Canada and the Second World War: Essays in Honour of Terry Copp

9. Leadership and Science at War: Colonel Omond Solandt and the British Army Operational Research Group, 1943–1945

173 9 Leadership and Science atWar Colonel Omond Solandt and the British Army Operational Research Group, 1943–1945 Jason Ridler In 2000, Terry Copp made a significant contribution to our understanding of science and its role in the Second World War by compiling and contextualizing the efforts of No. 2 Operational Research Section (No. 2 ORS) as it analyzed battle data as part of 21 Army Group in his fine work Montgomery’s Scientists.1 No. 2 ORS was part of a larger British effort to enlist science in war, beginning with radar work for the RAF Fighter Command and Anti Aircraft (AA) Command, leading to the development of a new applied science called “operational research” (OR). Scientists from a variety of backgrounds were employed to serve alongside all three services, both in training and, more controversially, in the field. By applying their skills of observation, measurement, and calculation to examine how the services conducted their business, teams of OR scientists were able to provide realistic and effective solutions to a range of problems, ranging from the tactical to the strategic. The most famous impacts of OR related to the increased efficiency and lethality of Fighter and AA Command and to the demonstrable though counterintuitive value of large convoys in surviving the Battle of the Atlantic. Given this importance, OR in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force has received the most attention from historians examining OR and the Second World War.2 174 Leadership and Science atWar But the history of OR in the British Army does not rest solely on AA Command. By 1942 the British Army had consolidated its army-centric research assets into the British Army Operational Research Group (AORG). During the war, AORG was commanded by two unique individuals. The first was Brigadier Basil Schonland, the respected South African First World War veteran and physicist whose name was synonymous with his research on lightning and early radar work. Schonland was also a personal friend of Colonel Jan Smuts, the South African prime minister and one of Winston Churchill’s inner circle. Schonland’s deputy and successor was the young Canadian physiologist Colonel Omond Solandt.3 Unlike Schonland, Solandt entered the war with only an academic background, though it was a stellar one. The star pupil of Dr. Charles Best, the co-discover of insulin, Solandt had made a name for himself as a hotshot academic at the University of Toronto and Cambridge, and he entered the war ready to prove himself at any and every task at hand. He had succeeded in managing the Southwest London Blood Depot during the worst of the German bombings in 1940 and became an OR pioneer with the British Armoured Corps. His success at not only research but also leading and managing his innovative laboratory led to his selection to start a new section for AORG on tank gunnery and other concerns, but his management skills soon led him away from research. He became Schonland’s deputy and then successor as Superintendent of AORG when Schonland became scientific adviser to General B.L. Montgomery at 21 Army Group. Solandt’s rise to replace Scholand and his role in leading AORG provides a useful window onto the fruits and frictions involved in managing a new wartime science organization under duress. Schonland’s efforts in creating AORG have long been heralded.4 Solandt’s contribution—he turned AORG into an efficient and diverse organization, expanded its mandate, and championed the use of OR sections in the Normandy campaign—are less appreciated. Here, we describe Solandt’s critical role in managing Army OR during the Second World War, as well as the organization’s accomplishments, including Solandt’s own personal research and analysis of British OR teams in India and Burma. That analysis provided an opportunity for Solandt to comment on AORG’s successes and failures; and today it provides us insight into how a postwar defence research organization should be run. 175 Jason Ridler However, Solandt’s efforts as a pioneer in OR were not without friction. His aggressive approach to managing science led to a controversy with Schonland over the use of Army OR in the field; and this demonstrated the difficulties inherent in controlling the lines of responsibility when science went to war. Overall, however, Solandt’s tenure as Superintendent of AORG was a net positive, not least for Canada. Soon after war’s end, Solandt became...