Radar A Case History of An Invention

Radar: A Case History of an Invention was prepared as a Term Report for a Research Seminar in Technological Innovation while the
author was a student at the Harvard Business School. The original is dated January 16, 1961.
Library Identifiers Item: Call: Class: OCLC: Entry: Location: V 394.B4-M33-REF 101034184M LC: TK 6575 7363499, 11348050 19810424, 19841105, Update 19981215 Box 14, Folder 16, SCL (UTenn)
Layout and Foreword IEEE Radar: A Reluctant Miracle AFCEA Radar: A Case History of an Invention is U.S. Government work not protected by U.S. Copyright.
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Contents
Foreword John B. McKinney, Colonel, United States Army, Retired Radar: A Reluctant Miracle (Reprint) Radar: A Case History of an InventionThe Evolution of an Innovation Preface Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Epilogue Chronology of the Development of Radar (Phases I thru V above are referenced in Chapter IX and shown on the Chronology.) Introduction The Fathers of Radar What is Radar The Long Prelude (18731922) Phase I of the Invention of Radar The Rise of Radio (19221930) Phase II of the Invention of Radar The Arrival of Radar (19301935) Phase III of the Invention of Radar The Race with Destiny (19351939) Phase IV of the Invention of Radar Radar Becomes Operational (19391942) Phase V of the Invention of Radar Obstacles and Roadblocks A Summary
v vii ix xix 1 3 7 13 17 27 41 55 75 89 101 Inside back cover
IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE VOLUME 21, NUMBER 8, PART II, AUGUST 2006
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IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE
VOLUME 21, NUMBER 8, PART II, AUGUST 2006
Foreword
...to see what happened, why it happened, the sources of resistance, the things that slowed it down, the actions taken to overcome or circumvent obstacles and roadblocks, why it was turned down at first, arguments used...to place it in development, and arguments used against it by its opponents... Radar: A Reluctant Miracle, authored by John B. McKinney in 1961, appeared as a sheaf of yellowed papers on my desk last year with no identifying marks to indicate origin. The Prefacequoted in part aboveintroduces the reader to a chronology of the actions and interactions of individuals central to the development of radar deployment and use in World War II by the U.S. Reluctant has appeared as a reference in several Systems magazine contributions as an Unpublished manuscript. Louis Browns Radar History of World War II references it; while he was writing that history he mentioned that Reluctant was worthy of wider dissemination. I am aware that the IEEE History Center received a copy from the University of Hawaii at Hilo in 1999, and that the Historical Electronics Museum has three copiesall matching the one on my desk. A literature search for a published version turned up a pair of articles in Signal magazine (1966) with the identical title and author that do not reference the originalthey are included to serve as a prcis. With several positive reviews in hand, we decided to proceed to publish the entire manuscript for wide availability and to get it entered in index databases. When we were almost at the end of scanning the copy for conversion, David Nordrum asked: Why are there 26 references for an Epilogue, but no Epilogue? Another anomaly that had been observed was that the Notes pages had been renumbered by hand. These started us on a quest for more comparison copies. Starting with Harvard (who had no copy) we tried the: National Archives, Army War College, Signal Corps Historical Office, and Signal Corps libraries at Ft. Monmouth and Ft. Gordon. Copies were located at Ft. Gordon and the University of Tennesseethey matched. (The author had advised us that he had deposited copies of all of his work with his alma mater.) James Mayfield and Steve Johnston were teamed to conduct a complete search of all accessible library holdings. This resulted in their locating Radar: A Case History of an Invention, also written by McKinney. With more pages than Reluctant and confusion over library identifiers, it was accessible to us at the Naval Research Laboratory Library. A comparison revealed: Eight chapters of identical text, different title and contents pages, Notes placed at the end of each chapter, and two additional chapters: What is Radar and Epilogue. The authors rank on Case History was given as Lieutenant Colonel, whereas Reluctant indicated he was a Colonel.
Detail comparison of several pages convinced us that we had located the original as the author was a Lieutenant Colonel when he graduated from Harvard and was promoted to Colonel the following year. What had transpired? One theory: The author, being on active duty, had to have his writings pass up the line for approval for public release. Somewhere along that path it had been abridged and released after his promotion. Why did the NRL library have an original? Perhaps, as many NRL personnel were interviewed, the author had given them a courtesy copy; being part of the military it would not be considered public release. Why did the Signal Corps not send a copy to NRL upon public release? Guess: Parochialismthis had been written by the Signal Corps, not the Navy. The complete Case History follows the Signal articles in these pages. We have made minor spelling corrections and returned the Notes to the end of each chapter. Seldom are works that contribute to the history of a development rescued from obscurity; this was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate that investigators must work from paper originals, not electronic versions, to ascertain authenticity. On behalf of this Society, this magazine and future historians, I wish to thank the author, John B. McKinney, and those listed below who contributed to our success. To our readers: Your enthusiastic responses to our Tutorials and other out-of-the-ordinary methods used to bring you information were our motivation. David B. Dobson July 2006 Search Contributors Jeffery CroninBusiness Information Analyst, Baker Library, HBS, Cambridge, MA Elizabeth DurhamLibrarian, Hoskins Library Special Collections, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN Susanna JoynerLibrarian, Woodworth Consolidated Library, Fort Gordon, GA Steven JohnstonEditor, International Radar Index, Huntsville, AL Eric MoekleSuperintendant, Radar Division, NRL, Washington, D.C. James MayfieldLibrarian, Redstone Army Development Center, Huntsville, AL David NordrumMinnesota Technical Typography, St. Paul, MN Linda NortonLibrarian, Ruth H. Hooker Library, NRL, Washington, D.C. Kerry ParkeMedia Relations, Harvard Business School, Cambridge, MA
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John B. McKinney Colonel, United States Army Signal Corps, Retired John B. McKinney, former Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of ITT World Communications, Inc., joined ITT in 1969 as Vice President and Director, Plant and Engineering. He retired in 1983. Prior to his tenure with ITT, Colonel McKinney had a distinguished military career, serving in three wars. He began his military service in World War II as an enlisted radio operator in the 82nd Airborne Division, was commissioned a Second Lieutenant on November 30, 1942, and arrived in the Southwest Pacific Area in April 1943 where he held a number of communications operations positions in New Guinea and the Philippines. Promoted to Major on July 1, 1945, he assumed command of the AFPAC Mobile Communications Battalion which established General MacArthurs communications facilities in Japan at the beginning of the occupation. He coordinated the communications from the USS Missouri on V-J Day, including General MacArthurs victory address to the nation. Between World War II and the Korean War, Colonel McKinney practiced law in Memphis, Tennessee. Recalled to active duty in March 1951, he was assigned as Officer in Charge of the 2nd U.S. Army Communication Center, Ft. Meade, Maryland. He next headed the U.S. Armys Pentagon Communication Center. Leaving for Korea in April, 1953, he became the Operations Officer of the 8th Army Signal Battalion, where, among other duties, he coordinated the communications facilities during the Panmunjon truce negotiations. In early 1954 he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and reassigned as Division Signal Officer of the 3rd Infantry Division. Returning stateside in late 1954, he held various assignments until his selection to attend the Harvard Business School. Upon graduation (1961) he was assigned to England as the Liaison Officer with the British Royal Signals and with his promotion to Colonel in 1962 he was reassigned to the Joint U.S. Mission for Military Aid to Turkey. He next attended the U.S. Army War College and, concurrently, George Washington University. Assigned to Vietnam following a tour as a War College faculty member, he was Deputy Commander of the 1st Signal Brigade, the largest Signal Corps combat command in the history of the Army. In early 1968 he served as General Abrams Signal Officer at MACV Forward during the critical battle of Hue. Upon his return Colonel McKinney joined the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and ended his military career as Chief of the Communications Electronics Department of the U.S. Army Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia, retiring December 1, 1969. His decorations include: Legion of Merit with three Oak Leaf Clusters; Bronze Star with three Oak Leaf Clusters; Air Medal; Joint Service Commendation Medal; Army Commendation Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster; and numerous U.S., Foreign Service, and Theater medals. John B. McKinney was born in Jacksonville, Florida, May 16, 1918, and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. A graduate of the University of Tennessee, he earned his law degree from Memphis State University, a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard, and a Masters in International Affairs from the George Washington University.
