Tuxedo Park

by Jennet Conant

  Convinced that Britain simply could not win without the assistance of the United States in developing and building these new instruments of war, Tizard had been lobbying vigorously for an overall exchange of scientific information of military significance. His idea was not greeted with enthusiasm at first, and Robert Watson-Watt, Britain’s premier radar authority, went on record saying that the United States had nothing to offer. It did not help that an earlier fact-finding trip, headed up by the respected Nobel laureate Archibald Vivian Hill with the intention of gathering information about American science, had been a failure. Of course, with no secrets to barter and nothing to sweeten the pot, Hill had not been able to induce the Americans to divulge anything of value. But after France fell, and Hitler’s forces were encamped along the Channel coast, England’s new prime minister looked more favorably on Tizard’s plan.

  In one of the great gambles of the war, Churchill decided to support the idea of a technical mission to America and personally undertook the negotiations with Roosevelt. Events necessitated that they move very quickly. By July, the arrangements were embodied in an aide-mémoire signed by President Roosevelt and British ambassador Lord Lothian. In early August, Tizard picked the six men who were to take part in the British Technical and Scientific Mission to the United States, informally known as the Tizard Mission: Brigadier F. C. Wallace (British Army), a distinguished officer who had been in charge of the antiaircraft defenses at Dunkirk and had been one of the last men to leave the beaches; Captain H. W. Faulkner (Royal Navy), who was just back from serving in the Atlantic during the Norwegian campaign; Group Captain F. L. Pierce (Royal Air Force), who had made the first of many bomb attacks on the German destroyers hiding in the Norwegian fjords; John Cockcroft, the respected Cambridge physicist, who had built one of the first proton accelerators and at the outbreak of war became head of army research; Edward “Taffy” Bowen, a young Welsh physicist who was one of England’s radar pioneers; and Arthur Woodward-Nutt, an Air Ministry official, who would serve as secretary. The plan was for Tizard to go ahead by air to Canada, which he had insisted be treated as an equal partner in the negotiations, and brief the Canadian government on what was to be disclosed to the Americans. He would then proceed to Washington to prepare the way. The rest of the mission would follow by ship.

  Upon arriving in Washington on August 22, Tizard immediately made contact with Lord Lothian at the British embassy. He expected that A. V. Hill would have at least made administrative arrangements for the mission, but much to his dismay nothing had been done. “No office, no typists, etc.,” he complained to his diary. “A good number of people do not know what I am here for!” As the embassy was too short on space to accommodate their needs, he hastily set up temporary headquarters at the nearby Shoreham Hotel, overlooking Rock Creek Park. Time was of the essence. Two days later, on August 24, the Luftwaffe executed a major strike against the Manston airfield and badly damaged the northeast London suburbs.

  On August 26, Lothian arranged for Tizard to have an official audience with President Roosevelt. Because of the secrecy surrounding the mission, they slipped into the White House by the back door to avoid the press. Roosevelt welcomed them but seemed to be in a somewhat pessimistic frame of mind. He told them he was going to get his draft bill for conscription through Congress, but “it would probably lose him the election in November.” He talked in generalities, except for explaining briefly that he was withholding the Norden bomb sight, one of the most important military secrets of the war. The device, which included an automatic pilot, used a mechanical analog computer to determine the exact moment a bomb should be dropped to accurately hit its target. It was then thought to be the key to daylight strategic bombing. The president told Tizard the reasons for not revealing it were “largely political,” and if he could get evidence that the Germans had it, he could release it. Tizard then had a long meeting with the president’s new secretary of war, who received him cordially.

  “He seemed a very nice and sensible British scientist,” Stimson observed of the Oxford-trained chemist, who had a pince-nez and the elegant manner that went with it. Stimson told Tizard to see Bush at the NDRC and recommended he talk to Compton and Loomis about radar, though he shrewdly noted that he already seemed “very well acquainted” with the scientific work being done in America. But the veteran diplomat knew that Tizard had made the trip across the Atlantic with a far more bold proposition: “He comes over here on behalf of his Government to offer us all of their secrets and hopes we may offer them some of ours.”

