The Inventor of Stereo

Chapter 11

Legacy

Aftermath

After Halifax V9977 was lost at Welsh Bicknor, just south of Ross on Wye, on Sunday 7 June 1942, there was little time for grieving. The loss of the aircraft with the one and only prototype magnetron-based H2S unit was bad enough, but the loss of nearly the entire H2S development team was incalculable. Lovell questioned at the time whether H2S could even be continued – he considered the loss of Blumlein especially a ‘national disaster’; but this was war, and H2S was far too promising a development to be discarded or even put on hold. Doreen Blumlein had been at home on the Monday morning when the news of Alan’s death was brought to her:

‘I was alone in London with the children. Actually, I was putting clean sheets ...