Barnes Neville was born in Ripley, Derbyshire back in 1887 to Charles and Edith. Attending school first at Christ’s Hospital and then at Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ Grammar School. He left at 17 to start working at Thames Engineering Works then to J. Samuel White’s shipbuilders on the Isle of Wright.
He graduated from the University of London External Program in 1922, with a degree in engineering. He was the first to use a geodesic design airframe (look that one up). With the outbreak of WWII, he joined the Royal Naval Air Service. It was during WWII where he left his mark in the history books, more on why in a moment.
After the war, he worked for the Vickers-Armstrongs Research & Development Department working on futuristic aerospace projects. One of them the “Swallow” looks like one of the SR-1 bombers.
What you may not know about Barnes Neville Wallis was that he designed the bouncing bomb used in the Royal Air Force for Operation Chastise to attack the dams of the Ruhr Valley during WWII. The raid was turned into a movie in 1955 called The Dam Busters. I’ve seen it several times.
Until tomorrow give someone the free gift of a smile
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