  Back in London, the six members of the secret Tizard Mission were making frantic preparations. Tizard had left them in no doubt “about the importance of the mission and the seriousness with which it was regarded” by Churchill. Their purpose, under painstakingly careful security procedures, was to hand over to the U.S. services all of their country’s recent technical advances. That meant virtually every British secret: the jet engine, still in embryonic form, new antisubmarine devices, predictors, proximity fuses, explosives, and radar, in all its forms. In the hectic weeks before their departure, they rushed around collecting documentation on all the classified wartime developments: books, manuals, circuit diagrams, blueprints, films—anything that provided factual evidence of work in progress. Cockcroft set about collecting items of classified military equipment, while Taffy Bowen, the radar specialist, gathered together all his notes on their prized RDF system. Most of it would be packed in a large black metal deed box, of the kind ordinarily found in a solicitor’s office, which Cockcroft had bought at an army and navy store. The box was kept under close guard in the headquarters of the Department of Supply at Savoy House in London, where Cockcroft kept an office, until their departure.

  By far the most valuable item the mission would be bringing with it was a sample of one of the first resonant cavity magnetrons, a powerful source of microwaves that had been invented only seven months earlier at Birmingham University. From the moment John Randall and Henry Boot had conceived of the idea, to the dramatic results achieved with the first unfinished laboratory model, it was clear they had made a gigantic breakthrough in radar. No bigger than the pendulum of a grandfather clock, the copper disk was capable of generating high power (ten kilowatts) and very short wavelength (ten centimeters) radio waves. Nothing like it had ever been heard of, and most scientists believed such a device would not be within reach for years. Many decades later, Bowen could still recall “the drama of the occasion” as the news sank in—“the performance of the resonant magnetron was simply revolutionary.” It would clearly lead to a new generation of compact, high-resolution radar that could breathe new life into England’s beleaguered defenses and turn its planes into deadly night fighters and submarine patrollers that could operate under cover of darkness. It would also lead to the development of more accurate antiaircraft guns, which the British urgently needed to combat the dive bombers Germany was employing so effectively in advance of its armored columns.

  For Britain, the magnetron was truly “a pearl beyond price.” It was a technical miracle that could change the course of the war. The improved range and resolution of microwave radar could be a decisive factor in securing victory. All that was required was exploiting the new technology in a timely fashion. But in those last weeks of summer, the Luftwaffe had switched to night attacks, and sporadic bombing of London had begun. With its technical and industrial resources taxed to the breaking point, it was simply not possible for England to develop and mass-produce the new devices fast enough to make a difference in this war. Only with America’s help could they capitalize on this stroke of luck. Threatened with invasion, the British could not afford to have this discovery fall into the hands of the Germans. They had to give the magnetron to the Americans if they wanted them as partners—it would be their dowry in marriage. It was a matter of survival.

  The British also knew that many American scientists were eager to help England in its crisis. Sir Mark Lawrence Oliphant, the esteemed Australian
physicist who was head of the Physics Department at Birmingham University, had received a letter from Lawrence earlier that spring, offering to give them the benefit of the United States’ advances in radar: “There has been a good deal of progress in this country on microwaves, and I do not know why Dr. Hill has not been able to get the information you want. I think it has to do with the commercial aspects,” Lawrence wrote, referring to the complex government restrictions on the interchange of patented information. “I have given him the best advice I could.” Loomis had again broached the subject of cooperation in these crucial times during his visit later that summer.

  In those final weeks, Bowen made a special trip to the General Electric Company’s research laboratory in the London suburb of Wembley for a detailed briefing on the new resonant magnetron. The first twelve production models had just been completed a few weeks earlier, and after they were run through a test rig, he selected the best one to take with him to the United States. As it happened, he chose number twelve, which would later turn out to be significant. A few days later, he returned to pick it up. Sticking to his usual mode of transportation to attract as little attention as possible, he carried it to London by underground and with great relief deposited it in the tin trunk, now filled to the brim with Britain’s most valuable military secrets.

