( OT ) "The British technology pioneers who helped win World War Two"

 

from THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, 01 November 2006 :

'We must use science to defeat al-Qa'eda'
-----------------------------------------

By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor

John Reid yesterday compared the technological advances needed to fight 
Islamic terrorism to Britain's battle against the Nazis.
The Home Secretary invoked the spirit of great wartime scientists like 
Barnes Wallis, the inventor of the bouncing bomb, as he spoke of the 
"enduring struggles" facing the country.
Mr Reid said he was setting up a taskforce drawn from business and the 
academic world to pool ideas that would keep one step ahead of 
al-Qa'eda, which is increasingly sophisticated in its use of computers 
and weaponry.
"It is a race between those who would find the weaknesses in our defences 
and use that to wreak havoc on our society; and those of us involved in a 
constant search to defend our country, our freedoms and our democracy," 
he said in London. "Just as the innovators Barnes Wallis, Alan Turing 
and Tommy Flowers were vital in our battle to beat the Nazis, so now we 
must be able to utilise the skills and expertise of all in our battle 
against terror."
The comparison of the counter-terrorist campaign with the Second World War 
marks a step change in the rhetoric being deployed by ministers about the 
nature of the threat..../snip/

see ( wrap ! ) :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml
;jsessionid=JPL1JXX3RT2NTQFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2006/11/01/ureid4001.xml

plus also in :

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-2431567.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2-2431567-10,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1936136,00.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1945777.ece
http://www.express.co.uk/news_detail_pa.html?sku=11623147803055624-H6


"Who were they ?"
-----------------

By Philip Johnston

The British technology pioneers who helped win World War Two

Sir Barnes Wallis worked for Vickers-Armstrong at Brooklands, Surrey, 
during the Second World War when he came up with the design of the 
bouncing bomb. It was a variety of depth charge used to attack 
heavily-defended dams in Germany's industrial Ruhr Valley. The mission, 
in May 1943 and led by Guy Gibson VC, was immortalised in the film, The 
Dambusters.
Wallis's idea came to him from his awareness that Royal Navy sailors in 
the 19th century had observed that cannonballs sometimes bounced on water 
which increased their range. Initially he intended that the bomb should be 
used to attack battleships instead of torpedoes but it was developed to 
attack the Ruhr dams which could not otherwise be reached. and which 
needed a massive explosion to destroy.
The bomb was designed to be spun backwards at high velocity before being 
released. It then literally bounced over the water (avoiding the torpedo 
nets) in the same way that a spinning stone will skip.
However, to achieve this effect the bomb had to be released with the 
utmost precision, from a low height, a specific speed and at an exact 
distance. Out of the six intended targets, four were damaged and two were 
destroyed.
He died in 1979 aged 92.


Alan Turing is sometimes called the father of modern computer science.
A gifted mathematician, logician and cryptographer, he worked at Bletchley 
Park, the top secret codebreaking centre in Buckinghamshire during the 
war.
For a time, he was head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German Naval 
cryptanalysis.
Turing was the key figure in the continual battle to decode messages 
encrypted by the increasingly complex Enigma machines. He devised a number 
of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the bombe, an 
electromechanical machine which could find settings for the Enigma.
The periods when the Naval code could be broken saw dramatic reductions in 
the shipping losses from the Atlantic convoys so essential to the conduct 
of the Allied war effort.
He died through an apparent suicide in 1954, aged 41.


Tommy Flowers was a British engineer who designed Colossus, the first 
digital, programmable, electronic computer.
With a degree in electrical engineering from London University, he joined 
the telecommunications branch of the General Post Office (GPO), and worked 
in its research station exploring the use of electronics for telephone 
exchanges.
His knowledge of switching electronics would prove crucial for his 
computer design in the war. Like Turing, he was worked on breaking a 
teletype-based cipher that was even more complex than the Enigma system.
The decoding procedure involved trying so many possibilities that it was 
impractical to do by hand.
In February 1943, Flowers proposed an electronic system (Colossus) using 
1500 valves which operated five times faster and was more flexible than 
the previous system, code-named Heath Robinson, that used 
electro-mechanical switches.
Ten Colossus machines were completed and used in British decoding efforts. 
For his efforts, Flowers received only limited recognition, an MBE and 
£1,000.
After the war, Flowers returned to the Post Office Research Station where 
he was head of the Switching Division.
He died in 1999 aged 94. 


see ( wrap ! ) :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml       
;jsessionid=JPL1JXX3RT2NTQFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2006/11/01/ureid4002.xml