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You want physicists? We've got half a dozen
of them, roaring around, dying to do something to help, but no one's been able to use them.
Quoted in Laurence Hartnett, Big Wheels and Little Wheels, 3rd edition, Wildgrass Books, Boronia (Victoria), p. 143.
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Australian weapons were rolling off the assembly line, but where were the gunsights?
Australia's armed forces needed weapons. To manufacture them, coordination of the country's industrial resources was essential.
Laurence Hartnett, the Manager of General Motors Holden (Australia), was appointed to lead this effort. But even as the first Australian-made guns were rolling off the production line, Hartnett faced a crisis - they had guns, but no gunsights!
British supplies of optical munitions were no longer available. Australia had to develop its own - but how? Who would have the necessary knowledge - physicists perhaps? Hartnett sought expert advice and learnt of
Laby's impatient enthusiasm.
Finally, there was a job for him to do.
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