  Though not yet thirty, Bowen was the leading defense scientist on the mission and an expert in all of the country’s top-secret radar systems. He was to be “custodian of the black box” on the journey across the ocean. Bowen, with the black box, was to travel separately to the dock at Liverpool, and he was expected to find his own way to the ship in which he and the rest of the team would be making the crossing. So late on the evening of August 28, he showed up at the back door of Savoy House, where he had arranged for a guard to hand off the bulky package. Bowen took it by taxi to the Cumberland Hotel, where he had planned to store it overnight in the safe. But when the hotel manager saw the box, he shook his head in dismay—it was larger than the safe. Bowen had no choice but to stow the kingdom’s treasure chest under the bed in his locked hotel room and count the hours until morning, when he was to catch the eight-thirty A.M. boat train for Liverpool from Euston Station.

  Early the next morning, Bowen hailed a taxi to take him to the station. The driver stubbornly refused to let him keep the box on the seat next to him and instead insisted on strapping it to the roof. Bowen could not afford to waste time arguing, and, as he later told the story, “We made the short run to Euston with that supremely important piece of luggage prominently displayed on the roof.” At the station, things went from bad to worse, and he almost lost England’s last best hope in the rush-hour stampede:

  With my luggage, the box was more than I could handle, so I called a porter and told him to head for the Liverpool train. He grabbed the box, put it on his shoulder and headed off so fast that (an old cross-country runner and still pretty fit) I had great difficulty keeping up with him. He got well ahead and the only way of keeping track of him was to watch the box weaving its way through the mass of heads in front. A first class seat had been reserved for me, but beyond that I did not know what to expect. All of the other members of the Mission were going to Liverpool by different routes, and I was alone on this leg of the journey.

  I found my seat and, with the black box parked on the luggage rack, waited for departure time. What I had not realised was that the whole compartment had been reserved and when I entered it all the blinds were drawn and large notices were posted on both windows. A few minutes before departure time, an exceptionally trim, well dressed gentleman with a public-school tie came into the compartment and with scarcely a glance in my direction settled down in a seat diagonally opposite reading The Times. Not long after the train started, the late arrivals started shuffling up and down the corridor looking for an empty compartment. A couple of bright sparks opened the corridor door and said, “Here we are, chaps, this one is nearly empty,” and started to enter. My companion spoke up for the first time and said, “Out. Don’t you see this is specially reserved?” It was not what he said but how he said it. The would-be intruders wilted and we had no further interruptions. For the first time, I realized the precious cargo was under some kind of protection.

  Bowen’s instructions were to stay put in his compartment until the box was picked up by the army, so when the train came to a stop in Liverpool he remained seated. He noticed that his silent companion also showed no signs of leaving and appeared completely absorbed in his Times. Bowen gradually became aware of the sound of marching feet, and soon a squad of a dozen fully armed soldiers materialized on the platform. Led by a sergeant, they executed a series of complicated maneuvers and, “with much slapping of rifle butts,” came to a halt alongside his compartment. On a barked command from the sergeant, they stood at ease, and Bowen watched as one member of the squad stepped forward and opened the compartment door: “Another two collected the black box and trundled it outside. On a further word of command, they shouldered it and marched off in the direction of the ship.” Throughout the impressive performance, his dapper companion had “not moved a muscle.” The moment the squad left, however, “he rolled up his newspaper and, with a barely perceptible nod in my direction, took his departure into the corridor.”

  The presence of such a large military escort was quite comforting, and the young physicist was just starting to relax when a terrible thought crossed his mind: “I was beginning to feel that things were well looked after,” he would later recall. “Alternatively, if this was the enemy making off with Britain’s secrets, they were making a spectacular job of it.”

