Abstract
World War II generated a high demand in Britain for talented scientists and engineers. Callendar responded to the call of duty, as he had in World War I, and actively participated in research and development for the Petroleum Warfare Department and the Ministry of Supply. He was a key engineer and shared a patent in FIDO, an airfield fog dispersal system that saved thousands of airmen’s lives and, according to most contemporary reports, shortened the war by two years. The bulk of this chapter focuses on FIDO (Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation), as it was Callendar’s greatest wartime achievement. However, it was not his only accomplishment during World War II. He conducted basic and applied research on the efficiency of fuel cells and on the infrared spectrum, the latter resulting in strategically important knowledge about German fuel supplies, as well as yielding fundamental insights into the roles of water vapor and carbon dioxide absorption and emission in the Earth’s heat budget. He also designed internal baffles for fuel tanks, experimental devices for forest clearing, and new fuel propellant systems and flamethrowers. After the war, Callendar continued research for the Ministry of Supply on combustion technologies and initiated a number of new projects, including testing of space heaters for military purposes and methods for generating high-speed air currents.
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Notes
Obituary, “Guy Stewart Callendar.”
R.G. H. Watson, Electrochemical Generation of Electricity,” Research, 7, 1 (January 1954): 34–40; reference from CP 7, Notebook References, 88. This article traces the history of fuel cells from Voltas principle of the electrochemical generation of electricity to contemporary work.
N. Sheppard, “Gordon Brims Black Mclvor Sutherland,” Biogr. Mem. Fellows Roy. Soc3, 28 (November 1982): 588–562; quote from 601.
Callendar, G. S., 1941c.
Sutherland, G. B. B. M., and G. S. Callendar, 1942–43. See CP 1 for exchange of letters with Sutherland in 1948 and CP 2, Notebook 1942-IRS.
Egerton was well aware of this work, as evidenced by extensive notes in his diary. Egerton Personal Diary, 1943-44, AE/2/4, pp. 69–70, Royal Society of London.
The Ministry of Supply was formed in 1939 to coordinate the provision of equipment to the British armed forces. It was amalgamated with the Ministry of Aircraft Production in 1946 and was superseded by other agencies in 1959. The Armament Research Department (ARD) was established in 1942 and was amalgamated with the design department in 1955 to form the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE).
Petroleum Warfare Department Folder, SUPP 15/2; and memo from F. A. Gear, 15 May 1942, AVIA 22/2303, British National Archives.
”A. C. Hartley,” Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Joint press release from Petroleum Warfare Department and Air Ministry, FIDO Conference Program, 30 May 1945, CP 8, Folder 6 (hereafter referred to as FIDO Conference Program).
Ibid.
Records of the Petroleum Warfare Department (see note 8 above).
Sir Donald Banks, Flame Over Britain: A Personal Narrative of Petroleum Warfare (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1946), 2,139.
Geoffrey Williams, Flying Through Fire: The Fogbuster of World War Two (London: Grange, 1996), 1–6.
Patent Application, 24 February 1945, for “Fog freeable runways for aircraft and plant associated therewith,” CP 8, Folder 6.
Williams, Flying Through Fire, 6.
Ibid., 7.
G. I. Taylor, “Fog Conditions,” Aero. J., 21 (1917): 75.
Napier Shaw, “Artificial Dissipation of Fog,” Meteor. Mag., 55 (January 1921): 265–268. See also Royal Aircraft Establishment and Meteorological Office, “Fog and Its Dispersion,” Reports and Memoranda, Aeronautical Research Committee, No. 727 (April, 1921).
F. A. Lindemann, “Notes on Landing in Fog,” Reports and Memoranda, Aeronautical Research Committee, No. 726 (February 1921), cited in E. G. Walker and D. A. Fox, The Dispersal of Fog from Airfield Runways (London: Ministry of Supply, 1946), 3.
C. Morgan, “Fog continues to battle scientists,” Tycos, 19 (January 1929): 33; and Alexander McAdie, “The Control of Fog,” Sci. Mon., 33,1 (July, 1931): 28-36.
W J. Humphreys, Rain Making and Other Weather Vagaries (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1926).
D. Brunt, “The Artificial Dissipation of Fog,” J. Sci. Instruments, 16, 5 (May 1939): 137–140.
R. J. Ogden, “Fog Dispersal at Airfields,” Weather, 43 (1998): 20–23, 34-38.
Callendar’s résumé, 1940, see Figure 3.4.
FIDO Conference Program.
Banks, Flame Over Britain, 139.
Ibid.
Ibid.
FIDO Conference Program.
Ibid.
Ogden, “Fog Dispersal at Airfields,” 21.
Ibid.
Banks, Flame Over Britain, 148–50; emphasis added.
For an aerial view of FIDO in use at Fiskerton on 3 November 1943, see Royal Air Force Museum photo PC71/19/524.
Williams, Flying Through Fire, 20.
Banks, Flame Over Britain.
CP 2, Notebook 1942-IRS, 217 and CP 8, Folder 6, G. S. Callendar, “List of own reports for P.W.R.S. 1942-46,” dated March 1946.
