The Flying Squad.

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 44, 16 May 1930, Unnumbered Page

The Flying Squad.

HE value: of wireless: for police work has. proved so great that Seotland Yard, the principal British detective headquarters, is planning an extension of its present radio organisation. The famous "Flying Squad" has beey. equipped with a number of fast motor-cars which are fitted with wireless to enable them te maintain constant wireless toueh with Scotland Yard. By this means. every district within the 700 squaré miles of the Metropolitan Polic@ area is patrolled throughout the day and night and the exchange of wireless messages between the patrolling cars and police headquarters sends th cars and their expert ‘personnel hurrying to the scene _of ‘any crime or on the track of an escaping criminal. Viscount Byng, the London Police Commissioner, recently made a secret test of the efficiency of the Flying Squad’s wireless organisation. He telephoned to Scotland Yard from a call office in a London suburb and asked for one of the cars to meet him at a certain rendezvous. The car, which was patrolling five miles away at the time, reported to the Commissioner four minutes after receiving the call from the wireless room at ScotJand Yard. In an appreciative commentary on the value of fast cars and wireless in the war on crime, Major T. H. Vitty, engineer to the London Metropolitan Police. related that on one occasion Scotland Yard were informed that a car had been stolen at 1.5 a.m. The facts were broadcast, and by 1.15 a.m, the thieves were caught red-hand-ed while attempting to make their escape. It is stated that in London the arrest of 60 per cent. of the bandits and housebreakers during the last 12 months have been due to the immediate agency of the wireless flying squad vans.