Blackett's War (2 page)

1909

London Declaration, signed by all major European powers and the United States, reaffirms the rights of neutral shipping in wartime and the duty of belligerents to safeguard the passengers and crew of enemy or neutral merchant vessels taken as prizes.

1910

Blackett, age twelve, enters Osborne as a naval cadet, September.

1914

War begins in Europe, August 1.

Britain declares the entire North Sea a “war zone” and institutes a blockade of all supplies “ultimately” destined for Germany, an act not sanctioned by international law, November 2.

Blackett is a midshipman on the cruiser
Carnarvon
at the Battle of the Falkland Islands, December 8.

1915

Germany declares the waters around Britain a war zone and warns that its submarines may not be able to distinguish enemy and neutral ships, February 18.

Cunard liner
Lusitania
is sunk by a torpedo fired by a German submarine, killing 1,198 including 128 Americans, May 7.

After the sinking of two more British passenger vessels, Germany withdraws its U-boats from British waters following strong American protests, September.

1916

Blackett is at the Battle of Jutland aboard the battleship
Barham
, May 31.

1917

German U-boat force reaches 120 operational boats, January.

On the Kaiser’s orders, U-boats commence an “unrestricted campaign” against British shipping, sinking merchant vessels without warning, February 1.

Sinkings by U-boats surpass 500,000 tons a month, February and March.

Citing Germany’s abandonment of “all restraints of law or of humanity” in its U-boat campaign, America declares war on Germany, April 6.

After months of resistance, the British Admiralty agrees to begin convoying merchant ships, leading ultimately to a dramatic decline in sinkings by U-boats, late April.

1918

Prototype of asdic, or sonar, for detecting submerged submarines is tested aboard a British research vessel.

With its army collapsing, the German government accedes to American insistence upon an immediate halt to the U-boat war as a condition for peace negotiations, October 20.

Armistice ending the Great War, November 11.

In compliance with terms of the Armistice, 114 German U-boats surrender at Harwich, November 20–December 1.

1919

Blackett arrives at Cambridge, January 25.

1921

Blackett graduates from Cambridge with a first in physics and is awarded a research fellowship to the Cavendish Laboratory.

1922

German navy establishes a Dutch front company, IvS, to begin secretly building submarines in violation of the Versailles treaty, April.

1926

General strike in Britain, May 3–13.

1933

Nazi Party takes power as Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany, January 30.

Blackett announces at the Royal Society his discovery of the positron, for which he will later be awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, February 16.

Blackett moves to University of London, autumn.

1934

Physicists at Cavendish Laboratory sign a protest against the use of science for military purposes, June.

Professor F. A. Lindemann writes to
The Times
urging the scientific investigation of air defenses against bomber attack, August 8.

1935

Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defence begins work, with Henry Tizard as chairman and Blackett as a member, January 28.

The committee conducts the first experiment establishing the feasibility of detecting aircraft with radio waves, the genesis of radar, February 26.

British government announces Anglo-German Naval Treaty, abrogating restrictions of the Versailles treaty and permitting Germany to build a submarine force equal to Britain’s while pledging its adherence to international prize law in submarine warfare, June 21.

1937

Blackett moves to University of Manchester.

The term “operational research” is coined by A. P. Rowe to describe the work of a scientific section at the RAF’s Bawdsey Research Station studying the integration of radar into the British fighter defense system.

1938

Britain and France accede at Munich to Hitler’s takeover of German-speaking areas of Czechoslovakia, September 29.

1939

German troops occupy the rest of Czechoslovakia, March 15.

Hitler denounces Anglo-German Naval Treaty, April 28.

German U-boat fleet ordered to sea, August 15.

Germany invades Poland, beginning World War II, September 1.

Winston Churchill joins British government as first lord of the Admiralty; the British passenger liner
Athenia
is torpedoed by a U-boat off Ireland the same day, September 3.

British aircraft carrier
Courageous
is torpedoed in the Bristol Channel, September 18.

Hitler discusses with his naval commanders gradually removing restrictions of international law on U-boat operations, September 23.

British battleship
Royal Oak
is torpedoed by a U-boat at Scapa Flow, October 13.

Hitler approves sinking without warning British and French merchantmen, October 16.

Karl Dönitz, the commander-in-chief of U-boats, issues standing order No. 154, instructing submarine commanders not to rescue passengers and crew from torpedoed ships, late November or early December.

1940

Following Germany’s invasion of France, Churchill becomes prime minister, May 10.

Tots and Quots club agrees to produce the Penguin book
Science in War
, urging broader application of science to the war effort, June 12; Blackett likely contributes the section on operational research.

President Franklin Roosevelt approves Vannevar Bush’s proposal to establish a National Defense Research Council, June 12.

France surrenders, June 21.

Just completed radar warning network along the British coast allows RAF Fighter Command to successfully fight off the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, July–September.

U-boats begin operating from bases in France, July.

Equipped with more reliable torpedoes and aided by decrypted British radio reports on convoy movements, U-boats sink one million tons of shipping, July–September.

Tizard proposes to Churchill an exchange of technical information with American scientists and departs for Washington, August.

Blackett becomes scientific adviser to Anti-Aircraft Command and begins applying operational research methods to problems of radar and antiaircraft gunnery, August.

Night attacks by German bombers on British cities begin, September.

1941

Blackett becomes chief of the newly created Operational Research Section of RAF Coastal Command (“Blackett’s Circus”), March.