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Radar: A Reluctant Miracle

This, from Signal Magazine, October & November 1966, appeared while Colonel McKinney was on the Staff of the U.S. Army War College. It is the only public release of any portion of the work that we located. To quote the author: I wanted to get the story out for public discussion. It serves as an admirable prcis for the complete work and does not mention the existance of the original.
VOLUME 21, NUMBER 8, PART II, AUGU.S.T 2006
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Radar: A Reluctant Miracle

Reprinted from Signal Magazine
Colonel John B. McKinney, USA Chief, Research and Publication Section Directorate of Instruction and Research U.S. Army War College Part 1 (October 1966) Most technological innovations have been developed openly by civilians to meet the needs of a civilized society, but in the past thirty years a new type of technological development has arisen. This modern military technology, a product of the marriage between science and warfare, is largely developed in secret. It is financed and controlled by the government, and is not intended for civilian needs, but for the needs of armed forces seeking the keys to victory in war. Radar exemplifies this new technology. It is complex, expensive, and extremely important to the security of nations, but it was invented by no one man. It evolved over the years at the hands and from the minds of many men. It sprang from the accumulation of a half century of scientific knowledge. A vitally important race, to develop radar, although not recognized as such by the participants, began in the 1930s. Closely guarded, highly secret programs were undertaken in England, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, and the United States. Furthermore, the United States Army and Navy each established radar projects, and only infrequently exchanged discoveries and technological information. That the victors wreath in this grim race was won by the Allies was a fortunate, but not inevitable, circumstance. The Allies almost lost the contest. Many obstacles and roadblocks delayed the early acceptance of radar as a research and development project in the U.S. Armed Forces.
Reprinted with the permission of the copyright owner, The Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA), from Signal magazine, October & November 1966. Copyright 1966 AFCEA. IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE
Early U.S. Navy Experiments The story begins with the first official suggestion for radars development for military purposes which came in 1922. On June 20th of that year, Guglielmo Marconi made an historical suggestion for the use of reflected radio waves for radio detection. He was guest of honor at a joint meeting of the Institute of Radio Engineers and the Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York. On this occasion he was presented the I.R.E. Medal of Honor in recognition of his work in wireless telegraphy. At the close of his acceptance speech he made the following comment: As was first shown by Hertz, electric waves can be completely reflected by conducting bodies. In some of my tests I have noticed the effects of reflection and deflection of these waves by metallic objects miles away. It seems to me that it should be possible to design apparatus by means of which a ship could radiate or project a divergent beam of these rays in any desired direction, which rays, if coming across a metallic object, such as another steamer or ship, would be reflected back to a receiver screened from the local transmitter on the sending ship, and thereby immediately reveal the presence and bearing of the other ship in fog or thick weather. Experiments with 5-Meter Waves Three months later, in mid-September 1922, the earliest experimental confirmation of Marconis idea took place at the Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory at Anacostia, D.C. Dr. Albert Hoyt Taylor and Leo Clifford Young informally began to explore the possibilities of 5-meter waves for communications and to discover their properties and propagation characteristics. From this exploration came the first U.S. military proposal for the use of radio to detect moving objects in space. A receiver was installed in an automobile, and a transmitter was set up near the door of the laboratory only a few feet above the ground. As the car was
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driven away from the transmitter some steel buildings were passed. Interference effects immediately became noticeable. Furthermore, the shielding effects of other objects, such as a screen door, the backstop of a tennis court, and a passing automobile, were also observed. Experiments on the transmission of energy over water, likewise, were tried. The car in which the receiver was located was driven to Haines Point, across the Potomac from Anacostia. This time the same interference effects were noted from a clump of willow trees. Dorchester Prompts A Discovery While these experiments were in progress, the steamer Dorchester, a small wooden vessel, chugged down the Potomac and crossed the path between the transmitter and receiver. Fifty feet before the boats bow reached the radio circuits line of sight path, the receivers incoming signal jumped to nearly twice its previous intensity. When the steamer actually passed through the path, the signal dropped to only half its normal value. The pattern was repeated as the Dorchester continued down stream. On September 27, 1922, the Commanding Officer of the Anacostia Naval Air Station reported the discovery to the Bureau of Engineering in a memorandum prepared by Dr. Taylor. The memorandum, according to Dr. Taylor, was not received enthusiastically by the Navy Department. Dr. Taylor had mentioned several possible uses of his proposed device, including directive communications, landing of aircraft at night or through overcast, and shipboard use to detect other ships. The memorandum also suggested that possibly an arrangement could he worked out whereby destroyers located on a line a number of miles apart could be immediately aware of the passage of an enemy vessel between any two destroyers of the line, irrespective of fog, darkness or smoke screen. But the lure of such a multi-purpose item of equipment was not strong enough at the time to attract support within the Navy Department. In fact, Dr. Taylor never received a reply of any kind to his memorandum. Dr. Taylor apparently made no effort to follow through on the memorandum, nor did he attempt to generate support for it. Although he was a forceful, energetic and enthusiastic administrator, he was primarily a scientist. He had proved the feasibility of his proposal and, as far as he was concerned, it was up to the Navy to do what they pleased with it. U.S. Armys First Radar Proposal Four years after Taylor and Young made their trail blazing proposal to the Navy Department, the
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attention of Major William R. Blair, a soldier-scientist in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, was also attracted to the problem of detecting airplanes in space. In the spring of 1926, Blair was attending the Armys Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. It was customary at the time, as it is today, for each of the Armys combat arms and technical services to send a high ranking officer to the college to lecture to the students on the latest trends and developments in military equipment and techniques. Two of the lectures that spring struck a discordant note in Major Blairs mind, and prompted what was to become an important interest in aircraft detection. The Coast Artillery Corps representative described with great pride the latest developments in the sound method of locating aircraft. On the other hand, the Army Air Corps representative said that racing planes had already achieved speeds of 300 miles per hour. He predicted that military planes would soon be going that fast too. To Major Blair, an Army scientist who had already achieved prominence because of his development of the Radiosonde, a balloon-borne meteorologic instrument, these two presentations indicated that something was lacking in the Armys plans. It occurred to him that at 300 miles per hour, approximately two fifths the speed of sound, the airplane would be almost overhead before any defensive action, triggered off by the sound detector, could be initiated. Major Blair had the technical competence to make such an observation. While at the University of Chicago in 1906 as a doctoral candidate, he had assisted the renowned German born physicist, Michelson, in early experiments with measurements of the speed of light. When he came to realize, twenty years later, that reliance on the sound detection of aircraft was dangerously impractical, his previous experience with measuring the speed of light came to mind. He reasoned that if the process of measuring lights speed could he reversed, the exact measurement of the time delay of a reflected radio signal, which moves at the same speed as light, would determine the distance to the object from which it has been reflected. Blair Develops Radar Theory From his earlier experiments with microwaves, during which he had discovered the conductivity of wood at high radio frequencies, Blair also knew that the material of which airplanes were constructed in those days would reflect microwaves. By associating this fundamental knowledge with the existence of a clearly perceived need, he developed the theory of radar which resulted in his being granted the basic United States patent for radar on August 20, 1957, over thirty years later.
