by R. V. Jones
Another impressive character at A.R.L. was Stephen Butterworth. He was one of a small class of applied mathematicians with a strong practical outlook that this country produced in his generation, the most notable instances being, of course, G. I. Taylor and A. A. Griffith. Butterworth modestly held that his one claim to fame was that as an Examiner he had once failed Captain P. P. Eckersley, the Chief Engineer of the B.B.C. Despite his retiring nature he opened up warmly to me, and I was sorry to observe that more than one careerist in the Admiralty had climbed on Butterworth’s back by exploiting his work. Happily, his true merit and their defects were to show up in 1939.
The head of Group E, as the Infra-Red Group was known, was E. G. Hill, who too was a gentleman. He was then aged about forty-five, and had graduated at Bristol. Having been in the R.A.M.C. in the First War, he had a pronounced interest in physiological phenomena, and had spent a long time at H.M. Signal School at Portsmouth on various problems of signalling, especially with infra-red. I learned a great deal of wisdom and naval lore from him, including a comment by Admiral Burmister that, ‘There is not, there never has been, and there never will be a completely satisfactory system of recognition. For you have to take grave positive action on a negative result,’ i.e. you have to shoot your opponent out of the ocean, the grave positive action, if he does not make the right recognition signal, which is a negative result that may also have been caused by a breakdown in whatever device that he has been provided with to identify himself. As it was not unknown for sailors painting ship to also paint over the infra-red recognition lights, the force of the Admiral’s dictum was easy to appreciate.
And then there was the Head Porter, generally known as Deputy Superintendent, whose name happened to be Reginald Jones. He was accorded his second title because this accurately reflected his function—he was an indispensable factotum who looked after the affairs of the Laboratory far more effectively than any of the rest of us. In 1938, when the Laboratory was given a fairly palatial new building, the design was left to one of the Principal Scientific Officers and a Ministry of Works architect. The building was almost ready for occupation when the Deputy Superintendent, performing one of his other functions, took in the Superintendent’s usual tray of afternoon tea, with the comment, ‘I suppose that you will be wanting tea when we move over to the new building, sir?’ ‘Of course’, replied the Superintendent. ‘Well, then, sir, you are not going to get it!’ ‘Why not. Are you going on strike?’ ‘Certainly not, sir—but there’s no electric point to boil my electric kettle!’ And then as the extent of this peculiarly civil service disaster sank in, he added, ‘And what’s more, sir, there is no electric point in the whole building.’ ‘How do you know this?’ asked the Superintendent. ‘I’ve looked at the plans, sir, and what’s more there’s no gas and no running water except in the lavatories.’ And he was absolutely right. The scientist and the architect between them had omitted all services except electric light, and water for the lavatories. The concrete floors were already set, and their lordships asked us to do with an absolute minimum of facilities for the first six months, after which the necessary alterations could be counted as dilapidation. Even so, the conduits had to be chipped into the concrete floors so that electric cables could be laid. My namesake was one of the towers of strength on which the rest of humanity depends. He had been a Chief Yeoman of Signals in the Battleship Malaya at Jutland, and I vowed that if ever I had a laboratory of my own I would try to find another Chief Yeoman as Head Porter; and when the time came, twenty-five years later, I did.
But even with all the gentlemanliness of A.R.L., I could not help feeling the difference in tempo from that which I had been accustomed to in Air Defence. I felt rather like Winston Churchill did when he was removed from his post as First Lord in 1915: ‘Like a sea-beast fished up from the depths, or a diver too suddenly hoisted, my face threatened to burst from the fall in pressure. I had great anxiety and no powers of relieving it; I had vehement convictions and small power to give effect to them.’ Where he took to painting, I took to glass-blowing, at which I was already fairly good. I spent much energy in constructing an elaborate vacuum system, but I had still plenty left, and some of it almost inevitably went into practical jokes of one form or another.
In fact, when the Superintendent heard of some of my efforts he let it be known to me unofficially that he would be grateful if a new member of staff, who was being unduly inquisitive, could be kept away from the true scent of what Group E was doing. He was an enthusiastic optician, and there really was no harm in his enquiries—it was just that he took a lively interest in everything around him. But it could be an opportunity for entertainment, and a few days after I had been apprised of the Superintendent’s desire, I happened to meet the optician in another laboratory, and he clearly treated me as an authority. In the middle of one conversation about technological possibilities, the question had come up of how useful it would be if one had a material that was both transparent to light and a conductor of electricity. Turning to me he said, ‘But we haven’t got transparent metal, have we doctor?’ ‘No,’ I replied and then after a thoughtful pause, ‘Well, no, not officially.’ He jumped with enthusiasm and said, ‘So that’s what Group E is doing.’ It was not difficult then to lead him on to discovering that what we were trying to do was to build a transparent and invisible battleship. We had produced enough metal to make an invisible torpedo boat, but were having difficulty because the crew were still visible, as was the wake.
