Geoffrey Pyke
Encyclopedia
Geoffrey Nathaniel Joseph Pyke (9 November 1893–22 February 1948) was an English
journalist
, educationalist, and later an inventor whose clever, but unorthodox
, ideas could be difficult to implement. In lifestyle and appearance, he fitted the common stereotype
of a scientist-engineer-inventor or in British slang, a "boffin
".
Pyke is particularly known for his innovative proposals for weapons of war, most especially the material pykrete
and the proposed construction of the ship Habakkuk
from it.
, was a Jewish lawyer
who died when Geoffrey was only five years old, leaving his family with no money. His mother quarrelled with relatives and made life "hell" for her children. She sent Pyke to Wellington
, then a typical public school
mainly for the sons of Army officers; there Pyke maintained the dress and habits of an Orthodox Jew
. The persecution of which he was a victim instilled him with a hatred of and contempt for the establishment
. After two years at Wellington, he was withdrawn, tutored privately and then admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge
to study law.
broke out, Pyke stopped his studies to become a war correspondent
. He persuaded the editor of the Daily Chronicle
to send him to Berlin
using the passport obtained from an American sailor and by travelling via Denmark
.
In Germany, he was able to converse with Germans and to see that civilian life there was nothing like as grim as had been portrayed in the British national press. He eavesdropped on other people's conversations and witnessed the mobilisation of Germans for war with Russia
– seeing dozens of trains packed with soldiers travelling with seemingly clockwork precision.
After just six days in Germany, Pyke was arrested in his bed-sitting room; he was taken away leaving a highly incriminating letter – written in English – on his desk. His guards told him "Probably you'll be shot in the morning". He was confined to a small cell, convinced that he would soon be executed. As time passed, Pyke came to believe that he might not be executed after all; he rationalised to himself that "...the German government was not going to waste 4d
on my keep if it was going to be faced with burial expenses on the fifth day".
Pyke was kept in solitary confinement
. He used this time to think. Reflecting on his constant hunger – the rations were meagre – he thought:
Pyke longed for books, writing materials, and, above all, company. At the rare exercise times when no talking was allowed, he moved briskly round the yard, exchanging a few whispered words with the inmates he passed. He pieced together poems from memory – If
by Rudyard Kipling
and Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll
– and took to regularly reciting them loudly in the darkness. He even asked to see Herr Direktor for permission to whistle occasionally – his request was granted. Given his increasingly odd behaviour, Pyke wondered whether the guards thought he might be going a little mad, and he himself wondered if going mad was the only sane thing to do.
After 13 weeks he was taken to another prison where he was able to mix with other prisoners and buy such luxuries as newspapers. More importantly, he learned that thousands of foreigners had passed through this prison for a period of quarantine before being transferred to the internment camp at Ruhleben
; having received no indication of his ultimate fate, the thought of being sent to an internment camp cheered him considerably. However, after just five days he was transferred to his third prison in Moabit
. Five days later, he was taken to the internment camp at Ruhleben.
Ruhleben was about 10 km (6 mi) west of Berlin
. It had originally been a racecourse and Pyke was given a small bed in the cramped barracks
that had been converted from a stable block
. Here he delighted in the novel sounds of human conversation that he had so missed, he listened intently to the inconsequential conversations, trifling arguments and even the cursing of his fellow human beings.
Pyke soon fell in with a group of fellow graduates from Oxford and Cambridge; his new friends supplied him with extra clothes against the winter cold and, for the first few days of their new acquaintance, with extra food. Books and other amusements were shared. The internees were allowed to run their own affairs to a substantial degree and they were allowed to make purchases and receive parcels from home. There was a thriving black-market in permitted, but rare, luxuries such as soap and forbidden items such as alcohol and English newspapers.
Pyke soon became ill, he nearly died of double pneumonia and he suffered repeatedly from food poisoning. Only as the weather improved with the coming of summer did his health improve. Despite illness, he constantly thought about the possibility of escape and he repeatedly questioned his fellow inmates. Most people he spoke to were pessimistic about escape, but eventually he met fellow Englishman Edward Falk who wanted desperately to get out of Germany. Others had tried to escape; a few had got out of the camp, but nobody had succeeded in getting out of Germany. Geoffrey began compiling statistical data on these escape attempts so as to find the common failing factors. Pyke and Falk reviewed many possible plans and finally made a decision.
For weeks before their escape attempt, Pyke and Falk followed a regime of calisthenic exercise, which they said had been recommended to them by a Danish inmate who was a cardiac specialist. In fact, the Dane was a product of Pyke’s imagination as were the exercises: various crawling wriggles that they would soon put to good use.
There was a tiny shed on the exercise ground that was used to store athletic equipment. Pyke had noticed that in the late afternoon the sun’s rays flashed through the window blinding with glare anybody who looked inside. On the afternoon of 9 June 1915, Pyke and Falk crept into the hut and hid themselves under tennis nets. At the usual time, the guard dutifully checked the inside of the hut and, even though the prisoners could see him clearly, the guard saw nothing amiss. They waited until dark and then slipped out and climbed over a succession of perimeter fences.
Pyke and Falk camped at a spot near where Pyke had previously observed German troop trains and then took a tram into Berlin. They bought clothes and camping equipment and then booked a train westward. As they got within 80 miles (128.7 km) of the Dutch border, they decided it was safest to walk. It rained every night and they used up precious time searching for food.
As they walked they had to wait patiently at every bridge
and railway crossing
for the optimum moment to get over; they got soaked crossing endless ditch
es and repeatedly negotiated agricultural barbed wire
fences and nearly got swallowed up in the quagmire
.
Approaching the border, they consumed what remained of their food and discarded all their equipment apart from some rope they had made from a ball of string. They moved on, ready for the final and most difficult stage of their journey – crossing the Dutch frontier. Then, as they rested, they were discovered by a soldier who demanded to know what they were doing. Initially they tried to talk their way out of the encounter, but it soon transpired that the soldier was Dutch and that they were already 50 yards (45.7 m) or so inside Holland.
Pyke and Falk made their way from Holland back to England
. There, Pyke went to see his news editor to confess that his mission had failed. However, his editor was not at all disappointed; smiling, he told Pyke that the story of his escape, based on a long telegraph report Pyke had sent from Amsterdam, had been one of the biggest Fleet Street
scoops
of the war. Pyke was the first Englishman to get into Germany and out again, and he must write a series of articles for the Chronicle. Pyke refused. He had, by then, rather lost interest in being a war correspondent. After that he divided his time between lecturing on his experiences and writing an intellectual review, the Cambridge Magazine, edited by Charles Kay Ogden
.
Pyke arranged for some food parcels to be sent to friends in Ruhleben; the boxes contained details of his method of escape concealed in false bottoms. Although his parcels arrived unmolested, no prisoner attempted to repeat his methods.
As an escaped prisoner of war, he was exempt from conscription and, in any case, his views had begun to drift towards pacifism. He wrote a memoir of his experiences entitled To Ruhleben – And Back, published in 1916. Because the war was still on at that time, Pyke omitted some details of his escape from his account. To Ruhleben – And Back was republished in 2002.
In March 1918, Pyke met Margaret Amy Chubb
; she was intelligent, pretty, and attracted to Pyke's unconventional good looks and wilful unconventionality. They were married within three months of meeting.
The Pykes had a son, David (1921–2001). Pyke became preoccupied by the question of his son's education. He wanted to create an education that promoted curiosity and equipped young people to live in the twentieth century – an experience of education that would be utterly different to his own. To do this, in October 1924 he set up an infants' school in his Cambridge home. His wife, Margaret, was a strong supporter of the school and its ideas. Pyke recruited psychologist Susan Sutherland Isaacs
to run the school; although Pyke had many original ideas regarding education, he promised her that he would not interfere.
Pyke continued with his city speculations which funded the Malting House School.