Churchill issues Battle of the Atlantic Directive, ordering British forces to “take the offensive” against the U-boats, March 6.

The first ASV (anti–surface vessel) radar units are installed on British warships escorting Atlantic convoys, spring.

British code breakers at Bletchley Park, using captured materials from
U-110
, achieve their first sustained success deciphering German naval Enigma messages, May.

Hitler invades Russia, June 22.

Blackett’s recommendation to change the camouflage color of Coastal Command aircraft doubles U-boat sightings per flying hour, summer.

Blackett is the sole dissenter on a British government panel that recommends the development of an atomic bomb by Britain; Blackett proposes discussing collaboration with an American program instead, July.

U.S. Marines land in Iceland and U.S. Navy begins escorting Atlantic convoys, July.

E. J. Williams, a member of Blackett’s group, completes a study showing that the effectiveness of air attacks against U-boats can be improved by a factor of 10 through a simple adjustment in the depth setting and spacing of depth charges, September 11.

U.S. destroyer
Reuben James
is torpedoed by a U-boat off Iceland, October 20.

Bletchley Park code breakers appeal directly to Churchill to address their acute manpower and equipment shortages, October 21.

Blackett moves to the Admiralty as chief advisor on operational research (later director of Naval Operational Research), December.

Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, December 7.

1942

U-boat offensive begins against shipping along American coast, January 13.

Atlantic U-boats begin using four-rotor Enigma machines, interrupting Bletchley’s ability to decipher messages, February 1.

Blackett opposes strategic bombing of Germany, based on calculations showing its ineffectiveness, and recommends shifting long-range aircraft to the Battle of the Atlantic, February.

E. J. Williams submits report demonstrating the effectiveness of employing long-range aircraft equipped with radar and Leigh Lights against U-boats transiting the Bay of Biscay, February.

Philip Morse is chosen to head U.S. Navy’s new Anti-Submarine Warfare Operations Research Group (ASWORG), March.

Rodger Winn, head of the British Submarine Tracking Room, arrives in Washington to press the U.S. Navy to establish a similar centralized intelligence operation to coordinate antisubmarine operations, April.

RAF Bomber Command launches 1,000-plane attack on Cologne, May 30.

Cecil Gordon begins study of maintenance and flying schedules of Coastal

Command aircraft that will triple their effective flying hours, June.

Captain Wilder D. Baker of the U.S. Navy warns “the Battle of the Atlantic is being lost,” June 24.

U-boats return to the Atlantic convoy lanes, midsummer.

Dönitz delivers broadcast to German people warning that “even more difficult times lie ahead” in the U-boat war, July 27.

Dönitz issues orders positively forbidding U-boats to aid survivors, September 17.

U-boats begin to be equipped with Metox radar-warning receivers, sharply reducing effectiveness of Allied antisubmarine air patrols in the Bay of Biscay, late September.

American and British code breakers agree to begin “full collaboration” on the naval Enigma problem, October.

U.S. Eighth Air Force commences a series of bombing raids of questionable effectiveness against heavily reinforced U-boat bases in France, October 21.

Two squadrons of American B-24s, the first Allied aircraft equipped with centimeter-wave radar, depart for Britain, November 6.

Morse and his deputy William Shockley arrive in London to confer with British operational research experts, November 19.

Sinkings by U-boats reach their highest monthly total of the war, 802,000 tons, November.

Using captured documents from
U-559
, Bletchley code breakers resume reading of U-boat Enigma signals, December 14.

1943

Allied leaders meeting in Casablanca direct that the strategic bombing of Germany is the primary objective of the Allied heavy bomber force, January 21.

Blackett’s staff produces a pivotal study demonstrating that ships are twice as safe from U-boat attack in large convoys as in small convoys, January 27.

Dönitz is named commander-in-chief of the German navy, January 30.

Atlantic Convoy Conference convenes in Washington and recommends reallocating 260 very-long-range aircraft to the antisubmarine campaign, March 1–12.

A temporary blackout in the reading of Enigma traffic causes two eastbound Atlantic convoys to fall prey to a devastating attack by forty U-boats, March 16.

Blackett engages in a bitter dispute with Lindemann and Air Marshal Arthur Harris over bombing priorities, March.

Centimeter-radar-equipped aircraft sink their first U-boat, March 22.

Admiral Ernest King establishes the Tenth Fleet to consolidate U.S. antisubmarine operations (and subsequently names himself commander), May 20.

Dönitz withdraws U-boats from the North Atlantic convoy lanes, May 23.

U.S. Army Air Forces agrees to turn over all antisubmarine air operations to the navy, July 9.

Air attacks on U-boats transiting the Bay of Biscay intensify and the number of operational U-boats at sea drops for the first time in the war, falling to sixty (half the number in the spring), July–August.

1944

Admiral King announces that the U-boats have been reduced from “menace” to “problem,” April.

Allied troops land in France on D-Day, June 6.

1945

Dönitz succeeds Hitler as Führer, April 30.

Germany surrenders, May 8.

1948

Blackett is awarded the Nobel Prize in physics.

Blackett publishes
Fear, War, and the Bomb
, opposing the American monopoly on atomic weapons and denouncing the policies of the United States as the chief threat to world peace.

1952

Operations Research Society of America is founded and enrolls 500 members in its first year.

1965

Blackett is appointed president of the Royal Society.

1974

Blackett dies, July 13.