William Van der Kloot

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.102.6

It’s good to know that a Blue Plaque now marks AV Hill’s London home (PN 101, p16-17), but in addition to being celebrated as an eminent physiologist, he should be remembered as a great scientific statesman for his influential role in mobilizing scientists to solve critical problems in two World Wars.

In WWI, he was a serving infantry officer when asked to give up a leave day to advise the new Ministry of Munitions about devices for training antiaircraft gunners. When he saw what they were trying to do he immediately showed them how to measure the heights of aircraft by using two mirrors about a mile apart. With the mirrors, they could also accurately measure where antiaircraft shells with different fuse settings burst. Hill had broken new ground by fitting physiological date with equations. Now they should fit the shell data with the ballistic equations – a much more challenging task – which would enable them to provide the gunners with accurate range tables. To do this, he beat the bushes to gather a group of gifted, conscription-exempt youths and oldsters: they proudly called themselves Hill’s Brigands. By war’s end there were more that 50 of them. They also improved detectors to locate aircraft by sound. Hill earned a solid standing in the military.

In the early 1930’s Hill was biological secretary of the Royal Society and the physicist William Henry Bragg was president. Bragg had struggled likewise to bring scientists into the war against the U-boats, they developed sonar just too late for use. Bragg and Hill saw the approaching war clouds and exploited their military credibility and contacts to set up the framework for the highly successful mobilization of British scientists in World War II, which among other notables brought Alan Hodgkin into the group developing microwave radar, which defeated the U-boats and night fighters.

Hill was invited to lunch at the Athenaeum on 14 October 1934 by AE Wimperis, director of research at the Air Ministry, who wanted to know whether a death ray was feasible. Hill recommended that the wireless section of the National Physical Laboratory be asked to calculate the power needed to bring a kg of water to the boil at various distances. The numbers showed that a death ray was not in the cards, but on the side, they estimated that it should be possible to detect the reflection of a wireless signal from an aircraft.

Hill pressed for the development of radar and – even more importantly – helped to plan how radar would be integrated into the air defence system.

In 1940, Hill was sent to Washington to coordinate military research with neutral American scientists. He was instructed to trade secrets, but how to swap without knowing what you will get in return? Back in London, he argued that they should tell the Americans everything, hoping that they would do likewise. Henry Tizard took to the US a suitcase containing every portable, secret device. This open-handed initiative established the bond of trust on which the brilliantly productive Allied scientific collaboration grew.

Van der Kloot W (2011) Mirrors and smoke: AV Hill, his Brigands, and the science of anti-aircraft gunnery in World War I.

Notes

Rec R Soc 65(4), 393-410. Van der Kloot W (2014) Great Scientists wage the Great War: The first war of science, 1914-1918. Fonthill Media, p162-190 and 204-208. (E Starling’s and WM Bayliss’s contributions are on p49-73). Hill’s skill as an amateur photographer is shown in PN 81 (Winter 2010) p17-21.