Introduction

From The Times "Lives remembered", April 10, 2012:
 
"Colin Latham, Chief Engineer, Marconi Radar Systems, Airspace Control Division, 1981-1986, writes:
 
Your obituary (April 5) of Air Commodore Sismore [DFH: very similar to the Telegraph obit already noted - quite possibly by the same author] is an excellent summary of his flying career but fails to mention adequately his major contribution to Marconi Radar. [The phrase] ".... some years as a service advisor ...." might well imply routine maintenance but it was far from that. [Editors note - in the Telegraph obit a similar paragraph reads: On retirement from the RAF in June 1976, Sismore joined Marconi as a service adviser. During the Falklands conflict he was able in a matter of a few weeks to negotiate the availability of a mobile air defence radar, something which would normally have taken several years to procure.]
 
He advised the company on the most fruitful connections among the senior staff of the Government and the various military services in the interests of developing national defence measures. Later still, approaching retirement, he was made manager of the newly formed Airspace Control Division, with around 1,000 staff, drawing upon his hands-on experience of radar and radar-like navigational aids. He encouraged staff by clear direction, good mentoring of their efforts, support when needed, but never undermined their efforts by interfering within their departments. Neither was he ever heard referring to his wartime successes."

From The Times Obituaries Guest Book

04 April 2012

What a fabulous career and what a modest man. I had the honour of meeting him and his colleagues in Copenhagen on March 21st, 1995, when we celebrated the 50-year jubilee of their total destruction of the Copenhagen Gestapo-head office. Air Vice Marshal Basil Embry always preferred Sismore in the leading Mosquito, whenever an outstanding raid took place.
Ove Hermansen, Copenhagen
(author of the first Danish book about the raids)

Copenhagen

Input from Ian Gillis

Indeed. I remember Ted with respect and affection from both the work environment and from his occasional sorties to our mutual watering hole "The Cats" in Curling Tye Green (near Woodham Walter).

Most of the members of the Three Services Old Boy's Club had some nickname or other in the ranks of the scurrilous proletariat - "The Admiral", etc. Ted's was "AC1" - not "Aircraftsman" but "Air Commodore" First Class.

Input from Steve Bousfield

Ken Perry, Consultant HF Radar Marconi Radar Systems, 1982-1995, writes: In the late 1970s and early 1980s the UK still had concerns about hostile aircraft approaching its shores at flight levels perhaps 500ft above the sea surface and studies were undertaken of the use of radars operating in the short wave radio band which would track ships and also aircraft flying very low over the sea. The obituary to Air Commodore Ted Sismore (April 5) described most clearly the many low-altitude missions which he had led or had planned during the Second World War and he would have been exceedingly aware that survival could necessitate flying below the cover provided by microwave radar.

Likewise, UK shore defences subsequently demanded an ability to track low-flying intruders and to guide our own interceptors below the normal radar horizon. While Airborne Early Warning aircraft can fulfil such duties they cannot be everywhere all of the time. Air Commodore Sismore, as Manager of Airspace Control at Marconi Radar Systems, zealously encouraged the study and building of prototype HF Radar systems (both Surface Wave for shoreline protection and Skywave for very long-range ship and aircraft tracking) and he was instrumental in guiding Marconi Radar/Research expertise into UK Surfacewave trials and into the proposals for the Australian Skywave radar network built in the 1990s.

Links

Wikipedia entry 

The Shell House Raid documentary trailer

Wing Commander Reg Reynolds - Ted Sismore's pilot - His Obituary

Spinks brochure for the sale of Ted's medals (pp. 48 - 55), providing comprehensive detail on the recommendations for medals, descriptions of the relevant operations and his service record. Note that the pre-auction estimate for the set was £40-50k; the winning bid was £72k from 'a mystery buyer', to which must be added auction house premium, etc.