Summary
Most people know something about the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. Most published accounts go into the details of the enormous industrial and scientific effort to develop the weapons and the effects they produced when used for the first and last time in war. Much less is written about the missions to deliver the two bombs to their targets. What is even less well known is the use of radar systems originally developed by the UK for both navigation and bomb fuzing. This talk attempts to fill this gap and contrasts the first mission with the second.
CV
Alan Gray joined the Royal Artillery in 1972. His first posting was to 27 Regiment where he joined 56 Battery, equipped with the M 110 8″ gun, the Divisional level tactical nuclear delivery system. On promotion to Captain he became responsible for nuclear fire-planning and the training of all troops involved in handling, preparing and firing the M422 nuclear projectile and, to a lesser extent, the 155mm nuclear shell. Whilst his father was involved with the “V Force” nuclear weapons, he did not know before he met his future wife that his future father-in-law worked at Aldermaston on the development of critical features of the UK nuclear weapons program. Having suffered what was called the “Nuclear Nausea” he was posted to a field regiment and, as a forward observer became acquainted with the first battlefield surveillance radar, ZB 298, known as “Zebedee”. After 20 years, the Wall came down and he left the Army to become a teacher. He was rescued from this grave error by Mike Burstow, his previous boss when he was posted to RSRE in the early 80s. He worked at what RSRE had then become, DRA, for Chris Baker on battlefield surveillance radars including Zebedee’s replacement MSTAR. After a further 14 years working on a number of surveillance and target acquisition projects and programmes he thankfully retired from DSTL and joined the University of the Third Age, giving talks on a variety of scientific topics.