Blackett's War

October 22, 2012
Historian and journalist Budiansky’s newest (after Perilous Fight) is the little known history of a linchpin in the Allies’ victory over the Nazis: Patrick Blackett. At the outset of WWI, the submarine was a marginalized resource, yet it would soon prove a harbinger of the unprecedented technological developments that would characterize the efficient lethality of modern warfare. Budiansky demonstrates that at the time, the Royal Navy was less a training center for elite combatants than it was “a vocation for the sons of gentleman.” Yet Blackett, who got his first taste of battle as a teen in 1916, was the exception among the navy’s well-heeled students. Between the World Wars, he studied at Cambridge, where he developed into a brilliant physicist and became enduringly committed to left-wing politics. During WWII, he applied pragmatism and scientific acumen to the relatively new field of “operational research,” which favored data (e.g., radar) and improvisation over “tradition, prejudice, or gut feeling.” Described by a contemporary as “straightforward, leftish, Bohemian and unconventional,” Blackett had his fair share of old guard naysayers, yet in the struggle against German U-boats, the efficacy of his tactics spoke for themselves. For military history and science fans alike. Agent: Katinka Matson, Brockman Inc.

Starred review from December 1, 2012
Little-known story of the Allied scientists whose unconventional thinking helped thwart the Nazi U-boats in World War II. With the largest fleet of submarines (U-boats) in the war, Germany dominated early fighting in the Battle of the Atlantic, destroying much Allied shipping. During three months in 1940 alone, U-boats sank more than 150 ships; U-boat commanders were celebrated as daring heroes back home. By war's end, U-boat crews would suffer the highest casualties of all German forces. Military historian Budiansky (Perilous Fight: America's Intrepid War with Britain on the High Seas, 1812-1815, 2011, etc.) offers an excellent, well-researched account of the unlikely group of some 100 British and American scientists whose ideas halted the Nazi submarine menace. Foremost among them was British experimental physicist Patrick Blackett, a controversial socialist and later Nobel Prize winner, who directed operational research for the Admiralty during the war. His teams of scientists brought "a scientific outlook and a fresh eye" to problems that had previously been addressed by tradition and gut instinct. Drawing on math and probability theory, the scientists developed effective solutions to issues such as armor placement on RAF aircraft, the optimal size of warship convoys to protect merchant ships (larger was better), and the proper use of plane-delivered depth charges. Their work doubled or tripled the effectiveness of the Allied campaigns against U-boats; writes the author: "It is no exaggeration to say that few men did more to win the war against Nazi Germany than Patrick Blackett." Especially fascinating is Budiansky's account of Blackett's successful effort to urge the wartime mobilization of scientists at a time when the military greatly distrusted intellectuals and civilians. The scientists' contributions to the war effort secured "a permanent institutional foothold" for scientific advice in government. An engrossing work rich in insights and anecdotes.

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