Blackett's War: The Men Who Defeated the Nazi U-Boats and Brought Science to the Art of Warfare Warfare Paperback – November 5, 2013

This book presents, in a very interesting and easy-to-read way, one aspect of the Allied, and especially the British, approach to WW II that most people have never heard of even though it was quite literally one of the major reasons, if not the major reason, the Allies won the war. That approach, eventually called operational research by the British and operations research or management science by the Americans, involved having scientists, most of whom had backgrounds totally unrelated to warfare, apply scientific reasoning and mathematical methodology to problems encountered during the war. While such an approach may sound rather boring, and even somewhat daunting to the average reader, the author has focused less on the technical aspects of this story and more on the personalities involved, producing a very intriguing and even frightening view into how top generals and admirals, and, even Sir Winston himself, often wanted to pursue paths that could very easily have led to disaster, even when all the scientific evidence pointed in a different direction.My Ph.D. degree is in management science, so I already had a vested interest in this story, having heard during my graduate work of "Blackett's Circus" and even the famous application of operational research to the problem of airplanes dropping depth charges (unsuccessfully) on U-boats. However, this book showed me that the story I'd learned was completely wrong and oversimplified. Instead, the true story, revealed in this book, is much more compelling and exciting than anything I could have imagined.Anyone who has taken a science course or courses in business that discussed management science techniques will find this book intriguing. However, anyone with any interest in human personalities and how people can let their egos and preconceptions cloud their thinking will also find this book worthwhile, as will those with an interest in the history of WW II.The only reason I gave this book four stars instead of five is that I personally would have liked more in-depth discussion of the scientific models and methodology involved, and discussion of more of the operational research applications. However, that probably would not have appealed to most readers, so I think the author has done a good job of presenting just enough of what technical readers like me would like without going overboard, spending most of his time on the human story that most readers will find much more interesting.

