Rendel Sebastian Pease | |
---|---|
Born | November 2, 1922 |
Died | October 17, 2004 | (aged 81)
Notable awards | Fellow of the Royal Society (1977) |
Rendel Sebastian "Bas" Pease FRS (1922- 17 October 2004)[1][2][3] was a British physicist.
Pease's father was the geneticist Michael Pease, son of Edward Reynolds Pease. His mother was Helen Bowen Wedgwood, daughter of Josiah Wedgwood IV. He was the great-great-great-great-grandson of the potter Josiah Wedgwood.
During WWII he joined RAF Bomber Command's Operational Research section, where he was the expert in charge of the use of a precision navigation system called G-H. Field-based, he advised on operational techniques to use the equipment most effectively. Notably, he helped No. 218 Squadron RAF in Operation Glimmer, a diversionary "attack" on D-Day that distracted and pinned-down German defences while the real attack occurring 200 miles to the east. His G-H-equipped bombers flew low, in tight circles, dropping window over radar transponder-equipped small ships, in order to deceive the German radars that they were the main invasion fleet.[4]
After the war he was director of the Culham Laboratory for Plasma Physics and Nuclear Fusion (1968–1981) and head of the British chapter of Pugwash (1988–2002).[5]