Hockliffe radio communications station called the VRU in Czech, was stationed
in the grounds of a farm between Hockliffe and Dunstable. The wireless
transmission station was set up by in the summer of 1942 and it was used solely
by the Czechoslovak intelligence services. It replaced the former station
which they ran at Woldingham Garden City in Surrey.
It was used to keep in contact with Czech embassies in unoccupied countries
namely Sweden, Switzerland and Portugal and Turkey. It also communicated with the
Czechoslovak resistance and with radio operators on parachute missions.
Most of the men were recruited from the Signals Unit of the Czechoslovak Army,
which had been at Friz Hill, Wellesbourne in Warwickshire. The station
employed 10 men and a cook living in three black Nissen huts.
The station was fully operational until June 1945 when most of the men were
flown back to Czechoslovakia. One man, Frank Kousal, then ran the station
alone for communications between London and Prague until March 1946.
There is nothing left of the site today.
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