Following his graduation from the Command and General Staff College in the summer of 1926, Major Blair was assigned as Chief of Research Engineering in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer in Washington. After becoming acquainted with his new duties, his thoughts again turned to aircraft detection, and he discussed his ideas with Major General Charles McK. Saltzman, the Chief Signal Officer of the Army. In early 1928, General Saltzman arranged a joint meeting between the Signal Corps, the Ordnance Technical Committee, and members of the Coast Artillery Corps. General Saltzman wanted Major Blair to present his proposal for the radio detection of approaching aircraft so that General Saltzman could determine if any interest in the idea could be generated. Despite the logic of the Majors arguments, however, the meeting was not successful. Neither the Coast Artillery Corps nor the Ordnance Corps was willing to allocate any funds for a Radio Position Finding project. The Coast Artillery representatives were thinking in terms of the range of antiaircraft weapons. They did not feel that they needed information about enemy aircraft until it was within ten miles of their firing batteries. The Ordnance Corps had just obtained new models of the latest sound detection equipment of which they were quite proud. If the Coast Artillery people did not feel they needed information beyond the distance that could be covered effectively by the sound equipment, the Ordnance people could see no reason why they should spend their scarce funds to provide it. The Coast Artillery had also sponsored infra-red research projects being conducted by the Signal Corps and workable infra-red detection devices were likewise available. Strange as it might seem, the Army Air Corps was not present at the meeting, and apparently, was not invited. The relationship between the Signal Corps, the parent, and the Army Air Corps, its offspring, was not cordial in those days, to say the least. This coolness may account in part for the failure to extend the Air Corps an invitation to hear Major Blairs presentation. At this point in time, the War Department was faced with a paradoxit recognized the need for an effective means of aircraft detection but it was faced with an equally great need to practice economy. There was not enough money to carry on projects in sound, infra-red and radio detection simultaneously. Since radio detection was the newest proposal and was as yet unproved or even tested, it had to wait until additional funds could be obtained. More important than money or recognition of a need was the more specific problem of just what capabilities an effective detection device should have. At what ranges would it be necessary to detect
RADAR: A RELUCTANT MIRACLE (REPRINT)
incoming aircraft? What should be the maximum and minimum altitude capabilities of the set? How accurately should azimuth he determined? These were critical considerations that could only be evaluated properly in consultation with the Air Corps. But the Air Corps had not been apprised of the new technique. The potential value of radar was seen only with Coast Artillery eyes, and from an antiaircraft artillerymans viewpoint, the short ranges of sound and infra-red detection devices did not preclude their use for the Coast Artillerys purposes. Consequently, this antiaircraft myopia was an important, and perhaps overriding, factor in the War Departments refusal to allocate all too scarce funds to support Blairs idea. U.S. Navys Second Radar Discovery In 1930 the Naval Research Laboratory made a second attempt to get the Navy Department to approve a project to investigate the possible use of reflected radio waves to detect and locate airplanes in space. The Naval Research Laboratory revived its interest in radio detection when L. A. Hyland, a young associate engineer, accidentally detected radio waves reflected from an aircraft. Taylor and Young had considered the possibility of airplane detection at the time of their 1922 observations, but were not convinced that the reflected energy from a plane would be great enough to be detected. Therefore, to them the surprising thing about Hylands discovery was not the fact that the plane reflected the waves, but that the effect was large enough to be detected. In the summer of 1930, Hyland was working on direction finding experiments at ultrahigh frequencies. As part of these experiments, he was studying the directional reception that could be obtained with a 15-foot-long, single-wire antenna that was attached fore-and-aft along the fuselage of an experimental 02U land plane. Early one afternoon, after turning the plane so that a perfect minimum signal was obtained, Hyland noticed that an unusual and unexpected phenomenon occasionally was seen. For a time a signal would come in irregularly when only a steady minimum signal should have been observed. After repeated observations it became apparent that these observations occurred only when planes flying in the vicinity of the air station crossed the line between the receiving antenna and the transmitting station at NRL. Hyland was so startled by the discovery, particularly since he immediately recognized its implications, that he dropped his work and rushed to call Dr. Hoyt Taylor, the Laboratory Director, about his discovery. Dr. Taylor vigorously encouraged him to pursue his findings. On November 5, 1930, Dr. Taylor prepared a memorandum to the Chief of the Bureau of Engineering. He invited attention to the earlier
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observations of 1922 and emphasized the potential usefulness of the equipment to detect moving objects and determine their velocity. Captain E. J. Marquart, Director of the Naval Research Laboratory at the time of Hylands discovery, endorsed Taylors memorandum and stated that the matter was of the utmost importance. In his endorsement he pointed out that if the device could be developed it would be of the greatest military and naval value for defense against enemy aircraft. He recommended that a problem be set up for the development of this apparatus, and that it be given a high priority. Shortly thereafter, a radar project was approved by the Navy Department. Project Number W5-2S was assigned to a task for research on the use of very high frequency radio waves to detect the presence of enemy vessels or aircraft. Although the need for radio detection had thus been officially recognized, the approval of Taylors proposal did not carry with it an allocation of funds. NRL merely had permission to work on the project whenever personnel were available, or if the Laboratorys staff were sufficiently interested in its success to work on it after hours. Blair-Taylor Personality Clash At approximately the same time that Hyland made his discovery, Major William R. Blair left the Office of the Chief Signal Officer to become the Commanding Officer of the Signal Corps Laboratories at Fort Monmouth. It is not surprising, therefore, that soon after Blair found himself in charge of the Laboratories, in February 1931, he set up a detection project to inquire into the potentialities of both high frequency radio and heat detection methods. This undertaking, which he designated Project 88, was entitled Position Finding by Means of Light. Its real purpose was to explore electromagnetic radiation in the radio-optic field, that portion of the frequency spectrum which spans both microwaves and infra-red waves. Blair placed first emphasis on heat detection, and assigned the project to the sound and light section of the laboratories. Blair was not particularly impressed with the Navys early radio detection work, although he probably was influenced by it. Nevertheless, in December, 1930 he accepted Dr. Hoyt Taylors invitation to attend an NRL demonstration. At the demonstration, Dr. Taylor explained Hylands discovery and NRLs experiments with the new phenomenon. During the meeting, Blair apparently took offense at an unintended affront by Taylor. This incident adversely affected Blairs subsequent opinion of the Navys radar work. From that time forward, Blair was unwilling to see good in anything that NRL did. According to Blair, ill feelings occurred
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when Hoyt Taylor, after finishing his explanation of NRLs discoveries, invited the other people present to make any comments they might wish to offer. Blair said that no one present seemed to understand what Taylor was saying except him. When it came his turn to speak, therefore, Blair told Taylor that NRL should have expected this phenomenon as no new scientific principles were involved. Blair attempted to explain what he meant by this statement and also to describe his own 1906 experiments with microwaves, but Taylor adjourned the meeting before Blair had finished speaking. Blair considered Taylors action an insult. At the time of an interview with the author almost thirty years after this incident, Blair said that he was never invited to NRL again. Blair objected to the Navys first experimental effort. It seemed to him to offer no precision. NRLs device showed generally that there were airplanes in the vicinity but did not show where each one was. Nevertheless, by the beginning of 1932 NRL had developed a detection system using a directional continuous-wave 30-megacycle transmitter that could locate airplanes 50 miles away. Unfortunately, it proved to be unsuitable for shipboard installation because of the size of the antennas required for its operation. Therefore, the Secretary of the Navy decided to officially inform the Secretary of War on January 9, 1932 of the Navys work with radio detection. He hoped that the Army, because it was not restricted to shipboard size installations, could use the new discovery. His memorandum stated in part: Certain phases of the problem appear to be of more concern to the Army than to the Navy. For example, a system of transmitters and associated receivers might be set up about a defense area to test its effectiveness in detecting the passage of hostile aircraft into the area. Such a development might be carried forward more appropriately and expeditiously by the Army.... Blairs Opinion Unchanged When the Secretary of the Navys memorandum eventually filtered down to Blair, his unfavorable opinion of the Navys radar project had not changed. He made no effort to build on the information supplied by the Navy. Perhaps another factor affecting Blairs unwillingness in 1932 to take over the Navys project was the continuing influence of the Signal Corps only customer for aircraft detection, the Coast Artillery Corps. In terms of antiaircraft fire, the Navys beat method sounded unpromising. The guns would be provided no exact firing information, and the attacking planes would have passed the firing batteries and be out of sight before they could get such information. Despite Blairs objections to the Navys work, however, there is no evidence that he had started any
