Roger Lhermitte was born in Ergal, a hamlet of
Jouars-Pontchartrain in the
Yvelines, France, on 28 May 1920. During the occupation of Germany in France in World War II, he was compulsorily enlisted by the Germans to work for Siemens in Berlin. "While in Berlin, he made numerous trips to bomb shelters for safety, an experience he likened many times to Kurt Vonnegut’s descriptions of Dresden in Slaughterhouse Five. Kurt’s brother, Bernard Vonnegut, was later to become one of Roger’s closest colleagues in atmospheric electricity". After the end of the war, Lhermitte continued his education to pursue his doctoral thesis at the
Faculté des Sciences de L’Université de Paris under the guidance of
Professor Pauthenier. The subject of his thesis work was titled "Contribution à L'Étude des Précipitations Par L’analyse des Échos de Pluies Obtenus à L’aide de Radars" which, roughly translated to English was "Contributions to the study of Precipitations via the Analysis of Radar Data." The thesis begins with the sentence "La presence des gouttes de pluie d'une precipitation provoque la diffusion des ondes centrimetriques et par suite l'apparition d'echos sur les indicateurs des radars utilisant ces longueurs d'onde", which roughly translates to "The presence of precipitation provokes the scattering of centimeter wavelength radiation, which is followed by the appearance of echos on radars using this same wavelength." This is the beginning of decades long research in atmospheric science that led to over 100 publications and numerous patents. == Career ==