The Malting House School
was based on the theories of the American philosopher and educationist John Dewey
. It fostered the individual development of children; children were given great freedom and were supported rather than punished. The teachers were seen as observers of the children, who were seen as research workers. For a short time, The Maltings was a critical if not a commercial success; it was visited by many educationists and it was the subject of a film documentary. Pyke had ambitious plans for the school and began to interfere with the day-to-day running, whereupon Susan Isaacs left The Maltings.
In 1927, Pyke lost all his money; he was bankrupt. The Malting House School was forced to close, Margaret Pyke had to take a job as a headmistress's secretary; she left Geoffrey although they were never divorced. Already suffering from periodic fits of depression
and burdened with huge debts to his brokers, he now withdrew from normal life altogether and existed on donations from his close friends.
In 1934, Nazis
in Germany
announced the creation of an institute for the study of Jewish history and culture. Hitler said that it would be endowed with unlimited funds for scholars who would establish "scientifically" why world Jewry should be exterminated. Pyke was incensed by this, not because it represented a personal threat, but because of its inhumanity. Pyke decided to campaign for Christian leaders to make simultaneous public statements condemning the Nazi move. He raised money to set up an organisation to combat anti-Semitism, although this did not succeed. He wrote a number of magazine articles on the irrationality of prejudice and started work on a book, but became distracted by other injustices.
With the outbreak of the Spanish civil war
, Pyke supported the British Voluntary Industrial Aid organisation. Voluntary Industrial Aid encouraged those who had little money to contribute their time and skills instead. Organised by Trade Union
s, workers were, with the assistance of sympathetic employers who lent the use of machines and premises, able to produce useful items of equipment. In Spain, ambulances were in short supply. Pyke invented a motorcycle
sidecar
to carry medical supplies or a patient. He raised funds to pay for powerful, American-built Harley-Davidson
motorcycles that were then plentifully available second-hand, and persuaded workers to make the sidecars free of charge with the results being sent out to Spain.
Pyke also assisted in arranging for the manufacture of mattresses for the Spanish government, for the collection of redundant horse-drawn plough
s for Spanish farmers, and bundles of hand-tools for use by labourers. He published aggressive propaganda brochures pointing out that British workers were not to consider their contributions a form of charity while Spanish people were fighting and dying for their fellow workers.
To answer a shortage of bandages and dressings
in Spain, he recalled that in the First World War, sun dried peat moss sewn into muslin
bags was used as a substitute for cotton dressings. Soon, moss collected by volunteers in Britain was on its way to Spain.
Throughout this period Pyke was short-tempered with other supporters of the Spanish loyalists; at meetings, he could not understand why his own plans were not wholeheartedly supported by others; he was frequently loud and rude.
In 1938, Pyke took great pleasure in his son's acceptance as a junior member of a US medical research unit. It pleased him that his son described the work as "beautiful" – to Pyke the most beautiful thing would always be pure research: the acquisition of new knowledge for its own sake. David Pyke went on to become an expert in Diabetes.
, Pyke considered the problem of finding out exactly what the German people actually thought of the Nazi regime. His idea was to perform an opinion poll
in secret by sending volunteers to Germany to interview ordinary people. He would train the volunteers personally. The plan was that the interviewers should pose as golfers on a tour of Germany and that interviews should be informal with the questions being inserted into everyday conversation, the first German city to be targeted would be Frankfurt
. After the volunteers had been in Germany for a few days, Pyke himself travelled to Frankfurt where he met Peter Raleigh (later a TV journalist) who was not expecting him. Raleigh jokingly suggested that there were enough of Pyke's golfers in Germany to challenge the Frankfurt golf club to a match. Ruminating on this, Pyke concluded that this would be an excellent idea in all sorts of ways; he put this new plan into action and returned to London. By 21 August, Pyke had ten interviewers working in Germany and turning in excellent results. Although things went more slowly than Pyke had hoped, the interviewers experienced little real difficulty, and if they were suspected by the subjects it was that they were Police informants
or Gestapo
officers rather than British spies. On 25 August, following hints from his contacts at the Foreign Office, Pyke recalled all his agents and they arrived back in England over the following few days. Pyke's original idea had been to present Hitler with an account of the true feelings of the German people; with the outbreak of war, it was too late for that. Raleigh and Patrick Smith
did make a broadcast on the newly formed BBC World Service
in which they contrasted the mood in Germany with that in London, and Pyke prepared a report for the War Office
.
Pyke tried to generate interest in his opinion poll results and in repeating the exercise using people from neutral countries in Germany. He got little support, but did attract the attention of Conservative Member of Parliament
, Leo Amery. Amery did think that Pyke's idea was worthwhile and privately convinced others including Clement Attlee
and Sir Stafford Cripps
. Still, nothing was done and Pyke ranted at the frustration of what seemed to be official obstinacy. Pyke's influential friends eventually concluded that nothing would come of the scheme and reluctantly persuaded Pyke to let the matter drop.
and worked on a number of ideas for practical inventions. Inspired by the sight of barrage balloons, he conceived the idea of using them to mount microphones allowing the location of aircraft to be ascertained by triangulation. Of course, Pyke had no idea that the development of radar
provided a much better means of achieving this effect.
With the invasion of Norway, Pyke considered the problem of transporting soldiers rapidly over snow. He proposed the development of a screw-propelled vehicle based on an old patent called the Armstead snow motor. This consisted of a pair of lightweight cylinders, shaped like very large artillery shells, to support the weight of the vehicle. These cylinders have a spiral flange that digs into the snow; when the cylinders turn (in opposite directions), the vehicle is propelled forwards. Pyke envisaged that a small force of highly mobile soldiers could occupy the attentions of many enemy soldiers who would be required to guard against every possible point of attack.
Initially, Pyke's idea was rejected. Then, in October 1941, Louis Mountbatten
replaced Roger Keyes as Chief of Combined Operations. This completely changed the character of the department and Mountbatten found room for all sorts of people with unusual talents and ideas. Amery, now with a position in government as Secretary of State for India
, wrote to Mountbatten recommending that Pyke's Norway scheme, originally rejected by Keyes, be re-examined and that Mountbatten should take Pyke onto his staff — the beginning of a productive relationship. Mountbatten valued Pyke not just for his original ideas, but because he prompted his other staff to think less conservatively.
Mountbatten became convinced that Pyke's plan was worthwhile and adopted it. The scheme became Operation Plough and many high-level conferences were dedicated to it. When a single sheet précis of the plan was presented to Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
, he notes in the minutes of the meeting:
Pyke's snow vehicle project was superseded by Canadian development of the Weasel tracked personnel carrier, produced first for the American
-Canadian
commando unit
the 1st Special Service Force, which trained first for Norway but was actually deployed in Italy. The USA built hundreds of these as the M29
vehicle.
at the Cavendish Laboratory
, Cambridge
; Pyke knew that Perutz had previously worked on the physical properties of snow with regard to the difficulties of Operation Plough. Perutz soon proposed a solution and in a footnote his memorandum noted that:
This got Pyke thinking and at the end of September 1942, Pyke sent a 232 page memorandum to Mountbatten detailing his ideas.
Pyke’s memorandum suggested a number of uses for ice and for super cooled water – water that has been cooled below its freezing point while remaining liquid. Most famously, he suggested the construction of gigantic aircraft carrier
s from ice that was either frozen naturally or artificially. Whereas conventional aircraft carriers were restricted to relatively small, specialised aircraft, these giants could launch and land conventional fighters and bombers. As such, they could provide air cover for convoys in mid-Atlantic, staging posts for long flights over seas or as launch pads for amphibious assaults on France or Japan
. A biography of Pyke by David Lampe indicates that he had already, at this early date, decided to use ice reinforced with wood fibres, but other accounts make it clear that this is not the case.
