Latham

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When I joined as a radar development engineer, aged 3l, in the late spring of 1953, Broomfield (actually Pottery Lane) was a bustling place. The enormous Vast & Rotor contract was nearing completion and some engineers ­- especial1y  HNC Ellis Robinson  ("E-R") - were much occupied in dashing round the RAF sites attending to problems. Hugh Wassell, in charge of the Group, was much respected for his technical ability and personal integrity. It was an exceptional1y happy unit - about 200 strong (engineers, draughtsmen, workshops) - an ideal size: large enough to be effective in many radar design projects but not so big as to be impersonal.

At the time I joined, Hugh Wassell was implementing his well-founded conviction that all design engineers should have production and D.O. experience. It was his intention that new joiners should have a taste of each before taking their places in the labs. I was lucky in that I had the full treatment - 6 weeks in the D.O. and 6 or 7 more at New Street attached to the production engineers who worked for Jim Aikman. I was put with Chris Rauch - the Swiss production engineer who, I was sad to learn, died a few years ago. I learned a lot in that period: Wassell was right - it helped enormously when designing equipment to know something of D.O. and production problems. I have always been most grateful for that training. I believe that I and Peter Marlow, who joined shortly after me, were the only ones to receive that special attention in full measure: others around that time may have had shorter stints until, sadly, Wassel's well-intentioned scheme died out.

My first task at Broomfield was to develop hard-valve low-jitter trigger units for the pulse modulators of radar transmitters. As time went on I was given wider scope to include modulators and then the high power r.f. generation as well. It was a period when the peak pulse power of radar transmitters was increasing rapidly from the hundred or so kilowatts typical of wartime: the once-astounding megawatt became commonplace - very soon several megawatts became the norm.

This work required close cooperation with EEV Waterhouse Lane, who supplied hydrogen thyratron switch tubes and magnetrons. Semi-official or unofficial liaison helped both sides. They certainly helped us; and we them, by proving or demolishing their development samples.

From 1953 until we moved to Baddow in 1958 many developments occurred in the technology of transmitters, receivers and radar displays. Significant ­innovations, notably the SR1000, sprang from the fertile brain of HNC E-R. After Vast & Rotor had been completed there were more Government sponsored contracts but I think it was the PV development of the SR1000 series of integrated transmitter/receivers that probably had the most profound and long-lasting influence on many subsequent projects, both sponsored and PV. The basic S-band SR1000 soon spawned an L-band version, the SR1030, and both sold well in NATO countries. I believe some 250 sets were produced and since many parts were common some economy of scale must have been realised. For example, a number of different regulated power unit functions were achieved by a design of "standard power unit" which adapted its output voltage and polarity automatically, depending upon the particular position in the main frame to which it was fitted. As each SR1000/1030 employed six such units the number made became unusually high by comparison with typical radar production quantities.

The design of the SR1030 influenced that of the very much higher power and  successful Type 84 transmitter for the RAF. This was one of the main development tasks undertaken soon after the move of  the Radar Development Group to Baddow along with Green Ginger for the Army. Once again some of the techniques initiated with the SR1000 fi1tered through.

Although integration of the Broomfield Radar Development Group with the Baddow Research Laboratories was eventually achieved most satisfactorily it was not all plain sailing at first. This was due, I think, to the difference in training and experience of the two groups concerned. The research staff at Baddow, mostly formal1y well-trained and qualified academically, had probably not suffered the design restraints and tight timescales forced upon the Broomfield engineers. Many of the latter (as in my case) were ex-servicemen with practical experience of radar in the field but, to varying extents, less depth of theoretical knowledge.

At Broomfield we had been accustomed to working very long hours for extended periods.  On firework nights, year after year, I would nip home to let off  a few bangers for the children and then return to work for several hours.  We ran continuous life tests which required frequent attention during weekends and were only closed down for a few days at Christmas. During the construction, in 1956, of an SR1000 for emergency use in Cyprus during the Suez crisis I and several others worked days and nights continuously, and we carried on much in the same way for other crash programmes such as "Grapple", the requirement for radars for Christmas Island for the bomb testing programme.

When, with this background, we encountered what appeared to be the relatively relaxed atmosphere of Baddow  we were shocked! Equally, no doubt, we were regarded as a gang of  empirical quick-fix merchants. But we all settled down wel1 in the end, although it took a few years to integrate fully.

