Nevil Shute Norway was very much a part-time hobbyist writer & story-teller in his early years & during WWII. He was an aeronautical engineer specializing in structures & stress. He was also a senior officer in the Royal Navy's Department of Miscellaneous Weapon Development, the "Wheezers and Dodgers". Shute wrote a novel about the work in "Most Secret". Gerald Pawle wrote a history of the projects in "The Secret War". Both are interesting reads.