RESEARCH WORK

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 54, 26 November 1937, Page 13

RESEARCH WORK

Britain's First Line of Defence HUGE SUM SPENT : Every day a few quiet, scholarly men, finish their breakfast, say good-bye toi their f amilies and leave just like you or I by car, train or bus for work. To their neighbours they are plain "Mr So-and-So," but to Britain they aro The-Men-Who-Must-Not-Fall. For these men, mostly married, all middle aged, are Britain's First Line of Defence. They are the research workers spending £1,000,000 a year behind. closed doors, working in secret — finding and testing fool-proof defences to make British homes and British lives safe from land, sea and air attack. More than £3,000,000 is spent . on defence research every year. A third of this sum pays for the chemical and scientific experiments of thjese experts. Britain looks to these quiet-speaking mystery men to save her in the event of war. They never talk.of their work, few know their business or hear of their discoveries. Sir Thomas Inskip, Defence Minister, cautiously lifted the veil of their workrecently when he said the air menace was within * measureable distance of being conquered. It was of tbe Aeronautical Research Department he spoke. The Army and Navy have similar laboratories at Woolwich Arsenal and Teddington. Poison-gas, nnder-water craft, death rays, searchlights, anti-aircraft dactics and other secrets are planned and discussed in crisp, matter-of-fact-style. First meet the man who is said to have solved Britain's air defence problem. He is square-jawed, 52-year-old Henry Tizard, chairman of Aeronautical Research, who did experimental work with the R.F.C. and R.A.F. during the war. Another war- time expert withthe Flying Corps is 50-year-old Davld Pye, mountaineering enthusiast, now Scien-. tific Research Director .at the Air Min--istry.' This bespectacled, neatlydressed man gave up engineering to become an Oxford don. Now, married With a son and daughter, he live* in Kensington. Toronto-boxn Charles Wright, 50-year-old Director of Scientific Research for the Admiral ty, lives at Mickleham, Surrey. He married in 1914, has a son and two pretty daughters. Since 1929 Secretary of the Department of Scientific Research, Sir Frank Smith knows as much as anyone living the part modern science will play in the next war. Birmingham born, he lives at Teddington, has one daughter. Twice married, Professor Leonard Bairstow, of Wimbledon, is another figure in Britain's Defence Secrets. Quiet, deliberate, this 57-year-qld Yorkshireman is one of the greatest living authorities on aerodynamics. These are but a few of the men va>, work daily. Many more are co-operat-ing in little-known laboratories - dotted all over England. Some are seientists, some university dons, others engineers — all filled with the same resolve— to make Britain safe,