ABSTRACT
In the last days of May 1942, TRE evacuated its various premises around Swanage and Hurn airport in considerable confusion and as Rowe 1 wrote:
[in Swanage] there were no great living and housing problems. Altogether, we were as comfortable as we could expect to be in the middle of a war. Then came the bombshell, unheralded by rumour. There were, we were told, seventeen train-loads of German parachute troops on the other side of the English Channel preparing to attack T.R.E. The Prime Minister, we were told, had said that we must move away from the south coast before the next full moon. A whole regiment of infantry arrived to protect us; they blocked the road approaches to our key points, they encircled us with barbed wire, they made preparations to put demolition charges in our more secret equipments and, in the execution of their lawful duties, they made our lives a misery. Nor was this all. Our Home Guard, of considerable strength, was expected to be on duty all night and work all day. My own time was spent less in dealing with the work of T.R.E. than in discussions on whether we should die to the last scientist or run and, if the latter, where.