Pyke was not the first to suggest a floating mid-ocean stopping point for aircraft, nor even the first to suggest that such a floating island could be made of ice, German scientist Dr. Gerke of Waldenberg proposed the idea and carried out some prelimary experiments in Lake Zurich in 1930.
Pyke's memorandum included a couple of cover notes. The first requested that Mountbatten should read the suggestions himself before allowing it to fall into the hands of "that damned fool Lushington". The second, longer, note asked that Mountbatten read the first thirty pages of the memorandum before deciding whether it was worthwhile to continue "It may be gold: it may only glitter. I can't tell. I have been hammering at it too long and am blinded".
Mountbatten read the first few pages and skimmed through the rest of the document. He did not have time to read it thoroughly, but instead handed it to Brigadier Wildman-Lushington somewhat earlier than Pyke might have wished. Lushington, with the assistance of JD Bernal, concluded that Pyke's main proposals were feasible.
In December 1942, Prime Minister Churchill issued a directive that research on the project should be pressed forward with the highest priority and he expressed the opinion that nature be allowed to do as much of the work as possible. The Fleet Air Arm
required a freeboard of at least 15 metres (49.2 ft) for the operation of aircraft and the normally land-based fighters and bombers to be flown off the berg ship required a runway 600 metres (1,968.5 ft) long and 30 metres (98.4 ft) wide. It soon became clear that ice cut from natural ice floes would not be suitable because the ice was too thin — rarely exceeding 3.5 metres (11.5 ft) — and icebergs were unsuitable because their surface above water was too small. Experiments to determine the mechanical strength of ice were made in the UK and in Canada, the results were disappointing as ice was found to be an unreliable structural material, using it in the manner suggested would be dangerous.
In February 1943, the prospects of the project were transformed. Pyke had learned from a report by Herman Mark
and his assistant Walter Holenstein that ice made from water mixed with wood fibres formed a strong solid mass – very much stronger than pure water ice. Mark had been in Vienna, but had by 1940 escaped from Nazi Europe to USA. Scientists working for Pyke at the Brooklyn Polytechnic's Cold Research Laboratory experimented with mixtures of between 4 and 14% wood pulp and their initial tests gave fantastic results. The composition was at first known as piccolite and was later called pykrete
. Pyke handed Herman Mark's report to Max Perutz
(who had been a student of Physical chemistry
under Mark in Vienna) who developed the pykrete idea in a requisitioned meat store at Smithfield Market, in a series of experiments, he confirmed Mark's results and found that ice made with as little as 4% wood pulp was, weight for weight, as strong as concrete.
Mountbatten’s reaction to the breakthrough is recorded by Lampe:
As an after dinner speech, Mountbatten’s story may have been elaborated somewhat to entertain his audience — the mental image of Churchill in his bath perhaps smoking one of his trademark cigars is rather amusing — and the incident may have been entirely imaginary. The story does, however, convey the sense of excitement generated by the discovery.
The project to build a giant aircraft carrier of pykrete was known as Project Habakkuk
.
As plans for the great ship evolved, it soon became apparent that the requirement for a 15 metres (49.2 ft) freeboard could only be achieved with a hollow vessel: a solid mass of pykrete would have had an unfeasibly deep draft. Even so, a ship 600 metres (1,968.5 ft) long and 30 metres (98.4 ft) wide with 9 metres (29.5 ft) thick walls would require a draft of 45 metres (147.6 ft) and would displace 2,200,000 tons. Its construction, from an untried material, would be a quite staggering undertaking. For the sake of simplicity, the ship was given the shape of a hollow square beam with bevelled edges to reduce drag and the outside walls were to be surrounded by a waterproof insulating skin.
Extensive testing showed that in its resistance to projectiles and explosives, pykrete was weight for weight as good as concrete. A revolver bullet would cause only insignificant damage: a crater 2.5 centimetre (0.984251968503937 in) wide and 1.2 centimetre (0.47244094488189 in) deep. From the results of underwater explosive tests, it was calculated that a torpedo
hit would produce a crater 4.5 metres (14.8 ft) in diameter and 60 centimetres (23.6 in) deep. Pykrete aircraft carriers would be slow, at about 7 knots (3.8 m/s), but with their thick walls they would be impervious to bombs and torpedoes.
Although pykrete was mechanically strong, it would, like ice, slowly deform when subjected to a constant pressure, a phenomenon technically known as creep
. Experiments showed that different sources of wood pulp performed differently, with Canadian spruce
being superior to Scotch pine; in the case of Canadian spruce pulp, creep would effectively stop after an initial period of sagging lasting a few weeks provided that the temperature of pykrete was kept below -15 C. The ship design included refrigeration plants that circulated compressed air at -30 C through U-shaped ducts.
Pyke was sent to Canada with a personal introduction from Winston Churchill to Mackenzie King. While he was away, an Admiralty committee headed by the Chief of Naval Construction sent a memorandum about Habakkuk to Mountbatten. Perutz later recalled Pyke's reaction when he heard about this. Pyke sent a cable reading:
This behaviour was typical of Pyke's disdain for the British establishment and the enraged admiral tried to get Pyke sacked. However, Pyke returned from Canada elated at his success and by the splendid performance of a prototype that the Canadians had succeeded in launching on Patricia Lake in Alberta
.
Despite considerable work, the project never got beyond the early planning stage. The manufacture of such a large quantity of pykrete was a formidable difficulty and the problem of steering the great ship had never really been resolved. In the meantime, the range of aircraft had increased significantly, enough to close the Atlantic gap, and the American island hopping
programme had advanced sufficiently to make such floating islands unnecessary. Finally, modern land based aircraft were now so heavy that they required longer runways than even Habakkuk could provide.
Pyke's original memorandum mentioned other applications for pykrete such as building landing ships for the prospective invasion of Japan
and for quickly constructing fortifications at a beachhead
by spraying an existing building with pykrete liquid that would freeze into a thick layer. Many of these ideas relied upon a misplaced faith in the qualities of supercooled water
which he thought could be used as a weapon of war: pumped from a ship it could be used to instantly form bulwarks of ice or even be sprayed directly onto enemy soldiers. However, such ideas were, according to Max Perutz
, quite impractical.
In September 1943, Pyke proposed a slightly less ambitious plan for pykrete vessels to be used in support of an amphibious assault. He proposed a pykrete monitor
200 feet (61 m) long and 50 feet (15.2 m) wide mounting a single naval gun turret
; this could be self-powered or towed to where it would be used. He also suggested the use of pykrete to make breakwaters and landing stages. At the time, Max Perutz thought the ideas were practical and that the preceding research on pykrete was sufficiently advanced to allow Pyke's plan to executed. The plan was not put into action, but for the allied invasion of Normandy a system of preconstructed concrete breakwaters and landing stages called Mulberry
was employed. Pyke's plans hint that he had some knowledge of the Mulberry plans, perhaps through his contacts with Bernal, who was one of Mulberry's progenitors.
theatre and fundamental to the 1943 decision to invade France by landing on the beaches of Normandy, with no harbours and a 24-foot tide. Pyke's idea was to use pipes of the type that were used to transport fuel from ship to shore, to move sealed containers that would contain any type of sufficiently small material objects. Pyke suggested that four- or six-inch (152 mm) pipes would handle smaller equipment and larger objects could be passed through two-foot pipes. Furthermore, there was no reason why the pipes should stop at the shore, they could be extended inland as required. Bernal gave a cautious endorsement to the idea, adding that it would require a great deal of investigation.
Pyke's idea was similar to the cleaning brushes that are sometimes forced along pipes by the pressure of the fluid and today pipeline pigs are used for cleaning and telemetry.
A little later, Pyke proposed, tentatively, that his idea for "Power-Driven Rivers" could be extended to the transport of personnel. The pipes would need to be at least two feet in diameter and the pressures would have to be high. He worked out some rough ideas for supplying the passengers with oxygen and suggested that the problem of claustrophobia
might be ameliorated by travelling in pairs and by the judicious use of barbiturate
drugs.
