The division of the Admiralty which became the Department of Miscellaneous Weapon Development is a marvel to behold and its attempts to find an answer for anti-aircraft defense, underwater controls and invasion needs make a fascinating report on the trials — and some tribulations — of a clandestine world. For this research development team, under Canadian Goodeve and Davies, R.N., built up a unique organization of specialists, inventors, scientists, and resourceful men, known as the Wheezers and Dodgers, whose projects were necessary and significant to the war effort, who in four years, 41-45, took on strange tasks and found strange solutions.

They came up with protection against mines on the eve of Dunkirk, they experimented with flame weapons, plastic plating, production of the Gerlikon gun, rockets, mortar throwers, wire barrage, floating bridge and breakwater, cliff scaling gear and prefabricated harbors. Clashes with officialdom, cutting across tradition, scrapping their failures, they worked and produced and their story has the fascination of the unexpected, in British well-played spirit. Nevil Shute (Norway), active in it throughout, writes the introduction.