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Foreword

Admiral the Rt Hon Lord West of Spithead GCB DSC PC

During the Second World War no nation on earth managed to integrate the best scientific and technological brains into their war effort to the extent of Great Britain. The results ensured victory and shortened the war.

In this labour of love Gwilym Roberts recognises the scientists, engineers and other experts whose ingenuity and invention, whose sheer brilliance, not only had vital application in war but contributed massively to future scientific development.

There have been numerous books about key inventions and their impact but not to my knowledge a chronological compendium of these breakthroughs laid against the campaigns in which they were used.

Roberts creates a broad definition of engineer to include scientists, designers, technical construction workers, maintenance personnel and users of technical equipment. He calls them ‘technologists’. His biographical notes throughout the book give fascinating snapshots of the key players to whom our nation owes so much. These are men like Frederick Lindeman (Lord Cherwell) appointed by Churchill as special scientific advisor, Sir Henry Tizard, Sir Barnes Wallis, Sir Robert Watson-Watt; and many others, well and little known.

Few knew or know about the establishment of lateral thinking organisations such as the Military Intelligence Research Department (the Toyshop), the Admiralty Department of Miscellaneous Weapons development (the Wheezers and Dodgers) and S-Branch. Nor do many know that eighty years ago the Chain Home radar system was established along the south coast without which we would not have won the Battle of Britain. I must note, however, that the author falls into the trap of thinking that victory in the Battle of Britain stopped a German invasion. Captured German documents show conclusively that the German High Command had given up any idea of invasion owing to the strength of the Royal Navy and losses sustained by the German Navy in the Norwegian campaign.

The author highlights the many stunning achievements that assisted the course of the war in our favour: the countering of the magnetic mine, the development of the cavity magnetron, centimetric radar and the degradation of the German Knickebein system that was used for accurate bombing of British targets. Not least of these was the work of Bletchley Park.

One of the vignettes I found fascinating was from 1941 when a bomb destroyed Bank underground station creating a massive crater on a junction of six important roads. Within 90 minutes sappers and pioneers were clearing the site for the construction of a box girder bridge capable of carrying London buses nose to tail as illustrated in rather a good photograph. It was all completed in just four and a half days, something we can only dream about today.

The magisterial span of this book includes the vital contribution of women at war and the crucial improvements in medical science. Nor can we forget the iron men in small corvettes battling the North Atlantic gales and beating the U-boats of the cruel sea. Churchill famously stated “The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril”. It was one of the longest battles in history with merchantmen sunk from the first to the last day of the war. Everything on land, at sea or in the air depended ultimately on its outcome. Roberts reminds us that the Battle of the Atlantic was highly technical and despite the bravery of those seafarers, it was won through the most innovative ideas and extraordinary schemes and inventions.

The book reveals the intricacies of D-day planning and logistics, from the Mulberry harbours, PLUTO and the less well-known DUMBO to Major General Percy Hobart’s ‘funnies’ and advances in meteorological forecasting. It ends in the Pacific and the apotheosis of technical change, the Atom bomb.

Through this tour de force, which will enthral both layman and expert, Gwilym Roberts has achieved his aim of ensuring recognition for the myriad ‘technologists’ who made victory in World War II possible.

West of Spithead

August 2018