Air Marshal Sir Herbert Durkin (31 March 1922 – 12 April 2004) was an expert on

signals In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

and communications who joined the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, rising to become one of its senior commanders in the 1970s.

Early and personal life

Sir Herbert was born and brought up in

Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Bru ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, attending

Burnley Grammar School Burnley Grammar School was latterly, a state-funded selective boys grammar School, situated in Byron Street in Burnley, England. However, during its long history, it moved between a number of sites in the town. History In 1552, on the order of ...

and then reading Mathematics at

Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican mon ...

. He married Dorothy Hope Johnson in 1951, they had a son and two daughters.

RAF career

In 1940 during

and while still an undergraduate, Sir Herbert was recruited by

C P Snow Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow, (15 October 1905 – 1 July 1980) was an English novelist and physical chemist who also served in several important positions in the British Civil Service and briefly in the UK government.''The Columbia Encyclope ...

to work on the newly established

Chain Home Chain Home, or CH for short, was the codename for the ring of coastal Early Warning radar stations built by the Royal Air Force (RAF) before and during the Second World War to detect and track aircraft. Initially known as RDF, and given the off ...

radar system and he was later commissioned into the technical branch of the

RAF Volunteer Reserve The Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR) was established in 1936 to support the preparedness of the U.K. Royal Air Force in the event of another war. The Air Ministry intended it to form a supplement to the Royal Auxiliary Air Force (RAuxAF) ...

on 24 October 1941. He also became involved in the calibration of the

Oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. A ...

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 Air Marshal Sir Hugh Sidney Porter Walmsley, (6 June 1898 – 2 September 1985) was a senior commander in the Royal Air Force during and after the Second World War. He was the final commander of RAF India and the unified Royal Indian Air Force b ...

, 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 The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) is a United Kingdom Ministry of Defence research facility responsible for the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the UK's nuclear weapons. It is the successor to the Atomic Weapons Research ...

at Fort Halstead, he prepared the electrical systems for

Operation Hurricane Operation Hurricane was the first test of a Nuclear weapons of the United Kingdom, British atomic device. A plutonium Nuclear weapon design#Implosion-type weapon, implosion device was detonated on 3 October 1952 in Main Bay, Trimouille Island ...

, the first test of a British

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

. After attending

RAF Staff College The RAF Staff College may refer to: *RAF Staff College, Andover (active: 1922 to 1940 and 1948 to 1970) *RAF Staff College, Bulstrode Park (active: 1941 to 1948) *RAF Staff College, Bracknell The RAF Staff College at Bracknell was a Royal Air ...

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 {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

, 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

{{DEFAULTSORT:Durkin, Herbert 1922 births 2004 deaths Royal Air Force air marshals Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Companions of the Order of the Bath People educated at Burnley Grammar School Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge People from Burnley Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War II Military personnel from Lancashire