Pyke proposed that this system could be used to move people from ship to shore, from island to island, through swamps and over mountains – anywhere where conventional transport was difficult.
The idea was never taken up. Pyke did not appreciate that it was not practicable to construct a pipeline without first building a road, and a pipeline would be militarily very vulnerable. The practical problems of the Normandy Landings were solved by Royal Navy researchers, who built floating concrete caissons (Mulberries) and floating pontoons (Swiss Roll) along which trucks could drive from ship to shore, as described in Gerald Pawle's book The Secret War (1957).
Pyke was given a commission to look into the problems of the National Health Service
and, characteristically, made his contribution as a part of a minority report
. He remained eager to convey his unconventional ideas, he wrote and broadcast. He campaigned against the death penalty, and for government support of UNICEF But the more he thought about trying to achieve a better world, the more pessimistic he became – it seemed that human nature was antithetical to innovation in general and his ideas in particular. He was widely mocked in the media of the time, even in left-wing publications. A sense of gloom overtook him.
found his body the following Monday morning. The coroner gave a verdict of suicide at a moment of mental unbalance. Immediately before consuming the pills, he had written some private letters that made it clear that his death was premeditated.
An obituary in The Times
newspaper praised him and lamented his passing, beginning with the words:
John Bernal, who knew Pyke well, wrote:
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, educationalist, and later an inventor whose clever, but unorthodox
Unorthodox
Unorthodox refers to something that is not orthodox.Unorthodox may also refer to:In music:* Unorthodox , a song by Wretch 32* Unorthodox , a doom metal band from Maryland...
, ideas could be difficult to implement. In lifestyle and appearance, he fitted the common stereotype
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
of a scientist-engineer-inventor or in British slang, a "boffin
Boffin
In the slang of the United Kingdom, boffins are scientists, medical doctors, engineers, and other people engaged in technical or scientific research.-Origin:...
".
Pyke is particularly known for his innovative proposals for weapons of war, most especially the material pykrete
Pykrete
Pykrete is a composite material made of approximately 14 percent sawdust or some other form of wood pulp and 86 percent ice by weight. Its use was proposed during World War II by Geoffrey Pyke to the British Royal Navy as a candidate material for making a huge, unsinkable aircraft carrier...
and the proposed construction of the ship Habakkuk
Project Habakkuk
Project Habakkuk or Habbakuk was a plan by the British in World War II to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete , for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time.The idea came from Geoffrey Pyke who worked for Combined...
from it.
Early life
Pyke's father, Lionel Edward PykeLionel Edward Pyke
Lionel Edward Pyke an English-Jewish barrister, born at Chatham England on 21 April 1854 and died in Brighton England on 26 March 1899...
, was a Jewish lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
who died when Geoffrey was only five years old, leaving his family with no money. His mother quarrelled with relatives and made life "hell" for her children. She sent Pyke to Wellington
Wellington College, Berkshire
-Former pupils:Notable former pupils include historian P. J. Marshall, architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, impressionist Rory Bremner, Adolphus Cambridge, 1st Marquess of Cambridge, author Sebastian Faulks, language school pioneer John Haycraft, political journalist Robin Oakley, actor Sir Christopher...
, then a typical public school
Independent school (UK)
An independent school is a school that is not financed through the taxation system by local or national government and is instead funded by private sources, predominantly in the form of tuition charges, gifts and long-term charitable endowments, and so is not subject to the conditions imposed by...
mainly for the sons of Army officers; there Pyke maintained the dress and habits of an Orthodox Jew
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
. The persecution of which he was a victim instilled him with a hatred of and contempt for the establishment
The Establishment
The Establishment is a term used to refer to a visible dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation. The term suggests a closed social group which selects its own members...
. After two years at Wellington, he was withdrawn, tutored privately and then admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college has over seven hundred students and fellows, and is the third oldest college of the university. Physically, it is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from almost every century since its...
to study law.
World War I
When World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
broke out, Pyke stopped his studies to become a war correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
. He persuaded the editor of the Daily Chronicle
Daily Chronicle
The Daily Chronicle was a British newspaper that was published from 1872 to 1930 when it merged with the Daily News to become the News Chronicle.-History:...
to send him to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
using the passport obtained from an American sailor and by travelling via Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
.
In Germany, he was able to converse with Germans and to see that civilian life there was nothing like as grim as had been portrayed in the British national press. He eavesdropped on other people's conversations and witnessed the mobilisation of Germans for war with Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
– seeing dozens of trains packed with soldiers travelling with seemingly clockwork precision.
After just six days in Germany, Pyke was arrested in his bed-sitting room; he was taken away leaving a highly incriminating letter – written in English – on his desk. His guards told him "Probably you'll be shot in the morning". He was confined to a small cell, convinced that he would soon be executed. As time passed, Pyke came to believe that he might not be executed after all; he rationalised to himself that "...the German government was not going to waste 4d
British One Penny coin (pre-decimal)
The English Penny, originally a coin of 1.3 to 1.5 g pure silver, includes the penny introduced around the year 785 by King Offa of Mercia. However, his coins were similar in size and weight to the continental deniers of the period, and to the Anglo-Saxon sceats which had gone before it, which were...
on my keep if it was going to be faced with burial expenses on the fifth day".
Pyke was kept in solitary confinement
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
. He used this time to think. Reflecting on his constant hunger – the rations were meagre – he thought:
Pyke longed for books, writing materials, and, above all, company. At the rare exercise times when no talking was allowed, he moved briskly round the yard, exchanging a few whispered words with the inmates he passed. He pieced together poems from memory – If
If—
"If—" is a poem written in 1895 by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in the "Brother Square Toes" chapter of Rewards and Fairies, Kipling's 1910 collection of short stories and poems...
by Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
and Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense verse poem written by Lewis Carroll in his 1872 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
by Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
– and took to regularly reciting them loudly in the darkness. He even asked to see Herr Direktor for permission to whistle occasionally – his request was granted. Given his increasingly odd behaviour, Pyke wondered whether the guards thought he might be going a little mad, and he himself wondered if going mad was the only sane thing to do.
After 13 weeks he was taken to another prison where he was able to mix with other prisoners and buy such luxuries as newspapers. More importantly, he learned that thousands of foreigners had passed through this prison for a period of quarantine before being transferred to the internment camp at Ruhleben
Ruhleben P.O.W. Camp
Ruhleben P.O.W. Camp was a civilian detention camp during World War I. It was located in Ruhleben, then a village to the west of Berlin, now split between the districts of Spandau and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf...
; having received no indication of his ultimate fate, the thought of being sent to an internment camp cheered him considerably. However, after just five days he was transferred to his third prison in Moabit
Moabit
Moabit is an inner city locality of Berlin. Since Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it belongs to the newly regrouped governmental borough of Mitte. Previously, from 1920 to 2001, it belonged to the borough of Tiergarten. Moabit's borders are defined by three watercourses, the Spree, the...
. Five days later, he was taken to the internment camp at Ruhleben.
Ruhleben was about 10 km (6 mi) west of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. It had originally been a racecourse and Pyke was given a small bed in the cramped barracks
Barracks
Barracks are specialised buildings for permanent military accommodation; the word may apply to separate housing blocks or to complete complexes. Their main object is to separate soldiers from the civilian population and reinforce discipline, training and esprit de corps. They were sometimes called...
that had been converted from a stable block
Stable
A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals...
. Here he delighted in the novel sounds of human conversation that he had so missed, he listened intently to the inconsequential conversations, trifling arguments and even the cursing of his fellow human beings.
Pyke soon fell in with a group of fellow graduates from Oxford and Cambridge; his new friends supplied him with extra clothes against the winter cold and, for the first few days of their new acquaintance, with extra food. Books and other amusements were shared. The internees were allowed to run their own affairs to a substantial degree and they were allowed to make purchases and receive parcels from home. There was a thriving black-market in permitted, but rare, luxuries such as soap and forbidden items such as alcohol and English newspapers.
