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Churchill, in addition to being Prime Minister, assumed the title of Minister of Defence – even though there was no Ministry of Defence as such. In addition to leading the Cabinet, he presided over the War Cabinet which comprised himself and four (later six) senior ministers. Among the bodies that reported to the Cabinet was its Scientific Advisory Committee.

As new weapons were produced, Macrae, using his journalistic experience and contacts, oversaw the writing of instruction manuals which included ‘exploded’ diagrams of the weapons. Found to be more understandable than the line diagrams used in conventional War Office manuals, such diagrams came eventually to be used in all manuals.

Although MD1 originated as a War Office department, its fame and reputation were such that both the Royal Navy (RN) and the Royal Air Force (RAF) consulted it on aspects of weapon design amongst other things. As with DMWD, many ideas from would-be inventors were passed to MD1 for appraisal and testing, activities that, in the early days when they were extremely short-staffed, diverted them from their main task.

See Appendix 3 for more details.