THE MENWITH HILL SITE

MENWITH HILL
- Some HISTORY

Photo by Craig Stennett for CAAB
The Menwith Hill spy base (previously referred to as the 13th USASA Field Station ), near Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England (see map ), is not a US missile base, an Early Warning Station or a decoy to divert attention from nearby Forest Moor Royal Navy Communications Base. Neither is it run by extra-terrestrials zapping earthlings with low frequency radio waves to control their minds, nor is it a breeding ground for 'killer bees' - although all these suggestions have been made at some time or another by various visitors who see the large white balls spread over the Yorkshire Dales.

Menwith Hill is actually the largest electronic monitoring station in the world. It is one of a global network of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) bases run by the US National Security Agency (NSA) , which monitors the world's communications and relays information to NSA HQ at Fort Meade in Maryland, USA. The NSA was set up by Presidential decree in 1952 without any debate in the US Congress. Until a few years ago, the existence of the NSA was a secret and its charter and any mention of its duties are still classified. It does have a Web site however, in which it describes itself as being "responsible for the signals intelligence and communications security activities of the US government".

In the year 2000 Menwith Hill employed more than 1,800 personnel. A recent parliamentary question [ 1 ] revealed that, as of 26 April 2000 , there were 415 US military, 989 US civilians (from defence contractors like Lockheed Martin [ 2 ]), 5 UK military and 392 UK civilian personnel (excluding those from the UK's Government Communications Headquarters - GCHQ) employed there. The numbers of GCHQ staff "were withheld under exemption 1 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information." Work goes on there round the clock inside buildings some of which are "hardened" and/or electronically shielded. Communications are intercepted and analysed mainly from Europe, Russia, the Middle East and North Africa.

Currently, the base is under the American command of Colonel Randolph Roberts. Squadron Leader Humphrey Vincent is the Senior RAF officer; known as the RAF Liaison Officer (there is one token commander allocated to all 'RAF' - USAF - bases) he is a token presence although according to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) he is responsible for "general oversight" of the base.

The land at Menwith Hill is owned, in lieu of the Crown, by the British Ministry of Defence, who allow the US government to use it. The US Armed Forces and British War Office signed an initial agreement concerning the land on 11 December 1951 . The agreement provided for the land to be acquired and stipulated that the US could "remain in occupation until this agreement, unless otherwise excepted, is either terminated or modified."

The 'security of tenure' agreement was renewed every 21 years until 1997 when it was not renewed as it was deemed by the UK government not to be necessary. In 1954 the War Department compulsorily purchased Nessfield House and Farm and the land at Rushfield Farm [the house and yard on the South-west corner of the base are still privately owned and the MoD leases the farm land back to the farmer] and construction work started on Field Station 8613 in 1955 . From 1 January 1957 it was named the 13th USASA (US Army Security Agency) Field Station and the name Menwith Hill (meaning "stoney field" in 14th century English) became operational in 1959 . It now covers over 560 acres of land.

The base is guarded by UK Ministry of Defence Police who are paid for and under the operational control of the Americans and is now enclosed by an alarmed security fence topped with razor wire and with CCTV cameras mounted at regular intervals along it. Inside are two large operations blocks and many satellite dishes inside white radomes ('golf balls'). Initially operations focused on monitoring international cable and microwave communications passing through Britain. In the 1960s Menwith Hill was one of the first sites in the world to receive early IBM computers, which the NSA used to scrutinise intercepted but unenciphered telex messages. Since then: "… Menwith Hill has sifted the private international messages, telegrams, and telephone calls of citizens, corporations or governments to select information of political, military or economic value to the United States… Officially it is a US Department of Defense communications station. … The British Ministry of Defence describes it as a "communications relay centre." Like all good cover stories, this has a strong element of truth to it. The real question is: whose communications system … [until 1974 ] Menwith Hill's Sigint specialty is evidently the interception of International Leased Carrier signals, the international communications links run by civil agencies - the Post, Telegraph and Telephone ministries of eastern and western European countries, and US corporations like ITT and RCA ... " [ 3 ].


Steeplebush II Building - Photo by Craig Stennett (phone 0468-464784)

The NSA took over Menwith Hill in 1966 . In the 1960s coaxial cables were run from the base to the nearby Hunters Stones Post Office tower which is part of the UK microwave network carrying long-distance telephone calls. This link was equivalent to at least 32,000 telephone lines [ 4 ] and was upgraded in 1992 when a connection was made to the telephone network by BT installing fibre optic cables that can carry the equivalent of over 100,000 simultaneous telephone calls [ 5 ]. The high capacity link with Hunters Stones was employed in 1975 when satellite interception began [ 6 ]. BT state that the cables were connected directly to the US via undersea cable, and did not link to other parts of the British system. The station commander around that time (Albert Braeuninger) described the link as "purely a communications link. We only use Hunters Stones power as a customer of the Post Office." [ 7 ]


Menwith Hill Base from satellite picture and plan of security fence supplied by Harrogate Planning Office - details supplied by Anne Lee and described by Duncan Campbell [ 8 ].

In 1984 , a $25 million extension to Menwith Hill Station known as STEEPLEBUSH was completed. New communications facilities and buildings for STEEPLEBUSH were constructed worth £7.4 million. The expansion plan included a 50,000 square foot extension to the Operations Building and new generators to provide 5 Megawatts of electricity. The purpose of the new construction was to cater for an 'expanded mission' of satellite surveillance and to provide a new (satellite) earth terminal system to support the classified systems at the site. With another $132 million being spent on special monitoring equipment, this section of the Menwith Hill base alone cost almost $160 million dollars. The THISTLE building (40,000 sq ft and $8.3 million) was added later in 1988 .

In 1993 an 83,000 square foot building (STEEPLEBUSH II - controlling the receivers GT6 and GT7) was also added. Costing $26 million, there are indications that this building is 'hardened'. Later still CASTLEMAINE was added which controls the receivers GT8 & GT9, known as GRAPNEL , which forms the European Ground Relay link for the Space Based Infra Red System (SBIRS) of satellites (see later section on "Star Wars Role").

Menwith Hill received an award for its part in "Desert Storm" during the Gulf War - a fact revealed in the in-house magazine "Station Break" which reported that the Chief of Station, William E. Kennedy, had collected a 'Director's Unit Award' for support to the 'Desert Shield/Desert Storm' operation.

In 1998 a 3m high heavy-duty weld-mesh security fence, with a razor wire overhang and 'anti-tank trap' was erected around the Operations Area and Antenna Field. Other systems present at MHS and shown in the figure above include:

  • Man Tech International - technical support for Ops provided by Loral 'Dustpan' before Loral Space Systems Inc merged with Lockheed-Martin. Man agement Tech nology runs the MOSAIC contract (Menwith Ops Systems Analysis & Interface Connection) which includes antenna maintenance and also PMEL (Precision Measurement Engineering Laboratories).
  • SATCOM - Satellite Communications for the US Armed Forces Communications, run by the US Army's 128th Signal Company - has 3 radomes on the west side of the base but is not part of the Menwith Hill command structure.
  • Over 100 antenna masts in Rhombic arrays; Pusher HFDF (High-Frequency Direction Finding) circular antennae and log-periodic aerials.
  • Jetsams - codename for 6 diesel generators producing 10.6 MegaWatts. Battery chargers connected to Jetsams are used to charge the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for the operational electronic equipment.

"No-one concerned about civil liberties can ignore Menwith Hill. Despite many attempts to get answers to questions, it is quite clear that Menwith Hill is not accountable to MPs and therefore not to the British people"
- Alice Mahon MP.

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