Harold Garnet "Mick" Callan

Harold Garnet Callan, known to family, friends and colleagues as "Mick", was born in 1917 in Maidenhead, Berkshire. He was educated at King's College School, Wimbledon and graduated from St John's College, Oxford in June 1938. In September 1938 he was awarded a scholarship for postgraduate research in Naples where he became impressed by lampbrush chromosomes and excited by the potential they offered for studying the organisation of hereditary material and gene action. The outbreak of war interrupted his research and he left in June 1939. He then went to work at the John Innes Horticultural Institute at Merton, Surrey until May 1940.

From 1940 until September 1945 Callan was employed by the Ministry of Aircraft Production. He trained in radar electronics and then went to an anti-aircraft gun site at Wingham, Kent. In 1941 he was transferred to the installation and operational development of Mark VII Aircraft Interception gear in Beaufighters. In late 1941 he returned to Telecommunications Research Establishment at Worth Matravers, Dorset and trained on a blind bombing and navigational device. He was then sent to 35 Squadron of Bomber Command to work on the fitting and operational use of this instrument in Halifax bombers of the Pathfinder Force. In early 1943 he was seconded to the Royal Navy to join a flotilla of rocket-firing tank-landing craft and given an Honorary Commission in the R.A.F. as a Flight Lieutenant. Callan stayed in Gibraltar until shortly after the invasion of Sicily, in which the flotilla was engaged. He was recalled to the Telecommunications Research Establishment to work first on a night fighter tail warning system fitted in bombers and later on a blind bombing and navigational device for the bombing of Berlin. In January 1944 he was promoted to Squadron Leader and posted to 614 Bomber Squadron to help with the formation of a pathfinder force flying out of Foggia, Italy. In May 1944 he was appointed Scientific Adviser to the signals section of Mediterranean Allied Air Forces and spent most of his time at Caserta, Italy at which time he took the opportunity to go to Naples and marry Amaryllis Dohrn.

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