Correspondence with AV Hill 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. 1940-1974