Notes on FIDO Meetings, 12 July 1943, Lord Geoffrey Lloyd Box, Folder 85/46/18, Imperial War Museum. A. C. Hartley, “Fog Dispersal,” J. Roy. Soc. Arts, (December 6,1946): 35–37.
A. O. Rankine, “FIDO Investigation Wind Tunnel Experiments,” Petroleum Warfare Department, 4 April 1945, p. 42, AIR 20/7239, British National Archives; and A. O. Rankine, “Experiments in the Empress Hall, Earl’s Court, London, on the distribution of heat from line burners in relation to the problem of fog clearance in airfields,” Petroleum Warfare Department, 1943 (copy in Imperial War Museum). FIDO Conference Program; Williams, Flying Through Fire.
Walker and Fox, Dispersal of Fog, 1-9, 33–36.
“Mr. A. C. Hartley’s Diary, September 30, 1942-August 2,1943,” and “FIDO Statement by A. C. Hartley, February 17,1950” Lord Geoffrey-Lloyd Box, Imperial War Museum.
Banks, Flame Over Britain, 153.
CP 8, Folder 6, “List of own reports for P.W.R.S., 1942-46.”
Mr. A. C. Hartley’s Diary, 30 September 1942–2 August 1943.
”Notes on FIDO Meetings,” 12 July 1943 and 14 March 1944, Lord Geoffrey Lloyd Box, Folder 85/46/18, Imperial War Museum.
FIDO Conference Program.
Ogden, “Fog Dispersal at Airfields,” 34.
Ibid.
“Remarks by pilots …, Do you know FIDO?” Sir Donald Banks Box, Imperial War Museum.
Williams, Flying Through Fire, 39.
Ogden, “Fog Dispersal at Airfields,” 35–37. On American-built FIDO systems see Dave Zebo, Thermal Fog-Dispersal, High Pressure System (1957), http://www. northcoast.com/∼bbn/zebo.html (30 January 2006)
FIDO Conference Program; and “FIDO Principle Press Cuttings,” Sir Donald Banks Box, Imperial War Museum.
For contemporary accounts of FIDO by airmen see “Fido No Fog,” Tee Emm 4 (May 1944): 35 and “Ninth Time Lucky,” Tee Emm 4 (October 1944): 155-56. Copy of the latter in Churchill at War: The Prime Minister’s Office Papers, 1940–1945, PRO Record Classes PREM 3 and PREM 4, microfilm edition (Berkshire: Primary Source Media, 1998), reel 2.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Total fuel use in all of World War II has been estimated at 7 billion barrels of oil, or the equivalent of 150 billion gallons of gasoline; Keith Miller, “How Important Was Oil in World War II?” http://hnn.us/articles/339.html (11 March 2006). M. Garbett and B. Goulding, The Lancaster at War (London: Ian Allen, 1971). Other estimates appear in Tom Morrison, Quest for All-Weather Flight (Shewsbury, UK: Airlife, 2002), 155-157.
Jean-Pierre Chalon, “Rapporteur on fog dissipation” World Meteorological Organization, CAS Working Group on Physics and Chemistry of Clouds and Weather Modification Research, 21st Session, Geneva, 23–27 May 2005. PCCWMR-21/ Doc. 4.3. (17.V.2005).
Ogden, “Fog Dispersal at Airfields,” 38.
CP 8, Folder 6, “List of own reports for P.W.R.S., 1942-46.”
CP 8, Folder 6, “Experiments on the Thermal Cutting of Wood,” 30 June 1944.
CP 8, Folder 6, G. S. Callendar, “Report on tests with anti-surge baffles fitted in a tank,” ca. 1940s.
CP 8, Folder 6, “Local Team Helps to Save Beaches,” West Sussex County Times (7 April 1967).
CP 8, Folder 7, G. S. Callendar, “Test of Daniell’s ‘Dragon Heater in West Hangar, 10th October, 1950,” and “Trial of a self contained portable space heating unit,” Report A.D.E. 3/51, February 1951.
CP 8, Folder 7, G. S. Callendar, “The diffusion of high pressure air into liquids through flexible membranes,” April 1953.
G. S. Callendar, 1956, “Gravity Method of Obtaining a Low Pressure High Velocity Air Current for Laboratory Research,” Ministry of Supply Branch Memorandum S4/8/56.
A venturi tube, named for the Italian physicist G. B. Venturi (1746–1822), is a short pipe with a constricted inner surface. In Callendar’s design, fluid passing through the tube speeds up as it enters the orifice and the pressure drops, acting as further source of suction.
Callendar’s salary was £550 per annum in 1942 according to “List of Staff at Research Department, Langhurst” AVIA 22/2303, British National Archives.
CP 8, Folder 1, V. M. Callendar, 25 November 1947, sworn affidavit re: birth of G. S. Callendar.
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Fleming, J.R. (2007). Defense Work. In: The Callendar Effect. American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-935704-04-1_4
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