Gazelle

	General Josef Kammhuber

These chains of radar stations were designed to locate the attacking Allied Bombers, and to direct the German night fighters to their targets, in Holland the main command centre was at Schaarsbergen/Deelan near Arnhem. Some of the names of the radar stations spread out over the Northern part of Holland; were 'Schlei' on the island of Schiermonnikoog, 'Lowe' near Leeuwarden and 'Gazelle' near Groningen, the Germans gave these radar stations animal code names, where the first letter of the nearest town or city became the first letter of an animal. With the use of the 'Enigma' de-coding machine, British Intelligence, once the animal code had been cracked, could easily work out from the animal name given in transmissions; which site the Germans were talking about. 'Hamstede' became 'Hamster', 'Terschelling' became 'Tiger', 'Brielle' became 'Biber' (Beaver), 'Wangerooge' became 'Waal (Whale) and 'Groningen' became 'Gazelle'.Construction work on this site situated at 53'-11" North by 06'-90" East, started in secret, late in 1941, even the local population were unaware of the nature of this site, one local theory was that the 'German Camp' was a listening post, with enormous microphones that could hear every sound made for miles around, this theory proved to be not too far from the truth, and in the years to come the radar station 'Gazelle' was to become one of the largest stations in the area with an affective detection range of over 120km.

The information gathered by 'Gazelle' was not only important for the Luftwaffe fighters who had to attack Allied airplanes, but also for warning German cities of an impending attack, even the battleship 'Bismarck' was connected to this information network. The commanding officer at 'Gazelle' at the time of Joseph's demise was Oberleutnant Schumacher then being replaced at the end of 1944 when the site had been up-graded after the Battle of Arnhem by the son of the managing director of Phillips Electronics in Eindhoven, Commandant Heinz Lubke (Iron Cross 1st class), this site had at any one time up to 300 personnel consisting of Luftwaffe soldiers and female staff (Helferinnen) The main part of the site, including the Telephone system was built originally with a work force of Russian and Czechoslovakian POW’s, this forced labour was part of the ‘Todt’ organisation, who were kept in the local school buildings.

Commandant Heinz Lubke

It has been said that this site had been equipped with the 'Wurzburg Reisen', and 'Freya' Radar, and was only site in Holland; later in 1944, to house a very special type of radar, one of the first 360 degree turning radars called 'Jagdschloss'.

	Freya	Wurzburg Reisen	Jagdschloss

The whole camp was painted green to make it harder to spot from the air, and some male personnel shelters (which were given German girls names) were partially dug into the ground. The site was defended with only light/medium machine-guns for perimeter defence; it appears that there was no need for, although some Dutch Resistance reports do mention this type of weapon, the larger 20mm calibre anti-aircraft guns (Flak), possibly because the RAF had never targeted this site.It is reported that these machine-guns were only fired in anger once, and that was against Joseph's Tempest, he was apparently, according to some sources doing a 'secret reconnaissance mission' to check the construction progress of the new 'Jagdschloss' radar.The staff manning the 'Gazelle' site held a party to celebrate the downing of this RAF fighter, and this party went on until the early hours of the following morning.

In 1945 as Holland was being liberated, by the Canadian and Polish Army Tank Regiments, being only 9 miles to the South West in Gieten, the local population were ordered; to construct large walls of earth and straw bails around 'Gazelle' as a defensive measure. On April the 13th 1945 the order was given by Commandant Lubke to destroy the main command bunker and the generators that powered the radar systems before being one of the last people to leave the camp.The retreating Germans had to fight their way North as Infantrymen towards Delfzijl, to avoid being captured, two losing their lives in sporadic fighting with the advancing Polsih and Canadian Armies. After the liberation of Veendam, Gazelle was used as a temporary prison camp (De Kazemat), to house prisoners of war, collaborators, looters and criminals, and then later still the site was stripped of anything useful and then abandoned.After the war in 1947 it took the demolition contractors about two weeks to completely remove any trace of the German occupation, approximately 40 buildings and bunkers were demolished and removed so the land could be returned back to agriculture, to date only a couple of concrete bases and one small Telephone switching building about half a mile North of the main complex remains of what used to be the radar site 'Gazelle'.

	Telephone switching building

Around the time after the German evacuation, a young 14 year-old schoolboy called Albert Tempelmann, who lived in sight of the radar camp on the outskirts of Veendam; kept a wartime diary.Under the date of October the 2nd 1944 he writes-'2nd of October 44. Just as the 1st Oct, some fighter planes flew over around 7 o'clock in the morning. They shot at the German camp near Veendam with their guns'.The shooting Albert heard, now seems to have come from the radar site and not the aircraft, as Joseph's Tempest was lost without firing a single shot.Albert witnessed two separate flights of fighters flying over 'Gazelle' one on the 1st of October, and another on the 2nd, in his words via his son-in-law Willem Kleijn, the flight came in from the South-West, they did not fly around; they dove in with howling sounds straight at the camp, Albert says he only saw the site being buzzed a couple of times during the whole war period and it was never rocketed or bombed.

After the Germans had partly destroyed and abandoned the radar camp, leaving for Germany, the mischievous Albert and a few of his friends, crept out at night and walked over the site without the knowledge of their parents, his friends were looking for any clothing or food that might have been left by the Germans, but Albert was only interested in finding a radio. Nothing could be found of any use by these boys only a couple of radar tubes and a Luftwaffe cap, which they had to hand in to the Dutch Resistance, this very dangerous prank ended with a good telling off from their parents. (Albert Tempelmann and Willem Kleijn)

Joseph's total of V1's has been recorded by different sources from 53 to 62 but official recorded claims indicate the correct total as 60 with 1 shared, (59 ½). He was awarded a second Bar to his DFC in February 1946, back dated to April 1945.