Looking up the mountain from the listed coordinates you will see the private holiday accommodation venue, Hangklip Mountain Cottage. What you probably don’t know is that this was originally a highly secret radar station successfully operating in World War 2.
Today most people in South Africa know something about radar and that it played a vital role during the Second World War, particularly during the Battle of Britain. In the Second World War, South Africa developed its own radar which protected the vulnerable coastal shipping route.
Essentially, South Africa had assumed responsibility for protecting the vulnerable sea route around the Cape, which was a vital lifeline for the Allied forces and an important communications link between East and West. Britain promised to send radar equipment when it became available, which South Africa would then operate. Their immediate task was to construct a radar system suitable for training in preparation for the arrival of the British equipment.
The British were impressed with the South African apparatus and, after the defeat of the Italians, they asked for the ‘JBs’ (named for ‘Johannesburg’) to be relocated . The South African top brass were aware of the value of the JBs, but these instruments remained a total secret from almost everyone else in the forces.
Eventually with much hardship, a station on Signal Hill was set up. As early as 15 June 1940, 390 ships were reported to be active in the area, but by 1942, with the Suez Canal closed, their numbers had increased enormously.
Initially, the coastal radar stations were all operated by men, but this could not be continued as all able-bodied men were needed for active service ‘up north’. Thus the decision was taken late in 1941 to train university-educated women as radar operators.
Sheilah Lloyd was one of those excited young recruits. Their first day was devoted to collecting their uniforms from the Union Grounds. Army issue covered everything from toothbrushes to greatcoats; the girls were (very grudgingly as far as those issuing the kit were concerned) exempted from having to accept the thick, greenish-khaki, lisle stockings and voluminous bloomers to match. Later they learned that these were dubbed ‘passion killers’ by the army girls.
Basic training took place at the BPI, and the more active part of it – the squad drill and the intensely vigorous PT (physical training) – was performed on the lawns around the swimming pool of the University of the Witwatersrand.
Sheilah Lloyd was always a ‘station girl’ and her favourite was Silversands at Cape Hangklip. To reach it, she had to travel by train to Somerset West and climb into the back of the ‘ration van’ (which collected supplies every few days and was the station’s link with civilization) and set off along the coast road. At Steenbras Bridge, which was securely guarded, military passes were checked and from there on, the van drove on an untarred road for some 40 km through unspoiled wilderness. On one side was the mountain and flowering fynbos; on the other the sea. A strong clean wind blew the scents of sea and mountain around those at the station – and there was never another human habitation in sight.
On arrival at camp the girls were met by the station commander and with him, the OC Women, who was not much older than the girls in her charge. They were taken to their quarters – which were shielded by a standard split pole fence – dubbed the ‘chastity fence’!
A little distance from the camp and clinging precariously to the mountain side was a small hut. This was the original Hangklip Radar Station with an old but effective JB set which was manned mainly by veterans of the desert war, who initially only had radio contact with the outside world. These men shared the simple recreation and eating quarters with the women and were billeted nearby. Silversands Station, with its complement of about twenty, was equipped with a very new British COL and was a little way down the coast from the camp. The girls could and, on occasion, did walk to and from shifts, but more usually drove in one of the army vehicles – especially at night and in poor weather.
The radar girls went on shift in pairs, each shift lasting five hours. While one girl watched the screen and telephoned the plots through to ‘Freddie’, the other had various tasks to perform, including marking the plots on a map of their area. After or before night shifts, the operators slept in a little hut next to the tech hut. In case of need, there was always a male technical staff on call and the one gate to the radar site was guarded day and night by members of the Native Military Corps (NMC), armed with assegais. No one without the proper pass and password could get near the tech hut, but it is difficult to imagine how the assegais would have repelled a U-boat raiding party after the station’s secrets.