Churchill’s Boffins

Churchill's Boffins were a fascinating group of intellectuals who harnessed the latest scientific advancements – including their own innovations – to develop sometimes quirky but highly effective weapons in the fight against Hitler.

In this lively, character-driven history, Sunday Times bestselling author Sinclair McKay tells the little-known story of Churchill’s secret technological war. At its core was an army of eggheads crafting ingenious gadgets – cameras hidden in trouser buttons, bombs disguised as potatoes – and developing extraordinary means to misdirect enemy planes, hunt submarines, and protect civilians.

Through vivid storytelling and fresh sources, Churchill’s Boffins chronicles the free-thinking, wildly imaginative work of these revolutionary and here-to unrecognised scientists. We meet R.V Jones, who invented a new means of homing in on bombing targets using invisible beams; Dorothy Garrod, a pre-war archaeologist who used her skills to analyse aerial views of Hitler's secret research bases for signs of nuclear activity; and Stuart Macrae, who worked from his suburban home under the Ministry of Unorthodox Weaponry.

McKay shows that this was also a new era poised on the edge of technological revolution. Once the ‘boffins’ had helped defeat the Nazis, it was this generation of visionaries who, from their advances in computing to the development of space exploration, would shape our world today.