The U. For the Allies to possess Enigma information during the period February-July would have granted them no special advantage, since the majority of U-boats, operating independently and transmitting infrequently, could not have been located regularly by cryptographic intelligence; nor could shipping have been diverted around them on the strength of Sigint.
Of course, when the U-boat offensive returned to midocean convoy routes starting in August, and radio-directed patrol lines began forming again, the absence of Enigma was keenly felt. The second consolation, to British strategists as much as to any like-minded officers in the USN, was the convincing demonstration in American waters of the value of convoy as a battle-winning expedient. And why was it so? The third consolation that the Allies could take from the first half of was that the sea war in the west bought time for RAF Coastal Command and RN escorts to enlarge forces, improve training, and perfect tactics.
It is to that opportunity, and to the role of the boffins, that our narrative now turns. His choice fell on Patrick M. Hill and physicists H. Wimperis, A. Rowe, and F. Lindemann, later Lord Cherwell. With Lindemann, whose presence on the Tizard committee was owed to pressure exerted by the then Mr.
Winston Churchill, Blackett had a difficult relationship up to and throughout the war. With physicist Evan James Williams — , whom he recruited to Farnborough, he worked on magnetic field detection of submarines.
Blackett served seven months in — at the Anti-Aircraft A. Command at Stanmore, where he worked on gun-laying radar sets, until March , when he received the call from Joubert. Taking Williams with him, Blackett made it clear to Joubert that he had severed all connections to the design, manufacture, and testing of weapons. The positions of escorts as well as the estimated positions of U-boats were displayed on an immense wall plot.
