15/09/2026
"It was top security and all very exciting..."
Today is Battle of Britain Day and so we celebrate RAF Watnall's increasingly important contribution to the battle...
RAF Watnall was still a bit of a building site on Sept 15th 1940 as the role of No. 12 Fighter Control HQ is gradually transferred from RAF Hucknall. The first of Watnall's secret underground bunkers is still "under construction" but there are WAAF girls on duty, guards on the gate and machine guns on the perimeter as early as August 1940 but where's the famous plotting table located at this time?
Local lass Mary Harrison was posted to RAF Watnall at this very time. She does not mention going underground straight away and in fact they used today's Watnall Women's Institute hall until the larger underground Operations Room was ready. Another early first hand account from WAAF girl Kathlyn Green mentions this building too describing it as "The Chapel" which it does indeed look like (see pic)...
"I completed my course and was accepted as a Clerk doing general duties. I soon found this to be rather boring, but plodded on. Then suddenly I was posted to Watnall near Nottingham and found myself working watches at a place called ‘The Chapel’. It turned out to be Bomber [actually Fighter] Command Operations 12 Group under Leigh Mallory. It was top security and all very exciting"
It's a testament to these people and their sense of duty that many never spoke of their wartime roles for decades afterwards and their stories only slowly began to emerge.
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Read Mary, Kathlyn and 18-year-old guard Jack Davidson's first hand accounts of life during Battle of Britain at RAF Watnall at the main Tales From Watnall Hall website...
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