The history of World War II is full of great events happening for the first time. In Britain, the “Wheezers and Dodgers” as they were called, played a little known part in winning the war under the pedestrian name of the Inspectorate of Anti-Aircraft Weapons and Devices. Actually, the inspectorate was a group of men with high scientific or engineering qualifications whose job it was to make the enemy acutely uncomfortable this table backroom was staffed mainly by scientists - among them Sir William Penney, now director of Britain's atomic weapons establishment, and Neville Shute, whose popular novels are known to considerably more people than his exceptional engineering abilities. The accomplishments of these men still sound rather like science fiction, but they were important facts in the winning of the war. Their story has never been told, and it is all here, in the words of a professional writer who was one of them. -- From the book jacket.

Part I : The enemy in the sky. The canoe lake -- A journey to Dover -- The room and Admiralty Arch -- Flame on the watchers -- Armour for the battle -- The gun from Switzerland -- Counterblast! The rocket war -- Cables in the sky -- The potato-thrower -- The wire barrage -- Part III : The enemy under the waters. Highly explosive! -- The birth of the hedgehog -- His majesty's pier -- Harrying u-boats -- The mantle of Elijah -- The toy shop -- part III : Keys to the fortress -- Invasion ahead -- The man in the Grosvenor Hotel -- Swiss roll and the Lily Islands -- The great Punjaban drum -- The grasshopper and the alligator take to the water -- Bubbles in the channel -- The floating wall -- Preparing for Neptune -- The miraculous port.