This book is a very well-written history of submarine warfare that reads like a page-turning novel. Although the book centers on Patrick Blackett, it is by no means a biography.The author makes a compelling argument to the effect that during World War II, Allied civilian intellectuals -- scientists and other professionals such as physicists, chemists, biologists, actuaries, and mathematicians -- made remarkable contributions to winning the war in Europe. For example, they developed a new discipline, Operations Research (OR), as well as microwave (10-centmeter/3-gigahertz) radar and other breakthroughs that are still in use today.These civilians applied scientific thinking to battlefield situations -- teaching Allied military leaders to use their resources in as optimum a fashion as possible. They asked penetrating questions that challenged accepted naval and air-force thinking. In so doing, they revolutionized anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and made a significant contribution to winning the Battle of the Atlantic -- the linchpin for the winning of the war.Real heroes abound. To begin there is Winston Churchill, who in the mid-1930s was a powerless Parliament backbencher. Churchill, a first Lord of the Admiralty in World War I, was a skeptic of military ways and means as well as a firm believer in scientific methods. He made the acquaintance of the Oxford University physicist F.A. Lindemann. "Lindeman became my chief adviser on the scientific aspects of modern war," said Churchill. He lectured Churchill on ways science might help protect Britain against aerial bombardment. Churchill then pressed the government to bring in scientific advisers on military affairs as early as 1934. This led to the formation of the Air Ministry Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defence.The formation of the committee opened the way for the civilians. Henry Tizard, a physical chemist at Oxford, chaired the committee that included H. E. Wimperis, the Air Ministry's director of scientific research, and his assistant A. P. Rowe, A. V. Hill, a biologist at University College, and Patrick Blackett, a future Nobel Prize-winning physicist, who was a Naval Officer during World War I and went on to prove himself to be one of the best scientific leaders of the day via his work at Cambridge under Ernest Rutherford . Much to the discomfort of many line officers, hundreds more civilian intellectuals followed in their footsteps.The scientists were meant not so much to invent new devices as to improve the way war was waged with weapons and procedures already at hand . This was a tough assignment requiring relationship skills, because it involved telling generals and admirals how to better do their jobs. Churchill, who became prime minister in May 1940, provided strong support so that the civilians could embed themselves in military units to study real operational problems. The scientists were not very well received at the Admiralty. The civilians needed to keep a low profile. The job as Blackett would say after the war, "is to improve matters if he can, and if he cannot, to say nothing." But invent things they did.In 1935, a group of these civilian experts began exploring the embryonic concept of "a new and potent means of detecting the approach of hostile aircraft, one which will be independent of mist, cloud, fog, or nightfall." The outcome of their efforts became known as radar--radio detecting and ranging. Churchill and the Air Ministry saw to it that England's south coast was lined with tracking stations by the time Great Britain and Germany went to war in September 1939. The Royal Navy's tradition and inbred conservatism made it uninterested in radar that was one of the keys to winning the Battle of Britain--an attitude that would deprive it of a potential early advantage against the German Navy.Churchill's excitement over technical ideas would often get the better of him. Motivated by Lindemann, he insisted that the scientists pursue a rash of worthless, time-consuming ideas such as aerial mines that could intercept bombers and a device to create an updraft that would flip an attacking airplane upside-down.The author rightfully claims that the scientists' greatest contribution to the war effort was forcing the military to make decisions based on data instead of tradition and intuition. Nowhere was this more important than in the Battle of the Atlantic, where German U-boats were waging a devastating war on merchant shipping - threatening the lifeline to England and the build-up for D-Day.U-boats often operated on the surface, and were frequently spotted at close range by Royal Navy ships escorting convoys. The escorts were trained to drop depth charges 250 feet apart and set to explode 100 to 150 feet underwater and were having negligible success against the subs. Blackett, then working for the Navy's Coastal Command, asked a physicist named E.J. Williams to take on the issue. Williams showed mathematically why an escort ship following the Navy's instructions was unlikely ever to hit a U-boat. He recommended that the defenders ignore any U-boat that had been beneath the surface for more than 15 seconds. But U-boats that had just dived were to be attacked immediately with closely spaced depth charges set to explode at only 25 feet. The kill rate rose by a factor of 10.The Coastal Command tracked the estimated location of every U-boat believed to be in the Atlantic and used a fleet of patrol planes to search for them. Knowing that U-boats usually traveled on the surface, Blackett calculated the number of sightings the planes should report. The actual number was far less, because U-boats were spotting the planes and diving before being seen. Blackett determined that the Coastal aircraft were black -- having been shifted from night bomber duty to ocean patrol. Painting the undersides of the wings reflective white made the planes harder to see, and the rate of U-boat sightings doubled.Some of the contributions the author recounts are well known, notably the cracking of the German army Enigma codes and the more complex naval Enigma codes. It began with the help of discoveries made by three code breakers in the Polish army's cipher bureau who turned over the results of their work -- including a reverse-engineered army version of the Enigma coding machine -- to their British counterparts in Warsaw just prior to the Nazi invasion. Code breaking was an ongoing task that allowed the Coastal Command to site and map U-boat deployments, including wolf-pack formations, and so re-direct convoys out of harms' way. For good measure, the convoys were optimally designed via OR re: size and escort configuration.The author helps the reader understand how and why OR developed as a scientific enterprise. Blackett and his fellow British scientists, and, from 1940, their American counterparts under the National Defense Research Committee headed by Vannevar Bush, showed how careful quantitative analysis could provide far better guidance for decision makers than tradition, prejudice, and gut feeling. Concepts such as probability and optimization, honed in studies analyzing the placement of antiaircraft batteries and the flight patterns of planes on patrol at sea, eventually made their way into business operations.Finally, the civilian heroes of World War II are seen by the author as having "an abiding faith in rationality, a basic confidence in the enduring power of arithmetic and simple probability, and a determination to vanquish an evil that they took to heart as a personal duty."

In the darkest days of the Second World War, Patrick Blackett, who would win the 1948 Nobel Prize in physics, led a team of scientists that helped to win one of the most important battles of the war. Combining simple mathematics with sound physical insight, Blackett’s small group, tiny in comparison to the code breakers at Bletchley and infinitesimal next to the Manhattan Project, found the means to defeat Germany’s submarines. In so doing, they provided a most convincing demonstration that scientists could not only develop the instruments of war but could also direct its daily operations, creating the field that soon came to be called “operational research.”Mr. Budiansky tells the story in an engaging and even lively fashion, with a decent level of detail. This remarkable history is complemented with a summary of other aspects of Blackett’s extraordinary career and supporting descriptions of the ridiculous political prejudices and military machinations that, occasionally, threatened his effort, even in the face of its success. Indeed, one senior RAF officer actually dismissed some of the work as “strategy by slide rule.” (He eventually came to his senses.)I can recommend this book without qualification to anyone interested in history, science or just a good read.

