View source for Max Perutz

===World War II===
When [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] took over Austria in 1938, Perutz's parents managed to escape to Switzerland, but they had lost all of their money. As a result, Perutz lost their financial support. With his ability to ski, experience in mountaineering since childhood and his knowledge of crystals, Perutz was accepted as a member of a three-man team to study the conversion of snow into ice in Swiss glaciers in the summer of 1938. His resulting article for the ''[[Proceedings of the Royal Society]]'' made him known as an expert on glaciers.<ref name="Medawar & Pyke. Page 109">Medawar & Pyke. Page 109.</ref>

Lawrence Bragg, who was Professor of Experimental Physics at the Cavendish, thought that Perutz's research into haemoglobin had promise and encouraged him to apply for a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to continue his research. The application was accepted in January 1939 and with the money Perutz was able to bring his parents from Switzerland to England in March 1939.<ref name="Medawar & Pyke. Page 109"/>

On the outbreak of World War II, Perutz was [[Enemy alien#United Kingdom|rounded up along with other persons of German or Austrian background]], and sent to [[Newfoundland]] (on orders from Winston Churchill).<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Fersht | first1 = Alan R. | author-link = Alan Fersht| title = Max Ferdinand Perutz OM FRS | doi = 10.1038/nsb0402-245 | journal = [[Nature Structural Biology]] | volume = 9 | issue = 4 | pages = 245–246 | year = 2002 | pmid =  11914731| doi-access = free }}</ref> After being interned for several months he returned to Cambridge.  
Because of his pre-War research into the changes in the arrangement of the crystals in the layers of a glacier, he was asked for advice on whether if a battalion of commandos were landed in Norway, could they be hidden in shelters under glaciers. His knowledge on the subject of ice then led to him being recruited for [[Project Habakkuk]] in 1942. This was a secret project to build an ice platform in the mid-Atlantic, which could be used to refuel aircraft. To that end he investigated the recently invented mixture of ice and woodpulp known as [[pykrete]]. He carried out early experiments on pykrete in a secret location underneath [[Smithfield, London|Smithfield Meat Market]] in the [[City of London]].