Blackett's War: The Men Who Defeated the Nazi U-boats and Brought Science to the Art of Warfare

by Stephen Budiansky Narrated by John Lee

Overview

In March 1941, after a year of unbroken and devastating U-boat onslaughts, the British War Cabinet decided to try a new strategy in the foundering naval campaign. To do so, they hired an intensely private, bohemian physicist who was also an ardent socialist. Patrick Blackett was a former navy officer and future winner of the Nobel Prize; he is little remembered today, but he and his fellow scientists did as much to win the war against Nazi Germany as almost anyone else. As director of the World War II antisubmarine effort, Blackett used little more than simple mathematics and probability theory-and a steadfast belief in the utility of science-to save the campaign against the U-boat. Employing these insights in unconventional ways, from the washing of mess hall dishes to the color of bomber wings, the Allies went on to win essential victories against Hitler's Germany.



Here is the story of these civilian intellectuals who helped to change the nature of twentieth-century warfare. Throughout, Stephen Budiansky describes how scientists became intimately involved with what had once been the distinct province of military commanders-convincing disbelieving military brass to trust the solutions suggested by their analysis. Budiansky shows that these men above all retained the belief that operational research and a scientific mentality could change the world. It's a belief that has come to fruition with the spread of their tenets to the business and military worlds, and it started in the Battle of the Atlantic, in an attempt to outfight the Germans, but most of all to outwit them.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

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. (Feb. 20)

From the Publisher

"Little-known story of the Allied scientists whose unconventional thinking helped thwart the Nazi U-boats in World War II. . . . An excellent, well-researched account." —-Kirkus Starred Review

Kirkus Reviews

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.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170950362
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	03/25/2013
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,170,385

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