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In 1942 the US Geological Survey formed a Military Geology Unit (MGU) at Washington, DC of in-house and other earth scientists and engineers to gather terrain and related strategic intelligence. MGU compiled reports containing data about regions outside the USA as tables, text and maps for use by Allied forces, especially American and British. Benefiting to some extent from both Allied and German geological experience in World War I, MGU developed into by far the largest geology-based intelligence unit used to help guide Allied planning and operations in World War II. About 50 ‘Strategic Engineering Studies’ were completed in 1942, and at least 50 more in 1943. MGU products contributed significantly to the Allied campaigns in Sicily and Italy from 1943, and complemented British geotechnical work associated with Normandy and the NW Europe Campaign in 1944–1945. In 1944–1945, MGU deployed teams from Washington to US Army theatre headquarters in Europe, and more substantially to the SW Pacific and Pacific Ocean areas, principally to provide intelligence for strategic and tactical planning, and advice to and (in the Pacific) participation in combat operations. After 1945, MGU developed into a Military Geology Branch, responding to demands of wars cold and hot until 1972.

Between November 1917 and June 1918, 12 maps at 1:10 000 scale of western Belgium (part of the British-occupied sector of the Western Front) were printed for the British army. These classified the ground according to its suitability for the excavation of dug-outs. Compilation was largely by the Welsh-born Australian T. W. Edgeworth David, using pre-war Belgian geological maps and data from c . 1000 British and Belgian boreholes. Lithostratigraphical units were coloured primarily in shades of red to indicate relatively ‘good’ (dry) strata, contrasted with ‘bad’ (wet) units coloured in shades of blue. The maps constitute the first engineering–environmental geology series to be published for British use, and arguably the first published large-scale engineering geology map series per se . Such little-known innovations in World War I, by British, US, German and Austro-Hungarian military geologists, were further developed in World War II. Wartime expertise consequently provided part of the foundation for the development of engineering geology postwar.

Between November 1943 and June 1946, at least 16 geologists assisted the Inter-Service Topographical Department (ISTD), a British military unit primarily of geographers, under Royal Navy auspices, to prepare reports and geotechnical maps to guide planning of Allied military operations. Reports assessing terrain factors were generated with geologist assistance for parts of Italy, France, Germany, Austria, the Low Countries and the Balkan region; also for Malaya, parts of Indonesia, Thailand, Indo-China, Formosa, Hainan, Hong Kong and the nearby Chinese mainland. The Geological Section ISTD, as it was officially designated from August 1944, based at Oxford, had an authorized establishment of four Royal Engineers officers (briefly assisted by a few US, Canadian and Dutch military personnel), but simultaneously involved up to 12 earth scientists or engineers by August 1945; it was the only team of British military geologists to be constituted (except in India) in either World War. Its work marks a significant if largely unknown phase in the development of engineering and hydrogeological terrain evaluation skills prior to the evolution of terrain analysis as a major discipline postwar, revealed by declassified reports now preserved in the UK within the National Archives and the Royal Geographical Society9s library; maps at the British and the Bodleian libraries; and documents in the University of Birmingham9s Lapworth Museum of Geology.

Graham West writes: Professor Martin Culshaw is to be congratulated on his very interesting paper bringing to our notice what, in dating from 1897, is most likely the first engineering geological map and memoir in the UK. Having noted that the origins of engineering geology can be traced back to William Smith (1769–1839), he remarks that: ‘In so far as British engineering geologists think about such things, there is probably a belief that engineering geology in the UK ‘started’ shortly after the Second World War…’ The purpose of this Discussion is to show that many examples of the practice of engineering geology in Great Britain can be found dating from before the Second World War, and, indeed, some from much earlier if we include rudimentary soil and rock mechanics, and the assessment of stone and rock for road making and building, as falling within the ambit of engineering geology. The examples that follow come from my own personal interests, but I am sure that readers will know of others. During the construction of the turnpike roads (1730–1890) there were occasions when the surveyors (as the engineers were called) working for the turnpike trusts had to deal with what we would call soil mechanics problems. One such instance was in 1823 when the Whetstone Turnpike Trustees wanted to ease the slope of the road up Barnet Hill for London-bound coaches, and their surveyor built a clay embankment at the foot of the slope to do so. The embankment slipped, much to the discomfiture of the surveyor who said that ‘he was not aware that clay would not stand at a less slope than 1 in 4’ (West 2000). This is an early example of soil mechanics inasmuch as the surveyor was aware that slope stability was related to soil type: this …

Ted Rose & Jon Clatworthy reply: We warmly welcome Albert Ludford's addition to knowledge of many of the ISTD geologists listed and illustrated in our paper, for these personal details add context helpful to assessment of the pioneering achievements of the Geological Section ISTD. Moreover, we can now extend knowledge even further in four respects. First, we record that yet another geologist contributed to work that laid the foundation for ISTD: William Elgin Swinton (1900–1994). According to Geological Society of London records, ‘Bill’ Swinton, a ‘first class’ graduate of the University of Glasgow, was elected to fellowship of the Society in 1925 whilst employed as a curator at the Natural History Museum, London (then known as the British Museum, Natural History). However, in 1938 as the Second World War loomed, he was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (the RNVR) (McGowan & McConnell 2004), was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant (Special Branch) on 1 January 1940 according to the contemporary Navy List , and served during the war in Naval Intelligence, ‘his closest friend there being the author Ian Fleming’ (Cocks 1995, p. 21). Fleming, as a Lieutenant-Commander assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, Rear-Admiral (later Vice-Admiral) J. H. Godfrey, helped to found Naval Intelligence Division 5: teams of geographers at Oxford and Cambridge that compiled handbooks for service use, in total 58 volumes covering 31 countries or country groups (see reports and minutes bound with Bassett & Wells 1946). More famously, Fleming later created the fictional hero James Bond. ISTD was initially constituted (on 27 May 1940) as a companion organization, Naval Intelligence Division 6, after the German invasion …