Fascinating! This is an exhaustively researched, enlightening account of how British scientists and the U.S. counterparts that learned from them, struggled to improve the effectiveness of both defensive & offensive warfare. It reveals the scientists' backgrounds & personalities, the political climate, highlights the incredible successes, tragic mistakes & awful blunders committed by short sighted politicians & tradition bound, willful, military commanders on both sides. Ultimately the science of operational analysis brings triumph as it becomes accepted, adopted & integrated into the services by men who value results over rank, tradition or their careers. The allied victory in 1945 arguably owed more to these often quirky, eccentric, unconventional men, whose ideas were acted upon by the famed generals, air aces & naval commanders, frequently without knowing their true source.It is the secrecy following all warfare that inevitably condemns heroes like these to a lifetime's lack of recognition or reward. Budiansky's work at last brings some redress to WWII's history and some posthumous justice for these geniuses whose contribution far outweighed their numbers.

A very clear and well-written account of the brilliant work done by Blackett and others, bringing science, logic and sometimes just common sense to some of the intricate problems of winning the war, often fighting against "traditional" approaches favoured by the top brass.The book is well researched, extremely readable, and gives a good feel for the anxieties and excitement of the times.The paper and print quality is fine, but the binding leaves something to be desired, particularly the deckle edge: but this is trivial beside the excellence of the read.

オペレーションズリサーチに関する紹介本は和書でははじめてのOR―グローバリゼーション時代を勝ち抜く技法 (ブルーバックス)ですね。元々、オペレーションズリサーチが戦争で生まれて育ったモノなので、豊富に事例が紹介されています。対Uボート戦（ASW）の兵器や歴史を調べてもらうと分かりますが、科学者が戦争の現場や兵器開発に密接に関係していて具体的な提案や指示を出しているのに驚くと思います。そこをもう少し突っ込んで行こうとすると、いきなり数学的な本になってしまってなかなか良いOR史が出て来なかったのですが、本書の登場でようやく打開されたと思います。嬉しい限りです。しかし残念なコトに、ORってものすごく概念的な事が多くって文章だけで読んでも理解しにくくて面白くないのです。そして不幸な事に、この本は殆ど図がありません…タイトルの通り、OR史というよりは人物史（ブラケットさん）なので仕方ないのかもしれませんが…唯一書かれているのは「護送船団は大きいほうが良い」を説明してくれてる図ですが、これと同じようなモノが豊富だと実に助かるのですが…中程にある写真類は直接は関係ないモノが並び、直感的に内容が結びつきません。いきなりこの本を買うような方は当然居ないと思いますが、まずは一通りUボート戦の推移と、陸戦を含めた全体の戦いの流れを知ってる事は必須です。最初に巻頭の年史を通してみるのが良いですね、これでORの実際の関わりを把握出来ます。数学の本でオペレーションズリサーチに関する本は、私のお勧めはグラフの理論〈1〉 (サイエンスライブラリ数学)です。グラフ理論がオペレーションズリサーチに合うと思うんですが、Blackett's...では数式も図も殆ど出てこないのでグラフ理論が使われているかどうかも今は確認できません…＜ブラケットさんの仕事の一部＞　・Uボート攻撃機の爆雷設定深度を変更　・戦略爆撃に使用していた超長距離航続機を大西洋のUボート攻撃機に編成変え　・大きな護送船団は小さなのより二倍安全＃洋書読むのは結構慣れてるんですが、この本の英語、すごく読みにくいんですよね…　何故？

Another fascinating piece of WWII history...largely unknown

Though the subject is operational research in support of the anti-submarine campaign, relatively little of the book actually addresses this. Still, it has value in that it does demonstrate the value of this kind of work.