John Robert Vernon Dolphin CBE TD (1 October 1905 – 2 May 1973) was a British engineer and inventor, who joined the Secret Intelligence Service and then became the Commanding Officer of the top-secret Second World War Special Operations Executive (SOE) "Station IX", where specialist military equipment was developed.

Dolphin then went on to become Engineer-in-Chief at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Research Group until 1959, became joint Managing Director of Lansing Bagnall Ltd and J. E. Shay Ltd until 1964, and a Director of TI (Group Services) Ltd, where he successfully secured patents for a number of inventions, including sheet piling revetments, improvements to fork lift trucks and the forerunner of the modern mobility scooter.

In 1934 he became the Sales Manager and worked as an Engineer at the Sheepbridge Coal and Iron Co. Ltd before setting up his own business, John Dolphin Ltd, Consultants, in 1938.

Dolphin was the Commanding Officer of the SOE unit code-named "Station IX", which was responsible for the development and production of weapons for the SOE at a mansion called The Frythe, about an hours drive north from London near the town of Welwyn, which had been an exclusive hotel but was commandeered in August 1939 by the British Military Intelligence.

Newitt, secret research included military vehicles and equipment, explosives and technical sabotage, camouflage, biological and chemical warfare.

[11] Dolphin was a keen motorcyclist (he owned a 1000cc Ariel Square Four), and with design help from Harry Lester, a former racing bike engineer, they developed a prototype of a small folding motorbike that could be dropped in a parachute container and be used by paratroopers.

[14] It was decided to try the Welman submarine in an attack on the Floating Dock in Bergen harbour, so on 20 November 1943 motor torpedo boats MTB 635 and MTB 625 left Lunna Voe, Shetland, carrying Welmans W45 (Lt. C. Johnsen, Royal Norwegian Navy), W46 (Lt. B. Pedersen, Norwegian Army), W47 (Lt. B. Marris, RNVR) and W48 (Lt. J. Holmes, RN).

Classified Top Secret for over 50 years, it is only in recent times that Government files detailing the existence of this project have been made available for historical research.

[16] A sea trials unit called Station IXa was set up at Goodwick near Fishguard in West Wales, where the prototypes were tested.

[17] He then went on to become Engineer-in-Chief at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Research Group until 1959 and became joint Managing Director of Lansing Bagnall Ltd and J. E. Shay Ltd until 1964.

The vehicle was expected to include a power unit, for example, a battery-driven electric motor or an internal combustion engine, supported on the "stable" rear wheels.

The patent describes the solution as "revetments or retaining walls for the banks of rivers or canals and concerns an arrangement, particularly suitable for rivers and canals which are relatively shallow at the banks, in which the revetment comprises a series of sheet metal plates arranged end-to-end and suitably secured together to form a wall of sheet metal pile sections, driven into the ground vertically by a power hammer and interlocked so that a complete wall of steel piles is provided between the bank and the water.

This system of piling is undoubtedly desirable, if not essential, for deep waterways or those subject to heavy erosion, such as tidal waters.

The report also rejected Dolphin's claim that the Red Beard device became the trigger for the British thermonuclear bomb, and stated that the original Red Beard Mk.1 warhead design that had failed to fully trigger the British thermonuclear test devices at Christmas Island in 1957, was considerably modified using American information made available after signing of the Anglo-US Bilateral Treaty of 1958.

Red Beard used a barium-based HE composition (baratol) at a time when British nuclear scientists had not yet understood fully that the primary ignition mechanism of a fusion device was by X-rays, the Teller–Ulam theory.

[30] Insofar as Mr Dolphin's claim rests on his contribution to Red Beard, this is a model [design] of which AWRE is not proud; as an atomic bomb in its own right it will be out of service as soon as possible; and it will never be used as the trigger for the H-bomb.

It is true that a descendant of Red Beard, ... was still being used in trials when Mr Dolphin left AWRE in 1957 and ceased to be informed about weapon development.

[citation needed] As well as receiving the Territorial Army Decoration (TD) for long service,[1] Dolphin was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1956 Birthday Honours.