… has proved to be apocryphal. During the darkest days of the blitz in 1940-2, goes the story, it was noticed that all Luftwaffe bombers raiding the Midlands and the north-west passed directly over Salisbury. This was because, being isolated and clearly visible, the cathedral was a useful navigational aid. Therefore it survived intact because it was too useful.

Well, the story’s wrong. The reason German raiders passed directly overhead was not because they could see the cathedral but because the targetting radio beams transmitted from the Cherbourg peninsula went across Salisbury. (All this emerged during this week’s fascinating talk by Norman C. Parker to the Boscombe Down branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society.) The suspected existence of the beams was eventually confirmed in 1940 by Dr R.V. Jones, using search-aircraft based at Boscombe Down. And the famous “beam-bending” technique used to divert raiders from their targets was operated from Beacon Hill, near Tidworth.

Not that the beams were actually “bent”. The German system used three signals. One edge-marker sent out a continuous stream of dots, the other edge a series of dashes. In the centre the two signals merged into a single continuous sound. What they did at Beacon Hill was to re-transmit the dashes beam without gaps, so that it became the steady sound and threw the raiders off-course.

The Germans knew about Beacon Hill and it was attacked by a daytime raider which dropped a stick of six bombs when approaching from Cholderton. The last one landed just 50 yards from the control room but fortunately didn’t explode. The crater left by its subsequent disposal can still be seen.

Mr Parker also described the dummy airfields erected around Salisbury to draw fire in the event of night attacks on Boscombe Down, Old Sarum and Middle Wallop. They were never needed, but had they been used life would have become very unpleasant for people in Odstock and Winterslow. I wonder if they knew that at the time?

However, the other story about the cathedral’s use as a wartime navigation point is true. On the night of June 5, 1944 the D-Day invasion airborne force assembled over Salisbury Plain before passing in a continuous stream across the city en route to Normandy.

The spire’s warning light was on, as were the navigation-lights on the tugs and gliders. They were so low that the engine-noise was deafening to those inside the packed cathedral. Many local people who were young at the time can still remember that night. It must have been quite something.

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