Pyke soon became ill, he nearly died of double pneumonia and he suffered repeatedly from food poisoning. Only as the weather improved with the coming of summer did his health improve. Despite illness, he constantly thought about the possibility of escape and he repeatedly questioned his fellow inmates. Most people he spoke to were pessimistic about escape, but eventually he met fellow Englishman Edward Falk who wanted desperately to get out of Germany. Others had tried to escape; a few had got out of the camp, but nobody had succeeded in getting out of Germany. Geoffrey began compiling statistical data on these escape attempts so as to find the common failing factors. Pyke and Falk reviewed many possible plans and finally made a decision.
For weeks before their escape attempt, Pyke and Falk followed a regime of calisthenic exercise, which they said had been recommended to them by a Danish inmate who was a cardiac specialist. In fact, the Dane was a product of Pyke’s imagination as were the exercises: various crawling wriggles that they would soon put to good use.
There was a tiny shed on the exercise ground that was used to store athletic equipment. Pyke had noticed that in the late afternoon the sun’s rays flashed through the window blinding with glare anybody who looked inside. On the afternoon of 9 June 1915, Pyke and Falk crept into the hut and hid themselves under tennis nets. At the usual time, the guard dutifully checked the inside of the hut and, even though the prisoners could see him clearly, the guard saw nothing amiss. They waited until dark and then slipped out and climbed over a succession of perimeter fences.
Pyke and Falk camped at a spot near where Pyke had previously observed German troop trains and then took a tram into Berlin. They bought clothes and camping equipment and then booked a train westward. As they got within 80 miles (128.7 km) of the Dutch border, they decided it was safest to walk. It rained every night and they used up precious time searching for food.
As they walked they had to wait patiently at every bridge
Bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle...
and railway crossing
Level crossing
A level crossing occurs where a railway line is intersected by a road or path onone level, without recourse to a bridge or tunnel. It is a type of at-grade intersection. The term also applies when a light rail line with separate right-of-way or reserved track crosses a road in the same fashion...
for the optimum moment to get over; they got soaked crossing endless ditch
Ditch
A ditch is usually defined as a small to moderate depression created to channel water.In Anglo-Saxon, the word dïc already existed and was pronounced 'deek' in northern England and 'deetch' in the south. The origins of the word lie in digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank...
es and repeatedly negotiated agricultural barbed wire
Barbed wire
Barbed wire, also known as barb wire , is a type of fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strand. It is used to construct inexpensive fences and is used atop walls surrounding secured property...
fences and nearly got swallowed up in the quagmire
Quagmire
Quagmire may refer to:* Water infused earth or a bog. Solid ground may turn to quagmire following substantial rainfall.* By extension, a situation that is difficult to get out of.* A tactical defense made when defending a territory close to a river...
.
Approaching the border, they consumed what remained of their food and discarded all their equipment apart from some rope they had made from a ball of string. They moved on, ready for the final and most difficult stage of their journey – crossing the Dutch frontier. Then, as they rested, they were discovered by a soldier who demanded to know what they were doing. Initially they tried to talk their way out of the encounter, but it soon transpired that the soldier was Dutch and that they were already 50 yards (45.7 m) or so inside Holland.
Pyke and Falk made their way from Holland back to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. There, Pyke went to see his news editor to confess that his mission had failed. However, his editor was not at all disappointed; smiling, he told Pyke that the story of his escape, based on a long telegraph report Pyke had sent from Amsterdam, had been one of the biggest Fleet Street
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
scoops
Scoop (term)
Scoop is an informal term used in journalism. The word connotes originality, importance, surprise or excitement, secrecy and exclusivity.Stories likely considered to be scoops are important news, likely to interest or concern many people. A scoop is typically a new story, or a new aspect to an...
of the war. Pyke was the first Englishman to get into Germany and out again, and he must write a series of articles for the Chronicle. Pyke refused. He had, by then, rather lost interest in being a war correspondent. After that he divided his time between lecturing on his experiences and writing an intellectual review, the Cambridge Magazine, edited by Charles Kay Ogden
Charles Kay Ogden
Charles Kay Ogden was an English linguist, philosopher, and writer. Described as a polymath but also an eccentric and outsider, he took part in many ventures related to literature, politics, the arts and philosophy, having a broad impact particularly as an editor, translator, and activist on...
.
Pyke arranged for some food parcels to be sent to friends in Ruhleben; the boxes contained details of his method of escape concealed in false bottoms. Although his parcels arrived unmolested, no prisoner attempted to repeat his methods.
As an escaped prisoner of war, he was exempt from conscription and, in any case, his views had begun to drift towards pacifism. He wrote a memoir of his experiences entitled To Ruhleben – And Back, published in 1916. Because the war was still on at that time, Pyke omitted some details of his escape from his account. To Ruhleben – And Back was republished in 2002.
In March 1918, Pyke met Margaret Amy Chubb
Margaret Pyke
Margaret Amy Pyke was a British birth control activist and family planning pioneer. A founding member of the British National Birth Control Committee , later known as the Family Planning Association , she succeeded Lady Gertrude Denman as chairman of that organization in 1954. She was also a...
; she was intelligent, pretty, and attracted to Pyke's unconventional good looks and wilful unconventionality. They were married within three months of meeting.
Between the wars
Pyke tried his hand at a number of money-making schemes. For a while, he speculated heavily on the commodity market and used his own system of financial management instead of more conventional techniques. He worked through a number of different stockbrokers so that no one of them would realise the large amount he was investing, thereby avoiding higher stock broking charges.The Pykes had a son, David (1921–2001). Pyke became preoccupied by the question of his son's education. He wanted to create an education that promoted curiosity and equipped young people to live in the twentieth century – an experience of education that would be utterly different to his own. To do this, in October 1924 he set up an infants' school in his Cambridge home. His wife, Margaret, was a strong supporter of the school and its ideas. Pyke recruited psychologist Susan Sutherland Isaacs
Susan Sutherland Isaacs
Susan Sutherland Isaacs, CBE was a Lancashire-born educational psychologist and psychoanalyst. She published studies on the intellectual and social development of children and promoted the nursery school movement...
to run the school; although Pyke had many original ideas regarding education, he promised her that he would not interfere.
Pyke continued with his city speculations which funded the Malting House School.
The Malting House School
Malting House School
The Malting House School was an experimental educational institution that operated from 1924 to 1929. It was set up by the eccentric and, at the time, wealthy Geoffrey Pyke in his family home in Cambridge and it was run by Susan Sutherland Isaacs...
was based on the theories of the American philosopher and educationist John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
. It fostered the individual development of children; children were given great freedom and were supported rather than punished. The teachers were seen as observers of the children, who were seen as research workers. For a short time, The Maltings was a critical if not a commercial success; it was visited by many educationists and it was the subject of a film documentary. Pyke had ambitious plans for the school and began to interfere with the day-to-day running, whereupon Susan Isaacs left The Maltings.
In 1927, Pyke lost all his money; he was bankrupt. The Malting House School was forced to close, Margaret Pyke had to take a job as a headmistress's secretary; she left Geoffrey although they were never divorced. Already suffering from periodic fits of depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
and burdened with huge debts to his brokers, he now withdrew from normal life altogether and existed on donations from his close friends.
In 1934, Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
announced the creation of an institute for the study of Jewish history and culture. Hitler said that it would be endowed with unlimited funds for scholars who would establish "scientifically" why world Jewry should be exterminated. Pyke was incensed by this, not because it represented a personal threat, but because of its inhumanity. Pyke decided to campaign for Christian leaders to make simultaneous public statements condemning the Nazi move. He raised money to set up an organisation to combat anti-Semitism, although this did not succeed. He wrote a number of magazine articles on the irrationality of prejudice and started work on a book, but became distracted by other injustices.
