"Logistics versus Strategy" ....

As you may have noticed, we have changed part of the banner above to reflect the new direction in which our research has taken us.

It took decades to locate the true core of this investigation, and it turns out to be the same subject matter that is once again bubbling away in the news media under the heading of 'Climate Change' (and a variety of related titles.) But 'Saving the Planet' is not a topic that we will be engaging in, although, the underlying subject matter of that topic, is the same subject that is at the core of this research. Or narrowed down to our focal point: it is all about aspects of natural gas and the petroleum products derived from oil.

What seems to be overlooked in all of the anti-oil rhetoric, is that without oil our present civilized world would vanish overnight. So much of our daily life is dominated by oil and its derivatives, from the clothes we wear to the machines used to make them, and a lot of essential items that we use on a daily basis without giving a moment's thought to how they came to be. Without oil the human race would hurtle backwards in time to a very primitive existence where life spans would contract considerably.

In this regard, our marrying of offshore broadcasting (radio and television) to the topic of oil is because of their locations on the high seas. But to date, not enough attention has been paid to what was directly beneath those offshore stations.

Although governments reacted to the presence of those stations, only one of them demanded immediate physical capture, and that was the radio and television facility on REM Island located off the coast of Holland. (We are aware that in a few instances, ships had been boarded primarily due to nautical registration problems. REM Island was in a different category.)

In war it is often claimed that "amateurs talk strategy while professionals talk logistics", and with regards to this investigation, it means that it is one thing to figure out the way in which you intend to do something, but if you lack the means to do it, you will fail. In World War II, this issue became acutely focused upon the need for Adolf Hitler's Armed Forces to capture oil fields in order for his military campaigns to succeed. He had the means to start a series of interlocking invasions of other nations, but he lacked the means to keep his armies moving ahead because they soon ran out of fuel. That is what happened to him in several instances, including his campaigns in North Africa and Eastern Europe. No matter how good the strategy of his generals was, without fuel, his planes and his tanks simply could not move, and neither could his men be transported to battle lines.

When it comes to the subject of offshore broadcasting in the North Sea, the issue is not about the records that rival DJs were playing on their turntables. We know that their 'strategy' was to capture the ears of as many listeners as possible in order to aim advertising messages at them. The real question is: why were the stations there in the first place?

It is this issue of misunderstood motivation that has convinced a lot of amateurs to imitate scenes in the movie 'Life of Brian'. That is where some go off brandishing a gourd and others a sandal, in order for followers to worship their Master. Translated into terms relating to offshore broadcasting, it refers to the people who claim that "Caroline continues" into 2021, when in reality, it died on August 14, 1967, never to return.

The sham imitators have all missed the entire reason why Radio Caroline was created in the first place: it was to test the reaction to its presence by the British government. Would the Government challenge its logistical location in the North Sea? It became obvious that it was one thing for a ship to drop anchor, but it was another thing for a tower to pile drive its legs into the sea floor. In the first instance an anchor was moveable, but in the second instance legs were fixed in place.

Radio stations were set up on old World War II towers off the British coast. The Government reacted by making sure that they were subject to existing British laws which required all British broadcasting stations to be licensed by the British Government. In one instance that required re-drawing the coastline to incorporate a location that had been outside government jurisdiction. In another instance they blew up an old fort to make sure that it could not be used for unlicensed broadcasting.

With regards to the sidebar issue of Rough Tower, that was a structure that the British Government had put in place as part of a WWII defense chain. Had its squatting primary occupant proceeded with any of his seemingly never-ending claims to both expanding that location and promising to use it for some enterprise that would directly challenge the sovereignty of British laws, then Rough Tower would have been physically taken over by the British Armed Forces and probably destroyed. As it was, at low enough cost to the British Government, sufficient counter warnings in private were addressed to the primary occupant and they were enough to deter him and any investors he attracted from attempting to put any of his various plans into operation.

What is totally overlooked by all of the amateur writers about Radio Caroline, is the fact that there was only one primary operating company behind both of its two floating ship stations, and that was Project Atlanta Limited. On the board of that company sat James Deterding who was always known as Jimmy to his friends.

Jimmy Deterding sat on the board of directors of Project Atlanta Limited in a very quiet manner, because he had no desire to attract attention to himself or his family. His grandfather Henri who had ordered the construction of the Norfolk mansion in which Jimmy lived, had attracted more than his share of family publicity.

Sir Henri Deterding who we will be telling you more about in future editions of this Blog, was the man who created Royal Dutch Shell. He was loved by Adolf Hitler because of Sir Henri's logistical support for Nazi ambitions, and consequently Sir Henri Deterding received a full Nazi State funeral ceremony upon his death.

Jimmy Deterding lived on his enormous estate near the village of Holt, which is a stone's throw from Bacton in Norfolk. That is where the coastline of southeastern England bulges out into the North Sea. It was offshore from that location where exploration to find 'British' natural gas and then petroleum fields began in the Sixties, with resources supplied by Texans, and it occurred approximately within the same time frame that plans for 'Radio Caroline' were being drawn up.

The operation off Bacton began in earnest from a rig that emanated from the same drawings which created REM island, and the first 'British' offshore exploration platform bore a remarkable resemblance to half of that earlier offshore broadcasting structure which was located off the coastline of Holland.

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[With editorial textural corrections and pictorial addition on 2/9/2021]