13) Polkinghorn, ‘an Enigmatical Person’
Journal of Electrical Engineering Society which carries the speech by Polkinghorn
(Expandable)
There is a bit of mystery around Polkinghorn, who handed over
the information of transistor technology under the control of GHQ to Japanese
team. For example, his family name is sometimes misspelled as ‘Porkinghorn’,
and its Japanese pronunciation varies, and so on. In addition, he is unnecessarily
wrapped in mystery because of missing portrait photo of himself.
By the way, the office of Private Sector Communication Bureau which Polkinghorn
belonged to was on the 3rd floor of then the headquarter building of Daiichi
Seimei Corporation where GHQ were located, whereas the office of General McArthur
was on the 6th floor.
Polkinghorn came to Japan right after GHQ was instituted. His mission was
to work out new policy for the telecommunication system in Japan which had
been deadly destroyed during the war. He had been with Bell Telephone Laboratories
and got PhD there. So, he was perfect fit for the mission. Under the guidance
of occupation policy to separate electricity and telecommunication, he promptly
established Institute of Electrical Communication which was originally electrical
communication division of Electro Technical Laboratory. Polkinghorn was frequently
visited by Komagata, Chief of Electrotechnical Laboratory, for negotiating
the reorganization of the laboratory. This is supposedly one of the reasons
why Komagata could receive the information regarding semiconductor technology
from him.
Polkinghorn made a speech at the joint seminar of major electrical engineering
societies in Japan which was held on March 7, 1949. Journal of Electrical
Engineering Society published his speech in the April issue. The photo shown
above is the first page of the April issue. He criticized that quality of
the products made in Japan was not satisfactory enough, whereas there were
good equipment and well-educated engineers in place.