With the outbreak of the Spanish civil war
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, Pyke supported the British Voluntary Industrial Aid organisation. Voluntary Industrial Aid encouraged those who had little money to contribute their time and skills instead. Organised by Trade Union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s, workers were, with the assistance of sympathetic employers who lent the use of machines and premises, able to produce useful items of equipment. In Spain, ambulances were in short supply. Pyke invented a motorcycle
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
sidecar
Sidecar
A sidecar is a one-wheeled device attached to the side of a motorcycle, scooter, or bicycle, producing a three-wheeled vehicle.-History:A sidecar appeared in a cartoon by George Moore in the January 7, 1903, issue of the British newspaper Motor Cycling. Three weeks later, a provisional patent was...
to carry medical supplies or a patient. He raised funds to pay for powerful, American-built Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson , often abbreviated H-D or Harley, is an American motorcycle manufacturer. Founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during the first decade of the 20th century, it was one of two major American motorcycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depression...
motorcycles that were then plentifully available second-hand, and persuaded workers to make the sidecars free of charge with the results being sent out to Spain.
Pyke also assisted in arranging for the manufacture of mattresses for the Spanish government, for the collection of redundant horse-drawn plough
Plough
The plough or plow is a tool used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting. It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, and represents one of the major advances in agriculture...
s for Spanish farmers, and bundles of hand-tools for use by labourers. He published aggressive propaganda brochures pointing out that British workers were not to consider their contributions a form of charity while Spanish people were fighting and dying for their fellow workers.
To answer a shortage of bandages and dressings
Dressing
Dressing may refer to:* Dressing , a medical covering for a wound, usually made of cloth* Ore dressing* Salad dressing, a type of sauce which is generally poured on a salad, or spread on the bread of a sandwich...
in Spain, he recalled that in the First World War, sun dried peat moss sewn into muslin
Muslin
Muslin |sewing patterns]], such as for clothing, curtains, or upholstery. Because air moves easily through muslin, muslin clothing is suitable for hot, dry climates.- Etymology and history :...
bags was used as a substitute for cotton dressings. Soon, moss collected by volunteers in Britain was on its way to Spain.
Throughout this period Pyke was short-tempered with other supporters of the Spanish loyalists; at meetings, he could not understand why his own plans were not wholeheartedly supported by others; he was frequently loud and rude.
In 1938, Pyke took great pleasure in his son's acceptance as a junior member of a US medical research unit. It pleased him that his son described the work as "beautiful" – to Pyke the most beautiful thing would always be pure research: the acquisition of new knowledge for its own sake. David Pyke went on to become an expert in Diabetes.
Spying on Nazi Germany
In the summer of 1939, just before the outbreak of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Pyke considered the problem of finding out exactly what the German people actually thought of the Nazi regime. His idea was to perform an opinion poll
Opinion poll
An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence...
in secret by sending volunteers to Germany to interview ordinary people. He would train the volunteers personally. The plan was that the interviewers should pose as golfers on a tour of Germany and that interviews should be informal with the questions being inserted into everyday conversation, the first German city to be targeted would be Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
. After the volunteers had been in Germany for a few days, Pyke himself travelled to Frankfurt where he met Peter Raleigh (later a TV journalist) who was not expecting him. Raleigh jokingly suggested that there were enough of Pyke's golfers in Germany to challenge the Frankfurt golf club to a match. Ruminating on this, Pyke concluded that this would be an excellent idea in all sorts of ways; he put this new plan into action and returned to London. By 21 August, Pyke had ten interviewers working in Germany and turning in excellent results. Although things went more slowly than Pyke had hoped, the interviewers experienced little real difficulty, and if they were suspected by the subjects it was that they were Police informants
Informant
An informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...
or Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
officers rather than British spies. On 25 August, following hints from his contacts at the Foreign Office, Pyke recalled all his agents and they arrived back in England over the following few days. Pyke's original idea had been to present Hitler with an account of the true feelings of the German people; with the outbreak of war, it was too late for that. Raleigh and Patrick Smith
Patrick Smith
Patrick Smith is the name of:* Patrick Smith , also known as "Paddy Smith", an Irish politician who served in Dáil Éireann* Patrick Smith , Australian sports journalist who writes for The Australian...
did make a broadcast on the newly formed BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
in which they contrasted the mood in Germany with that in London, and Pyke prepared a report for the War Office
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...
.
Pyke tried to generate interest in his opinion poll results and in repeating the exercise using people from neutral countries in Germany. He got little support, but did attract the attention of Conservative Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
, Leo Amery. Amery did think that Pyke's idea was worthwhile and privately convinced others including Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
and Sir Stafford Cripps
Stafford Cripps
Sir Richard Stafford Cripps was a British Labour politician of the first half of the 20th century. During World War II he served in a number of positions in the wartime coalition, including Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Minister of Aircraft Production...
. Still, nothing was done and Pyke ranted at the frustration of what seemed to be official obstinacy. Pyke's influential friends eventually concluded that nothing would come of the scheme and reluctantly persuaded Pyke to let the matter drop.
Military inventions
Pyke turned his inventive mind to the problems of fighting a modern war. He wrote at some length on grand strategyGrand strategy
Grand strategy comprises the "purposeful employment of all instruments of power available to a security community". Military historian B. H. Liddell Hart says about grand strategy:...
and worked on a number of ideas for practical inventions. Inspired by the sight of barrage balloons, he conceived the idea of using them to mount microphones allowing the location of aircraft to be ascertained by triangulation. Of course, Pyke had no idea that the development of radar
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
provided a much better means of achieving this effect.
Operation Plough
Initially, Pyke's idea was rejected. Then, in October 1941, Louis Mountbatten
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS , was a British statesman and naval officer, and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...
replaced Roger Keyes as Chief of Combined Operations. This completely changed the character of the department and Mountbatten found room for all sorts of people with unusual talents and ideas. Amery, now with a position in government as Secretary of State for India
Secretary of State for India
The Secretary of State for India, or India Secretary, was the British Cabinet minister responsible for the government of India and the political head of the India Office...
, wrote to Mountbatten recommending that Pyke's Norway scheme, originally rejected by Keyes, be re-examined and that Mountbatten should take Pyke onto his staff — the beginning of a productive relationship. Mountbatten valued Pyke not just for his original ideas, but because he prompted his other staff to think less conservatively.
Mountbatten became convinced that Pyke's plan was worthwhile and adopted it. The scheme became Operation Plough and many high-level conferences were dedicated to it. When a single sheet précis of the plan was presented to Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, he notes in the minutes of the meeting:
Pyke's snow vehicle project was superseded by Canadian development of the Weasel tracked personnel carrier, produced first for the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
commando unit
Commando
In English, the term commando means a specific kind of individual soldier or military unit. In contemporary usage, commando usually means elite light infantry and/or special operations forces units, specializing in amphibious landings, parachuting, rappelling and similar techniques, to conduct and...
the 1st Special Service Force, which trained first for Norway but was actually deployed in Italy. The USA built hundreds of these as the M29
M29 Weasel
The M29 Weasel was a World War II tracked vehicle, built by Studebaker, designed for operation in snow.-Design and development:The idea for the Weasel came from the work of British inventor Geoffrey Pyke in support of his proposals to attack Axis forces and industrial installations in Norway...
vehicle.
Project Habakkuk
In April 1942, Pyke was presented with the problem of how to prevent the icing of ships in Arctic waters. He took the problem to Max PerutzMax Perutz
Max Ferdinand Perutz, OM, CH, CBE, FRS was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of hemoglobin and globular proteins...
at the Cavendish Laboratory
Cavendish Laboratory
The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the university's School of Physical Sciences. It was opened in 1874 as a teaching laboratory....
, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
; Pyke knew that Perutz had previously worked on the physical properties of snow with regard to the difficulties of Operation Plough. Perutz soon proposed a solution and in a footnote his memorandum noted that:
This got Pyke thinking and at the end of September 1942, Pyke sent a 232 page memorandum to Mountbatten detailing his ideas.
Pyke’s memorandum suggested a number of uses for ice and for super cooled water – water that has been cooled below its freezing point while remaining liquid. Most famously, he suggested the construction of gigantic aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
s from ice that was either frozen naturally or artificially. Whereas conventional aircraft carriers were restricted to relatively small, specialised aircraft, these giants could launch and land conventional fighters and bombers. As such, they could provide air cover for convoys in mid-Atlantic, staging posts for long flights over seas or as launch pads for amphibious assaults on France or Japan
Operation Downfall
Operation Downfall was the Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of World War II. The operation was cancelled when Japan surrendered after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan. The operation had two parts: Operation...
. A biography of Pyke by David Lampe indicates that he had already, at this early date, decided to use ice reinforced with wood fibres, but other accounts make it clear that this is not the case.
Pyke was not the first to suggest a floating mid-ocean stopping point for aircraft, nor even the first to suggest that such a floating island could be made of ice, German scientist Dr. Gerke of Waldenberg proposed the idea and carried out some prelimary experiments in Lake Zurich in 1930.
Pyke's memorandum included a couple of cover notes. The first requested that Mountbatten should read the suggestions himself before allowing it to fall into the hands of "that damned fool Lushington". The second, longer, note asked that Mountbatten read the first thirty pages of the memorandum before deciding whether it was worthwhile to continue "It may be gold: it may only glitter. I can't tell. I have been hammering at it too long and am blinded".
Mountbatten read the first few pages and skimmed through the rest of the document. He did not have time to read it thoroughly, but instead handed it to Brigadier Wildman-Lushington somewhat earlier than Pyke might have wished. Lushington, with the assistance of JD Bernal, concluded that Pyke's main proposals were feasible.
In December 1942, Prime Minister Churchill issued a directive that research on the project should be pressed forward with the highest priority and he expressed the opinion that nature be allowed to do as much of the work as possible. The Fleet Air Arm
Fleet Air Arm
The Fleet Air Arm is the branch of the British Royal Navy responsible for the operation of naval aircraft. The Fleet Air Arm currently operates the AgustaWestland Merlin, Westland Sea King and Westland Lynx helicopters...
required a freeboard of at least 15 metres (49.2 ft) for the operation of aircraft and the normally land-based fighters and bombers to be flown off the berg ship required a runway 600 metres (1,968.5 ft) long and 30 metres (98.4 ft) wide. It soon became clear that ice cut from natural ice floes would not be suitable because the ice was too thin — rarely exceeding 3.5 metres (11.5 ft) — and icebergs were unsuitable because their surface above water was too small. Experiments to determine the mechanical strength of ice were made in the UK and in Canada, the results were disappointing as ice was found to be an unreliable structural material, using it in the manner suggested would be dangerous.
In February 1943, the prospects of the project were transformed. Pyke had learned from a report by Herman Mark
Herman Francis Mark
Herman Francis Mark was an Austrian-American chemist regarded for his contributions to the development of polymer science. Mark's x-ray diffraction work on the molecular structure of fibers provided important evidence for the macromolecular theory of polymer structure...
and his assistant Walter Holenstein that ice made from water mixed with wood fibres formed a strong solid mass – very much stronger than pure water ice. Mark had been in Vienna, but had by 1940 escaped from Nazi Europe to USA. Scientists working for Pyke at the Brooklyn Polytechnic's Cold Research Laboratory experimented with mixtures of between 4 and 14% wood pulp and their initial tests gave fantastic results. The composition was at first known as piccolite and was later called pykrete
Pykrete
Pykrete is a composite material made of approximately 14 percent sawdust or some other form of wood pulp and 86 percent ice by weight. Its use was proposed during World War II by Geoffrey Pyke to the British Royal Navy as a candidate material for making a huge, unsinkable aircraft carrier...
. Pyke handed Herman Mark's report to Max Perutz
Max Perutz
Max Ferdinand Perutz, OM, CH, CBE, FRS was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of hemoglobin and globular proteins...
(who had been a student of Physical chemistry
Physical chemistry
Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic, atomic, subatomic, and particulate phenomena in chemical systems in terms of physical laws and concepts...
under Mark in Vienna) who developed the pykrete idea in a requisitioned meat store at Smithfield Market, in a series of experiments, he confirmed Mark's results and found that ice made with as little as 4% wood pulp was, weight for weight, as strong as concrete.
Mountbatten’s reaction to the breakthrough is recorded by Lampe:
As an after dinner speech, Mountbatten’s story may have been elaborated somewhat to entertain his audience — the mental image of Churchill in his bath perhaps smoking one of his trademark cigars is rather amusing — and the incident may have been entirely imaginary. The story does, however, convey the sense of excitement generated by the discovery.
The project to build a giant aircraft carrier of pykrete was known as Project Habakkuk
Project Habakkuk
Project Habakkuk or Habbakuk was a plan by the British in World War II to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete , for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time.The idea came from Geoffrey Pyke who worked for Combined...
.
As plans for the great ship evolved, it soon became apparent that the requirement for a 15 metres (49.2 ft) freeboard could only be achieved with a hollow vessel: a solid mass of pykrete would have had an unfeasibly deep draft. Even so, a ship 600 metres (1,968.5 ft) long and 30 metres (98.4 ft) wide with 9 metres (29.5 ft) thick walls would require a draft of 45 metres (147.6 ft) and would displace 2,200,000 tons. Its construction, from an untried material, would be a quite staggering undertaking. For the sake of simplicity, the ship was given the shape of a hollow square beam with bevelled edges to reduce drag and the outside walls were to be surrounded by a waterproof insulating skin.
Extensive testing showed that in its resistance to projectiles and explosives, pykrete was weight for weight as good as concrete. A revolver bullet would cause only insignificant damage: a crater 2.5 centimetre (0.984251968503937 in) wide and 1.2 centimetre (0.47244094488189 in) deep. From the results of underwater explosive tests, it was calculated that a torpedo
Torpedo
The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...
hit would produce a crater 4.5 metres (14.8 ft) in diameter and 60 centimetres (23.6 in) deep. Pykrete aircraft carriers would be slow, at about 7 knots (3.8 m/s), but with their thick walls they would be impervious to bombs and torpedoes.
Although pykrete was mechanically strong, it would, like ice, slowly deform when subjected to a constant pressure, a phenomenon technically known as creep
Creep (deformation)
In materials science, creep is the tendency of a solid material to slowly move or deform permanently under the influence of stresses. It occurs as a result of long term exposure to high levels of stress that are below the yield strength of the material....
. Experiments showed that different sources of wood pulp performed differently, with Canadian spruce
Spruce
A spruce is a tree of the genus Picea , a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the Family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal regions of the earth. Spruces are large trees, from tall when mature, and can be distinguished by their whorled branches and conical...
being superior to Scotch pine; in the case of Canadian spruce pulp, creep would effectively stop after an initial period of sagging lasting a few weeks provided that the temperature of pykrete was kept below -15 C. The ship design included refrigeration plants that circulated compressed air at -30 C through U-shaped ducts.
Pyke was sent to Canada with a personal introduction from Winston Churchill to Mackenzie King. While he was away, an Admiralty committee headed by the Chief of Naval Construction sent a memorandum about Habakkuk to Mountbatten. Perutz later recalled Pyke's reaction when he heard about this. Pyke sent a cable reading:
This behaviour was typical of Pyke's disdain for the British establishment and the enraged admiral tried to get Pyke sacked. However, Pyke returned from Canada elated at his success and by the splendid performance of a prototype that the Canadians had succeeded in launching on Patricia Lake in Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
.
