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Whenever British radar is discussed the name that usually comes to mind is that of Robert Watson Watt. Our history books and our dictionaries of biography consistently attribute the discovery of radar in Britain solely to Watson Watt, with little or no mention of the key role played by his young colleague, Arnold Wilkins. This paper describes Wilkins's contributions to the origins of British radar and explains how he came to be airbrushed out of the story.
During the mid1930s A. F. Wilkins, a young physics graduate from St John's College, Cambridge, was employed as a scientific officer at the Radio Research Station at Ditton Park, near Datchet, Berkshire, where R. A. Watson Watt was the laboratory superintendent. Watson Watt had been approached by people from the Air Ministry to evaluate the possibility of using radio waves as a kind of 'death ray to incapacitate the pilots of attacking enemy aircraft. He discussed this problem with Arnold Wilkins and, although Wilkins thought that the suggestion of a death ray was highly improbable, he was asked to do calculations. Wilkins calculated that the energy required for a death ray was immense and that the notion was therefore completely impractical.
Watson Watt was despondent when Wilkins gave him the results and he asked him: "How, then, can we help them?" Clearly, Wilkins had done some lateral thinking because he replied that radio waves might well be capable of detecting aircraft. That was the 'Eureka Moment'. With his reply, Wilkins neatly turned Air Ministry thinking away from 'death rays' and instead proposed the concept of radar.
Professor R. V. Jones in his excellent and authoritative book Most Secret War, which was published in 1978 (and which later became a major BBC television series), states: "As regards air defence in Britain, it was Wilkins' remark to Watson Watt that started the serious development of radar" (Jones, 1978, pl6,). Professor Jones' account of Wilkins' suggestion is corroborated by Dr E. G. Bowen in his book Radar Days (Bowen, 1987, pp 5-6). Wilkins himself recorded his recollection of the conversation with Watson Watt in his memoirs which have only recently been published (Latham 8c Stobbs, 2006, ? 4-5).
Wilkins produced further calculations to show that his suggestion of using reflections from...