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2 historic sites rolled into 1. Very easy terrain, although cache is hidden about 2 meters up a pretty steep slope from the path and there are a few nettles about, easily reached by the able bodied. Wheelchair users and buggies/prams will get very close but wheels may get muddy after bad weather. Follow signs to Wormit Boating Club and park up. Don't drive past the cache up the hill heading East unless you have a 4x4 and don't mind getting your paintwork scratched. Cache is a small Klip Lok tub.
The flying Boats
RAF Woodhaven opened in February 1942 as the base for 1477 Flight, Royal Norwegian Air Force, and their Catalina flying boats would become a familiar sight on the Tay for the next three years. The Norwegians, like their compatriots crewing submarines operating from Dundee, had all escaped from occupied Norway, many of them making hazardous passages across the North Sea in small boats so they could take the fight back to the enemy. Not for nothing did these highly motivated patriots adopt the squadron motto For Konge, Fedreland og flaggets heder (For King, country and the honour of the flag).
1477 Flight was absorbed into a new, much larger unit, 333 Squadron in May 1943 with one flight continuing to operate the Catalinas out of Woodhaven and another, operating from Leuchars, equipped with Mosquito fighter-bombers. The squadron was tasked with hunting down U-boats operating from bases in occupied Norway against the Atlantic convoy routes and attacking enemy shipping convoys off the Norwegian coast.
Two U-boats were heavily damaged in a single action by Leuchars-based 333 Squadron Mosquitos on 16th June 1944 and the Squadron's first U-boat kill came the following day when Lieutenant Karl Crafft in Catalina D/333 depth-charged and sank U-423. Another U-boat was heavily damaged by a Woodhaven Catalina a month later. The Catalinas also undertook highly dangerous flights carrying secret agents and saboteurs into occupied Norway. On other occasions, particularly at Christmas, they would fly up the Norwegian coast dropping much-needed food and medical supplies. RAF Woodhaven closed in 1945 but 333 Squadron remains one of the elite units of the Royal Norwegian Air Force.
During the War, King Haakon VII of Norway stayed in in a house just a minute along the road, Mars cottage. The local residents formed a close bond of friendship with the Norwegian airmen that is still celebrated on special occasions with Wormit Boating Club flying the Norwegian flag. The Clubhouse is home to a small collection of memorabilia that can be viewed when open for race days (most weekends about high tide).
The Mars
For sixty years, the Mars Training Ship lay anchored on the River Tay just off woodhaven and it became a famous local landmark, embedded in Dundee history. In that time, more that 6,500 homeless and destitute boys joined the ranks of the ship to learn new skills and to keep out of trouble.
Launched in 1848, the Mars was a handsome three-masted sailing ship with two decks and eighty guns. But by the time she was completed, the era of sail was giving way to new technology and her conversion was never entirely successful. After a brief spell on coastal defence duty, the Mars was earmarked for scrap. At that time in 19th century Dundee, poverty and disease were rife and, although transportation had stopped in 1857, many children had no option other than to steal to survive and a good number ended up in Dundee prison. This could not go on, however, and so the idea of a training ship for Dundee was born. Life on the Mars by all accounts was brutally harsh and several of the boys drowned trying to swim to shore to escape.
The anchors of the Mars were recovered when the ship was finally decommisioned and lie in front of the clubhouse as a memorial to the boys. There is also a war memorial to the boys of the Mars that died for their country in World War 1.
Rock House, just past the cache, served as the hospital for the boys that took ill on the ship and had to be brought to shore, and to the west of Woodhaven the street Mars Gardens, before it was developed in to local authority housing, was where the boys grew their own food for the ship. Immediately to the east of the clubhouse, where the dinghys are kept was the outdoor swimming pool for the boys of the Mars. There are still a few of the tiles from the swimming pool about near the white painted wall at the back of the dinghy park.
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Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
gerr ba gur evtug, haqre oevpxf