Soon after becoming installed at Baddow we were again embroiled in round­-the-clock activities. For one special government requirement a complete radar was made in three weeks but quite apart from such crash actions the demands for man-hours on Green Ginger and Type 84 were high. I spent days and nights and weekends at Bushy during the development and life testing of the Type 84 transmitter and its magnetron. From being a most unreliable beast it eventually turned out well. When, nearly 20 years later, I visited RAF Neatishead, it was heart-warming to be told by the RAF technical staff that the single-transmitter Type 84 radar had a higher serviceability record than AEI’s twelve-transmitter Type 85. That’s what they said !

By December 1963 I had completed over ten years with the company. Much of my very happy time had been devoted to high-speed panic actions for one emergency or another but for various personal reasons I then decided to join Vickers to design large pulse modulators for linear accelerators. By the time I returned in December 1966, it had been decided to go ahead with a PV-funded. modular radar system -the S600 series - for which I became the project manager under E-R. I supervised S600 development and organised a series of major demonstrations against tight timescales.

In 1968 I became involved in another emergency – the Condor Reliability Trials. The first batch of an order for mobile radar convoys,  already delivered to Pakistan, had been plagued by faults to such an extent that cancellation of the remaining order was threatened. This would have been a knockout blow to MRSL but E-R and Mike Wolf, who went out to Pakistan, managed to save the day by negotiating the terms of acceptance trials to be carried out at Rivenhall before delivery. The conditions were tough: each of three convoys was to be run for 250 hours continuously in the presence of Pakistani officers who would log all faults. A grading and marking scheme for faults was agreed (e.g. failure of a minor indicating lamp would count less than a transmitter) but the contract would stand or fall on a pass of 98% minimum serviceability .

Given the responsibi1ity for achieving this I led teams that worked without break, except for Christmas Day and Boxing Day, from late October '68 to mid-April '69. The goal was achieved and the actions taken were reported in my I. T. M. ST /273/25 of May 1969.

My reason for mentioning this in the present context is to make the point that I do not think the job could have been done without the unstinting efforts of so many engineers who backed me up, night and day, especially during the period of preparation for the trials. I called people out from their homes at night and over weekends throughout that long winter period but never was help refused. Rivenhall can be unpleasant at night in the wet but many distasteful jobs, such as adjustments to aerials, were done in spite of inclement weather and with great willingness. Our engineers were mainly technical ex-servicemen or, if too young to have served in the war, had been wel1-trained by those who had. I am sure that the ethos of the ex-Broomfield group - to work on relentlessly despite all personal inconvenience - was essential to our success and accounts for many of the radar company's achievements. I feel this should be mentioned. However, it is only fair to add that some of the faults were design snags that, ideally, should have been seen during development; and others resulted from sloppy manufacture. More effort on development, proving in the field and inspection during manufacture would have saved time and money in the end.

Following the well-known mergers and take-overs of the late  sixties, by which Leicester became a Marconi Radar responsibility, I was transferred to New Parks from 1969 - 1979. At first I was Engineering Manager, responsible to Peter Way, General Manager, and then from 1976, when Peter returned to Chelmsford, I became combined Manager of Development Division and Site Manager, responsible to Roy Simons in Chelmsford.

New Parks had been built as an R&D establishment in the late 1950s by BTH who transferred staff from Rugby. In the early sixties a few key AEI staff were also sent down from Trafford Park - presumably as part of a rationalisation programme within AEI – and later in that decade a much greater number followed. By the time I arrived in '69/70 there were strong technical resources in both radar engineering and control engineering as well as a department devoted to miscellaneous special products employing computer technology. The AEI engineering and manufacturing teams had distinguished themselves since the war in the design and production of advanced surveillance and tracking radars for the Services e.g. Types 82, 83, 85, 87 and Naval 909: and, for non-military purposes, various complex control systems for 1arge satellite communications dishes and radio telescopes. The technical competence was excellent, a high proportion of the engineers having degrees and corporate membership of professional institutions. In contrast to Chelmsford, where I had never known an engineer to be1ong to a union, I was surprised to find that the Leicester membership of ASTMS was quite strong. This was to be a thorn in my side for years.

The Control Engineering department had a good reputation with MOD (Navy), Bath for miscellaneous electro-mechanical systems including servo gun control, degaussing, and cathodic protection of vessels. It had been run for some years by Dr. A L (John) Whiteley, well known for his servo work at BTH. He retired soon after I took over the responsibility for engineering at New Parks but his influence lived on in the strength of the professional team he had assembled.

As an ex-RAF wartime radar instructor, and one with an interest in the history of British radar development, it gave me much satisfaction to see the amalgamation of three organisations whose efforts had contributed to the radar defences of our country in wartime. Metrovick of Trafford Park, BTH of  Rugby and Marconi had all had big parts to play. .

