Beeston Hill Y Station

Beeston Hill Y Station
Beeston Hill Y Station
Location within Norfolk
General information
Architectural style	Listening station
Town or city	Sheringham
Country	England
Coordinates	52°56′36″N 1°13′30″E / 52.94326°N 1.22490°E / 52.94326; 1.22490
Completed	1939
Demolished	1946
Client	War Office
Technical details
Structural system	Concrete and Brickwork

Beeston Hill Y Station was a secret listening station located on the summit of Beeston Hill, Sheringham in the English county of Norfolk. The chain of Y stations were the front line of the War Office’s Bletchley Park, which had the code name station X.

This Y Station was a specially constructed wireless interception facility which was also used for direction finding on enemy wireless transmissions. This became particularly important in the Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945) where locating U-boats became a critical issue. Admiral Dönitz told his commanders that they could not be located if they limited their wireless transmissions to under 30 seconds, but skilled direction finding operators were able to locate the origin of their signals in as little as 6 seconds. There were several of these stations around the east coast, and by triangulating the signals the exact location of enemy shipping could be pinpointed.

The equipment used for direction finding was located on the summit of the hill in a small Hexagonal shaped hut. The radio interception equipment was positioned within a control room which was located 500 yards (460 m) from the direction finding station. This listening station intercepted VHF radio signals, which were used by German E-boats (fast surface vessels) for short range voice communication. The listening station was part of a chain of stations set up around the country that gathered the enemies raw signals, transmitted in Morse code, for processing at the X-station at Bletchley Park. Coded messages were taken down by hand and sent to Bletchley on paper by despatch riders or, later, by teleprinter.