Postwar and Awards
In 1946 Jones was appointed to the Chair of Natural Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen, which he held until his retirement in 1981. He did not want to stay in Intelligence under the proposed postwar reorganisation. During his time at Aberdeen, much of his attention was devoted to improving the sensitivity of scientific instruments such as seismometers, capacitance micrometers, microbarographs and optical levers. His book, Instruments and Experiences, details much of his later work in some depth, and can act as a reference work on fine mechanism design.
Jones was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1942, for the planning of a raid on Bruneval to capture German radar equipment (Churchill had proposed that Jones should be appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) but the head of the Civil Service Sir Horace Wilson threatened to resign as Jones was only a lowly Scientific Officer, and the CBE was a compromise); he was subsequently appointed CB in 1946; and Companion of Honour (CH) in the 1994 Queen's Birthday Honours. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1965, and received an honorary DSc from the University of Aberdeen in 1996.
Jones married Vera Cain in 1940 - they had two daughters and a son. He is buried in Corgarff Cemetery, Strathdon, Aberdeenshire.
His autobiography, Most Secret War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939-1945, formed the basis, pre-publication, of the BBC One TV documentary series "The Secret War", first aired on 5 January 1977 and narrated by William Woollard, in which Jones was the principal interviewee. The historian A. J. P. Taylor described Most Secret War as "the most fascinating book on the Second World War that I have ever read" and, more generally, it has acquired almost classic status.
In 1993 he was the first recipient of the R. V. Jones Intelligence Award, which the CIA created in his honour.
R. V. Jones's papers are held by Churchill College, Cambridge.
Read more about this topic: Reginald Victor Jones
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