Bernard Babington Smith, OBE (1905-1993) was a British academic, wartime intelligence officer and amateur athlete.

Early life and education

He was born on 26 October 1905 at 29 Hyde Park Gate, London, the son of Sir Henry Babington Smith and Lady Elizabeth Bruce, daughter of

Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin Victor Alexander Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin, 13th Earl of Kincardine, (16 May 184918 January 1917), known as Lord Bruce until 1863, was a right-wing British Liberal politician who served as Viceroy of India from 1894 to 1899. He was appointed by ...

, 13th Earl of Kincardine and former Viceory of India. He was educated at

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, ...

, where he was Captain of School and

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...

. He was one of 10 children and his siblings included the banker Michael Babington Smith and

Constance Babington Smith Constance Babington Smith MBE, FRSL (15 October 1912 – 31 July 2000) was a British journalist and writer, but is probably best known for her wartime work in imagery intelligence. Early life Constance Babington Smith was born on 15 Octo ...

, a biographer and wartime intelligence officer. Another sister, Lucy, married

Henry Sinclair, 2nd Baron Pentland Henry John Sinclair, 2nd Baron Pentland (6 June 1907 – 14 February 1984) was the President of thfrom its formation in 1953 and the President of thGurdjieff Foundation of Californiafrom its inception in 1955. He held both posts until his death ...

Athletics

Bernard Babington Smith Cambridge Fencing Team 1928

He competed in the pole vault at the

1930 British Empire Games The 1930 British Empire Games were the inaugural edition of what now is known as the Commonwealth Games, and were held in Hamilton, Ontario, from 16 to 23 August 1930. The games were organized by ''Hamilton Spectator'' sportswriter Bobby Robinso ...

for England. He also fenced for both England and Scotland.

Wartime Intelligence Service

Bernard joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve in October 1940. Among his first duties and basic training was detachment to Coventry to assist with the clearing up process after the German air raid in November 1940. He was initially posted to 3 Photo Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) at

RAF Oakington Royal Air Force Oakington or more simply RAF Oakington was a Royal Air Force station located north of Oakington, Cambridgeshire, England and north-west of Cambridge. History Second World War Construction was started in 1939, but was affect ...

as the deputy intelligence officer, arriving on 1 December 1940. The unit, commanded by his close friend Squadron Leader Pat Ogilvie, supported RAF Bomber Command. He quickly became involved in the interpretation of the night photographs taken by bombers during the raid, learning how to identify and locate anti-aircraft defences from searchlights and gun flashes as well as the course of the raid from bomb explosions. It became clear to him that the accuracy of the bombing was appalling and he had the unpleasant duty briefing this fact to Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris. His researches led to the establishment of Professor

Frederick Lindemann Frederick Alexander Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell, ( ; 5 April 18863 July 1957) was a British physicist who was prime scientific adviser to Winston Churchill in World War II. Lindemann was a brilliant intellectual, who cut through bureauc ...

's enquiry (also known as the Butt Report) into bombing accuracy. In mid-1941 he was posted to the Central Interpretation Unit (CIU) at

RAF Medmenham RAF Medmenham is a former Royal Air Force station based at Danesfield House near Medmenham, in Buckinghamshire, England. Activities there specialised in photographic intelligence, and it was once the home of the RAF Intelligence Branch. Durin ...

, where his sister

was also stationed, and tasked with setting up a Night Photographic Section. As the size of the bombing raids grew the volume of imagery grew exponentially. Bernard, a trained statistician developed a system for the selection of photography to be interpreted after each raid which enabled his section to cope. Unlike most sections in Medmenham the interpreters in the night section did not use stereo images, but its expertise became widely recognised and appreciated. Members of the section frequently visited Bomber Command Headquarters to brief Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris. Bernard was mentioned in despatches four times and awarded an OBE.

Academic career

He was a fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford and Senior Lecturer in Experimental Psychology at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. In 1938 and 1939 he worked with Maurice Kendall on the question of

random number generation Random number generation is a process by which, often by means of a random number generator (RNG), a sequence of numbers or symbols that cannot be reasonably predicted better than by random chance is generated. This means that the particular out ...

. They developed both one of the first early mechanical devices to produce random digits, and formulated a series of tests for

statistical randomness A numeric sequence is said to be statistically random when it contains no recognizable patterns or regularities; sequences such as the results of an ideal dice roll or the digits of π exhibit statistical randomness. Statistical randomness does ...

in a given set of digits which, with some small modifications, became fairly widely used. They also produced one of the second large collections of random digits (100,000 in total, over twice as many as those published by L. H. C. Tippett in 1927), which was a commonly used tract until the publication of RAND Corporation's ''

A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates ''A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates'' is a random number book by the RAND Corporation, originally published in 1955. The book, consisting primarily of a random number table, was an important 20th century work in the field of ...

'' in 1955. In later career he became interested in training managers and collaborated with Ralph Coverdale, a co-operation which developed in time to become the Coverdale Organisation, a management training business. Babington Smith's ideas on training were later condensed into the book Manager and Team Development.Open Library Catalogu
Manager and Team Development
accessed 26 Apr 2022

Personal life

He married Helen Elizabeth Crocket, PhD. on the 5 October 1940. They had two sons and a daughter. In 1952 he and his wife purchased and restored Yelford Manor in Oxfordshire. He died in Oxford on the 24 August 1993.

Ancestry

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Babington Smith, Bernard 1905 births 1993 deaths Athletes (track and field) at the 1930 British Empire Games Commonwealth Games competitors for England English male pole vaulters