Fildes, Paul

According to his own account, Paul Fildes made his most spectacular contribution to the Second World War on 2.7 May 1942. on a street corner in Prague in Czechoslovakia. 

The men who pioneered the Allies wartime germ weapons programme. Above, a rare photograph taken near the Scottish isle of Gruinard in 1942., where the scientists first tested the anthrax bomb. L to R David Henderson, Donald Woods, O. G. Sutton and W. R. Lane. Right, Dr Paul Fildes, leader of the British biological warfare team. 

PRO, DEFE 2/1252. Paul Fildes in conversation with the members of the Joint Technical Warfare Committee. 

Paul Fildes, leader of the British biological warfare team in the Second World War. 

Their leader does not appear in the photograph. Dr Paul Fildes, at that time in his early sixties, was arguably Britain s top bacteriologist a Fellow of the Royal Society, founder of the British Journal of Experimental Pathology and editor of the great nine-volume System of Bacteriology published by the Medical Research Council in 19 31. 

While forecasters felt that they had good justifications for making adjustments, in an in-depth study Robert Fildes and Paul Goodwin, experts in the demand planning field, found them overly confident that their adjustments would improve forecast accuracy. This study reported three facts ... 

Those shown include Sir OwenWansbrough-Jones, A.E. Childs, Sir Charles Lovatt Evans, Sir Harold Hartley, Sir Fredrick Baine, Professor D.D.Woods, Professor J.S. Kennedy, and Sir Paul Fildes. 

By comparison, after four years the British BW group under Dr. Paul Fildes at Potton numbered 43, comprising 13 officers and civilians (including 4 officers supplied by Camp Derrick), 20 enlisted technicians, and 10 female helpers. See Report on Visit of Lt Col Oram C. Woolpert (Chief of Tech Dept CD) to ETO, 22 May-2 Jul 44, p. 2. Cited in BW Research in the U.S., pp. 73. 479-81. 

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