William George Penney

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Dr. William George Penney, Baron Penney OM KBE (June 24, 1909 – March 3, 1991) was a British physicist who was responsible for the development of British nuclear technology following the World War II. A mathematician by training, he became an expert on wave dynamics. He was one of the worlds leading authorities on the effects of nuclear weapons, and is generally credited as the "father" of the British atomic bomb.

Contents 1 Early life and education 2 World War II 3 Work on the Manhattan Project 4 Post war 5 The British Nuclear Weapons Program 6 AWRE 7 UKAEA 8 Imperial College 9 Legacy

[edit] Early life and education

The son of a sergant-major in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Bill Penney was born in Gibraltar on 24 June 1909, and grew up in Sheerness, Kent and attended the Colchester Royal Grammar School. From 1924 to 1926 he was educated at Sheerness Technical College where he displayed a marked talent for mathematics.

In 1927, while working as a laboratory assistant, his mathematical ability gained him a scholarship to the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. He was awarded the Governor's Prize for Mathematics and graduated with a B.Sc. with First Class Honours in 1929 at age 20. Continuing his studies at the University of London, he obtained his Ph.D. in 1931 at age 22. He spent two years in the United States at the University of Wisconsin. He returned to England and with the award of the 1851 Exhibition scholarship he attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he carried out theoretical investigations on the structure of metals and the magnetic properties of crystals. He obtained a doctorate from the University of Cambridge in 1935 on the application of quantum mechanics to the physics of crystals. In 1936, he was elected to the Stokes studentship at Pembroke College, Cambridge, but in the same year he returned to London and was appointed Reader in Mathematics at Imperial College London, a post he held from 1936 to 1945. His real love was mathematics and pure research in physics. As a recognised prodigy at Imperial College he was set for a distinguished academic career until World War II intervened.

[edit] World War II

Dr. Penney's area of scientific specialty was the physics of hydrodynamic waves, both shock waves and gravity waves. During the early years of World War II, he was loaned out to Home Office and the Admiralty where he investigated problems connected with the properties under-water blast waves from high explosives, a subject of great importance in designing ships and torpedoes. Dr. Penney designed and supervised development of the Mulberry harbours that would be placed off the Normandy beaches during the D-Day invasion. These mobile breakwaters would protect the landing craft and troops from the Atlantic rollers. In 1943, he was released from his duties at Imperial College to work on Tube Alloys project, and shortly before D-Day in 1944 he returned to America to work at Los Alamos as part of the British delegation to the Manhattan Project.

[edit] Work on the Manhattan Project

On the Manhattan Project, Dr. Penney worked on the use of the atomic bomb, its effects and in particular the height at which it should be detonated. He quickly gained recognition for his varied talents, his leadership qualities and for his ability to work in harmony with others. Within a few weeks of his arrival he was added to the core group of scientists who made all key decisions in the direction of the program. Other members of that team included J. Robert Oppenheimer, Captain William Parsons (USN), John von Neumann and Norman F. Ramsey.

One of Dr. Penney's assignments at Los Alamos was to predict the damage effects from the blast wave of an atomic bomb. On July 16, 1945, Dr. Penney was an observer at the Trinity test detonation. He was there to observe the effect of radiant heating in igniting structural materials, and had also designed apparatus to monitor the blast effect of the explosions. The Americans considered him to be among the five most distinguished British contributors to the work. He was repeatedly recruited, without success, to become a permanent member of the U.S. nuclear team.

Along with RAF Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, he accompanied the American Team to Tinian Island from which the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions were flown. On 9 August 1945 he witnessed the bombing of Nagasaki. At the last minute Penney and Cheshire were granted permission to fly in the B-29 "Full House", one of the observation planes that accompanied the Nagasaki mission bomber "Bockscar". Due to the belated permissions, "Full House" missed its rendezvous with the bomber at Nagasaki. They did see the Nagasaki detonation from the air at a distance, making him one of the few people in the world to witness first-hand either of the Japanese detonations from the air. As the leading expert on the effects of nuclear weapons, Dr. Penney was a member of the team of scientists and military analysts who entered Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the Japanese surrender 15 August 1945 to assess the effects of the nuclear weapons.

