Most people felt and hoped that the end of the war, should usher in a new Era - and this was confirmed by overwhelming defeat of the Tories at the General Election in the Summer of 1945. About this time, I sensed a significant change in military thinking; we had continued to be hosts to the US forces in the area, although the US Corps of Engineers had gone over to France on D.Day. In complete contrast with the highly professional and intelligent regiment the new arrivals were a medical contingent at Charlton Park (seat of the Earl of Suffolk) which had been converted into a huge hospital and screening area for captured non German prisoners.
These included Russian and Polish deserters, collaborating Ukrainians, Balts and a hotch potch of races from remote areas of Siberia and Mongolia. The officers in charge of the hospital and the screening camp were the most ignorant reactionary I have ever met - typical recruits for the John Birch Society and Senator McCarthys disgraceful campaign of the early 1950's the mildest progressive view was to them "Communism", whether a liberal view of the post war world or the newly published Beverage Plan which was the foundation of the National Health Service.
What worried them was the war time alliance with the USSR, and they urged that, while the going was good, the allies should turn on Russia, then forging ahead into German territory, and drive them out of Europe exactly as Hitler had proposed to do in Mein Kampf!!, and which Hess had proposed to us when he flew here in 1941.
This crowd were shortly joined by the US contingent of "Amgot" the Allied Military Group for Occupied Territory. Incidentally its name was soon changed when it transpired that the word in Turkish means "dung". They were all civilians hastily put into uniform as Captains, Majors and Colonels, with an appalling lack of training, each one designated to be the "Town Mayor" of some German town. They were just a lot of "carpet baggers" small business men, lawyers and salesmen; some later turned out to be representatives of US companies getting in on the ground floor for taking over or collaborating with German Industry.
The British contingent of Amgot was in contrast a much better selection and had been given proper training in the German language and customs. The only ones I met in the US section who spoke German were German Americans, hardly distinguishable from their German Cousins with bulging necks and a huge capacity for beer, so that their subsequent reputation for leniency to "ex" Nazis can be understood.
We were at that stage preparing to produce a new Walkie Talkie using FM technique and completely submersible as it was intended for Commandos going out East. At lunch one day, the Brigadier down from the War Office suggested that what was wanted was not only a submersible set, but one which could communicate from Valley to Valley over high mountains. In reply to my query as to "which mountains!", he said our next war when the Japanese would be beaten would be in the Himalayas fighting to keep the Russians out of India!
This recalled to me an odd experience during the evacuation of Dunkirk, when I was lunching in a deserted hotel dining room in Bath, the only other diners being a group of British Officers. I went over to their table to ask if they had come from Dunkirk and saw they had been studying a map which was hastily folded, but not before I saw that it was headed "Georgia and the Caucasus".
Those circles in England who wanted to fight Russia in 1939/40 rather than Hitler's Germany had favoured the idea of trying to occupy the Caucasian Oil Fields and now six years later war Office strategy seemed to point in a similar direction. When, therefore, late in 1944 I was approached by Carlaton Dyer, an ex Philco man on Renwick's staff to be a member of an industrial "intelligence" team. I refused, not wishing to identify myself too closely with the War Office and its ramifications.
The team was intended to follow the British Army into Germany, and get hold of industrial and technical developments which could be useful to British Industry after the war, and especially developments of a military or strategic nature. After VE day, the three Services held an exhibition of the material this team had acquired, to which I was invited, and found much of interest, particularly two or three Radar equipment's which had been obviously copied by the Germans! One, I remember particularly well as the metal chassis they had made included two holes which had been included in our original design, but left empty and not used.
