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A Biographical Memoire

Page history last edited by Alan Hartley-Smith 4 years, 5 months ago

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Introduction

This edited version of a memoire written by F.E.Jones for the Royal Society focuses on Sir Eric Eastwood's career in the R.A.F and subsequently with Marconi, English Electric and GEC. The full version, which includes details of his early home life, education and publications is available here and in printed form here.

 

In May 1941 Eric volunteered to join the Royal Air Force and was commissioned in the Education Branch. However, he was soon transferred to 60 Group and so entered a new and very important part of his career.

 

60 Group Royal Air Force.

 

Following the successful demonstration, using the B.B.C Daventry transmitter, of reflections of radio waves from aircraft by Watson-Watt and his colleagues on 26th February 1935, a team of scientists had been set to work at Orfordness, on the east coast, to develop R.D.F. (radio direction finding) later to be known as radar. By 1939, work had progressed to such an extent that a chain of radar stations known as CH (Chain Home) had been set up at regular intervals around the coast from the Isle of Wight to the Firth of Tay. The stations worked on wavelengths around 13 metres and were capable of determining the range, bearing and height of aircraft approaching the country up to a range of about 100 miles. The R.A.F. had foreseen the necessity of training service personnel to maintain and service these stations and also to calibrate them for accuracy of bearing and height. This latter requirement arose because the most suitable sites for the location of those stations were often some miles inland from the coast and the terrain around them was not flat. Thus although the direct ray reflected from the aircraft presented no problem, the indirect ray reflected from the ground arrived at the radar receiver aerial at an angle dependent on the slope of the ground at the area of reflection. Thus calibration of the station for bearing and height using the known position of an aircraft was a necessity. In 1940, the R.A.F. had brought into being 60 Group, with its Headquarters at Leighton Buzzard, to take over all civilian and service personnel involved in the operation, maintenance and calibration of the CH stations.  Additionally, a chain of radar stations working on 12 metres known as CHL (Chain Home Low) was being set up at sites right on the coast for the detection of low flying aircraft, and similar stations were being installed at key inland sites to assist with guiding fighter aircraft to intercept incoming bombers. These stations, known as  G.C.I.(Ground Controlled Interception) and the CHL stations were both searchlight-type stations as opposed to the floodlighting -type CH stations. In the case of the CHL stations there was no necessity for calibration because the area of the reflected ground ray was the flat sea but the GCI stations, being sited inland did require calibration.

 

These activities called for a very rapid expansion of personnel at 60 Group and it was against this pressure of work that Flying Officer Eric Eastwood was posted there in May 1942 a move which gave him an insight into the exciting fields outside school teaching and additionally lead him a little away from physics and into the field of engineering. After a short time of initiation into the principles of radar - these had been written up in two thick volumes commonly known as the 'bible' - Flying Officer Eastwood was sent to calibrate a CH station at Staxton Wold, on the Yorkshire moors. Here he became familiar with the calling up of autogiros to hover over various predetermined locations around the radar station so that the actual location as measured by a theodolite could be compared with the bearing recorded by the radar receiver and the results fed in to the automatic plotter incorporated in the radar display. Additionally, aircraft were required to fly towards the station from perhaps 100 miles range, on a series of bearings at fixed heights to determine height calibration. It was not very long before F/0 Eastwood discovered that the results of these height calibrations varied to some small extent depending on the day of observation. Thus he wrote 'Calibration Memorandum No. 54' entitled 'Atmospheric Refraction and Height Determination by R.D.F.' The report began "A common phenomenon encountered by calibration parties is that of non-alignment of portions of the eh -bc curves obtained from the usual aircraft runs at 5,000 ft., 10,000 ft. and 17,000 ft. Careful checking of the calibration aircraft has suggested, on many occasions, that these differences are real, and the tendency has been, therefore, to resort to the influence of atmospheric refraction as a ready explanation of the effect. In the absence of any systematic estimate of the variation of the refraction error with range, altitude and angle of elevation, it was clearly impossible to prove or disprove this convenient theory. It is, therefore, of importance to make some estimate of the magnitude of the altitude error to be encountered 1during the calibration and normal operation, of a CH height finding system'. Flying Officer Eastwood then went on to estimate the magnitude of the effect starting off from the application of Snell's Law and eventually coming to the conclusion that the error could best be averaged out by assuming a radius for the Earth of 4,960 miles or about /') of its true radius. Shortly afterwards he wrote an addendum to the paper pointing out that an accurate method of calculating the influence of atmospheric refraction on the propagation of a radio wave to a ground R.D.F. station had been developed on the basis of Fermat's Principle of Least Time and he went into this in some detail applying it to the particular errors in the CH system of height determination. This publication, which was classified at the time, showed clearly that Flying Officer Eastwood had lost no time in the understanding of the principles of radar but had made his first contribution to its development. The date was July 6th. 1942 only some two months since he was commissioned in the R.A.F.