radio detection experiments of his own at the Signal Corps Laboratory prior to the arrival of the Secretary of the Navys memorandum. Project 88 still was restricted entirely to infra-red detection. It was not until after the Secretarys communication that Blair set up a radio detection research endeavor. Nevertheless, the Signal Corps project was Blairs own microwave concept, not an extension of the NRLs beat method. Part 2 (November 1966) Blairs radio position finding project got under way in 1932 under the auspices of the sound and light division. Two men were initially assigned to itFloyd Ostenson and W. D. Hershberger. Blair, remembering his personal experiments with microwaves in his 1906 doctoral work, directed the initial research toward microwave experimentation. He thought that only the higher frequencies would permit the use of antennas small enough in size to make mobile radar a feasibility. Blair was convinced that the size limitations which made NRLs first experimental model unsuited for shipboard installation would also make a long wave set unsuitable for field use in the Army. Theoretically, microwave radar should have been an ideal solution to the detection problem, but Blairs preoccupation with microwaves unfortunately led the Signal Corps into a blind alley. The state of the microwave art had simply not advanced far enough by 1932 to make these waves feasible for any use which required large amounts of power. Furthermore, at the Signal Corps Laboratories where Hershberger was pursuing his hopeless quest for a workable microwave radar, radio detection was still not the major undertaking in the detection field. The principal effort was directed toward infra-red research. In addition, despite obvious weaknesses, sound detection projects were also still underway in Army laboratories. Nevertheless, Blair used infra-red to good advantage in his efforts to persuade the Coast Artillery to see advantages in radar. Blair learned that Dr. S. H. Anderson, an infra-red expert with the Army Air Corps, had become available for employment. The project on which he had been working had been cancelled due to a slash in Air Corps funds. Blair assigned Anderson as head of the Signal Corps Laboratories sound and light section, and in addition assigned him a personal job, the study of the penetration of fog in various regions of the infra-red part of the frequency spectrum. Blairs purpose in setting up this special assignment for Anderson was to use the findings of a nationally recognized infra-red scientist to prove to the Coast Artillery that continued reliance on infra-red detection of aircraft was infeasible. In short, Andersons job was to disprove the value
of infra-red, instead of the more conventional and positive approach of proving its worth. Blair was willing to gamble that his professional judgment was correct and that Andersons findings would, in fact, support Blairs contentions. Anderson may not have been aware of Blairs intentions at first, because he did an outstanding job of infra-red research. Tests performed during the next two years, however, confirmed Blairs professional opinion. With reflected infra-red rays, even such a favorable target as a Navy blimp could only be detected at a maximum distance of 32,000 yards, which is about 18 miles. During 1933, the reflected infra-red project was abandoned, and Hershbergers microwave research was substituted. Nevertheless, the use of the old infra-red method of detecting heat radiation from an airplanes engine was continued for several more years. The Coast Artillery was not willing to gamble on the yet unproved radio detection because infra-red, with all its shortcomings, did provide at least some warning capability. Radar Appropriations at Last Thus during the first half of the 1930s progress was slow. There were no significant technical breakthroughs. Bath the Army and the Navy laboratories limped along on drastically reduced appropriations and the officials of both facilities continually sought additional funds for their radar projects. Without money and personnel, concrete results were exceedingly difficult to achieve, but without some tangible evidence of the feasibility of radar as a military weapon, the project could not compete with other research undertakings for a share of the all too small military appropriations. NRL finally broke the financial log jam as a result of a successful demonstration of radars capability to detect aircraft that Dr. Hoyt Taylor arranged for members of the House Sub-Committee on Naval Appropriations in February 1934. The committee included $100,000 in the fiscal year 1935 appropriation bill for radar development. Several months elapsed before NRL obtained access to the funds, but the radar money drought was ended at last. In the following year Congress again appropriated $100,000 to NRL for long-time radar exploration, and in the next two years they doubled and tripled the amount. One of the scientists at NRL who helped set up the historic demonstration for the Congressional subcommittee was Dr. Robert M. Page, a young man who had been with NRL about eight years and who was later to become one of the greatest contributors to Naval radar. Page brought to the project fresh ideas, and he gave it a shot in the arm at the very time that it seemed to be getting nowhere.
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Pulse Transmission Takes Spotlight Under Pages guidance the focus of the Navys radar research effort switched successfully to pulse transmission, although both beat and pulse methods remained as parallel approaches for awhile. Page makes no claim to having thought up the idea of pulse transmission. He attributes all of the credit to Leo Young, his associate and early boss in the pulse investigations. Nevertheless, Pages contribution to the subsequent success of Navy radar was of great importance. His inventive genius, when paired with that of Leo Young, resulted in an unbeatable research team. Radar had at last come into its own in the Navy. The Signal Corps solution to the financial problem, which began a year after NRL had received its radar appropriation, also involved successful demonstrations and a dynamic new face on the radar scene. On July 29, 1935, a competition was held at Fort Monroe, Virginia, between Signal Corps and Corps of Engineer infra-red equipment. During the contest, the Signal Corps equipment performed with accuracy and certainty. The Engineer equipment also performed well, but the Signal Corps emerged the victor. From this showdown, however, three somewhat unexpected decisions came from the Coast Artillery Boarddecisions which were to have great significance for both radar and the Signal Corps. First, it was decided that the use of infra-red for detection of aircraft did not appear too promising; second, other methods must be given greater emphasis, particularly the use of radio waves which penetrated all atmospheric variations; and third, the General Staff should assign full responsibility for research on detection of aircraft and marine targets to the Signal Corps. Blairs tactics of defeating infra-red by improving it to the point that it reached its maximum capability had finally been successful. The Signal Corps victory was clouded, however, because no additional funds were provided for the new task. Although General Allison, the Chief Signal Officer, asked the War Department for $40,000, less money than a single SCR-268 radar set would cost after Pearl Harbor, the response was negative. The dilemma of the War Department, aware at last of the importance of radio detection but incapable of providing the necessary funds to develop it, could hardly be more evident. Although the Chief of the Coast Artillery joined with the Chief Signal Officer in a rclame the War Department did not waver from its previous position. It refused to provide the Signal Corps any additional funds. Despite a lack of funds, however, the development of pulse radar, as a high priority project, began at the Signal Corps Laboratories on May 15, 1936. Using a design developed by Hershberger, the Laboratories began work on a pulse transmitter that
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would operate in the neighborhood of 100 megacycles per second. This project marked the first time that Hershberger had been able to get Blair to depart from his insistence that microwaves were the only solution to the radio detection problem. By the end of June, Hershberger, with the assistance of Robert H. Noyes who had been transferred from the Aircraft Laboratories at Wright Field, had built a 75-watt pulse transmitter, and had firmed up the complete system design for a 100 Mc/sec radar system. In Washington, in the spring of 1936, General Allison again requested funds from the War Department for the radar project and again he was refused. By this time, Allison had come to realize that further pleas for money would fall on deaf ears until he had something tangible to demonstrate to the War Department General Staff. Accordingly, he took the only step available to him and diverted $75,741 of fiscal year 1937 money to the radar project. The sum became available to Blair in November 1936. It was the first allocation of funds of any significance. Allison enjoined Blair to have something to show by the end of fiscal year 1937. Allison wanted to try again at that time to get funds for the radio detection project from the War Department and thus be able to stop robbing important communications projects of direly needed funds. Blair established his target date for a major demonstration of pulse equipment as June 1, 1937. Colton Plans Demonstration In August 1936, a new face arrived on the Fort Monmouth scene. Lieutenant Colonel Roger B. Colton was transferred from the Office of the Chief Signal Officer to the Signal Corps Laboratories at Fort Monmouth and was assigned as Executive Officer to Blair. Colton was conscious of General Allisons desire to have demonstrable equipment available by the end of the fiscal year. Shortly after his arrival at Fort Monmouth he began to make his influence felt. Primarily as a result of Coltons urging and dynamic leadership, work progressed to the point that a demonstration was possible by the end of 1936. On December 14th the equipment was moved to a point near Princeton Junction, New Jersey, on a busy air lane for operational tests. The equipment worked successfully, and the tests were repeated with equally good results the following day. By the spring of 1937 there was sufficient progress to warrant staging a demonstration, and one was scheduled for the Secretary of War in May. To assure that everything was ready for the showing to the Secretary of War, General Allison scheduled a preliminary demonstration on May 1819, 1937. He invited the Chief of the Coast Artillery, the Assistant Chief of the Air Corps, and representatives of the Ordnance Corps and the Corps of Engineers.
