| RefNo | PB/9/1/52 |
| Previous numbers | J.35 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Correspondence with AV Hill |
| Date | 1940-1974 |
| Description | Includes letter dated 12 August 1940, asking Blackett to act as adviser to General Pile, AA Command.
The letter opens: 'Apparently it was a case of love at first sight. After Pile, Newton and I left the meeting last Friday Pile said to me the obvious man for his job was you. I agree: it was clever of him to spot it in 3 minutes conversation. Is it conceivably possible you could take it on? It would be a very interesting job, and with all the knowledge you already have it would give you great scope to be useful. You would have a very free hand: and you ought to have a younger man (like Alan Hodgkin) as an understudy. You would be able to do for the AA Command what Tizard ought to have been given a chance to do for the RAF'.
the date and wording of this letter confirm 9 August as the most probable date for the meeting (see Bernard Lovell, 'P.M.S. Blackett: A Biographical Memoir', Royal Society: 1976, p56).
See also D.83.
The minutes of the 13th meeting of the Anti-Aircraft and Coastal Defence Committee of 22 August 1940 identify Blackett's name as 'AA Command', see D.54.
Letter re Tizard, April 1960, in which Hill states: 'How much easier things could have been had he had cooperation and not jealousy and obstruction. I am pretty sure myself that the difficulties and delays about Tizard's mission to America in the autumn of 1940 were due to the same cause' [ie opposition to Cherwell].
2 letters, January 1974, of wartime recollections. |
| AccessStatus | Open |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | PersonName | Dates |
| NA8239 | Hill; Archibald Vivian (1886 - 1977); physiologist | 1886 - 1977 |
| NA8290 | Tizard; Sir; Henry Thomas (1885 - 1959) | 1885 - 1959 |