The summer of 1938 wore on to Munich time. I had arranged a visit to Bawdsey, and had now received a letter from Charles Frank to say that he did not believe in ghosts but would be glad to discuss their nature with me at any time. Since he was home in Ipswich, it was possible to see him on my way back from Bawdsey, where I had found A. P. Rowe in a state of some alarm in case the Germans raided his establishment as soon as the War started. When I met Charles Frank he told me that he had immediately grasped the significance of my letter about the Brocken, and had burned it at once. He had taken a trip to see what was going on, and had brought back a picture postcard of the new television-tower that had been erected on its summit. German Air Force personnel were generally around the area, and one thing that he observed neither of us has been able to explain. It was an array of posts rather like Belisha beacons with wooden pear-shaped objects at the top.
There was also, incidentally, the story that whatever was in the tower at the summit was able to paralyse internal combustion engines. As usually reported, the phenomenon consisted of a tourist driving his car on one of the roads in the vicinity, and the engine suddenly ceasing to operate. A German Air Force sentry would then appear from the side of the road and tell him that it was no use his trying to get the car going again for the time being. The sentry would, however, return and tell him when he would be able to do so. The sentry appeared in due course, and the engine started. Incidentally, we did not believe the story, the explanation of which I was to find later, but we thought that it might be a good idea to start the same tale going in England to see whether it would puzzle the Germans. The story spread rapidly, and we heard of it from time to time, with ever increasing detail. The last I heard of it was a family of Quakers, who of course never lie, driving across Salisbury Plain when the engine of their car stopped. In due course a soldier appeared and told them that it would now start again, and so they were able to continue on their way.
I returned to London on the evening of Monday 26th September, and felt the tense calm of the London streets as people braced themselves for the seemingly inevitable war. There was something of the feeling that reached its culmination after Dunkirk. I was unhappy in not having more to do at Teddington, and spent my evenings distributing gas masks—more than two thousand in three days.
Then came Chamberlain’s return with his pathetic scrap of paper and his ‘Peace in our time’ speech. I was as angry as a cat which has just been robbed of its mouse. Those who felt like that were a minority among the almost hyst
erical majority who thought that Chamberlain had done a great thing, but when I went into the Air Ministry with Charles Frank’s information about the Brocken the following morning I found that the Air Staff were convinced that Chamberlain had only postponed the reckoning. As it happened, the official Intelligence Service, which I had also briefed about the Brocken while I had been stationed at Headquarters, came up with some further information, but Charles and I between us had beaten them by a day, and his description of activities on the Brocken was much more detailed. This, as it turned out, did not go unnoticed.
On my return to A.R.L., I found some general laughter over what had happened at the height of the crisis. Someone had thought that in case of air raids some shelter trenches ought to be dug, and there had been a general call for volunteers. A large squad of physicists had therefore been assembled and they had sallied forth on to the playing fields armed with spades and sandbags. A little while later they were observed trudging sadly back, driven by an irate little woman. She was Vera Cain, the captain of the Women’s Hockey team, and they had chosen to try to dig their trenches in the middle of her pitch. She had heard of their intentions, and had gone to the Director, Sir Charles Darwin, and had convinced him that there were many more sensible places to dig trenches. But even if she had not had his authority I doubt whether anyone could have stood up to her. I know, for we were married in 1940.
We became engaged on St. Patrick’s Day 1939, and began to pay various social visits, particularly to Oxford. One Saturday evening in the summer we had met Jim and Elsie Tuck, and I can remember standing at a bus stop in the High while Jim told me about the discovery of nuclear fission, and the possibility that an atomic bomb might one day be made. He said that it looked as though the idea had already been conceived in Germany and that, indeed, from one paper it appeared that one of the German physicists was trying to warn the rest of the world.
I would have been interested in the matter anyway, but what now made my interest acute was the visit I had had a few weeks before from A. E. Woodward-Nutt, which I have described in the opening chapter. Tizard had found there was little information coming through from Germany, and so it had been proposed that a scientist of some standing (Tizard may have had in mind Thomas Merton, who had worked with M.I.6 in World War land who was an eminent spectroscopist) should be appointed to conduct an enquiry into our Intelligence Services, and recommend what should be done to improve them. The Treasury, however, had refused financial support, saying that science was international and that British scientists should be able to tell how their opposite numbers were thinking by talking to them at conferences, and that this should cost nothing. Faced with this frustrating reply, Woodward-Nutt had remembered my interest in Intelligence matters with the Thost and Brocken stories, and so he suggested that I could be transferred to Intelligence, and that this would cost the Air Ministry nothing. This was the main reason that I found myself in my war post.
