This site lists the topics of discussion for the David Wilson Science and Technology discussion groups at the Jenks Center in Winchester MA. We meet every second and fourth Fridays at 10:30 to noon (except August).
Bob Lewis will join us again, this time to talk about Henry Knox and George Washington’s Artillery Logistics. Henry Knox was George Washington's Chief of Artillery. When General George Washington took command of the Continental Army in Cambridge July 2, 1775, the Army needed a victory. The militias that had responded to the alarm of Paul Revere and others had forced the retreat of the British Regulars from Concord to Boston, and now surrounded the British army in Boston. Washington needed cannons to drive the British out of Boston. Henry Knox had come to Washington’s attention during an inspection of fortifications designed by Knox near Roxbury. Washington consulted Knox for advice in November 1775 on the acquisition of artillery to drive the British out of Boston. Knox proposed a plan to transport the cannons captured at Fort Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys to the siege lines around Boston. Washington endorsed the plan and Henry Knox began the 300 mile trek to Fort Ticonderoga in November 1775. This is the story of that incredible and successful effort in the dead of the winter of 1775 to haul 120,000 pounds of cannons down Lake George and the Hudson River, and then over the Berkshires to Cambridge and George Washington.
Retired Navy Captain and Navy pilot Bob Lewis spent seven years with the U.S. Navy as an Aircraft carrier-based Patrol Plane Commander, serving on the aircraft carriers WASP, INTREPID, and SARATOGA. As a Naval Reserve officer, he flew P-2s and P-3s and commanded his Naval Reserve unit. In his 30 years as an engineer with the MITRE Corporation, he spent 7 years in Germany at Headquarters, US Army Europe, helping to develop joint communication systems to integrate the Army, Air Force and Marines. He later returned to Germany to lead the communications engineering effort for an alternate command post in Romania. Bob is a gifted narrator and story teller and has met with us earlier this year to talk about The Pursuit of the Battleship Bismarck and the efforts of Norwegian commandos in Preventing Hitler From Building the Atomic Bomb.
Retired Navy Captain and Navy pilot Bob Lewis returns to the Wilson Forum on May 14th, this time to speak about The Hunt for the German Battleship Bismarck.
Bob spent seven years with the U.S. Navy as an Aircraft-carrier- based Patrol Plane Commander, serving on the aircraft carriers WASP, INTREPID, and SARATOGA. As a Naval Reserve officer, he flew P-2s and P-3s and commanded his Naval Reserve unit. In his 30 years as an engineer with the MITRE Corporation, he spent 7 years in Germany at Headquarters, US Army Europe, helping to develop joint communication systems to integrate the Army, Air Force and Marines. He later returned to Germany to lead the communications engineering effort for an alternate command post in Romania.
Preventing Hitler From Building the Atomic Bomb Presented by Bob Lewis
Video of Bob's talk (February 2020) at the Lexington Veterans Association https://youtu.be/RwC_jrYPmYQ?t=828 - the presentation begins at 13:48 in the recording.
Summary:
As early as the 1930’s, German scientists were studying nuclear fission. Heavy water, a key component in the development of a sustained nuclear reaction, was only produced in the quantities required at the massive Vemork hydroelectric plant in the mountains of Norway. When war broke out and Germany invaded and occupied Norway, the Allies knew they had to deny the Germans access to this key resource.
On Friday, February 26, Bob Lewis, retired Navy Captain and Navy pilot, will describe one of the most important acts of sabotage in World War II, the actions of small teams of Norwegian Commandos who survived months in a snowy wilderness to execute two successful missions that denied Hitler’s scientists the means to build an atomic bomb.
After two failed attempts, the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) trained and sent a third team of Norwegian Commandos to destroy the facility at Vemork. Armed with little more than parachutes, skis, light weapons, and explosives, they eluded on skis a huge Nazi manhunt. On February 27, 1943, they blew up a major portion of the heavy water production cells. On February 20, 1944, Norwegian Commandos sank a ferry carrying barrels of heavy water to the Third Reich, effectively ending Hitler’s quest for the bomb.
Bio:
Navy Captain Bob Lewis spent seven years with the U.S. Navy as an Aircraft-carrier- based Patrol Plane Commander, serving on the aircraft carriers WASP, INTREPID, and SARATOGA. As a Naval Reserve officer, he flew P-2s and P-3s and commanded his Naval Reserve unit. In his 30 years as an engineer with the MITRE Corporation, he spent 7 years in Germany at Headquarters, US Army Europe, helping to develop joint communication systems to integrate the Army, Air Force and Marines. He later returned to Germany to lead the communications engineering effort for an alternate command post in Romania.
