Arthur Hartley Arthur Clifford Hartley , CBE ( 7 January 1889 – 28 January 1960 ) was a British civil engineer . Graduating with a bachelor ' s degree from Imperial College London , Hartley worked for the North Eastern Railway and an asphalt manufacturer before joining the Royal Flying Corps during World War I . He became a qualified pilot , with the rank of major and joined the Air Board where he was involved with the development of interrupter gear . His war work was rewarded with his appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire ( OBE ) . He left the corps after the war and spent five years as a consulting engineer before he joined the Anglo - Persian Oil Company ( later Anglo - Iranian ) . During the Second World War Hartley was seconded to the government where he was involved in the development of the bombsight which sank the " Tirpitz " , the Operation Pluto pipeline project and the FIDO fog dispersion system . Following the war he was rewarded with an appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( CBE ) , a United States Medal of Freedom and £9000 cash . He retired from Anglo - Iranian in 1951 and was elected president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers . He was elected president of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1959 , but died three months into his tenure . Early life . Hartley was born at Springbank , Hull on 7 January 1889 to George Thomas Hartley , a surgeon , and his wife Elizabeth Briggs . He was educated at Hymers College and Hull Municipal Technical College before attending the City and Guilds College , the engineering department of Imperial College London . He graduated with a third class honours Bachelors Degree in engineering in 1910 . After graduation he found employment with the North Eastern Railway in the office of their chief docks engineer at Hull and from 1912 - 14 with asphalt makers Rose , Down and Thompson Limited . First World War . During the First World War Hartley was commissioned into the Royal Flying Corps as a second lieutenant on 23 August 1916 , and became a qualified pilot . He was promoted lieutenant on 22 February 1918 . He ended the war with the rank of major . During the war Hartley joined the armaments section of the Air Board , working with Bertram Hopkinson . He was responsible for the Air Board ' s development of George Constantinescu ' s interrupter gear which allowed a machine gun to be fired through the propeller blades of an aircraft without danger of damage . This invention was said by Air Vice Marshal Sir John Maitland to be responsible for air superiority over German aircraft . He transferred to the Royal Air Force on its establishment as a separate service . He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire ( OBE ) on 10 October 1919 in recognition of his war work . Interbellum . After the war Hartley worked as a consulting engineer for five years before joining the Anglo - Persian Oil Company in 1924 as assistant manager of its engineering division . He became assistant manager of the supply department later the same year and from 1932 to 1934 he was seconded to the Iraq Petroleum Company , on his return being appointed chief engineer . The company became the Anglo - Iranian Oil Company in 1935 . Second World War . Following the outbreak of the Second World War Hartley was seconded from Anglo - Iranian to the Ministry of Aircraft Production in 1940 . From 1940 - 1 he assisted with the development of a stabilized bombsight which was used by RAF Bomber Command in the sinking of the German battleship " Tirpitz " in 1944 . From 1942 Hartley worked with the Petroleum Warfare Department and was appointed as its technical director . Here he developed , at the request of Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris , the Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation which was known as FIDO . This was a means of burning oil along runways to disperse fog . The system was installed at fifteen airfields across Britain , beginning in 1943 . FIDO is credited with bringing 2 , 500 aircraft and 10 , 000 aircrew safely home during the war . Hartley also developed the pipes used in Operation Pluto ( Pipe Lines Under The Ocean ) , a series of twenty - one undersea pipes used to transport oil from Britain to continental Europe to support the Liberation of Europe . The system supplied the allied armies with 1 million US gallons ( 3 , 800 m ) of fuel per day during the advance into Germany , and Hartley received £9000 after the war for his work on Pluto from the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors . He also received an appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( CBE ) in 1944 . Post - war . Hartley was awarded the United States Medal of Freedom in 1946 . He retired from Anglo - Iranian ( which would become British Petroleum in 1954 ) in 1951 and became an engineering consultant during which time he developed the Hartley hoister – a device which allowed the loading of oil tankers offshore . He was elected president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1951 and was an honorary fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute . He was also made an honorary fellow of Imperial College London in 1953 . In 1959 he received the Redwood Medal of the Institute of Petroleum . He was elected president of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1959 . However he died just three months into his term at St Thomas ' s Hospital , London on 28 January 1960 . Personal life . Hartley married Dorothy Elizabeth Wallace , the daughter of a Shanghai - based marine engineer , in 1920 and had two sons . Dorothy died in 1923 , and in 1927 he married Florence Nina Hodgson with whom he had a further two sons .