 

It was not long before F/0 Eastwood was promoted to Flight Lieutenant and put in charge of the calibration of a number of stations in the East Anglia district and a year later he was promoted still further to Squadron Leader, moved to 60 Group Headquarters at Leighton Buzzard, and placed in charge of calibration of all CH and GCI radar stations in the United Kingdom. Having, from his early days, been interested in cause and effect, and having been trained as a physicist, it is not surprising that Eric Eastwood showed great interest in a number of phenomena not directly connected with the detection of aircraft which became apparent in the early days of radar. One of these was anomalous propagation, whereby the whole of the coast of France was clearly visible on the first of the centimetre wavelength radars set up at Swanage when the Telecommunications Research Establishment (T.R.E.) moved there from Dundee in 1940. Another was the report from New Zealand where the operators of a 1 metre CHL station reported increased receiver noise at dusk and dawn when the sun was shining directly in to the receiver aerial. Still another phenomenon was the occurrence on CH stations of echoes from an apparent height of 86 miles. Eastwood made notes of these observations and, at the end of the war together with a colleague Flight Lieutenant Mercer, investigated these echoes at some length using the CH station at Bawdsey. They came to the conclusion in a paper eventually published in 1948 that the transient bursts of ionisation which reflected the pulses from the radar transmitter were not caused by the sun but by meteors entering the earth's atmosphere. An observation that was to prove of great interest to Eastwood in later years was made by operators at a very early CHL type radar station installed at Happisburgh, on the Norfolk coast. Some echoes were positively identified as coming from a flock of geese crossing the sea. This observation, made in 1940, was the first record of the flight of birds being followed by radar and it led to extensive investigations by Eastwood in later years and to the publication of a book on the subject.

 

During the war period, whilst his wife and son were living in a rented house at Bramhall, near Stockport, Eric still found time for his music and he formed a string trio. He also continued his literary education for he had won a number of literary prizes during his youth. Certainly the hierarchy of 60 Group must have been taken aback when he published in the radar Bulletin of 1944 the following poem:-

 

The Radar Mech. at Agincourt.

A Mech ther was and that a worthy wight,

Who wel coulde sodder and jointes make ful tight.

To collecten gen had been his joy alway,

And noon ther was that might his lore gainsay.

Al clad in blue he was and priked with buttones bright

That hadde birdes winges, glistering like sterres light.

No helm upon his head he wore,

But clothen cap and badge of brass that bore

 A rune ful rare of letters three

Y-wreathed round with laurel tree,

 And crowned al with kinges crown.

 Much hadde he been in ferne winges

Of Dunkirk and Alemein he oft did sing. Upon his breast he bore a sterre

That him hath gotten in his kinges werre. Ne sword hadde he nor yet longbow,

But lightning flashes did his craft yshow. Of frigger mech knewe he alle tricks.

To irkes raf was he somdel strict

If that they swynken nat arund his backe Heavy was his honde and big his bootes blacke. None ther was nor yet hath been

That coil could tune so sweet I ween, Ne trimmer turn, nor fuse ymend.

