John Paul Wild - Wartime Naval Service

Wartime Naval Service

Paul Wild became one of the young radar officers who ensured the Royal Navy used its new technology to maximum effect. In July 1943, commissioned as a Probationary Temporary Acting Sub-lieutenant (Special Branch, Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve), he started an intensive, six-month radar officer training course at the Royal Navy base, Portsmouth. His seagoing appointment for the following two and a half years, with 60 subordinates and 24 radar sets, was the battleship HMS King George V, which eventually became flagship of the British Pacific Fleet. The ship took part in the Okinawa campaign, followed by the assault on the Japanese mainland. In both campaigns the fleet was frequently attacked by Japanese suicide bombers, but because they tended to concentrate on aircraft carriers, his ship was not hit. The battleship entered Tokyo Bay just after the surrender of Japan and he was present when the peace treaty was signed.

The Royal Navy was innovative in the way it incorporated information from the ship's new radar into its gunnery, with a direct line of communication from the radar officer to the bridge. Wild described the thrill of seeing range-finding projectiles on his cathode ray oscilloscope in the darkened radar room, appearing as spikes straddling the target, then the third shot hitting the target in the middle.

Despite the Royal Navy’s innovation in its use of radar, an underlying aversion to new technology persisted among some senior naval officers. He recalled a remark by his admiral at the end of hostilities: "Now we can get back, young Wild, to being a proper navy – without your radar".

On returning to England, Wild taught radar to permanent naval officers until early 1947. During one of his wartime breaks in Australia he had become engaged to a young Sydney woman, Elaine Hull, whose family had offered hospitality; and on leaving the Royal Navy he immediately sailed for Sydney. He had asked his fiancée to go to England to be married, but she told him he would have to settle in Australia. As his future brother-in-law later observed, "Australia has my sister to thank for giving this country one of its greatest scientists".