This demonstration, ten years after Blairs original proposal, apparently marks the first time that the Army Air Corps was brought into the radar picture. The demonstration was moderately successful. Allison felt safe, therefore, in going ahead with the demonstration for the Secretary of War that was scheduled for the following week. An interesting feature of these demonstrations was the reliance still placed on infra-red detection despite Blairs lack of faith in it and the Coast Artillery Boards rejection of it. According to the test plan, the radar apparatus, with its greater range and searching ability, would be used to pick up target planes. When the aircraft came within antiaircraft artillery range, however, the detection work would be turned over to an infra-red detector because of its greater directional accuracy at close range. Colton states that everyone concerned with the test was hedging. They did not want to give up infra-red detection completely until radar had been proved feasible. During the first test the weather was bad and the infra-red equipment worked poorly. Only four of the passes by the target plane were detected, and these by the radar alone. Army Air Corps Shows Interest After the first demonstration, the Army Air Corps became vitally interested in the new radio detection project. Up to this time, the Signal Corps Laboratories had been working entirely to obtain firing data for the Coast Artillerys antiaircraft artillery batteries. They had not concerned themselves with the early warning needs of the Air Corps. At dinner the evening after the first days demonstration, General H. H. Hap Arnold, the Air Corps representative, asked if the Signal Corps could give him at least 50 miles so that he could have time to get his pursuit planes in the air. Allison and Blair assured him that such a development was rather simple and could be accomplished within 3 years after the establishment of the necessary military characteristics. Arnold agreed to see that the MCs were provided immediately. They were received by the Signal Corps within a few weeks. Thus, a new customer entered the picture. The second demonstration, on May 26, 1937, was a historic occasion. It brought to an end the initial phase of the Armys radar program and resulted in an allocation of fundsan accomplishment which
Blair and General Saltzman had attempted 9 years earlier, and which succeeding Chief Signal Officers had been seeking ever since. Present for the occasion were the Secretary of War, the Honorable Harry H. Woodring; the Chief of Staff, General Malin Craig; and other dignitaries, including members of the Military Affairs Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives. For the crucial night demonstration of the future SCR-268 radar, a B-10 bomber, with lights turned off, attempted a sneak raid over Fort Monmoutha simulated battle situation of antiaircraft guns against a bomber. About twenty minutes after the test began, radar picked up a target at a height of 10,000 feet and a range of 6 miles. Almost immediately, the radar controlled pilot searchlight pierced the sky, and there at the end of a pencil beam of light, looking somewhat like an iridescent fly, was the target plane. One by one, the other lights moved over to aid in the track, and the plane was escorted over the distinguished guests, a perfect target for antiaircraft fire. The visitors were impressed, and the Signal Corps was delighted. Several more runs were made, and all were successfully detected. The Secretary of War later wrote to the Chief Signal Officer on June 2, 1937 about his pleasure with the results of the tests and stated: It gave tangible evidence of the amazing scientific advances made by the Signal Corps in the development of technical equipment. General Malin Craig, the Army Chief of Staff, was standing beside General Allison during the test. He turned to Allison and said Jimmy, I would never have believed this possible if I hadnt seen it with my own eyes. I want you to get these experiments away from here (The tests were conducted on Route 35 near Red Bank, New Jersey) because they are in too public a place. I also want you to begin production at once. Blair, who was standing with the two generals, immediately interposed an objection. He stated that there were one or two improvements he had to make first, but Craig stopped him to say, Its good enough for me right now. Allison then directed Blair to begin drawing up the necessary plans, including the modifications he wished to make, to get the equipment into production at once. Radar at last had received recognition at the top level of the Army and funds quickly followed. The rest of the story has many interesting features. Many problems had to be solved, but the last major obstacle had been overcome. Radar had arrived.

[The bibliography that accompanied these articles will be found on the next page.]
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BIBLIOGRAPHY [1] [2] [3] [4] Blair, Colonel William R. (USA Ret). Interview with author, 6 Dec. 1960. Colton, Major General Roger B. (USA Ret). Personal interview with the author, 5 Dec. 1960. Guerlac, Henry E. Radar. Unpublished manuscript, 1945. Marconi, Senatore Guglielmo. Radio Telegraphy. Proceedings of the I.R.E., Vol. X, No. 4, 1922. Mouromtseff, I. E. A Quarter Century of Electronics. Electrical Engineering, Vol. LXVI, No. 2, Feb. 1947. Page, Dr. Robert M. Interview with the author, 5 Dec. 1960. Reinartz, John L. The Reflection of Short Waves. QST, Apr. 1925. Taylor, Dr. A. Hoyt. The First 25 Years of the Naval Research Laboratory. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of the Navy, 1949. Taylor, Dr. A. Hoyt. The Navys Work on Short Waves. QST, May 1924. Taylor, A. H., and E. O. Hulburt. The Propagation of Radio Waves. Physical Review, Vol. 27, 1926. [11] Terrett, Dulany. The Signal Corps: The Emergency. Washingon: Dept. of the Army, 1956. Zahl, Dr. Harold A. Interview with the author, 12 Sep. 1960. Zahl, Dr. Harold A. From an Early Radar Diary. Coast Artillery Journal, XCI, No. 2, Mar.Apr. 1918. Zahl, Dr. Harold A. One Century of Research. Unpublished manuscript, 1960. U.S. Dept. of the Navy. Bureau of Engineering. Problem Specification: Problem No. B1-1, 25 Nov. 1930: Problem No. W5-52. 21 Jan. 1931. U.S. Dept. of the Navy. 1st Endorsement to Memorandum to Secretary of Navy Knox. 27 Jun. 1931. U.S. Dept. of the Navy. Memorandum from the Secretary of the Navy to the Secretary of War, Subject: Radio-Use of Echo Signals to Detect Moving Objects. 9 Jan. 1932.