His MTR he prompt would send

His lechers bright with joys were fulle And sparkes long he wel could pulle From bigge grid on taller. spire.

Full tight ystretched his feeder wire. Ne Diesel gear for burton was ygonne, But alle day right sweetly did yronne. His tubes face all cler was never sene

But spikes long where kites had just ybene At ranges fern on every trace's ende.

No ship ther was that could round coast ywende But this ilke mech ful soon would wis

And sad were his wafies that such ship should miss

I wot nut him name nor hear me of his truone

Fair was his mien and Sixty was his groupe.

Eric Eastwood.

 

From the wording of the poem one can safely assume that if Eric Eastwood happens to meet Chaucer in the next world he will have no difficulty in conversing with him.

 

The English Electric Company 1946-48.

 

The research laboratories of the English Electric Company were expanding rapidly at the end of the war. One of the Directors of the Company at the time was C.P. Snow and thus it is perhaps not surprising that S/L Eastwood was requested to attend for interview for a job with the Company. He attended, in uniform, thus renewing the contact with his supervisor of the Cambridge days. Eastwood was taken on and put in charge of the Physics Department, reporting to the Director of Research Mr. J.K. Brown, but he also found time to undertake some research of his own on Wirbelrohr discharge tubes. Towards the end of 1946 he was able to visit a number of U.S. research laboratories including those of the Westinghouse Company and the R.C.A. One of the main projects at the English Electric laboratories at the time was the re-engineering of a war-time radar - Type 11 Mark 7 - working on 600 MHz. and it was natural that Eastwood should take a great interest in this. As it later transpired the 600 MHz. band proved to be very well suited to civil air traffic control systems because of its ability to operate in rain storms and this again had a profound influence on Eastwood's later work. In 1947 the English Electric Company acquired the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company and the radar re-engineering project was moved from Stafford to the Marconi Research Laboratories at Great Baddow, near Chelmsford and Eastwood moved there with the project in 1948. The Eastwoods' second son Martin had been born in their house at Stafford and the family moved to a house at Little Baddow, near Chelmsford, on Eric's move to the Marconi Laboratories.

 

The Marconi Research Laboratories 1948-1962.

 

Dr. Eastwood's appointment at the Marconi Research Laboratories was as Deputy Director of Research and he took over as Director of Research in 1954. By the end of the war the operational requirements for defence radar had changed considerably and techniques for the production of higher power transmitters and more sensitive receivers had become available. Eastwood's first major assignment was to set up a team of experts to carry out a detailed study of the Royal Air Force radar defence system and to make recommendations on how it might be up-dated both technically and operationally. Many of the recommendations in the report were adopted and gave rise to a series of major defence contracts in the 1950's placed with Marconi and other contractors under the name Vast and Rotor. Much was learnt about the placing and management of large post-war contracts on this project and although it was classified 'Secret' at that time it is interesting to see from minutes of meetings how Eastwood had changed from the rather quiet pensive type of the student and schoolmaster days to a much more verbose and aggressive character. The first Rotor station was due to be commissioned at the end of February 1953 but was running many weeks late because the teams headed by Dr. Eastwood were late in providing a special fixed coil display. When asked by an Air Commodore who was chairing a large progress meeting to explain Eastwood admitted that they were late but said that he was quite unrepentant for he had done a good job and that it was not possible to do it in less time. Perhaps it was this attitude, when involved in an expensive project, that indicated that his was basically more of a scientific approach than an engineering one, and was to lead, a few years later, to him losing his responsibilities for engineering and projects in the Company so that he could concentrate his efforts on the research side.

 

A very important step in Eastwood's career came about in 1951 when the Royal Radar Establishment asked him to undertake the research necessary to introduce a new wavelength of 23cms. (1300Mhz) for radar applications. Many of the components for this work had to be developed from scratch including high-power transmitting valves, low-noise receivers, antennas and signal processing systems. Much of the work was done at the Marconi Research Laboratories under Dr. Eastwood and proved very successful for it provided the foundations for a new range of radar systems which sold throughout the world in the 1950's and 70's for both military and civil applications.

