Naval Security Group RAF Edzell UK Patch

On 6 July 1985 the Naval Security Group Activity at Edzell unveiled its own tartan, the US Navy Edzell tartan. That says plenty about how deep the Navy put down roots in this corner of northeast Scotland. The Navy leased RAF Edzell from 1960 and stayed for 37 years. The station sat a mile east of Edzell village, across the River North Esk from the houses and shops. Its job was to listen, and it did that job through the whole Cold War.

Edzell was part of the Navy's worldwide High Frequency Direction Finding network, the HFDF net that fixed the position of distant radio transmitters. Its centerpiece was an AN/FRD-10 Circularly Disposed Antenna Array, the giant ring antenna built in the southern quadrant between the old runways. The airfield went back to World War I, and in World War II it was RAF Edzell, home of No. 44 Maintenance Unit, with about 800 aircraft held there in reserve by war's end. From 1968 to 1978 Navy personnel also worked at the Inverbervie radar station about ten miles to the east. Space surveillance units shared the ground over the years, the last of them the 17th Space Surveillance Squadron, which closed with the station.

The patch is a crest shape, 4.25 inches wide and 5 inches tall, with a white merrowed border running around its outline. At the top an eagle spreads its wings over a crossed quill and lightning bolt, above a red, white and blue shield flanked by two gold anchors. Below, a green rope ring circles a stone arch with twin towers standing on green hills under a blue sky, a shape that recalls the Dalhousie Arch that has spanned the road into Edzell since 1887. Two purple Scottish thistles sit beneath the arch. U.S. NAVY R.A.F. EDZELL arcs across the lower body in black, and a white scroll at the base carries the Gaelic line OS-CEANN NA H-UILE. The back is iron-on.

Naval Security Group sailors were cryptologic technicians, and at Edzell they worked beside the support crews who kept a remote station running through long Scottish winters. Up to 3,000 people were said to have served there at the peak. Many brought families, and the married quarters became a small American neighborhood in the Angus countryside. The station was decommissioned in 1996 and closed in October 1997, ending 37 years of Navy operations on a field the RAF had used for some 85 years. The old married quarters are now the village of Edzell Woods.

It fits a shadow box beside a Cold War Recognition Certificate and a length of Edzell tartan, or the jacket worn to an NSG reunion. It also makes a good gift for a family that spent a tour in Angus. Iron it on, or sew it for the long haul. One station, one arch and 37 years of listening, stitched in one place.