THE SOUTH AFRICAN CORPS OF SCIENTISTS

摘要

An organisation little known in South African military circles is the South African Corps of Scientists. It was formed soon after the end the Second World War (1939-1945), when the part played by science in warfare could not have been more obvious. The atom bombs, dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and radar before them - used in almost every theatre of i war - had ensured that war in a modern age would forever be inextricably linked to all forms of scientific wizardry. It has been said that the First World War (1914-1918) was the war of the chemists (poison gas being the pre-eminent example of this). The second great bloody encounter between nations was a physicist's war. Thus, we find that the man behind the formation of the South African Corps of Scientists, and its first Director, was a physicist of international renown - B F J (later Sir Basil) Schonland, CBE, FRS.