At the time I joined New Parks (circa 1970) engineers of the radar department were busy dealing with problems on the recently installed Goonhilly transmitters, while the five massive 40T2 3-D radars were being installed in Saudi Arabia. These radars, though different in many detailed respects, owed much in their concept to the AEI Type 85 already in service with the RAF. Although the nature of development engineering activity at Leicester seldom reached the intense levels typical of Chelmsford - on the whole it tended to be rather more orderly and well-paced - there were several periods when engineers were required to work for extended hours at base and to spend  long periods abroad e.g. in Saudi Arabia, under trying conditions. However, despite the constraints of the union, which at times I found irritating there was no real difficulty in finding engineers of the highest technical calibre prepared to go out to the sites to see the job through.

Despite Leicester’s professional approach to design engineering it was noted that the appearance of their products was generally somewhat old­ fashioned. The old tag “Big, Thick and Heavy” for BTH was gracefully accepted as a standing joke, almost as something of which to be proud! Certainly the appearance and ergonomic design of many products lacked the flair and imagination of the Chelmsford designs inspired by E-R and Bruce Neale.

I was therefore charged by our M.D., John Sutherland, with the task of rectifying the problem. It was a 1ong haul, possibly achieving some degree of success in the S800 series of small tracking and surveillance radars designed during the seventies. But, in attempting to change long-standing habits and customs, I almost caused a strike. The union representing the D.O. saw my action in recruiting and appointing a professional industrial designer as a sinister threat to their future status and responsibilities  For me this was a hard lesson in regional industrial relations. It would not have happened in Chelmsford.

The performance of the S800 series of trackers was extremely good, many being fitted to small ships where high rates of movement were required to keep a target in the narrow beam. The marriage of good radar engineering with sound servo control was accomplished well as a result of the expertise latent in the ex-AEI engineering design teams. Many of these small trackers were used, with suitable bought-in predictors, to control guns. I heard that during trials at the Wembrey naval establishment a Plymouth newspaper carried an item that ran like this - "Local residents will have heard the sound of gunfire recently. This has been for trials of a new Marconi radar-control1ed weapon system. So far, the company has achieved a 100% success rate but rest assured they are doing their best to improve on this figure."  .

I was called back to Chelmsford in 1979 to take charge of the new Military & Airspace Division (UK). This was one of several smal1 divisions (staff less than a hundred) created in a new MRSL organisational scheme. I was responsible to Peter Way (Director) who also had four similar-sized divisions for other product ranges. (I was also the chief engineer across all five). Each of these divisions had Sales, Contracts, Business and Systems departments with appropriate managers for each, but not development engineering which was still a separate large division acting for all {under E-R).

My division was not successful. For one thing I was ill-matched to the job and my division was fundamentally at loggerheads with another division, reporting to another director, with the similar title of Military & Airspace Division (Export). Tension  arose from NATO radar procurements for use in UK. Which division's was that business? .

That organisational structure was the first of several that followed. The next plan was the creation of a  much larger Airspace Control Division (nearly 1000 strong) under Air Commodore Sismore. At the same time a comparably large Naval Division was created. Each was to include engineering so a significant outcome was that E-R’s comprehensive and long­-established Development Division had to be split between Airspace and Naval. Evidently it was thought that by so doing a more responsive project-like approach would be achieved. The theory is tenable but in practice has snags not least the need for duplication of expensive facilities such as specialised laboratories and test gear. E. B. Sismore's two seniors were E-R and myself: we had worked together well in the past and respected each other; thus the inevitable splitting-up and sharing of our staffs and responsibilities, which might well have been contentious, was achieved amicably.

I cannot hope to remember, let alone describe, the very many organisational changes that occurred in the early and mid-eighties.  The records may or may not indicate how E.B. Sismore was ousted at indecently short notice and ­how he was replaced by W. Duncan, a much younger man with no radar experience – but apparently impressive business credentials – who, in turn,  was soon discarded. It was a time of much change and distress.

It is a complex subject with which others may be helping you, if indeed it is worth commenting upon at all.  I retired a year early at my request – at Christmas 1985 - and I understand that some of my contemporaries took similar actions shortly afterwards. ­

Colin Latham

November 1992

Handwritten addendum;

PS

I think it would be a pity if the reputation of Marconi Radar were to be tainted in history by the failure of the AEW project. The truth is that MRSL, as subcontractors to Avionics, protested every step of the way at what we saw as unsatisfactory design. I could enlarge on this if required

Latham

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