By definition, an autobiography is ‘an account of a person's life written by that person’.
“A Short Autobiography” is extraordinarily short for an autobiography, consisting of a few paragraphs under each of the nine topic headings. Indeed, the document appears to me to be more a collection of chronologically arranged anecdotes than a purposely written autobiography.
According to Townsend Brown’s daughter it dates from 1973, though Townsend relates nothing of his post WW2 life.
Surprisingly, Townsend tells us nothing about his home life, not even mentioning his marriage to Josephine Beale in September 1928, or the birth of his son, Joseph, in March 1934. Instead Townsend concentrates on his scientific life and his life in the Navy.
As I read Townsend’s “A Short Autobiography” I got the overwhelming impression that it was not written by him at all, for in my estimation it fell far short of the fluency and technical-writing standards that are evident in his writings elsewhere.
As a benchmark I used Townsend Brown’s article “How I Control Gravitation", published in Science & Invention in August 1929, which illustrates his very precise and lucid writing style.
Here is an extract:
The writer and his colleagues anticipated the present situation even as early as 1923, and began at that time to construct the necessary theoretical bridge between the two then separate phenomena, electricity and gravitation. The first actual demonstration of the relation was made in 1924. Observations were made of the individual and combined motions of two heavy lead balls which were suspended by wires 45 cm. apart. The balls were given opposite electrical charges and the charges were maintained. Sensitive optical methods were employed in measuring the movements, and as near as could be observed the balls appeared to behave according to the following law: "Any system of two bodies possesses a mutual and unidirectional force (typically in the line of the bodies) which is directly proportional to the product of the masses, directly proportional to the potential difference and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them."
The peculiar result is that the gravitational field of the Earth had no apparent connection with the experiment. The gravitational factors entered through the consideration of the mass of the electrified bodies.
The newly discovered force was quite obviously the resultant physical effect of an electro-gravitational interaction. It represented the first actual evidence of the very basic relationship. The force was named "gravitator action" for want of a better term and the apparatus or system of masses employed was called a "gravitator."
Although that article dates from 1929 I find it hard to believe that Townsend Brown’s literary standards dropped as seemingly evident in his 1973 ‘autobiography’. Moreover, in all that Linda Brown has publicly written about her father I do not recall her ever suggesting that in his retirement years he was any less capable of writing fluently and precisely.
“A Short Autobiography” begins as follows:
Childhood:
When only 8 or 10 years old - I would walk around my neighborhood carrying a large umbrella (wired) listening to "Humoresque" which was being played in my home on Victrola and broadcast. I was able to pick up the music one block from his home. There were few records to be had in those early days.
I built a workshop in my backyard. It was a clubhouse - a meeting place for my friends and playmates where I arranged many innovations to surprise his friends. I rigged up the light….
It is far from clear what thought the first paragraph is trying to convey. Furthermore, if those are the verbatim words of Townsend Brown his switching back and forth between the first-person narrative style (“my”) to the detached third-person style (“his”) is truly bizarre.
A much more likely explanation, it seems to me, is that someone has taken a vaguely written passage about Townsend Brown’s childhood and has modified it so as to present it as written by Townsend Brown, but in so doing has failed to do a thorough job.
‘A Short Autobiography’ contains a number of surprising spelling mistakes and similar oddities.
For example, on the two occasions that Townsend refers to his first Physics teacher at Cal. Tech. - the experimental physicist and Nobel laureate, Professor Robert A. Millikan - the Professor’s name is misspelled as “Milikin”.
Similarly, when Townsend refers to the captain of Submarine S-48, Capt. O.R. Bennehoff, his name is misspelled “Benehoff”.
In addition, ‘fuselage’ is misspelled “fusilage”, ‘Galleon’ is misspelled “Gallion”, and ‘exorbitant’ is delightfully misspelled “exhorborant”.
In describing the accommodation aboard Eldridge Johnson’s yacht, the Caroline, the written words “completely laundry” should obviously be ‘complete with laundry’; and it seems that sailor Townsend Brown wrote “after deck” when the widely known naval term is in fact, ‘aft’ deck.
Furthermore, on a number of occasions “thru” is written in preference to ‘through’, and “Sat. nite” is written in preference to ‘Saturday night’, which to me doesn’t match Townsend’s writing style at all.
All told, these appear to me to be someone else’s traits and mistakes, not Townsend’s.
In a section headed Naval Research Laboratory - Washington, D.C., Townsend states that 4¼ miles is 4,862 fathoms:
The submarine rescue vessel U.S.S. Chewink was designated to accompany the submarine wherever it went to be on hand to assist in rescue operations if such were needed. Unfortunately, it was recognized, however, that most of the anticipated (years quota) dives the submarine was scheduled to make were in the deepest part of the Atlantic. Depths up to 4¼ miles (4,862 fathoms) were in water far to [sic] deep for any rescue operation whatever to be effective. Nevertheless the "Chewink" followed its orders.
But 4¼ miles is not 4,862 fathoms.
4¼ Statute miles is 3,740 fathoms, and 4¼ Nautical miles is 4,304 fathoms.
