Background
At the outbreak of World War II, British high command feared a German bombing campaign on the UK mainland. Colonel John Turner, an engineer and retired Air Ministry officer, was tasked, in September 1939, with establishing a broad range of day and night decoys to mislead enemy bombers. His initial work was with dummy aircraft, aircraft, airfields and factories - the decoys for which were dubbed 'K' Sites. Turner also implemented night decoys; dubbed 'Q' Sites, they consisted of lights mounted on poles to simulate an airfield.
In response to the German's use of incendiary bombs, Turner added fires to the 'Q' Sites - dubbing them Q-Fire or QF - to add to their plausibility. Initially very crude, the fires were controlled from a nearby concrete pillbox. The theory was that after a first wave of bombers dropped on the real target, the decoy would light fires to simulate the previous raid for further waves to home in on.
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