TheTizard Mission, officially theBritish Technical and Scientific Mission, was a delegation from the United Kingdom that visited the United States during World War II to share secretresearch and development (R&D) work that had military applications. It received its popular name from the programme's instigator,Henry Tizard, a British scientist and chairman of theAeronautical Research Committee, which had orchestrated thedevelopment ofradar.
The mission travelled to the U.S. in September 1940 during theBattle of Britain. They conveyed a number of British technical and scientific secrets with the objective of securing U.S. assistance in sustaining the war effort and obtaining the industrial resources to exploit the military potential of these technologies, which Britain itself could not fully use, due to the immediate demands of other war-related production.
Referring to one such British secret, a device known as aresonant cavity magnetron, American historianJames Phinney Baxter III later wrote, "When the members of the Tizard Mission brought one to America in 1940, they carried the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores."[1] The mission also opened up channels of communication for jet engine and atomic bomb development, leading to theBritish contribution to the Manhattan Project, and catalyzedAllied technological cooperation during World War II.
The Tizard mission is seen as one of the key events that forged the wartimeAnglo-American alliance. After the war, it became the foundation for future cooperation in scientific research at institutions within and across the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.
Britain made significant scientific advances in military technology, weapons and their components beforeWorld War II began in September 1939.[2][3][4] After theFall of France in June 1940, which saw Germany overrun most of the countries of Western Europe, Germany's planned invasion of the United Kingdom,Operation Sea Lion, was preceded by its effort to establish air superiority in theBattle of Britain.
Henry Tizard was a British scientist and chairman of theAeronautical Research Committee, which had orchestrated thedevelopment ofradar before the war. He sought to initiate cooperation with the United States to further the research, development and production of radar and other technologies. The U.S. was neutral and, in many quarters, unwilling to become involved in the war, but had greater resources for development and production, which Britain sought to use. The information provided by the British delegation was subject to carefully vetted security procedures, and contained some of the greatest scientific advances made at that time. The technology Britain possessed included the greatly-improvedcavity magnetron,[5] the design for the proximityVT fuse, details ofFrank Whittle'sjet engine and theFrisch–Peierls memorandum andMAUD Report describing the feasibility of an atomic bomb. Though these may be considered the most significant, many other technologies had also been developed, including designs for rockets, superchargers,gyroscopic gunsights, submarine detection devices,self-sealing fuel tanks andplastic explosives.
Congress had many proponents ofneutrality for the USA and so there were further barriers to co-operation. Tizard decided the most productive approach would be simply to give away the information and use America's productive capacity. NeitherWinston Churchill nor the radar pioneer,Robert Watson-Watt, were initially in agreement with these tactics for the mission. Nevertheless, Tizard first arranged forArchibald Hill, another scientific member of the committee, to go to Washington to explore the possibilities. Hill's report to Tizard was optimistic.
After Churchill's approval of the project, the team began gathering all technical secrets which had potential military uses. At the end of August, Tizard went to the U.S. by air to make preliminary arrangements. The rest of the mission would follow by ship. They were:
All the documents were gathered in a small trunk: a lockable metaldeed box, used for holding important valuable documents such as property deeds. Bowen was allowed to take 'Magnetron Number 12' with him. After spending the night under Bowen's hotel bed, the case was strapped to the roof of a taxi to the station. An over-eager railway porter whisked it from Bowen atEuston Station to take it to the train toLiverpool and Bowen almost lost sight of it. Inconsistently, in Liverpool, the magnetron was given a full Army escort.
The team arrived inHalifax, Canada, on 6 September on board the CPR LinerDuchess of Richmond (later known as theRMS Empress of Canada), and went on to Washington, D.C., a few days later. The team of six assembled in Washington on 12 September 1940.
Tizard metVannevar Bush, the chairman of theNational Defense Research Committee, on 31 August 1940, and arranged a series of meetings with each division of the NDRC. When the American and British teams met, there was initially some cautious probing by each side to avoid giving away too much without getting anything back in exchange.[7] At a meeting hosted by NDRC's two-month-old "Microwave Committee" chairmanDr Alfred Loomis[8] at the Wardman Park Hotel on 19 September 1940 the British disclosed the technical details of theChain Home early warning radar stations. The British thought the Americans did not have anything like this, but found it was virtually identical to the US Navy's longwaveCXAM radar.