 

Radar Ornithology.

 

The experimental radar station the Marconi Company had built at Bushy Hill, in Essex, on the 23cm. waveband had a transmitted peak power of 2MW, a pulse recurrence frequency of 100 per second, a pulse width of 5 microseconds and an aerial rotation rate of 4 times a minute. The performance was such that it could detect and follow a seagull at a range of 70 miles. It was with this radar that Eastwood could now return to his wartime thoughts that radar could possibly help with the study of the flight and migration of birds. In 1959 he formed a partnership with Dr. David Lack of the Edward Grey Ornithological Institute, Oxford and other members of the Marconi Research Laboratories and they soon resolved the doubt about the cause of 'ring angels' commonly observed on radars. These were echoes in the form of concentric rings which appeared at certain times and were known not to be due to aircraft, and the uncertainty arose as to whether the cause was meteorological or birds. A key paper definitely showed that ring angels were caused by the migration habits of starlings. The observations showed that there could be up to 500,000 starlings in one roost, that they left regularly in waves in all directions at about three minute intervals at dawn flying at an average height of 150ft, returning in similar fashion towards sunset. Their average speed of flight was about 40 knots in winter and 32 knots in summer. The radar observations on birds continued throughout the early 60's and gave rise to many new concepts of bird flight. For example, it became apparent that migrating birds fly as much by night as they do by day though in passages over the North Sea they fly at an average height of 2000 feet at night compared with 1800 feet by day. There is a noticeable migration of birds eastward to breeding grounds in North Europe in the spring and a return to this country in the autumn. The observations gave rise to the publication of many papers, some of which are listed at the end of this memoire and to the book 'Radar Ornithology' which has been mentioned earlier. The subject was one on which Eastward liked to lecture for he had collected many reels of film of radar signals arising from the flights of birds and these were very popular at discourses and also on television.

 

Apart from observations on the flight of birds Eastwood was also able to use the powerful Bushy Hill radar to continue his investigations of echoes due to meteorological and natural phenomena. With G.C. Rider he followed the progress of a sea breeze front as it drifted towards the coast and then continued inland and there were papers on radar echoes from the aurora and the sun used as a noise source in aerial investigations.

 

In addition to the scientific observations there were a number of noteworthy practical achievements in the late 60's and early 70's. The new high power radars had increased the difficulty of separating out the wanted aircraft echoes from the clutter due to reflections from fixed objects such as buildings and hills and from those due to rain and birds. Also there were important new developments in the field of electronic jamming of radar, particularly the advent of a high-power wide-band white noise valve generator known as the carcinotron. These problems gave rise to a series of papers by Eastwood and his team covering studies on how to preserve the performance of radars so that they would still present the wanted signals from aircraft in spite of clutter and jamming. Many of these papers were, and probably still are, classified under military regulations. In the laboratory an important programme of work was directed at the design of radar displays using the most modern techniques and the subsequent high performance display system was put into production and sold in many countries world-wide. Additional facilities were set up to cover solid-state physics, vacuum physics, magneto physics and applications of computers and these were to make valuable contributions to the development of radar in later years.

 

A major perturbation in the planning of the programme of work came about as a result of the cancellation of the medium-range ballistic missile known as Blue Streak for which the Marconi Laboratories had responsibility for the radio guidance system. Dr. Eastwood put the team released by this cancellation on to developing a new generation of radars operating in the 600 MHz band. This band is relatively immune from the effects of weather and the radars proved very successful and were sold to Air Traffic authorities in many parts of the world.

