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A SCIENTIST’S WAR

In 1923, at the age of six, my family moved from a small town in Kent to a new house in London. There I saw for the first time a room illuminated by an electric lamp which could be turned on and off, apparently instantaneously, by a switch. To a child from a home where gaslight and candles were the norm, this was pure magic, and aroused in me an abiding curiosity about the nature of electricity.

In later years this led me to study electrical engineering and in 1938 to secure a post at the G.E.Co. Research Labs. at Wembley in connection with thermionic valves. However, after the outbreak of war Britain was faced with its first crisis — the catastrophic losses of our merchant fleet by German magnetic mines. The answer to this urgent problem was to "de-gauss" or demagnetise the ships and the Admiralty scoured the country for people with electrical knowledge to assist the navy in protecting the ships. So, in December 1939 I was directed by the Admiralty to report to the Captain of H.M.S. Vernon in Portsmouth without delay. (Being unable to swim, I was at first very nervous about this but much reassured on discovering that it was a shore based establishment berthed on dry land). The early days of this work was like much of the rest of the war for the armed services - periods of intense activity followed by total boredom as we waited for ships to arrive for their "magnetic signatures" to be determined.

(During the quiet spells we passed the time playing chess. Upon the arrival of a ship the game stopped abruptly; however by using pocket chess boards we could preserve the state of play and resume in the next lull. Many years after the war I found my chess board with an unfinished game from 1940 which was played out with my then unborn son in 1960)

After this, I spent the rest of the war developing acoustic mines and in particular introducing for the first time a mine detonating system using sub-sonic sound and electronic circuitry. The object being to make mine sweeping more difficult and to ensure maximum damage to the target ship.

At the end of the war I was invited to join the newly formed Royal Naval Scientific Service. This I accepted and was posted to the newly formed Inter Service Electronics Research laboratory at Baldock. There my principal activity was research on and development of new electronic devices for milli-metric radar, guided missile and communication systems.(During this period I presented and read papers before the Institution of Electrical Engineers and was elected as a Fellow.)
Written by: Philip Hawkins C.Phys. F.Inst.P. C.Eng. F.I.E.E.
Submitted by: Paula Phillips.

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