Which wartime organization did Francis Crick work for during World War II?

Francis Crick worked for the Admiralty Research Laboratory during World War II. The laboratory was a British naval research center in Teddington, southwest London, focused on problems such as underwater detection, acoustics, electromagnetics, and naval weapons.

Crick joined the laboratory in 1940 and remained there until 1947. His wartime work included helping design magnetic and acoustic mines, a role far removed from the molecular biology for which he later became famous. The experience also gave him practice in applied physics, engineering, and solving complex technical problems.

The Admiralty connection is sometimes confused with Bletchley Park, the British codebreaking center, or the Royal Aircraft Establishment, which worked mainly on aviation research. Crick was not a Manhattan Project scientist either; that American program developed nuclear weapons during the war.

After the war, Crick moved toward biology and joined the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. There he began working with James Watson, contributing to the 1953 model of DNA's double-helix structure.