Reginald Victor Jones Was Born on 29 September 1911 at Dulwich, London. As a Child, He Learnt Scottish Songs from His Mother, A
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PROFESSOR REGINALD VICTOR JONES CH, CB, CBE, MA, DPhil(Oxon), HonDSc(Strath,Kent,WestminsterCollege,Aberd), DUniv(York,Open,Surrey), HonLLD(Brist), FRS Reginald Victor Jones was born on 29 September 1911 at Dulwich, London. As a child, he learnt Scottish songs from his mother, and through his father, respect for military traditions. Living close to the Oval, he was a staunch supporter of Surrey Cricket team; his hero was Jack Hobbs. At the age of eight, he contracted diphtheria, which left him permanently deaf in one ear. His Headmaster, R B Henderson, at Alleyn’s School, Dulwich, exhorted service to school, community and country; Reginald Jones was a proud member of the Officers’ Training Corps, and as a hobby enjoyed making radio-receiving sets. Good teaching brought an Open Exhibition to Wadham College, Oxford in 1929. Jones gained a First Class Honours in Natural Science- Physics (1932) and the same year, he was runner-up in pistol-shooting at Bisley. Under Oxford’s Professor of Experimental Philosophy, F A Lindemann, he began research on infrared detectors, being awarded his doctorate at the age of 23. During a subsequent post at Balliol College, Jones was commissioned to develop an infra- red detector for installation in night-fighters for detection of bombers. In 1936 he was appointed a Scientific Officer in the Air Ministry. His duties included trials on the first air-borne television equipment for the RAF, and study of Air Intelligence reports. On his transfer to the Admiralty Research Laboratory, Teddington, he was to meet in 1938 Vera Cain when she chased away a squad of physicists who were trying to dig shelter trenches on her women’s hockey pitch. They married in 1940. After the invasion of Poland he became attached to the Air Intelligence branch of MI6, studying files on potential German weapons and ways of ‘breaking’ the German Enigma encoding machine. He unravelled the contents of the Oslo Report, on German dive-bombers, remote-controlled rocket-driven gliders, radar detection of enemy aircraft positions and radio monitoring of range of bombers. On 11 June 1940, Jones read a decoded Enigma message which convinced him that the Germans had an intersecting radio beam system for bombing England. A special meeting at 10 Downing Street was called for 21 June, to which Dr Jones unexpectedly found that he had been invited. The Prime Minister let the 28-year old explain the beam threat, right from the start. Equipment was urgently developed, the effect of which was to steer German aircraft off the proper beam path, depriving pilots of their inherent accuracy, (although both enemy and home forces believed that the beams had really been bent). A few nights before 7 September, when the nightly bombing of London began, Jones was alerted, through Enigma, to a new kind of beam, ‘X-Gerät’, fitted to an aircraft of KGr100, that dropped flares over its targets and which had already been used to attack Birmingham. He was able to identify the location of KGr100 attacks, yet night fighters repeatedly failed to find the enemy aircraft. Subsequent examination of captured X-Gerät apparatus revealed equipment changes enabling German pilots to distinguish between the true beam and defence jamming. On 10 November 1940 he received a decoded Enigma signal on operations to be carried out on Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Coventry. An Enigma message of 11 November described an operation on areas that were not disclosed. Churchill thought that it was to be London. Instead, Coventry was heavily bombed, with the loss of 554 lives. Jones had been able to predict the correct radio frequencies. When he predicted Wolverhampton as the next target and had the anti-aircraft batteries moved, no attack occurred. However, two prisoners revealed that German reconnaissance had noted the installation of the anti- aircraft guns, whereupon the Wolverhampton raid had been abandoned. Dr Jones’ work was recognised by the Secretary of State, Archibald Sinclair, who in 1941 recommended senior promotion. Instead, he was upgraded to Principal Scientific Officer, with the title Assistant Director of Intelligence (Science), which post he held for the rest of the war. Churchill’s plans for a sustained air bombardment of Germany now saw Jones concentrating on understanding its ‘Würzburg’ system of night defence. His close relationship with airmen taking aerial photographs was a key to the success of British scientific intelligence. Photography of a Würzburg paraboloid in the Berlin Tiergarten and other sites uncovered an elaborate German night interception system. Jones showed the photographs to Lindemann, and on 10 June 1942, many paraboloids were destroyed by Bomber Command. After examination of reconnaissance photographs with his colleagues, Charles