In 1940 during
World War II and while still an undergraduate, Sir Herbert was recruited by
C P Snow to work on the newly established
Chain Home radar system and he was later commissioned into the technical branch of the
RAF Volunteer Reserve on 24 October 1941. He also became involved in the calibration of the
Oboe blind bombing system and
GEE navigation system. Towards the end of the war, he moved to India to establish a GEE network there, before serving as
aide-de-camp to Air Marshal Sir
Hugh Walmsley, then
Air Officer Commander-in-Chief, RAF India. Appointed to a Permanent Commission in the rank of
Flight Lieutenant on 16 September 1948, he worked at the Central Bomber Establishment until 1950. Then while based at the
Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at
Fort Halstead, he prepared the electrical systems for
Operation Hurricane, the first test of a British
atomic bomb. After attending
RAF Staff College in 1953, a year-long posting as Command Signals Officer,
AHQ Iraq followed. From 1955–58 he was Chief Instructor of the Signals Division at the
RAF Technical College, before spending four years at the Deputy Directorate of Technical Services. He was Assistant Chief of Staff (Communications-Electronics) at the
Second Allied Tactical Air Force HQ in Germany from 1962 and then Commandant at the
No. 2 School of Technical Training,
RAF Cosford 1965–67. In 1967 Sir Herbert became Director of Engineering Policy (RAF) at the
Ministry of Defence, then he was appointed
Air Officer Commanding No. 90 (Signals) Group in 1971. In 1973 he returned to the MoD to become Director General of Engineering and Supply Management (RAF), before assuming his most senior appointment, Controller of Engineering and Supply (RAF) as
Air Marshal in 1976. He retired from the RAF on 3 June 1978. Sir Herbert then took a post as technical adviser to the managing director of
Plessey Telecoms, also sitting as a
non-executive director on the board of a number of companies. He was President of the
Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) from 1980–1, the first Air Marshal to do so. ==References==