Alwyn Crow

Sir Alwyn Douglas Crow (1894 to 1965) was a British scientist who researched ballistics, projectiles and missiles from 1916 to 1953. Born in London and educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, he was commissioned in the East Surrey Regiment in the First World War and was injured in 1916. From 1917 he served on the staff of the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, where he was Director of Ballistics Research from 1919 to 1939. After British intelligence reports in 1934 about German rocket weapons, he led a new research team specializing in rockets from 1936. At Fort Halstead he developed the Unrotated Projectile, an antiaircraft weapon used by the Royal Navy early in the Second World War when guns were scarce, and he later headed projectile development and guided projectiles at the Ministry of Supply. From 1946 to 1953 he was head of technical services to the British Joint Services Mission in Washington, and in 1960 he settled in the United States. His obituary in The Times called him a Rocket Projectile Pioneer.