[edit] Post war

At the end of the war the British government, now under Labour Prime Minister Clement Atlee, believed that America would share the technology that British leaders saw as a joint discovery. In December 1945 PM Attlee ordered the construction of an atomic pile to produce plutonium and requested a report to detail requirements for Britain's atomic bombs. Dr. Penney returned to England and intended to resume his academic career, but was approached by C. P. Snow and asked to take up post as Chief Superintendent Armament Research (CSAR, called "Caesar") at Fort Halstead in Kent. As CSAR he was responsible for all types of armaments research.

In 1946, at the request of General Leslie Groves and the US Navy, Dr. Penney returned to the United States where he was put in charge of the blast effects studies for Operation Crossroads. In July, he was present at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands and wrote the after action reports on the effects of the two A-Bomb detonations. His reputation was further enhanced when, after the sophisticated test gauges failed, he was able determine the blast power using observations from more simple devices.

[edit] The British Nuclear Weapons Program

However the passing of the McMahon Act (Atomic Energy Act) by the Truman administration in August 1946 made it clear that Britain would be no longer be allowed access to US atomic research. So Dr. Penney left the United States and returned to England where he initiated his plans for an Atomics Weapons Section, submitting them to the Lord Portal (Marshal of the Royal Air Force) in November 1946. During the winter of 1946-1947, Dr. Penney returned once again to the United States, where he served as a scientific adviser to the British representative at the American Atomic Energy Commission.

Atlee's government decided that Britain required the atomic bomb to maintain its position in world politics. In the words of Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevan - "We've got to have it and it's got to have a bloody union jack on it." Officially, the decision to proceed with the British atomic bomb project was made in January 1947 - however arrangements were already under way. The necessary plutonium was on order from Harwell and in the Armaments Research Division of the DoS, an Atomic Weapons Section was being organised. The project was based at the Woolwich Arsenal and was code-named High Explosive Research (or HER).

In May 1947, Dr. Penney was officially named to head the HER project. The following month Dr. Penney began assembling teams of scientists and engineers to work on the new technologies that had to be developed. In June 1947, Penney gathered his fledgling team in the library at Woolwich Arsenal and gave a two-hour talk on the principles of the atomic bomb. Centered at Fort Halstead, the work proceeded on schedule and, in 1950, it was realised that arrangements had to be made to test the first bomb, since it would be ready within two years.

[edit] AWRE

Due to the work being spread across a number of test facilities in the UK, that were linked to the project with confusing lines of authority and responsibility, it was realized that a single site was required. In April 1950 an abandoned WWII airfield, RAF Aldermaston in Berkshire was selected as the permanent home for Britain's nuclear weapons program. Construction began and in 1951 the first scientific staff arrived at Aldermaston - soon after this, the HER project vacated the Royal Arsenal.

On 3 October 1952, under the code-name "Operation Hurricane", the first British nuclear device was successfully detonated off the west coast of Australia in the Monte Bello Islands. This was a remarkable achievement and confirmed the qualities of scientific ability and leadership skills of Dr. Penney. On his return to England, Dr. Penney received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II.

In 1953, he was offered a Chair at the University of Oxford but declined in order to continue work on nuclear technology as director of the Aldermaston site which was now officially named the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE).

[edit] UKAEA

In 1954, nuclear development was transferred from the Ministry of Supply (MoS) to the newly formed United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). From 1954 to 1967, Sir William served on the UKAEA Board, becoming Chairman in 1962. Under his leadership the first British hydrogen bomb was developed and tested in May 1957.

[edit] Imperial College

The Rt Hon Lord Penney, OM, KBE, MA, PhD, DSc, HonFCGI, FIC, FRS, was Rector[1] of Imperial College London from 1967 - 1973. The college built and named the William Penney Laboratory after him.

[edit] Legacy

William Penney was a Commonwealth Fund Fellow at University of Wisconsin (1932); Fellow of the Royal Society (1946); Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1970). Among the honors he received was the Rumford Medal by the Royal Society (1966). For services to the United States, he was one of the first recipients of the United States Medal of Freedom (with Silver Palm), awarded by President Harry S. Truman. For his services to Britain he was awarded O.B.E. (1946); appointed to the Order of the British Empire as Knight Commander (1952); was awarded a life peerage taking the title Baron Penney of East Hendred (1967); awarded the Order of Merit (1969). He served on the board of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (from 1954-1967) and became its Chairman (1962-1967).