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First of all I should like to thank Admiral the Right Honourable Lord West of Spithead GCB DSC PC for very kindly writing the Foreword and for his complimentary comments about the book. With his experience commanding a ship in the Falklands campaign and as a former First Sea Lord and Minister for Security his observations carry considerable weight and are a further acknowledgement of the contribution to victory made by the wartime engineers and scientists and of the debt we all owe to them as well as to those in the armed services.

Since I was first introduced to him some three years ago, my publisher, Dr Keith Whittles, has been a fount of knowledge and advice and I am particularly grateful to him and to Rachel Oliver, Kerrie Moncur, Sue Steven and their colleagues for their advice, assistance and encouragement.

I am also particularly grateful to the principal officers and staff of the two professional engineering institutions that I have been most closely involved with and who have given me considerable encouragement and support. They are Dame Ann Dowling OM FRS FREng, Dr Hayaatun Sillem and Philip Greenish CBE, (respectively President, Chief Executive and the recently retired Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering) and Lord Mair CBE FRS FREng, Dr Gordon Masterton OBE FREng FRSE, Nick Baveystock FInstRE, Carol Morgan and Debra Francis (respectively the Institution of Civil Engineers’ President, Chairman Panel for Historical Engineering Works and Past President, Director General, Archivist and Librarian). Others who have also given me considerable assistance include David Arscott of Pomegranate Press who has redrafted sections of the text to make them more readable, Bob Davis who has assisted with identifying the sources and copyright owners of the illustrations, Emily Dean of the Imperial War Museum for assistance and advice regarding the illustrations in the Museum’s archives, Dr Phil Judkins (Trustee of the Purbeck Radar Museum Trust and formerly of the University of Buckingham) for advice and my daughter, Annabel Roberts, for coordinating recent inputs and assisting with the final editing of the book.

Others who have commented on draft texts, given specific advice or made valuable suggestions have included: Rear Admiral Ian Tibbitt (Trustee, Fly Navy Heritage Trust); Major-General K J (DZ) Drewienkiewicz CB CMG, formerly Engineer-in-Chief (Army), the late Brigadier D L G Begbie OBE MC, Colonel Jim Joiner RE, Major R J Henderson REME (Director, REME Museum), Martin Skipworth (Researcher, Royal Signals Museum), Peter Elliott (formerly Head of Archives, RAF Museum and Chairman, Royal Aeronautical Society Historical Group), Dr Michael Purshouse FREng, (formerly Thales UK and BAE Systems), Lieutenant Commander Richard Olsen RNR, Donald Green (retired Fellow, Sidney Sussex College), Nicholas Rogers (Archivist, Sidney Sussex College), Michael Chrimes MBE (formerly of the Institution of Civil Engineers), Adrian Clement (Institution of Mechanical Engineers), Edward Kemp (Institution of Engineering and Technology), Rob Thomas (Institution of Structural Engineers), Richard Wakeford (British Library, Science Reference Enquiries), Wing Commander Tony Willenbruch RAF (formerly Clerk, Worshipful Company of Engineers), Zoe Edwards, (East Sussex County Council Libraries) and my son Matthew Roberts FCA. In addition to those mentioned individually above, many more have made valuable suggestions or comments or given me new leads or ideas to follow. I am greatly indebted to them all.

My principal sources of information have been the many books and articles that have been written about various aspects of the Second World War, in particular those which are listed in the Bibliography. On occasion such information has been supplemented by my personal recollections or those of colleagues. With so many books and articles written, it has not been practicable to identify the various information sources but practically all are in the books mentioned in the Bibliography. The biographical notes have mainly been prepared from information in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, other biographies, obituaries and Wikipedia.

I am most grateful to the copyright owners of the illustrations which have been reproduced and who are detailed on the next page. In particular I would like to thank the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Library and Archives, for their permission to reproduce images from their archives.

Finally I should like to thank my wife Wendy for her unfailing support and encouragement without which it would not have been possible to have researched and written this book.