War in the Age of Technology: Myriad Faces of Modern Armed Conflict

9. Scientists at War: The Development of Radar and Jet Propulsion in Britain

chapter 9 ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ Scientists at War The Development of Radar and Jet Propulsion in Britain Eric Bobo The Story of the human race is War. Except for brief and precarious interludes, there has never been peace in the world; and before history began, murderous strife was universal and unending.1 This remark, taken from Winston Churchill’s 1924 essay “Shall We All Commit Suicide?” contains his bleak vision of the future of warfare. Continuing, Churchill remarked that the only reason man has survived thus far was that “up to the present time the means of destruction at the disposal of man have not kept pace with his ferocity.”2 But now, thanks mostly to “Science on the Side of War,” humanity confronts for the first time the possibility of total annihilation: “It was not until the dawn of the twentieth century of the Christian era that War really began to enter into its kingdom as the potential destroyer of the human race.”3 Churchill certainly understood the role science had already played on the battlefield. Tanks, chemical warfare, airplanes, submarines, and machine guns were all introduced during the First World War, and all were products of the application of science to essentially offensive warfare. Churchill expected this trend to continue, which would result in deadlier weapons that, as he mentioned, held the potential to destroy humanity. Consider his predictions concerning explosives: 239 Might not a bomb no bigger than an orange be found to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings—nay to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke? Could not explosives even of the existing type be guided automatically in flying machines by wireless or other rays, without a human pilot, in ceaseless procession on a hostile city, arsenal, camp, or dockyard?4 These statements concerning the future application of science to offensive warfare certainly make Churchill appear to have had remarkable prescience. Unfortunately, he would see most of his fears take shape during the course of the Second World War. Amid the darkest days of that conflict, Churchill became Britain’s prime minister and found himself faced with the threat of total warfare prosecuted against his own homeland. For the survival of his own nation, then, Churchill turned to science, the force he realized might destroy the world, for its own defense. Thus, as Great Britain mobilized for war, so did her scientists. These men provided key advancements in many areas that had a significant impact on the war effort. This is not to say that these advancements came without a heavy price. As Carl von Clausewitz noted, all warfare depends on a trinity of support: people, army, and government. Any “theory that ignores any one of them . . . would conflict with reality to such an extent that for this reason alone it would be totally useless.”5 Despite their necessary interrelationship , the stress of war often sets these segments of society against one another, thus harming the overall goal of winning the conflict. Nowhere is this failure more evident than in the relationship between British scientists and their own government during World War II. It is understood today that modern warfare demands technological advancement. Without it, any military force deteriorates and crumbles in the face of a new, modern, and technologically superior enemy. Therefore, states have a duty to encourage advancement and technological innovation of their armed services, but when a state is faced with a crisis, technological innovation can eric bobo 240 often be misapplied by the leg of the trinity least able to do the job correctly: the government. One of the most bizarre features of any advanced industrial society in our time is that the cardinal choices have to be made by a handful of men: in secret: and, at least in legal form, by men who cannot have a first-hand knowledge of what those choices depend upon or what their results may be.6 Charles Percy Snow certainly understood the political ramifications of the wartime necessity of mobilizing science as part of the total war equation. He worked with some of the brightest scientific minds in Great Britain during the Second World War and understood that science and technological innovation were integral parts of the war effort. He also understood, however, that the fog of war could strain the relationship between those who produce advancement and those...