RAF Menwith Hill
Royal Air Force Menwith Hill is a Royal Air Force station near Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England, which provides communications and intelligence support services to the United Kingdom and the United States. The site contains an extensive satellite ground station and is a communications intercept and missile warning site. It has been described as the largest electronic monitoring station in the world.
RAF Menwith Hill is owned by the Ministry of Defence, but made available to the US Department of Defense under the NATO Status of Forces Agreement 1951 and other, undisclosed agreements between the US and British governments. His Majesty's Government is entitled to possession of the site and retains control over its use and its facilities, though the administration of the base is the responsibility of the US authorities, with support provided by around 400 staff from Government Communications Headquarters, in addition to United States Air Force and US National Security Agency personnel. In 2014, the number of American personnel was reduced as part of a streamlining of operations due to improvements in technology.
The site acts as a ground station for a number of satellites operated by the US National Reconnaissance Office, on behalf of the NSA, with antennas contained in numerous distinctive white radomes, locally referred to as "the golf balls", and is alleged to be an element of the ECHELON system.
The site is one of three main sites operated by the United States across the globe as a major satellite monitoring station and intelligence gathering location. The other two sites are located in America and Australia, having similar roles and working together with RAF Menwith Hill to develop knowledge around American, British and Australian interests. The Australian site is known as the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap.
History
Establishment of station (1954–1959)
In 1954, the British War Office purchased of land at Nessfield Farm, located approximately west of Harrogate, North Yorkshire. The area purchased soon increased to and were made available by the British Government to the United States Department of Defense. The site was considered by the US as suitable for gathering signals intelligence from the northern parts of Western Europe and Eastern Europe, specifically the Soviet Union and its associated Warsaw Pact countries. The Yorkshire Dales' low level of background radio noise made it an especially good location for the task. The UK provided assurances to the US that the site would be available to them for at least 21 years.Construction of the station on behalf of the United States Army Security Agency began in April 1956. Building costs at the time were $6.8 million as well as a further $1.2 million for personnel housing. Initially named Field Station 8613, the site was renamed 13th USASA Field Station on 1 January 1957 and again renamed on 1 January 1959, as Menwith Hill Station. Due to adverse ground conditions and weather, there were delays to the construction programme, with the station finally becoming operational during June 1959.
Early years (1960–1966)
Operationally, Menwith Hill was assigned to the USASA Headquarters in Frankfurt, West Germany, whereas for logistical support it was attached to the US Air Force's Third Air Force, which at the time had its headquarters in the UK. Security at the station was provided by a US Army military police detachment and the British Air Ministry Constabulary. However, if the site was compromised during an invasion, three earth-covered bunkers contained ammunition and thermite charges which could be used to destroy classified equipment and material.The station initially comprised a headquarters building, barracks, dependent housing and support facilities such as a cinema and social clubs. The operations building was located inside a secure compound, within a large antenna field, approximately from the main site. It was equipped with large high frequency directional rhombic antennas that could detect signals from around the globe. Over two-hundred Collins R-390A HF communications receivers were used to collect a vast range of signal in the HF band, including carrier waves, voice signals, and burst transmissions. Within the operations centre was the communications centre which was staffed by cryptographers using deciphering equipment, however a large amount of the signals collected were encrypted before being forwarded for processing to the US National Security Agency's Fort Meade facility in Maryland.
Transfer to the National Security Agency (1966–1996)
In the 1960s, as a result of developments in digital technology and the increased use of satellites for signals intelligence, the specialist skills of engineers and technicians within the National Security Agency and their contractors became increasingly important. Therefore, on 1 August 1966, with the agreement of the British Government, control of Menwith Hill Station was handed from the US Army to the NSA when it became a field element of the agency. The NSA expanded the station during the 1970s and 1980s, with the operations centre extended and new buildings erected. The first two radomes, designed to protect satellite receiver and transmission dishes were installed in 1974, at which point around 800 personnel were believed to work there.In 1976, 21 years after the initial tenure arrangements were agreed with the US, the British Government renewed assurances that the site would continue to be available for a further 21 years.