 

In 1953 Dr. Eastwood had won a prize of 10,000 kroner from the Swedish Air Defence Association of Malmo for an essay on 'The application of the Type 960 radar to guided missile detection This was followed by a contract to the Marconi Research Laboratories in 1957 to make a study of the complete Swedish defence system and this, in turn, led to a contract by the Royal Swedish Air Force Board to design and manufacture a control and reporting system. The full facilities of the Marconi Laboratories were brought to bear on this project. It embodied the latest semiconductor techniques and was probably the first system in the world to make use of digital data processing. Eastwood's personal contribution to both the management and design proved a strong factor in the successful completion of the project in a remarkably short time scale.

 

One of Eastwoods final projects at the research laboratory was to undertake the study of problems likely to be encountered in the design of a practical communication system via a satellite, with particular emphasis on the choice of frequency and modulation system. The report on this study, undertaken with the assistance of colleagues from the Marconi Company and the English Electric Valve Company was completed in 1960 and included many proposals which have since been incorporated in operational satellite systems.

 

The English Electric Company 1962-1968.

 

In 1962 Eastwood left the Marconi Research laboratories on being appointed Director of Research for the English Electric Company with an office at the company headquarters in the Strand. In this capacity he was responsible for the Nelson Research Centre at Stafford, the Mechanical Engineering Laboratories at Whetstone and the Marconi Research Laboratories at Great Baddow. This was very much of an administrative job and although he formed or reconstructed a number of committees his scientific activities were mainly confined to outside bodies and some of these will be mentioned later. In 1965 the Company decided it would be better if Eastwood was relieved of his executive responsibilities in engineering so that he could concentrate his efforts fully on research. This move undoubtedly arose from Eastwood's aim for scientific perfection in projects often at the expense of meeting target dates for completion. The situation can best be summed up by quoting from a letter to Eric Eastwood from Robert Telford (later Sir Robert Telford), a Director of the English Electric Company and Managing Director of the Marconi Company 'we may have differed on applications, but I always felt that we have been in complete accord on fundamentals'.

 

The General Electric Company 1968-1974.

 

With the merger of the General Electric and English Electric companies in 1968, Arnold Weinstock, who had become Managing Director of the combined companies, soon saw that the roles of the several research laboratories the total company then possessed had to be sorted out. Weinstock asked Eastwood to get together with Robert Clayton (later Sir Robert Clayton) who was at the time Managing Director of G.E.C. Research Limited, and to come up with a plan to decide how best to bring the total laboratory effort behind the new company and to decide who was to be responsible for what. They were given one week to complete the plan and Weinstock gave his view that it would be best if Eastwood carried out the research and Clayton should be responsible for seeing that the research and other new technologies were applied in the new company. Perhaps this idea could well be considered a fore-runner of the Rothschild principle. The roles decided were that Eastwood would become Director of Research based at the Hirst Research Centre at Wembley and that Clayton would become Technical Director. Although the arrangement could have worked well, in practice it did not because of the very different personalities of Eastwood and Clayton. In the event it became clear that the word of Clayton carried far more weight in as far as Weinstock and the company were concerned and the period was not a very happy one as far as Eastwood was concerned. He retired from the position in 1974 and moved back to the Marconi Laboratories at Baddow where he remained a consultant until 1981.

 

Work on Government and Professional Institution activities.

 

Quite early in his career Eastwood acquired a reputation of being a very  good committee man and his services were in great demand both by Government and other bodies. In 1959 he had become a member of the Radar Committee of the Electronics Research Council and a year or so later he became its chairman. Mr. Andrew Smart, the present Director of the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment recalls ‘ It was always a pleasure to give a presentation with him in the chair as we realised we would get out of the presentation more than we put into it". Apart from defence activities Eastwood took a close interest in the work of the Radio Research Station (later the Appleton Laboratory) at Slough. He became Chairman of their Radio Research Board in 1963 and in the late 60's chaired a working party to look into the future of the Appleton Laboratory. It was as a result of Eastwood's efforts that the Laboratory was able to play a part in the national space research effort and to eventually merge with the Rutherford Laboratory. However, it was not until he moved to the G.E.C. in 1968 that Eastwood could find much time for other than company activities. Thereafter he filled many important positions on government and professional body committees. On the military side he became Chairman of the Electronics Research Council from 1970-73 and a member of the Defence Scientific Advisory Council from 1969-73 and from 1976-79. Probably one of the most intriguing assignments during this latter period was his appointment to serve on a Ministry of Defence working party whose task it was 'To consider the operational performance of the overall system for the Defence of the United Kingdom, to seek maximum resistance to electronic countermeasures in relation to cost against an enemy's optimum tactics, for the period from 1980 and to report'. Nothing could have taxed Eastwood's experience, knowledge and ability more than this particular assignment: Apart from defence matters Eastwood gave great assistance to the Ministry of Science and Education where he served as a member of the Science Research Council from 1968-74.