Despite considerable work, the project never got beyond the early planning stage. The manufacture of such a large quantity of pykrete was a formidable difficulty and the problem of steering the great ship had never really been resolved. In the meantime, the range of aircraft had increased significantly, enough to close the Atlantic gap, and the American island hopping
Island hopping
Island hopping is a term that refers to the means of crossing an ocean by a series of shorter journeys between islands, as opposed to a single journey directly across the ocean to the destination.- Forms :...
programme had advanced sufficiently to make such floating islands unnecessary. Finally, modern land based aircraft were now so heavy that they required longer runways than even Habakkuk could provide.
Pyke's original memorandum mentioned other applications for pykrete such as building landing ships for the prospective invasion of Japan
Operation Downfall
Operation Downfall was the Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of World War II. The operation was cancelled when Japan surrendered after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan. The operation had two parts: Operation...
and for quickly constructing fortifications at a beachhead
Beachhead
Beachhead is a military term used to describe the line created when a unit reaches a beach, and begins to defend that area of beach, while other reinforcements help out, until a unit large enough to begin advancing has arrived. It is sometimes used interchangeably with Bridgehead and Lodgement...
by spraying an existing building with pykrete liquid that would freeze into a thick layer. Many of these ideas relied upon a misplaced faith in the qualities of supercooled water
Supercooling
Supercooling, also known as undercooling, is the process of lowering the temperature of a liquid or a gas below its freezing point without it becoming a solid....
which he thought could be used as a weapon of war: pumped from a ship it could be used to instantly form bulwarks of ice or even be sprayed directly onto enemy soldiers. However, such ideas were, according to Max Perutz
Max Perutz
Max Ferdinand Perutz, OM, CH, CBE, FRS was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of hemoglobin and globular proteins...
, quite impractical.
In September 1943, Pyke proposed a slightly less ambitious plan for pykrete vessels to be used in support of an amphibious assault. He proposed a pykrete monitor
Monitor (warship)
A monitor was a class of relatively small warship which was neither fast nor strongly armoured but carried disproportionately large guns. They were used by some navies from the 1860s until the end of World War II, and saw their final use by the United States Navy during the Vietnam War.The monitors...
200 feet (61 m) long and 50 feet (15.2 m) wide mounting a single naval gun turret
Gun turret
A gun turret is a weapon mount that protects the crew or mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in many directions.The turret is also a rotating weapon platform...
; this could be self-powered or towed to where it would be used. He also suggested the use of pykrete to make breakwaters and landing stages. At the time, Max Perutz thought the ideas were practical and that the preceding research on pykrete was sufficiently advanced to allow Pyke's plan to executed. The plan was not put into action, but for the allied invasion of Normandy a system of preconstructed concrete breakwaters and landing stages called Mulberry
Mulberry harbour
A Mulberry harbour was a British type of temporary harbour developed in World War II to offload cargo on the beaches during the Allied invasion of Normandy....
was employed. Pyke's plans hint that he had some knowledge of the Mulberry plans, perhaps through his contacts with Bernal, who was one of Mulberry's progenitors.
Men in pipes
In late 1943, Pyke submitted to Mountbatten a memorandum, nearly fifty pages long, explaining his ideas for a solution to the problem of unloading stores from ships where no proper port facilities are available and few roads inland. This circumstance was common in the Pacific warPacific War
The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...
theatre and fundamental to the 1943 decision to invade France by landing on the beaches of Normandy, with no harbours and a 24-foot tide. Pyke's idea was to use pipes of the type that were used to transport fuel from ship to shore, to move sealed containers that would contain any type of sufficiently small material objects. Pyke suggested that four- or six-inch (152 mm) pipes would handle smaller equipment and larger objects could be passed through two-foot pipes. Furthermore, there was no reason why the pipes should stop at the shore, they could be extended inland as required. Bernal gave a cautious endorsement to the idea, adding that it would require a great deal of investigation.
Pyke's idea was similar to the cleaning brushes that are sometimes forced along pipes by the pressure of the fluid and today pipeline pigs are used for cleaning and telemetry.
A little later, Pyke proposed, tentatively, that his idea for "Power-Driven Rivers" could be extended to the transport of personnel. The pipes would need to be at least two feet in diameter and the pressures would have to be high. He worked out some rough ideas for supplying the passengers with oxygen and suggested that the problem of claustrophobia
Claustrophobia
Claustrophobia is the fear of having no escape and being closed in small spaces or rooms...
might be ameliorated by travelling in pairs and by the judicious use of barbiturate
Barbiturate
Barbiturates are drugs that act as central nervous system depressants, and can therefore produce a wide spectrum of effects, from mild sedation to total anesthesia. They are also effective as anxiolytics, as hypnotics, and as anticonvulsants...
drugs.
Pyke proposed that this system could be used to move people from ship to shore, from island to island, through swamps and over mountains – anywhere where conventional transport was difficult.
The idea was never taken up. Pyke did not appreciate that it was not practicable to construct a pipeline without first building a road, and a pipeline would be militarily very vulnerable. The practical problems of the Normandy Landings were solved by Royal Navy researchers, who built floating concrete caissons (Mulberries) and floating pontoons (Swiss Roll) along which trucks could drive from ship to shore, as described in Gerald Pawle's book The Secret War (1957).
After World War II
Pyke continued his flow of ideas to make a better world. One suggestion for the problems of energy-starved post-war Europe was to propel railway wagons by human muscle power – employing 20 to 30 men on bicycle-like mechanisms to pedal a cyclo-tractor. Pyke reasoned that the energy in a pound of sugar cost about the same as an equivalent energy in the form of coal and that while Europe had plenty of sugar and unemployed people, there was a shortage of coal and oil. He recognised that such a use of human muscle power was in some ways distasteful, but he could not see that the logic of arguments about calories and coal were unlikely to be sufficiently persuasive.Pyke was given a commission to look into the problems of the National Health Service
National Health Service
The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...
and, characteristically, made his contribution as a part of a minority report
Minority Report
"The Minority Report" is a 1956 science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick, first published in Fantastic Universe. The story is about a future society where murders are prevented through the efforts of three mutants who can see the future...
. He remained eager to convey his unconventional ideas, he wrote and broadcast. He campaigned against the death penalty, and for government support of UNICEF But the more he thought about trying to achieve a better world, the more pessimistic he became – it seemed that human nature was antithetical to innovation in general and his ideas in particular. He was widely mocked in the media of the time, even in left-wing publications. A sense of gloom overtook him.
Death and legacy
In the evening of Saturday 21 February 1948, Pyke shaved his beard and consumed a bottleful of sleeping pills. His landladyLandlord
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant . When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner...
found his body the following Monday morning. The coroner gave a verdict of suicide at a moment of mental unbalance. Immediately before consuming the pills, he had written some private letters that made it clear that his death was premeditated.
An obituary in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper praised him and lamented his passing, beginning with the words:
- "The death of Geoffrey Pyke removes one of the most original if unrecognised figures of the present century."
John Bernal, who knew Pyke well, wrote:
- "He remained always the knight-errant, from time to time gathering round him a small band of followers but never a leader of big movements. Because of the very greatness of his ideas most of his life was one of frustration and disappointment, but he has left behind to all who knew him and were indirectly affected by him the vision he created for making all things possible."
Further reading
- Pickover, Clifford. A. Strange Brains and Genius: The Secret Lives Of Eccentric Scientists And Madmen. Harper Perennial, 1999. ISBN 0-688-16894-9
- Timpson, John. Timpson's English Eccentrics. NorwichNorwichNorwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...
: Jarrold, 1991, hardback. ISBN 0-7117-0559-3- Reprint: NorwichNorwichNorwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...
: Jarrold, 1996, paperback. ISBN 0-7117-0683-2
- Reprint: Norwich
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Entry on Geoffrey Pyke, by Peter Morris.