[12] [13]
[14]
[5]
[15]
[6] [7] [8]
[16]
[17]
[9] [10]
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Radar: A Case History of an Invention

(The Evolution of an Innovation)
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Preface
When I set out in 1960 to write a paper for a Research Seminar in Technological Innovation at the Harvard Business School, I discussed several topics with Professor J. R. Bright, the seminar director. It was decided that I would examine a single important contribution of military research and development to see what happened, why it happened, the sources of resistance, the things that slowed it down, the actions taken by the innovators to overcome or circumvent the major obstacles and roadblocks, why it was turned down at first, what arguments were used for it in the original proposals to place it into development, and, likewise, what arguments were used against it by its opponents. By a happy circumstance, Professor Bright suggested the story of radar as one of the most interesting accomplishments of military science. This is the subsequent result of the research performed in 1960. It attempts to delineate and evaluate the many complex factors and problems affecting the development of radar. It also tries to show that a successful innovation often travels a rocky road, and that the course of its wanderings is affected by the contributions of many men whose talents and personalities are kaleidoscopic and whose idiosyncrasies are sometimes strange and inexplicable. In the search for source material, I was assisted and encouraged by many persons without whose help this work would not have been possible. To them I express my heartfelt thanks and appreciation. Major General Earle F. Cook, then Deputy Chief Signal Officer and later Chief Signal Officer of the Army, counseled and encouraged me in the early days of my research. He suggested the names of people whom I should contact and generously took time from his busy schedule to contact people for me and to send me interesting material whenever he ran into it.
Both General Cook and Rear Admiral Rawson Bennett, Chief of Naval Research of the United States Navy, made available to me the assistance of their respective staffs, plus the facilities of the Signal Corps Laboratories and the Naval Research Laboratory. Their help was certainly the sine qua non of my entire effort. I was most fortunate that the innovation about which I chose to write was sufficiently recent that most of the key contributors were still alive and willing to talk with me. For sharing with me their wisdom and experience, I am deeply indebted to Major General Roger B. Colton, (U.S. Army, retired); the late Colonel William R. Blair, (U.S. Army, retired); Dr. Robert M. Page, Director of Research of the Naval Research Laboratory; Dr. Harold M. Zahl, Director of the United States Army Signal Laboratories; and Sir Robert Watson-Watt of the Sterling Forest International Research Center. There were many others who gave me a helping hand to whom a word of thanks is in order: Brigadier General H. McD. Brown, then Commanding Officer of the U.S. Army Signal Research and Development Laboratory; Dr. Edward K. Kaprelian, Deputy Director of Research at the same institution; and Dr. George R. Thompson, Chief Historian of the U.S. Army Signal Corps who permitted me unrestricted use of of the wealth of material in his files. I must also express my appreciation to Brigadier General A. W. Betts, U.S. Air Force, then Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency; R. S. Greenbaum, Deputy Technical Information Director, Office of Naval Research; Melvin S. Day, Deputy Director, Office of Technical Information and Space Agency; Mel White, Director of Information, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Air Research and Development Command; and Colonel Jackson E.
1
Shirley, Chief of Technical Liaison, Office of the Chief of Research and Development, Department of the Army. A special word of appreciation is also due to the Librarians of the Hayden and Engineering Libraries of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose stacks proved to be veritable treasure houses of scientific history, and whose facilities were made available to me for my research. In addition, I must make special mention of the brilliant and comprehensive story of radar that is contained in the unpublished manuscript of Dr. Henry E. Guerlac, from which I was able to fill in many of the missing pieces of the radar narrative that I could not find elsewhere. I could not complete my list of contributors to this volume without expressing my thanks to my former colleagues on the Executive Staff of the Chief Signal Officer who permitted me unlimited use of their office facilities on my trips to Washington, suggested sources of information and people to contact, and willingly supplied me with data upon receipt of my sometimes frantic requests. Without the support of Colonel William Shepard, Mr. Harold Silverstein, Mr.
John Perniece, and the two extremely competent female members of the Executive Staff, Mrs. Frances Ellis and Mrs. Nellie Tiller, my research task would have been much more difficult. Finally, this story of radar and my attempt to write it would have gone for naught if it had not been for the understanding, encouragement, and prodigious typing support of my wife, Marsha. Hers was the greatest contribution, and for her help and assistance and her valuable literary criticism, I am lovingly appreciative. The lessons to be learned from the case history of a revolutionary and complex innovation like radar are many. If from these pages, a few of them can emerge sufficiently clear to be understandable to the readers of this, I shall feel amply rewarded for my efforts in writing it.
JOHN B. McKINNEY Lieutenant Colonel United States Army January 1961
Chapter I
Introduction
On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, at Opana Station, a remote location on the east coast of Oahu, two Signal Corps privates were waiting for the chow truck to take them to breakfast. The truck was late. Since George Elliott was newly assigned and needed additional instruction, Joseph Lockhard, an experienced operator, decided to keep the radar station on the air until the truck arrived. Just two minutes after the normal closing time, at precisely 7:02 AM, a strong echo appeared on the radar scope when the antenna was pointing North. The signal fluctuations gave every indication that a large flight of planes was approaching Oahu from a distance of 136 miles. Lockhards first reaction was to check the equipment to be sure that it was operating properly. He was a bit skeptical about the incoming flight and thought that the signal might be spurious. When the radar showed that the planes had moved five miles closer to the island, he was convinced that the signal was authentic and telephoned the information center to report his findings. At 7:02 on almost any peacetime Sunday morning, a pre-war information center was unlikely to have many people on duty and this particular Sunday was no exception. The only personnel present were an enlisted telephone operator and an Army Air Corps officer who was there for training. The Air Corps officer had been informed that a flight of B-17 bombers was expected from the mainland that same morning and he assumed that the planes on Lockhards radar scope belonged to the B-17 flight. He advised Lockhard accordingly and told him to forget it. Thus, an advance warning of 53 minutes went for naught and at 7:55 AM Hickam Field was hit by the first bomb of the disastrous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The story of human failurethe failure to develop a workable operational system to capitalize on the capabilities of a new and startling technological innovation and the failure to be vigilant when the deterioration of the Worlds political structure demanded vigilanceis a heart-rending one. How ironic it is that the half-century of scientific advancement that went into the development of radar could be negated by a single intellectual
lapse. Nevertheless, that is what happened. Pearl Harbor was preventable, but it was not prevented. Fortunately for the United States and the free world, the same technological innovation, when faced with a similar opportunity on the other side of the Atlantic, encountered a happier fate. A little less than a year and a half before Pearl Harbor, on July 16, 1940, Adolph Hitler issued War Directive No. 16. This was the order for the invasion of England and it was entitled Operation Sea-Lion. The directive was the prelude to one of the most fateful ordeals in British historythe Battle of Britain. The heartbreaking but successful evacuation of Dunkirk had occurred only a short time before, and the time had now come for the German war machine to administer the final blow. Pending the redeployment of the German Air Force, which was completed on July 24th, the air battle began with German attacks on shipping off the eastern and southeastern coasts of England. The bombers used in these attacks were merely decoys. The Germans hoped that the British fighters would come to the rescue of the coastal ships and permit the Luftwaffe, with its superior strength in combat planes, to destroy the British Air Force by attrition. By August 12th, the Luftwaffe had shot down 148 English fighters and had sunk 22 small ships. The cost was 296 of their own aircraft destroyed and 135 badly damaged. August 15th saw the beginning of a stepped up offensive against the Royal Air Force and a general probing of the islands defenses. One German formation heading for the Firth of Forth was met 30 miles out to sea by the RAF, and it suffered heavy losses24 bombers and one fighter. The RAFs losses were zero. In five major and many more minor assaults during that day, the Luftwaffe threw 1,800 aircraft against Britain. Its losses were 76 planes to the RAFs 24, but the Luftwaffe was unable to find any gaps in the British air defense. Since air superiority was essential to Hitlers plans for the invasion of Britain, the failure of the Luftwaffe to annihilate the Royal Air Force was a major German setback. New tactics were required and, underestimating the determination of the British lion,