  Bowen hurriedly boarded the ship, the Duchess of Richmond, and ascertained that the black box had indeed been delivered and was under guard on the bridge. He was informed that the captain’s instructions were that “in the event of an enemy attack and a likelihood of the vessel being lost, the box was to be heaved over the side and allowed to sink in the mid-Atlantic.” Only the group secretary, Woodward-Nutt, would be allowed access to the black box during the voyage. It was arranged that he would meet a third officer, who kept the keys to the locked strong room, should they need to dump their secret cargo into the drink.

  They set sail that evening as darkness fell and headed for the Irish Sea. They had not gone far when bombs started to drop from the sky, falling all around them. Nighttime bombings were not uncommon, and it was probably part of an air raid on Liverpool. Fortunately, the Germans were not lucky that night, and none of the stray warheads struck the ship. But it was enough to stop them for the night, and they dropped anchor. The next morning they set off again, flanked by boats that served as minesweepers for the hazardous journey down the Mersey River. The Duchess was an unescorted Canadian passenger liner and relied on speed to make the crossing safely. To elude German U-boats, she made regular course changes every twenty to thirty minutes. It made for a rough passage, Bowen recalled, and the boat earned the nickname the “Drunken Duchess” for the way she would “roll all over the high seas.”

  The six members of the mission were accompanied on their journey by a thousand British sailors, brought over to man the first of the fifty overage destroyers that the American government was providing in exchange for the use of Britain’s naval bases in the West Indies. (Known as the “destroyers for bases” deal, it laid the seeds for the lend-lease bill, which Roosevelt proposed in response to Churchill’s desperate request that December that America provide Britain with the guns, tanks, and ships “to finish the job” and defeat Germany.) Rumor had spread among all the navy men that a famous physicist was on board, and they asked if Cockcroft could find the time to give a lecture during the week’s voyage. As he could scarcely talk about his assignment or any of the contents of the black box, Cockcroft searched for a safe topic with which to entertain the bored servicemen. His choice, ironically, was atomic energy, still considered years away from being realized and of no possible importance to the war. He greatly impressed his audience, however, when he i
nformed them that the potential amount of atomic energy in a cup of water could blow a fifty-thousand-ton battleship one foot out of the sea.

  The rest of the trip was uneventful, though Bowen would always remember a conversation he had with Cockcroft in the bar one evening before dinner as an example of the kind of calculation only a physicist would make. Cockcroft had been worrying about their secret cargo and posed the question to Bowen that if the ship were indeed attacked, and the trunk thrown overboard, would it sink or swim? Cockcroft’s conclusion was “open and shut”: the black box and all it contained would surely float. Bowen gave the matter no more thought until he saw the box again when they sailed into Halifax harbor in Nova Scotia on September 6. Waiting on shore was an armored vehicle loaded with submachine guns, accompanied by an even bigger armed guard than the one that met the train, to transport the black box to Washington. As the box was being moved, Bowen’s eyes widened in surprise—“a neat pattern of holes had been drilled in each end.” Cockcroft had apparently seen to it that the crate would sink.

  Woodward-Nutt turned over the secret cargo to the Canadian military guard to transport to the border, where it was to be given to American authorities and taken directly to the British embassy in Washington. But upon his arrival at the embassy a few days later, he “was a bit shaken to find that the samples and documents that I had seen so carefully off at Halifax had not yet arrived.” After a series of frantic phone calls, the missing bounty was located and sent along its way. When it finally arrived on September 9, the black box was stashed in the embassy’s wine cellar, and the sole key to the door was entrusted to the ambassador’s butler.

  BY the time the six members of the mission were united in Washington on September 11, Tizard had made all the preliminary arrangements, and they were scheduled to officially hand over the British secrets the following day. The first and most important matter on the agenda was radar. The next two or three weeks would be taken up with a series of meetings designed to acquaint the top levels of the U.S. Army and Navy with all the new British developments and how they were being used. Then it would be the Americans’ turn to show the radar systems it had developed up to that time. This would include visits to the Naval Research Laboratory at Anacostia, in Washington, D.C., and the Signal Corps Laboratory at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Although there were startling similarities between some of their radar systems, it quickly became clear to all concerned that the British were way ahead.