Abstract
DURING the War of 1914–18 technical progress went ahead, as has again happened in this War, at a vastly increased rate in all the Services. In order to compete with the demands for new weapons and counter-measures, the help of numbers of men of science from the universities and technical men from private firms was enlisted, and these men were employed in naval establishments all over Great Britain. They were employed very largely on new methods for detecting and destroying enemy submarines and on developments in radio, new types of mines, methods of mine-sweeping, work on underwater explosions, torpedoes and navigational devices and the like. The work of these men was of immeasurable value to the Navy, and directly after the War the Admiralty decided, as a result of its experiences during the War, to set up a civilian scientific research department under a civilian Director of Scientific Research. The first Director of Scientific Research in the Admiralty was appointed at the beginning of 1919. He was Sir Frank Smith, who had himself during the War been largely concerned with the development of a type of magnetic mine which can be regarded as a forerunner of the German magnetic mine, which was used against Britain during this War. The Admiralty also set up its own research laboratory under the Director of Scientific Research for the conduct of the more fundamental types of scientific investigation.
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The Royal Naval Scientific Service. Nature 154, 388–389 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/154388a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/154388a0