3
Hitler decided to bomb the English cities in the hope that the English people would lose their will to resist. On September 7th, the oil tanks of Thameshaven were hit and the resulting fires provided a beacon which the Germans opportunely used for a concentrated eight hour night bombing attack on London and its suburbs. The loss of only 38 planes to the RAFs 28 encouraged more attacks. On the 8th and 9th, the Luftwaffe came again and again, only to be driven back. The fateful day for England, and perhaps for the whole free world, came on Sunday, September 15th. Time was running out for Operation Sea-Lion. Because of the imminent onset of winter, the invasion had to be undertaken soon or be postponed until the following year. The Luftwaffe had to make a decisive showing immediately. On that sabbath morning of the 15th, Goering decided to make his greatest assault, but he overdid his preparations by taking special pains to organize his planes into tight and well-massed formations. The added time required for this maneuver gave the British air defense an opportunity to organize large fighter formations and to call in reinforcements from other parts of the island. The Luftwaffe never got past the Royal Air Force and, leaving behind in flames 56 of their planes, they returned to the continent in defeat. Two days later, on September 17, 1940, Operation Sea-Lion was postponed indefinitely. On October 12th, Hitler called it off until the following spring. As history so vividly records, it was never seriously considered again. 1 The new and mysterious weapon which provided the unheeded warning at Pearl Harbor and also gave the Royal Air Force the eyes to seek out and destroy the German formations before they were able to drop their bombs accurately is called radar. It became the miracle weapon of World War II. Its possession by the Allies undoubtedly shortened the war and made victory possible at a much lower cost in lives and material. Indeed, without it, victory may have eluded them for many more yearsperhaps forever. Winston Churchill in referring to the scientists and the science which developed radar stated that If we had not mastered its profound meaning and used its mysteries even while we saw them only in the glimpse, all the efforts, all the prowess of the fighting airmen, all the bravery and sacrifices of the people would have been in vain. Unless British science had proved superior to German, and unless its strange sinister resources had been effectively brought to bear on the struggle for survival, we might well have been defeated, and being defeated, destroyed.2
Notes
He then added that the stations of the coastal radar chain ...were the watchdogs of the air-raid warning service; they spared us alike grave losses in war production and intolerable burdens on our civil defense workers. They spared the anti-aircraft crews needless and tiring hours at action stations. They saved us from the exhaustion of men and machine that would have doomed our matchless but slender fighter force had it been compelled to maintain standing patrols.3 Radar, perhaps more than any other weapon forged in the crucible of World War II, made a major contribution to the preservation of freedom. How did radar come into being? What circumstances caused this innovation to emerge from the genius of man just at the right time in history to save the world from tyranny? What were the triumphs, the momentary defeats, the breakthroughs, the obstacles, the moments of hope, the periods of despair, experienced by the scientists from whose fertile brains radar evolved? These are the questions to be covered in this work. This is the story of one of the major technological innovations of our lifetime. Most technological innovations have been developed openly by civilians to meet the needs of a civilized society, but in the past thirty years a new type of technological development has arisen. This modern military technology, accompanying the increasing frequency of marriage between science and warfare, is developed largely in secret, financed by governments and under government control, and intended, not for civilized needs, but for the needs of the armed forces seeking the keys to victory in war. Radar exemplifies this new technology. It is complex, it was invented by no one man but evolved over the years at the hands of many men. It sprang from the accumulation of a half-century of scientific knowledge, contributed by many physicists, chemists, meteorologists, professional inventors, dedicated professors, and enthusiastic amateurs in all parts of the world. Until the 1930s, this information was exchanged freely, but thereafter when the significance of radar as a military weapon was recognized by the political and military leaders of the world, the secrecy lid was clamped tight. A vitally important race to develop radar was triggered and, by 1939, closely guarded secret programs were underway in England, France, Germany, Canada, and the United States. In the United States, both the Army and the Navy developed radarwith only infrequent exchange of discoveries and achievements. That the victors wreath in the grim race between Axis airpower and Allied Air Defense went to the Allies was indeed a fortunate circumstance.
are at the end of this chapter on page 5.
Such a striking instance of parallel and independent discovery raises a number of fundamental historical questions. It is only natural that we should be curious, when such a real burgeoning takes place, as to the conditions that favored it and the factors that enabled it to appear on the scene at that particular moment in history. As a framework for subsequent discussion, we might pose several hypotheses and take a look at them as we develop the story. First of all, when a serious effort is put behind a development, as it was in the case of radar, it is evident that the development satisfied a clear and urgent need. Second, the resistance to the earliest proposals to develop radar might have been attributable to peoples doubts as to its feasibility, rather than their failure to recognize a need. Third, some key principles or pure ideas in science must have been the point of departure for the innovators. Fourth, if success is finally attained, the state of the art, that is the perfection of engineering skills in this and neighboring fields, must have reached a point where success is fairly well assured. Fifth, breakthroughs in the state of the art are not inflexible as to the timing of their appearance, but
will arrive earlier or later, depending on the magnitude of the effort devoted to their achievement. Sixth, the role of the zealot is an important ingredient in most successful innovations.4 One of the most interesting facets of the parallel development of radar by research groups in several countries is the common thread that ties their efforts togetherionospheric and meteorological research. Many of the key contributors to the success of radar were meteorologists before beginning their work on radar. Sir Robert Watson-Watt, who is often called the Father of Radar and was indeed its father in England, attributes his first radar concepts to the work of the scientists who pioneered in exploring the ionosphere in the mid-1920s: Appleton and Barnett in England, and Breit and Tuve in the United States. Sir Robert stated that Without Breit and Tuve and that bloodstream of international science, open publication, I might not have been privileged to becomeyes, I say it without apology or circumlocutionthe Father of Radar.5

NOTES TO CHAPTER I [1] [2] Watson-Watt, Sir Robert, The Pulse of Radar, (New York: The Dial Press, 1959), pp. 183195. Churchill, Sir Winston S., Their Finest Hour, (Volume 2 of The Second World War), (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1949), pp. 381382. Churchill, Sir Winston S., The Grand Alliance, (Volume 3 of The Second World War), (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1949), pp. 4546. Guerlac, Henry E., Radar, p. 39. Unpublished manuscript which Dr. Guerlac wrote while employed during World War II as historian of the Radar Division, Division 14 of the National Defense Research Committee, later the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) and its Radiation Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A copy of this manuscript is among the Records of the Committee on Publications, OSRD, Records Group 227, Trays 411011, National Archives. Watson-Watt, Sir Robert, Three Steps to Victory, (London: Odhams Press, 1957), p. 92.
