The Royal New Zealand Artillery

Fron Russell FISK:

I was just perusing the latest newsletter from my old secondary school, Shirley Boys High, Christchurch, and felt the following information may be of interest to members.  Charles Gallagher was a very well known and respected mathematician, and SBHS under his tenure produced many mathematicians of subsequent international note.  The School’s (SBHS) first Headmaster

Charles Gallagher, graduated from Victoria University with an MA in Mathematics but was overseas with 2NZEF and unable to attend the 1941 university capping ceremony. He had joined the New Zealand Divisional Artillery and, as a bombardier (later  lieutenant)  in  29  Battery, 6  Field   Regiment  in  the  battles  for  Egypt and  Libya  in  1942 where he was wounded he had developed the ‘Gallagher Protractor’.  As the official war history records: ‘Bombardier Gallagher designed a special template or protractor for use on the artillery board.  It  contained  a  hole  which  fitted  over  the  stonk   centre  point  and  from  it  the  area  on which the battery had to fire could at once be marked on the sheet of talc which covered the map.   In a matter of seconds, given the point and bearing, the line and range of individual guns could be called out. This was widely used, not only by the New Zealand gunners, but by the gunners of Eighth Army and, in the end, of much of the British Army.’