ABSTRACT
Two of the more interesting disciplines in the Allied armoury during the Second World War were signals intelligence (SI) and operational research (OR). They displayed some interesting similarities and differences, and both are legitimate fields of study in their own right. However, it would be fair to say that there is no known previous study which has looked at both of these together and considered where, if anywhere, they met at the time. The question posed by the last statement is a very legitimate one and there are good reasons why no meeting of these fields might have occurred: security, the differing culture of the practitioners and some degree of functional mismatch. Such a view was reinforced by the informal opinion held by many researchers that no such junction had taken place. But this was wrong and there was a thriving if somewhat circumscribed relationship between the two communities centred on one of the most important conflicts of the war: the Battle of the Atlantic. Blackett not only had an overall responsibility for this: he produced at least one report under his own signature. The operation of this liaison provides a key insight into the prosecution of that struggle. In investigating this subject, a number of topics of interest emerge: intelligence and OR, the people involved, what they produced and an assessment of the relationship’s value.
