Inverness Ops Room

A recent appeal to find out about historic war operations room pictures sent anonymously to The Courier has thrown up more information.

Cheryl Stewart, curator for The Arbroath Royal Observer Corps (ROC) Post Museum, took them to the ROC’S national reunion and has now ascertained that they were taken in Inverness Second World War Ops Room.

Cheryl said: “This has been deduced from ‘Attack Warning Red’ – our bible – written by former ROC Officer Derek Wood. Page 177 shows a map of the country with border lines for each of the group’s areas. The chunk of map outlined for Inverness-shire exactly corresponds with the map outline on the plotting table in the picture.

“In addition, letters were used to denote groups – in this case, D and J, which can be clearly seen on both the plotting table and map in the book.

“The weather board to the left of the long range board is interesting too as it say SCOT EX3 with a half obliterated date starting with 12. The period is still not finite though. We know that the long range boards were introduced in 1942 so cannot be prior to this.

“The boundaries and letters were changed in 1953 so it is definitely before then. Even the group numbers changed with Inverness going from 39 to 30.”

Cheryl said it was unlikely, due to the sensitive nature of the work, that photographs would have been taken during the operational years.

She added: “We were stood down from 1945 until 1947 when we were quickly stood up again with the rising tensions between East and West signalling the start of the Cold War.

“I feel certain that after the Second World War, ‘who did what’ would have been topical and documented for posterity. This would account for many pictures like these taken in various war rooms probably during that two year period of stand down.”

The Inverness War Ops Room was situated from 1939-1945 in the annexe of the Caledonian Hotel in Inverness. A move to the RAF site at Raigmore took place in 1947 when the corps was stood up again.

This site became Protected (Nuclear) Accommodation in 1961 until stand down in 1991. Last year it was sold privately and the new owner is planning to turn part of it into a museum for the RAF/ROC.