The Wizard War, as Winston Churchill termed the ceaseless struggle for mastery between Allied and enemy scientists, involved moves and counter-moves often “unintelligible to ordinary folks”. Giant leaps in technology occurred in just six years. The war started with horse cavalry charges and biplanes and ended with jets, missiles and the atomic bomb. We will take a look at seven key advances from both sides of the conflict including: codes, radar, submarines, artillery, jets, rockets, and the bomb.
We will look into how little-known names played important parts in the effort: Lindeman, Watson-Watt, Whittle, R. V. Jones, Turing, Von Braun, Oppenheimer, Heisenberg, and others. How did intelligence efforts give the combatants a glimpse into what the other side was doing? Why did the Allies have scientific teams operating right behind the front-line troops in Europe? Finally, why Operation Paper Clip resulted in the U.S. landing a man on the moon?
