ADDU ATOLL, Maldive Islands, Material Collected by Lieutenant Colonel Wingfield:

Mounted photograph of RN Air Station, Gan, 1943.
Inventory of men and equipment, Fortress workshop section, 18 October, 1943.
Press cuttings and articles concerning Addu Atoll, 1974-75.
Notes on charts and anchorages.
sketch of SS HAITAN, base ship at Addu, 1943.
sketch of HMS OKAPI, Guard ship at Addu, 1943.
Part of a diary kept January - April, 1943 (incomplete).
Series of 24 photographs of the Arakan front, Burma.
Supplemen t to the London Gazette, 20 April, 1948: 'Operations in the India Command, January to June, 1943.
List of garrison and Fortress Command officers and naval forces, 1943.
Artisitic photographs and watercolours of Addu.
Notes on Addu as a potential secret fleet anchorage in the Indian Ocean.

Administrative / biographical background
Lieutenant Colonel RG Wingfield was stationed on the Addu Atoll in the Maldives during the wartime British Occupation. The purpose of the occupation was to gauge the atoll's suitability as a fleet anchorage in the Indian Ocean, where the fleet could be concentrated in secrecy from the Japanese. The Atoll was never fully utilised and the facilities fell into disuse as soon as hostilities ceased. Wingfield maintained his interest in the Atoll and continued to collect articles and information about the area.