Career
During War World II, working at the Admiralty Signal Establishment, he led a team that developed a high frequency radio direction finding system (Huff-Duff) for use on ships, which was used very effectively to find and destroy German U-boats. The technical problems were severe in comparison to the design of land based high frequency direction finding systems, due to the very detrimental effect of unwanted radio reflections from the ship"s superstructure. The Germans considered the problems insoluble, and U-boats continued to use their high frequency radios to communicate with base stations in Western Europe, thus giving their positions to convoy escort vessels.
Enigma historian Ralph Erskine ("Military Communications: from ancient times to the 21st Century") states, “An operational research report based on Ultra estimated that without shipborne high frequency direction finding, Allied convoy losses in early 1943 would have been 25 to 50 percent higher, with U-boat kills being reduced by one-third.”
Also, the German naval historian Jürgen Rohwer ("The Critical Convoy Battles of March 1943") concludes, after examination of official records, and extensive discussions with Dönitz, “If we analyse the great convoy battles between June 1942 and May 1943 – the remarkable fact is that the outcome always depended decisively on the efficient use of high frequency direction finding.”
Struszynski subsequently worked at the Marconi Research Laboratories, Great Baddow, Essex, where he was a Consultant in communications research until his retirement.