CHAPTER SIX
The Day Before War Broke Out
MY LAST few months at the Admiralty Research Laboratory went quickly, and I began to think about my new work. On 15th March Hitler had invaded Czechoslovakia and on 7th April Mussolini had taken over Albania. The treachery of the Munich Agreement was at last obvious, even to Chamberlain; he now gave a guarantee to Poland, and so all would depend on whether the Germans would be satisfied with their present gains. By early August this seemed increasingly unlikely, and then on 23rd August came the astonishing news of the non-aggression pact between Germany and Russia. The invasion of Poland appeared to be only a matter of time, and for me it seemed now or never for a short holiday. Ever since 1934 I had spent early September at Hoar Cross, and this year my visit could be conveniently sandwiched between leaving Teddington and starting in Air Intelligence. Moreover, the Meynells had invited Vera as well, so with some misgivings we left Teddington shortly after the news of the German pact with Russia came through.
If the next few pages seem to hold up my narrative of the war, they may serve to provide a moment of comedy before a cataclysm of high tragedy, for they give a glimpse of a carefree and gracious life that the war was to sweep away for ever.
Life at Hoar Cross was as pleasant as it had always been. I took my pistols with me; these were something of a joke with the Meynells because I would disappear for hours and they never knew what I was going to bring back. My bag was mainly rabbits but over the years I had also shot hares, stoats, pigeons, crows, and jays. On the first Sunday of this particular holiday, which happened to be the last Sunday in August, I was reconnoitring a copse to assess the prospects for the week. I saw a great deal of wild life in this way, since it was necessary to stand completely still for perhaps half-an-hour at a stretch before an animal or bird would timidly come into view, and in the meantime I often saw things that I would have missed on an ordinary walk.
That particular morning a rabbit loped across a footpath not more than fifteen yards from where I was standing, and its leisurely pace completely misled me as to what was to happen next: a full-grown fox came trotting, equally leisurely, after the rabbit. My thoughts during the two or three seconds that the fox was visible were very mixed. First, I had never shot a fox, a difficult target for a pistol; indeed, this was the first time I had ever seen a fox within range. Secondly, it was Sunday morning, and thirdly, this was the ancestral home of Hugo Meynell, known the world over as the father of English foxhunting. I had the pistol in my hand and the fox in my sights, just to see whether I could hit it, but I finally controlled myself enough not to pull the trigger. When I returned to lunch I told Vera, but she refused to believe that I had deliberately not fired. She said that it was much more likely that I had been so surprised by the fox that I had been paralysed.
The following day I was out with the pistol when, about eighty yards away, I saw something peering at me from behind a bush. This was a fox’s head in silhouette, and all I could think of was showing Vera that I could shoot foxes if I wanted to. Foxhunting or not, I took careful aim and fired: the fox slumped over dead. Then, of course, came the reckoning. I was quite pleased with myself to have shot such a wary animal, and at this range, but it would require some explaining. When I went back to tea I quietly confessed to Colonel Meynell who—instead of being annoyed—was much amused. He told me, regretfully, that perhaps I ought to bury the body quietly, since the Hunt had been over that very ground during the morning and had failed to draw any foxes or cubs at all. So that was the end of my fox.
On the following Thursday, 31st August, Lady Dorothy asked Vera and me if we would mind going with her to another country house in the afternoon, since a neighbouring Earl was holding an ‘at home’, and she felt obliged to take a party across. Moreover, there was to be some tennis; she knew that Vera was good at the game and it would help if our party was strengthened in this respect. I myself was unable to play since I had been badly stung on the ankle while out shooting the previous day, but if Vera went I obviously had to go too. No sooner had Lady Dorothy told us about the party than her elder son, Hugo, started to warn us against going. ‘I’ll tell you exactly what will happen. People will be standing about and then someone will say, “What about tennis?” and (mentioning the Earl’s Viscount son, by now in his forties) will say, “Ah yes, tennis!”; then he will go and get his racquet, which is an old triangular one with a great knob on the handle, and he will bring out two odd-job men who will start to put the net up. But the net rope won’t be long enough and they’ll have to go and get a bit of string. When he starts to play, he’ll hit a ball hard into the net and the string will break and things will have to start all over again. And at some stage in the game he will trip over a manhole in the middle of the court.’
We laughed at this obvious caricature of a country tennis party, but he insisted it was a truthful picture. Indeed, Colonel Meynell seemed to give it some support for he told us that the Viscount had been an officer in his battery during the 1914-18 War. He was so untidy that Colonel Meynell in an effort
to shame him into smartening himself up had said, ‘Look here, if you will get yourself a new pair of breeches I’ll pay half the cost!’ The Viscount duly appeared in a new pair of breeches and a few months later the Colonel received a bill from a firm of west-end tailors ‘To one half the Viscount Blank’s breeches’.
We left with Lady Dorothy in high curiosity. I was enjoying the prospect much more than Vera, because she was attired in a way not altogether suitable for tennis, despite the fact that she had often preached to me that if you were playing a sport you ought to be properly dressed for it. She had indeed brought tennis dress to Hoar Cross, but it included shorts rather than a skirt. At lunch she had mentioned the fact, fearing that shorts were perhaps a little too modern for the kind of party that we appeared to be in for, and Colonel Meynell agreed. In that case, there was nothing for it but to wear a party dress, actually an attractive dark blue American dress with rather a long skirt. Her ensemble was completed by gloves and a large floppy hat.