Four Men of Vision

In June 1934, A.P.Rowe was working as a member of the Headquarters staff for the Director of Scientific Research: Air Ministry; Mr W.H.Wimperis.

In military circles there seemed to be little sense of urgency in those days and what little emphasis there was seems to have been directed towards armament research rather than on defence.

Rowe began to wonder…"whether or not Britain's air defence arrangements were healthier than air armament". So against this background of official complacency he decided to conduct a 'trawl' of all the official files he could find that related to early warning methods of research. There were just 53! Most of the work that had been carried out related acoustic mirrors and barrage balloons. He concluded that very little true scientific research had been carried out.

The next (very bold) step was to send a memo to his Director (H.E.Wimperis) stating that unless "science could evolve some new method of aiding air defence, we were likely to lose the war if it started within the next ten years". Wimperis took this unequivocal view seriously and within 5 months he had sanctioned and instigated the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air defence under the leadership of a leading chemist of his day; Sir Henry Tizard. It was this group of scientists, who had to guide the research into ways of obtaining as much early warning of an impending air attack as possible.

Wimperis felt that some form of 'death ray' might be the answer and so in January 1935, he asked his assistant A.V.Hill who in turn contacted Robert Watson Watt, Superintendent of the Radio Research unit (part of the National Physical laboratory) at Slough.

Can you produce a 'Death Ray?

Wimperis had the idea that perhaps a very powerful electromagnetic beam could penetrate the aircraft at some distance and in some way incapacitate the crew. Watson Watt did not denigrate the idea but passed the problem onto his assistant, A.F.Wilkins, who pointed out that the power necessary would be well beyond the capabilities of anyradio transmitter in existence at that time. He did suggest that it might be possible to send out a signal of sufficient power to produce an 'echo' which could then be captured on a suitably modified receiver.

Furthermore, perhaps by using two receivers, a two dimensional location could be computed and a distance calculated by measuring precisely the time it took for the echo to get back to the receiver. At this juncture however, theory and practical application were very far apart.

Wimperis could see some faint glimmer of hope with this reply and he asked Watson Watt if he could write a suitable report to be submitted to the Tizard committee. The group were due to have their first meeting early in the New Year (1935).