Summary

Peter Bethell was a Naval Commander and author.

Between May 1946 and March 1947 he published an influential 12 part article in Engineering called 'The Development of the Torpedo'.

Prior to Peter Bethell's series of articles no standard work in the English language about torpedoes had been written since 1880. Writing during the last days of the Second World War Bethell set out to give a factual account of the development of the torpedo "without recourse to misstatement or offence to security". His articles are a rich source of both historical and technical data and rank with those of Geoff Kirby and Edwyn Gray as major contributions to the literature on the development of the torpedo and torpedo warfare.

Bethell's intention was to discuss the various forms of under-water munitions that contributed materially to the genesis of the modern torpedo and to do so chronologically: reviewing in turn the 'placed' or dumb torpedo, the spar torpedo, the towing torpedo, the automobile type, the dirigible type which may or may not be the automobile, and finally the projectile torpedo.