When we recall the major achievements in aviation, we are minded to consider those endeavours which broke speed, height and distance records. But, from a military perspective, those things matter little unless you can leverage them effectively — normally through technological means — into some sort of meaningful effect relating to control of the air, attack, ISR and air mobility. Since the outset of military aviation, but particularly from the 1930s onwards, this was not simply the preserve of aeronautics per se, but of harnessing developments in electronic technologies that exploited the electromagnetic spectrum and married them to aeronautical platforms — either directly into aircraft systems or, like ground-based radar, ensuring that aircraft were able to exploit their attributes efficiently whilst mitigating their inherent flaw of impermanence. Leslie Bedford played a major role in the development of radar and in the defence of this country, but except for Sir Barnes Wallis (and possibly Sir Robert Watson-Watt), many innovators like Bedford, whose work saved many lives and served as a tangible contribution to victory, never reached the awareness of the general public.
Bedford was an engineer and problem-solver par excellence; in 1936, he played a pivotal role in producing the very first television receivers and the department he formed at A. C. Cossor Ltd (now part of Raytheon) built the receivers for the existentially important Chain Home radar equipment; and his innovations and adaptations yielded the first automated end-to-end gun laying radar system — for the first time enabling accurate elevation assessment — a development which improved the performance of Britain’s ack-ack defences in several steps from approximately 41,000 shells to one aircraft destroyed in early 1940 to 2,750 shells per aircraft by early 1942. Sir Robert Watson-Watt described him as ‘An exceptionally gifted research and development engineer.’ Indeed, the scale of Leslie Bedford’s achievements were surpassed only by his humility. In his 1948 memoir, Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Pile, commander of Britain’s ground-based air defences during the Second World War, commented that, ‘The whole Gun Laying technique was so empiric that many were the disappointments we had to endure before radar settled down into the killer it became. That it ever became a killer at all was largely due to the work of L. H. Bedford of Cossor, a scientist who received very inadequate recognition of his services.’
During the war, Bedford did receive some recognition through the award of an OBE, and later was promoted to CBE in 1956 for his work on guided weapons. But it wasn’t until 1980 — the fortieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain — that his achievements were given full recognition in a higher profile setting, when his award of the Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers’ Achievement Award obtained some modest publicity. Modesty defined Bedford — on one occasion when General Pile had assembled all his senior officers and chief scientists, Leslie Bedford was nowhere to be found…..until the doors swung open, and there he was resplendent in his Home Guard private’s uniform! He had been on duty all night and had had no time to change. His work had further direct relevance to the Royal Air Force through his development of the Monica airborne radar, which gave bomber crews warning of incoming nightfighters (later in the war, German nightfighters were equipped with a homing device which locked onto Monica, and it was immediately withdrawn from service). It is a little-known fact that following adoption of Monica as the AN/APS-13 by the USAAF, it was adapted and used as the radar altimeter on the ‘Little Boy’ atomic bomb used on Hiroshima.
Post-war, his contributions to civil and military aviation, television and guided weapons continued to lead the field. Appointed Director of Engineering at the Guided Weapons Division of the British Aircraft Corporation in 1963, he was later described by Pat Adams in his history of guided weapons at BAC as ‘an almost legendary character, of immense intellectual stature, with a head like a minor prophet crossed with a Roman Emperor, a disconcertingly direct manner and a fiendish sense of humour. Brilliant, unpredictable — sometimes outrageous — he can appear deceptively unworldly, but the feet of this ‘absent-minded Professor’ seldom leave the ground, however high in the orbit his head may seem to be.’
And whilst his mind might figuratively have been in orbit, his thoughts were guided to the literal possibilities of space. As technology evolved, he saw the opportunities presented by space technology, and played a significant role in projects such as Ariel 3 — the UK’s first satellite launched — and the international Intelsat communications programme in the 1960s.
It is appropriate, therefore, to remember Leslie Bedford’s contribution to British Aviation history, as he brings together so many strands of the RAF’s technological evolution.
