J. Denis Summers-Smith
British engineer and ornithologist
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Biology Engineering
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(Suggest an Edit or Addition)According to Wikipedia, James Denis Summers-Smith was a Scottish ornithologist and mechanical engineer, a specialist both in sparrowss and in industrial tribology. Early life Summers-Smith was raised in Glasgow, where he was born in 1920. He spent childhood holidays in County Donegal, in northwestern Ireland, where one of his uncles, a country parson and a naturalist, taught him about birds. For nearly six years of World War II, Summers-Smith was an intelligence officer in the British Army. He received his commission in 1940, and reached the rank of captain. He served with the 9th Battalion, The Cameronians, stationed on the east coast of England. During that time he had little time for birdwatching, except when surveying "such likely spots for invasion" as coastal marshes in Suffolk. Summers-Smith was among the second wave of troops involved in the D-Day landings of 6 June 1944. He was badly wounded in a later action in Normandy, as a result of which he spent 18 months in hospital.