The Americans then described their microwave research done by Loomis andKarl Compton earlier in 1940. The British realised thatBell Telephone Laboratories andGeneral Electric both could contribute a lot to receiver technology. The Americans had shown a Navy experimental shortwave 10-centimetre wavelength radar but had to admit that it had not enough transmitter power and they were at a dead end. Bowen and Cockcroft then revealed the cavity magnetron, with an amazing power output of about ten kilowatts at 10 centimetres.[8] This disclosure dispelled any tension left between the delegations, and the meeting then went smoothly.[9]
Britain was interested in theNorden bombsight. President Roosevelt apologised and said that it was not available to Britain unless it could be shown that the Germans hadsomething similar. Tizard was not unduly dismayed as he thought there were other US technologies more useful to Britain than the bombsight, and he asked for the unit's external dimensions so that British bombers could be modified to take it, if it became available at some future date.[10]
GEC atWembley made 12 prototype cavity magnetrons in August 1940, and No 12 was sent to America with Bowen, where it was shown on 19 September 1940 in Alfred Loomis’ apartment. The American NDRC Microwave Committee was stunned at the power level produced. However, the Bell Labs director was upset when it was X-rayed and had eight holes rather than the six holes shown on the GEC plans. After contacting (via the transatlantic cable) DrEric Megaw, GEC’s vacuum tube expert Megaw recalled that when he had asked for 12 prototypes he said make 10 with 6 holes, one with 7 and one with 8; there was no time to amend the drawings. And No 12 with 8 holes was chosen for the Tizard Mission. So Bell Labs chose to copy the sample; and while early British magnetrons had six cavities the American ones had eight cavities.[11]
Bowen stayed in America, and a few days later, at the General Electric labs in New Jersey, he showed the Americans that the magnetron worked. TheBell Telephone Company was given the job of making magnetrons, producing the first 30 in October 1940, and over a million by the end of the war.[7]
The Tizard delegation also visitedEnrico Fermi atColumbia University and told Fermi of theFrisch–Peierls concept for an atomic bomb. Fermi was highly sceptical, mainly because his research was geared towards using nuclear power to produce steam, not atomic bombs. InOttawa, the delegation also met a Canadian,George Laurence, who had secretly built his ownslow neutron experiment. Laurence had anticipated Fermi's work by several months.[12]
Tizard met with both Vannevar Bush andGeorge W. Lewis and told them about jet propulsion, but he revealed very little except the seriousness of British efforts. Bush later recalled: "The interesting parts of the subject, namely the explicit way in which the investigation was being carried out, were apparently not known to Tizard, and at least he did not give me any indication that he knew such details".[13][14] Later, Bush realised that the development of theWhittle engine was far ahead of theNACA project. In July 1941 he wrote toGeneral "Hap" Arnold, commander of theUSAAF, "It becomes evident that the Whittle engine is a satisfactory development and that it is approaching production, although we yet do not know just how satisfactory it is. Certainly, if it is now in such state that the British plans call for large production in five months, it is extraordinarily advanced and no time should be lost on the matter".[14]
The Tizard mission was hailed as a success, especially for its impact on the subsequent development and deployment of radar as well as widerAllied technological cooperation during World War II. Although theGerman bombing of the UK was largely over by the time that the new radar systems were in production, technology such as aircraft radar andLORAN navigation greatly helped the Allied war effort in Europe and the Pacific. The development of thecavity magnetron, a key radar component, would enable the production of radar units small enough to be installed innight fighters, allow antisubmarine aircraft to locate surfacedU-boats and provide great navigational assistance to bombers. It is considered to be a significant factor in the eventual Allied victory in the Second World War.[7][9] According to James Phinney Baxter III, Official Historian of theOffice of Scientific Research and Development: "[T]he greatest of [British] contributions to radar was the development of the resonant cavity magnetron.... This revolutionary discovery... was the first tube capable of producing power enough to make radar feasible at wave lengths of less than 50 centimeters. When the members of the Tizard Mission brought one to America in 1940, they carried the most valuable cargo ever brought to our [i.e., U.S.] shores. It sparked the whole development of microwave radar".[15]
Note: The cavity resonator (magnetron), which was not a secret device at the time, can not be tuned to a fixed frequency, and for that reason was widely dismissed in the use of radar. However, a pair of British researchers,[who?] thinking well outside the 'box', developed a receiver that tracked the transmitted frequency and tuned the receiver accordingly. That made this kind of radar a practical venture, and provide proof of concept that still required development before becoming practical. Uncle Sam had the man-power and the tools needed to take that on with the urgency needed. The 'Magnetron' itself had been considered an 'interesting' toy up to that time. It was not yet a 'revolutionary discovery', but rather a very clever recognition of its potential by a couple of guys working independently on their own initiative.[citation needed]
The Tizard mission caused the foundation of theMIT Radiation Lab in October 1940, which became one of the largest wartime projects, employing nearly 4,000 people at its peak. The mission also opened up channels of communication for the design and development of jet engines. Vannevar Bush recommended that arrangements should be made to produce the British engine in the United States by finding a suitable company.[14] This company turned out to beGeneral Electric and the US Whittle engine would emerge as theGeneral Electric I-A and subsequent productionGeneral Electric J31.
When they returned to the UK in November 1940, the delegation reported that the slow neutron research conducted by French exiles in Cambridge, Columbia (by Fermi) and Canada (by Laurence) was probably irrelevant to the war effort. Nonetheless, sincenuclear boilers could have some post-war value, they arranged for some financial support for the Canadian fission experiments. George Laurence later became involved in the secret exchanges of nuclear information between the British and the Americans. The British recognized the atomic bomb was a serious possibility whenFranz Simon reported in December 1940 to the BritishMAUD Committee that it was feasible to separate theisotopeuranium-235. Following this, the British created a nuclear weapons project, code namedTube Alloys, and encouraged the United States to begin this type of research, which became theManhattan Project.[12]
The Tizard Mission is seen as one of the key events in forging the wartimeAnglo-American alliance. It was the foundation for cooperation in scientific research at institutions within and across the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Its legacy was marked on its 75th anniversary in 2015 by various groups including: theMassachusetts Institute of Technology,Imperial College London,Office of Naval Research,British Embassy in Washington,Canadian Embassy in Washington,National Air and Space Museum, and theDefense Visual Information Distribution Service.[16][17][18][19][20][21][22]
British science and technology was instrumental in winning the Second World War. This course looks at several different technological innovations undertaken in Britain in the context of the wartime period: the breaking of the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park (which Winston Churchill credited with having won the Battle of the Atlantic), the development of radar, the advances in wartime medicine and pharmacology (most notably, the first practical uses of penicillin), and the participation by British scientists in the Manhattan Project.