Echoes of the Past: The impact of war on the optometric profession

Echoes of the Past looks to pre-World War II summer with a small glimpse of the June 30 edition of Optician from 1939. Around the time the issue went to press, Pan Am airlines made its first US to England flight and in Germany, aircraft designer and Nazi Party member Dr Ernst Heinkel demonstrated his new 800kph rocket to Adolf Hitler.

War was very much at the forefront of people’s minds in the UK and the same was true of the optometric profession. The impact of war and the prospect of ‘armed peace’ was addressed in an article by John D Spooner titled Opticians and War.