I believe that sailor and scientist Townsend Brown, adept as he must have been at working with miles, feet and fathoms in the prestigious scientific surveys he participated in as a science officer, would surely have known that 1 Nautical mile is just over 1,000 fathoms, making the above conversion easy to do in his head to a close approximation, and equally easy to spot when it’s wrong.
Of course someone lacking that technical knowledge would see nothing wrong with “4¼ miles (4,862 fathoms)”, and that together with the writing style leads me to believe that this was not written by Townsend Brown.
Here’s another paragraph from that section:
We were measuring Gravity!! This could only have been done where the pendulums were vigorously steady and their periods accurate. This meant that it could not be done on a surface ship - but only in a submarine, well below the level of the ground swell. Most dives, therefore, when measurements were made at a depth closely approaching the crushing depth of the submarine (water pressure increases at the rate of 1/2 lb. per foot of depth and is exerted thru the entire hull of the submarine. There were several instances in this trip where, due to automatic valves out of control, the computed crushing depth was exceeded. These dangers made such an impression on Capt. Benehoff [sic] that he ordered the submarine into the Navy Yard at Key West to effect repairs.
To my eyes that paragraph has nothing at all in common with Townsend Brown’s writings found elsewhere. Instead it appears to me to have been written by someone who has come across the story and, without understanding the technicalities, is retelling it in his or her own muddled fashion, trying to pass it off as Townsend Brown’s.
That disjointed, incomplete and abandoned sentence in the middle of the paragraph is telling enough, simply by being that. But in addition it contains the phrase ‘crushing depth’ rather than ‘crush depth,’ which I understand is the correct naval term. Although that may seem a trifling difference, I believe it is telling difference, distinguishing those who have some familiarity with submarine matters from those who do not.
Moreover, I think it likely that Townsend would have been quite familiar with the term ‘crush depth’, for control over the depth of the submarine was lost and regained a number of times during that cruise.
There is also a lack of scientific rigour in the explanation about water pressure. Had Townsend written that line I’m sure his scientific training would have made it second nature for him to express the pressure increase on the hull (not “thru the entire hull”) as ‘approximately ½ lb. per square inch per foot of depth’.
The following three paragraphs again seem to me to be completely devoid of Townsend’s characteristic fluency, good English, and clarity of thought and expression:
Degaussing Cable:
While I was assigned to Section Acoustic and Magnetic Mine Sweeping in the Navy - the need arose for protection against magnetic mines which were being planted by Germans. Some way was needed to sweep mines from the channel, and this required exploding them where they were to be rid of them. To do this job one way was placing a huge coil on a barge and passing current thru the coil to produce a magnetic field which spread to the bottom of the estuary, river Thames. The trouble was, when blowing up the mine, it was invariably under the barge and blew up the barge and coil - there seemed to be no way to create a field (magnetic) and outsmart the Germans.
Someone suggested that if we would trail a wire behind a boat, which, of course, was called a mine sweeper, and put current in that wire of several hundred amperes, that it would do the job. But, the wire being heavier than water, it would sink to the bottom and become ineffective. A way had to be found to keep the wire at the surface. Plastic floats were tried, only when the mine was detonated it blew up all the floats and the wire sank to the bottom. That is when I got the idea of putting floats inside the wire. Like sausages - wire wrapped around sausages at a net density of about 9.8 and therefore, the cable floated on water of density 1. So the cable floated. It was 3 1/2" inches diameter and conducted 300 amperes, which was more than enough to blow up the mines. When the mines blew up, the cable was merely tossed into the air and did not damage it.
I took out a patent on this idea, which was immediately classified, but I heard nothing more. I understand it is in use today. It is accepted as the best method of minesweeping on modern minesweepers due to clear mine fields.
Again, those paragraphs appear to me to have been written by someone who totally lacks Townsend Brown’s scientific knowledge and technical writing skills. For example, one of Townsend’s characteristics was his carefully considered choice of words in his written work, as evidenced in his scientific notebooks. For this reason I do not think he would have repeatedly called a 3½ inch diameter cable - capable of conducting 300 amperes - a “wire”.
Furthermore, when comparing the density of one substance with that of another (commonly water), I think it would have been second nature for Townsend to have used the scientific term ‘Relative Density’ (or ‘Specific Gravity’), rather than the word ‘density’ alone.
In addition, Townsend would know that any ‘cable and float’ contraption with a Relative Density of about 9.8 compared with water would sink straightaway due to having a density similar to that of copper and lead. Someone lacking an understanding of Relative Density, however, would see nothing wrong in the line that was written.
Conclusion
For the reasons I have given in the examples above I do not believe “A Short Autobiography” was written by Townsend Brown. There are many more signs than I have discussed here that lead me to that conclusion, but I would be labouring the point to mention them all.
I am of course, not suggesting that these events in Townsend Brown’s life never occurred. I am simply pointing out that, in my view, these are not Townsend Brown’s own accounts – they are someone else’s that are falsely presented as being Townsend’s - and that this should be borne in mind when reading the misleadingly titled document, “A Short Autobiography” by T. Townsend Brown.
Geoff
Citations:
“A Short Autobiography” by T. Townsend Brown.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/c4md9tt
"How I Control Gravitation" by T.T. Brown.
http://www.rexresearch.com/gravitor/gravitor.htm
