CORROSION RESEARCH LABORATORIES—13: MINISTRY OF SUPPLY TROPICAL TESTING ESTABLISHMENT, PORT HARCOURT, NIGERIA

Soon after the beginning of the 1939–45 war the Services became aware of the vital necessity of studying the behaviour of stores and materials in tropical climates. In consequence the Army established in Nigeria two special units known as the West Africa Tropical Testing Establishment and the Signal and Radar Tropical Testing Establishment. Both were operated from Port Harcourt with activities centred there and at Victoria Beach and other stations near Lagos. The work tended to concentrate on radio and optical equipment—that is, the stores in connection with which tropical deterioration had been particularly disastrous in the early stages of the war. In 1947 the two units were amalgamated and control of the combined establishment known as the Tropical Testing Establishment passed from the War Office to the Ministry of Supply.