It is our intention to use the call sign mainly on Sunday the 8th May 2011 as the Royal Park http://www.royalparks.gov.uk/Bushy-Park.aspx has an open day called ‘Chestnut Sunday’. It is possible that we make use of the call sign on the Saturday before when placing the aerials etc,..
We have the Royal Parks to thank for allowing the station to be situated in Bushy Park and it is possible that these will be the first transmission from this location since WW2 and the base being operational.
During World War 1 large numbers of Canadian troops were stationed in the park. One of the large houses in the park, Upper Lodge, (previously a hunting lodge rebuilt around 1710 by the first Earl of Halifax) was used as the King’s Canadian Hospital.
In World War Two, part of Bushy Park became the site of a large US base called Camp Griffiss. In February and March 1944, General Eisenhower moved SHAEF Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces) to Bushy Park from where the initial planning stages of Operation Overlord, the Normandy invasion, took place.
Near the Teddington end of the park, not far from Chestnut Avenue, a USAAF Memorial Plaque commemorates these events. Only when the war was over did local people learn the vital role Bushy Park had played.
Our station GB2IKE is located near the memorial for Camp Griffis
From 1942, Bushy Park became the site of a large U.S. base called Camp Griffiss, headquarters to a number of the Allied departments. General Dwight Eisenhower was averse to working in the centre of London during the Second World War.
He decided instead to make Bushy Park the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) centre for planning Operation Overlord, the 1944 D-Day.
We will be on all of the ‘Amateur Frequencies and we are looking forward to speaking to as many operators from around the world as possible but we are hoping that we find someone who was based in the Park during WW2.