Читать книгу Engineering Hitler's Downfall - Gwilym Roberts - Страница 13

His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh expressed it pithily: ‘everything not invented by God was invented by an engineer. and ‘They performed such an essential function,’ he said to a Radio 4 audience in January 2016, ‘that it was hard to imagine life without them,’ and they held ‘the key to the future of humanity and its ability to continue to thrive on the planet.’

As it is with the challenges of today, so it was in the punishing cauldron of the Second World War. We enjoy our present liberties thanks in large part to those scientists and engineers who helped bring about victory by inventing, designing, developing, and producing vital new systems, machines, structures, and weapons.

Many more engineers were in the armed forces, fighting valiantly alongside their non-technical colleagues and using the new equipment to maximum effect.

Britain’s leaders, according to Sir Max Hastings, ‘harnessed civilian brains and scientific genius to dazzling effect’ during that conflict. ‘Churchill’s nation far surpassed Germany in the application of science and technology. Mobilisation of the best civilian brains, and their integration into the war effort at the highest levels, was an outstanding British success story.’