Frank pointed out to Jones that the isolated Würzburg at Bruneval, south of Dieppe, could be captured. Jones promptly set the wheels in motion, and in a daring Combined Services raid, the main parts of the Würzburg and its frightened operator were seized. With Churchill’s concurrence, Jones was recommended for a CB. However, this honour was considered by others to be beyond that appropriate to the Scientific Officer grade, and in 1942, the ‘compromise’ of a CBE was announced. In 1942, he had advocated the use of spoof echoes from aluminium strips, subsequently code-named ‘Window’. Released from a leading aircraft, these would produce the radar equivalent of a smoke screen through which succeeding aeroplanes could fly. Window is reported to have saved 70 to 80 aircraft in the devastating attack on Hamburg in July 1943. Dr Jones was present at a meeting on 31 August 1943, called by Churchill, to review an intelligence report on bombs guided from aircraft. The information had come mainly from a 23 year-old member of the French Resistance, known as Amniarix, now Vicomtesse de Clarens. Jones was to comment that her “reports stand brilliantly in the history of intelligence”. Two weeks later, he reported a warning from Amniarix of attack by rocket-driven pilotless aircraft, on which Churchill acted. On 21 December 1943, 1300 American aircraft dropped 1700 tons of bombs on German rocket sites. About this time, R V Jones first became involved with USA military intelligence, whose scientific advisor, H P Robertson, visited him and reported back that the British work was entirely reliable and they should give as much aid as possible. In the meantime, Window was still having its effect: Goering observed, “in radar, they must have the World’s greatest genius”. On the eve of the Normandy landings (June 1944) air attacks, following advice from Jones’ group, eliminated most German radar sites in Northwest France. Only about six out of 47 stations were still able to transmit on D-Day, just enough to provide the Germans with information on the approach of a large sea-force, which in fact was a hoax decoy, produced by several aircraft scattering clouds of Window to simulate a fleet of destroyers. The German mobile defences were thereby drawn away from the main invasion landing sites. The official Despatch concluded: “These attacks saved the lives of countless soldiers, sailors and airmen on D-Day”. Fears that the Germans were working towards an atomic bomb brought Jones into contact with Niels Bohr who had come to England in 1943. Bohr became his firm friend, and was a great favourite of the Jones’ children (as was another Nobel Prize winner, Edward Appleton). With nuclear intelligence now shared between the Allies, the Americans found Jones a determined fighter as they all strove for access to German documentation. Nonetheless, they recognised his integrity and formed a cordial life-long regard for him. He earned the Prime Minister’s further respect when he had to deliver to him the unwelcome evidence of V1 and V2 rockets about to be launched on London. Jones’ value to Scientific Intelligence was so great that if he had participated as he had planned in the August 1942 raid on Dieppe, in which the Canadians suffered heavy casualties, secret orders had been issued for him to be shot if he were about to fall into German hands. In the 1946 New Year’s Honours Lists, Jones found his name amongst the CBs. Churchill and Lord Cherwell (Lindemann) were now out of office and there had been no customary intimation from the new Prime Minister’s office. He could only surmise that he had been treated as a Serving Officer who would be expected to accept an honour without discretion - he was delighted to do so. As his contributions were hidden in official secrecy, feelings arose that both decorations had been conferred on him as Lindemann’s blue-eyed boy, although the truth was far different. The plans for post-war Scientific Intelligence left Jones uncertain of his future. His wartime colleague, Professor Edward Wright, who had returned to Aberdeen University, suggested that he should apply for its Chair of Natural Philosophy. Despite strong competition he was duly offered the post. On 30 September 1946, he resigned from the Civil Service. Within three days Professor Jones was preparing for a new term at Aberdeen University, having to cater for 300-400 undergraduates, with nine staff including himself, three of whom were new graduates aged 21. There were no textbooks, so he used to write out full notes of his lectures for distribution to students. When the typing load on his sixteen-year-old secretary became too heavy, a girl student volunteered her services. A tremendous spirit prevailed in his classes. He enjoyed the warmest of relationships with his students many of whom were ex-servicemen. They regularly met him in the Students’ Union near Marischal College, where he was usually invited to play pipe tunes on his mouth organ.