioned by the
Royal Navy. After nine months the RAF took over operations and established a
signal intelligence collection (SIGINT) unit there, known as a
Y Station. The site operated as a SIGINT collection site throughout the Second World War, intercepting
German traffic and passing the resulting material to the
Government Code and Cypher School at
Bletchley Park, where ciphers and codes of several
Axis countries were decrypted, most importantly the ciphers generated by the German
Enigma and
Lorenz machines.
United States Air Force Europe In 1950 the site was subleased to the
United States Air Force serving as the base of the 6940th Radio Squadron, responsible for continued communications and SIGINT operation through the
Cold War. The RAF continued to act as a host unit for the resident USAF units, including over time the 6950th United States Air Force Security Squadron, later becoming the 6950th Electronic Security Group and the 7274th Air Base Group. In 1962, a diameter
AN/FLR-9 Wullenweber antenna array was constructed at Chicksands to form part of the
Iron Horse HF direction finding network. This antenna array, dubbed the
Elephant Cage, was dismantled in 1996 when the USAF withdrew from the site, handing it back to the
British Armed Forces. During an air demonstration on 7 July 1979, Colonel Thomas Thompson piloting a
Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II crashed approximately north of the site and was killed.
British Army control In 1997, the Intelligence Corps assumed responsibility for the site, moving the Corps Headquarters from
Templer Barracks,
Ashford, Kent along with Intelligence Training.
Channel 4's Time Team visited the base in 2001 and excavated areas in front of and around the priory. One of the unusual finds was the remains of a 45-year old woman. The bones were studied and carbon-dated and almost four years after they were unearthed, the bones were re-buried by the military chaplain on the base in August 2005. The Time Team were unsure who the woman was, but they believed her to be a commoner rather than a member of the
Gilbertine Order. In 2003, the Double Agent
Alfredo 'Freddie' Scappaticci (codenamed 'Stakeknife') was debriefed at the base when his cover was blown. Scappaticci had been working for the IRA but informing on them to the Ministry of Defence, who were said to have been paying him £80,000 a year. In April 2004, the former US Elementary School site was sold off to
Mid-Bedfordshire Council to enable consolidation of two council offices in
Biggleswade and
Ampthill. The site was located at the extreme southern end of the base where it backs onto the crossroads on the
A507 road by
Campton village. The funds raised from this allowed the unit to build new accommodation blocks for officers and other ranks on the base. ==Ministry of Defence use==