 

Eastwood devoted much time and effort to the Institution of Electrical Engineers. He became Chairman of the Control & Automation Division in 1968 and President of the Institution in 1978. Inevitably his presidential address was on radar 'Radar Engineering. Progress and prospects noteworthy not only because of its brilliance but also that it overran its allotted time very considerably! At the end of his term of office he expressed his view to the writer of this biographical memoir that the position was not very satisfactory in that the President was only in office for one year whereas the Secretary was a permanent employee of the Institution and thus he was the man who was really all powerful!

 

Mention should also include Eastwood's appointment as Visiting Professor of Electrical Engineering in 1969 at Imperial College - which apparently did not work out very well - and his directorship at Infra-red Engineering Limited of Malden, Essex which he accepted as soon as his contract with the G.E.C. would allow. It was unfortunate that his efforts to get a direct entry of Infra-red Engineering into the American market through the formation of a subsidiary company should have successfully come about only one day before he died.

 

Honours and Awards.

 

Eastwood had been mentioned in despatches during his work with R.A.F. 60 Group during the war. He was made C.B.E. in 1962 for his work on defence, particularly for the Admiralty. In 1973 he was made Knight Bachelor for his services to government and industry. He was awarded honorary degrees by Exeter University (D.Sc.) in 1969, by Cranfield in 1971, by Aston in 1975, City in 1976 and by Heriot-Watt in 1977. He was made honorary D.Tech. by Loughborough in 1970 and Fellow of U.M.I.S.T. in 1971. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1968 and an Honorary Fellow of the I.E.E. in 1979. The Royal Aeronautical Society awarded him their Wakefield medal in 1961, and he received the Glazebrook medal of the Institute of Physics in 1970 and the Sir James Alfred Ewing medal of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1976.

 

Marconi Centenary.

 

One particular event gave Sir Eric Eastwood a great deal of pleasure and that was to be able to play a leading role in the centenary celebrations of the birth of Marconi on April 25th. 1874. When Marconi's wife came to this country from Italy in 1974 he was able to take her to visit the spots where Marconi had conducted his first radio communication experiments and to recall how the Marconi Company - in whose employ Eastwood had spent his most productive and happy days - had been formed, on July B0th. 1897, to exploit Marconi's patent covering 'the transmission of signals by means of electrical oscillations of high frequency, which are set up in space or in conductors'.

 

Finally

 

Eastwood was a kind and gentle person who learned to live happily. His devotion to Lady Eastwood, who was a life-long sufferer from asthma, always took the highest priority in his life. He lived to see his two sons grow up and prosper. John, the eldest had graduated from London University as a Civil engineer and Martin as a Mechanical engineer. In 1978 Eastwood had suffered a mild heart attack and had been advised to live at a more leisurely pace but this proved difficult for him. He was seldom able to refuse any request for his assistance and only a few days before he died he gave a talk to the ladies of the Little Baddow Women's institute on the impact of the 'chip'. Just after his usual light breakfast with Lady Eastwood on the morning of Tuesday October 6th. he retired to his study to complete a defence report but felt unwell. The doctor was called and he was removed to hospital but rapidly became worse and died at 4 o'clock that afternoon.

 

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