Menwith Hill came to public attention in 1980 when British magazine the New Statesman published an article which suggested that the station was the world's largest phone tapping facility and highlighted the secrecy afforded to it by the British and US governments. Investigations found that during the early 1960s, Menwith Hill was integrated into the General Post Office's microwave relay network known as 'Backbone', via a high-capacity underground cable link to the Hunters Stones communications tower, located approximately to the south of the station. It was alleged the link allowed mass interception of civilian telephone and telex communications between the United States, UK and Europe.
At the time, eight radomes were now present at Menwith Hill, connecting it with other sites in the NSA's satellite communications network and alleged to allow the surveillance of communications in foreign countries. In response to the article the NSA said "We do radio relays - material comes in from a variety of places and is rerouted. It is a switching operation. We route it sometimes to the UK and sometimes to the US". The suggestion that national and international communications were monitored was denied.
A detachment of the US Army 704th Military Intelligence Brigade was established at Menwith Hill in 1985. In 1992, the detachment became A Company of the 743rd Military Intelligence Battalion, 704th MI Brigade.
The US Air Force's 6951st Electronic Security Squadron was formed at Menwith Hill on 1 May 1991. It was later re-designated as the 451st Intelligence Squadron on 1 October 1993.
In 1995, the US Army Intelligence and Security Command became the executive agent for Menwith Hill on behalf of the National Security Agency. INSCOM transformed A Company, 743rd Military Intelligence Battalion into the 713th Military Intelligence Group. In 2000, the group added a second company and was re-designated as the 109th Military Intelligence Group.
RAF Menwith Hill (1996 to present)
On 19 February 1996, the station was renamed RAF Menwith Hill, an administrative change to align the base with other sites made available to the United States by the United Kingdom.During a 1997 court case, British Telecom revealed that in 1975, its predecessor, the Post Office, installed two cables between Menwith Hill and a coaxial cable that connected to the microwave radio station at Hunters Stones, which was part of the long-distance telephone network. This connection was replaced in 1992 by a new high capacity fibre-optic cable. Later, two additional cables were added over which telephone and other communications could go to and from the base. These cables were capable of transmitting over 100,000 phone calls simultaneously.
On 1 October 2000, the 451st Intelligence Squadron was re-designated as the 451st Information Operations Squadron, before reverting to the 451st Intelligence Squadron on 1April 2007.
On 19July 2002, US Army INSCOM transferred responsibility for administrative and logistical support for Menwith Hill to the US Air Force, to bring the site in-line with other facilities in the UK made available to the US. Notwithstanding, the US Army retained a presence and in place of the 109th Military Intelligence Group, INSCOM formed a provisional battalion designated as the Menwith Hill Battalion. On 18 October 2008 the unit, under the command of a lieutenant colonel, was re-designated as the 307th Military Intelligence Battalion, subordinate to the 66th Military Intelligence Brigade headquartered at Wiesbaden, Germany. On 16 October 2009, the battalion was re-designated as the 709th Military Intelligence Battalion.
According to an article in a 2003 issue of an internal NSA newsletter, "Menwith is a large site ". In March 2012 researcher Steve Schofield of BASIC produced a 65-page report called "Lifting the Lid on Menwith Hill", funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and commissioned and published by the Yorkshire Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Menwith Hill's primary mission is to provide "intelligence support for UK, US and allied interests". The base's multimillion-pound expansion, Project Phoenix, is "one of the largest and most sophisticated high technology programs carried out anywhere in the UK over the last 10 years". Of the 1,800 employees in 2012, 400 were British and 1,200 were American employees of the NSA.
During the 2009 G-20 London Summit NSA intercept specialists based at Menwith Hill attempted to target and decode the encrypted telephone calls of the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.
The 451st Intelligence Squadron, was inactivated on 24 June 2015.
In November 2017, the site had 627 US staff and 578 UK staff.