ABSTRACT
Patrick Blackett’s work in developing operational research (OR) for Coastal Command and the Admiralty during the Second World War is well known thanks to his own Studies of War and Professor C.H. Waddington’s, OR in World War 2: Operational Research Against the U-boat.1 We know far less about Blackett’s scientific efforts for the Air Ministry prior to 1940, the origins of OR and Blackett’s early interest in this type of work. This chapter will examine Blackett’s career as a defence scientist from his joining the Tizard Committee in early 1935 until his arrival in August 1940 at Anti-Aircraft Command, Stanmore.