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RADAR: A CASE HISTORY OF AN INOVATIONCHAPTER I
Chapter II
The Fathers of Radar
Radar, like many innovations, had a multi-faceted parenthood. It was not the product of a single brain, nor did its appearance on the technical scene reflect the brilliant inspiration of one man or a single group of men. It was not even the triumph of a single country, because it was developed simultaneously, albeit secretly, in several countries. Nevertheless, in each of these countries, there were one or more dedicated and persevering innovators whose contributions to the success of radar overshadowed the efforts of all others. These men, these too often unsung heroes of World War II, were the fathers of radar. Although both Germany and Japan had their scientists and their radar projects, the most brilliant successes were achieved in the United Kingdom and the United States. It is the story of the English and American fathers of radar which will be unfolded here. Sir Robert Watson-Watt Sir Robert Watson-Watt, a distant relative of another famous innovator, James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, was a Scotsman, born in the ancient cathedral city of Brechin, in the County of Angus. He was educated at University College, Dundee, a part of the University of St. Andrews. Watson-Watt graduated with special distinction in electrical engineering and, after a brief stint as assistant to the professor of natural history, he accepted a wartime invitation in 1915 to join the Meteorological Office in London. His first job was to work on the possibility of giving thunderstorm warnings to the aviators of the infant Royal Flying Corps which soon became the Royal Air Force. This thunderstorm project became inextricably interwoven with the pattern of Watson-Watts life, and remained so for the next two decades. His task was to aid in the unraveling of the story of radio atmospherics or static. His career as a meteorologist was almost terminated prematurely when the war ended before the full realization was achieved that scientific meteorology was an essential part of military aviation. Fortunately for Watson-Watt, for England, and for the free world, the new Radio Research Board
formed a committee on Atmospherics and made Watson-Watt a member. 1 Watson-Watt, if a man of his many talents and complex personality can be categorized at all, was an applied scientist. He describes himself with rather remarkable clarity in his autobiography, The Pulse of Radar, as having ...struggled to hold a middle path between fundamental research of a university kind, which I prefer to admire and respect from without rather than from within, and engineering development or ad hoc instrument design, which I was glad to be instructed to leave to others... I had chosen a middle path between fundamental research and technological practice; the middle way was the utilization of the principles methods, techniques, and products of fundamental research in a series of scientific investigations, basic to one or another of a wide variety of technological industries.2 With no trace of shame, but with a quite substantial measure of sinful pride, Watson-Watt declares the overall pattern of his Cult of the imperfectgive them the third best to go on with, the second best comes too late, the best never comes.3 To this code, he added yet another maxim: The summit of human wisdom is to know the exact shade of grey to wear on a particular occasion.4 Throughout his development of radar can be seen evidence that Watson-Watts middle-of-the-road view of himself is an accurate one. He was ever willing to make a needed compromise between the desirable and the possible, between the theoretical and the practical. Dr. A. Hoyt Taylor On the American side of the Atlantic, there were other Fathers of Radar. Among these must certainly be included the brilliant Dr. A. Hoyt Taylor, a product of Americas mid-west, who spent over thirty years developing radio and radar equipment
Notes
of all types for the United States Navy. Hoyt Taylor, like Watson-Watt, started his professional career in the cloistered environment of a university, but his association with the academic life lasted much longer. Upon graduation from Northwestern in 1900, with a degree in physics, he taught at Michigan State College for three years and at the University of Wisconsin for another five years. In 1908, he again returned to the students side of university life and journeyed to Germany; here he received his Ph.D. at Gottingen the following year. The next eight years were spent teaching at the University of North Dakota. While at North Dakota, Dr. Taylor developed a great interest in the newly developing science of radio and became one of the nations first and best known amateur radio operators, or hams as they are usually known, through his work with station 9YN. When World War I burst upon the international scene, the U.S. Navy granted him a Lieutenants commission and made him District Communications Superintendent at the Great Lakes Station. Probably unrecognized by both Taylor and the Navy at the time, this was a fateful decision for the future of naval radio research. While at the Great Lakes Station, and entirely on his own initiative, Hoyt Taylor set up a small radio research group to deal principally with low frequency problems. The core of this group was to remain together for over a quarter-century and its contributions over the years were among the brightest on the radio horizon. Before going on with Dr. Taylors story, a brief look at the other members of Taylors team is in order. Louis Gebhard had been an employee of the Marconi Wireless Company for the previous four years. Leo Young was in the tradition of the resourceful, inventive, gadget-minded small-town boy with no education beyond high school, but with a great and consuming passion for radio. After five years as a telegraph operator for the Pennsylvania Railroad, he found himself working for Dr. Taylor at Great Lakes. A third team member, Robert M. Page, was not part of the original Great Lakes group, but he should be identified at this point because Taylor credits him with having contributed more significant inventions to radar than any other man. Page joined up with Taylor in June 1927 immediately after his graduation from Hamline University. He has been with the Naval Research Laboratory ever since. The war years for Taylor were years of travel. The Navy moved him from Great Lakes to Delmar, New Jersey; Hampton Roads; and finally to Washington D.C. Late in the fall of 1918, Taylor established his group in three wooden barracks at the Naval Air Station at Anacostia, where they remained until the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) was established in 1923.5 When NRL came into being Taylor was named Superintendent of the Radio Division. Three
8
previously separate activities, the Radio Test Shop, the Naval Research Laboratory, and the Aircraft Radio Laboratory were merged under his direction. During the next quarter century Taylor became associated with a wide variety of scientific explorations, but the one unique experience that he shared with the other early developers of radar was his work, in cooperation with Breit and Tuve, on ionospheric research. Their combined efforts to measure the height of the ionosphere marked one of the earliest uses of the radio-pulse technique, which became one of the most important radar techniques as well.6 Although Taylor shared with Watson-Watt an interest in the ionosphere, a university background, a wartime call to government service, and a conservative family heritage, they also had some important differences. Watson-Watt attacked a problem with greater singleness of purpose. He directed all his energies toward one project at a time. He was impatient to achieve success as early as possible. His early disenchantment with university life was reflected in his constant willingness to sacrifice the desirable for the attainable. In Britains five year race with destiny the country was indeed fortunate to have had Watson-Watts brilliance, impatience, and somewhat arrogant self-confidence. Taylor, on the other hand, typified his seventeen years of university life. He had a burning intellectual curiosity about many things. His broader responsibilities, both administrative and technical, precluded his becoming quite the zealot that Watson-Watt became. Although his experiments with radar antedated Watson-Watts by more than a decade he was not faced with the same degree of urgency. The survival of the nation was not hanging on his success or failure. Consequently, he was more deliberate in his approach to problems, but just as determined nonetheless. One could predict that if the same challenge had been given him in 1934, as was given Watson-Watt, he too would have succeeded. Colonel William R. Blair The United States Army Signal Corps also had its Father of Radar. Perhaps, more appropriately, the term should be plural, because there are many supporters of both Colonel William R. Blair and Lieutenant Colonel (later Major General) Roger B. Colton for the title. The services of both were interwoven throughout the early pattern of the Signal Corps radar development. Colton gave the project a good kick in the seat of the pants when it was needed while Blair had been the early pioneer. Blair was the first person in the Army to recommend the use of radar as a defensive weapon. He possessed both the courage and the determination to establish a radar project at the laboratory without the approval of his superiors. He also had the technical genius
to visualize the best theoretical combination of components and techniques to accomplish the job. Unfortunately, he attempted to develop radar in the microwave frequency band before a satisfactory high-power microwave oscillator had been invented. Nevertheless, his was the scientific approach that eventually made radar the scientific marvel of World War II, despite the fact that his idea was delayed by running headlong into an impenetrable state of the art roadblock at first. After several years of trying to overpower that roadblockyears of frustration and disappointmentthe Signal Corps eventually had to take a detour and use longer waves. It was Colton who pointed the way to the detour and turned the path of research into a theoretically less desirable but more attainable channel. Blairs inventive genius was officially recognized August 20, 1957, the day on which he was granted the basic United States Patent for radar, after a Patent Office examination of the case which lasted more than twelve years.7 Blair was thoroughly trained in radiation physics, and he had taken his Ph.D. in the study of 20 centimeter waves at the University of Chicago in 1906. At Chicago he studied under Michelson and Milliken. There were interesting parallels between Blair, Watson-Watt, and Hoyt Taylor. Blair, like Taylor, entered government service in 1917. He was given a commission in the United States Army Signal Corps at the request of his former professor, Dr. Robert Milliken, who had been placed in charge of the Signal Corps Meteorological Service, and had been sent to France to take charge of the Meteorological Service for the AEF. Blair, like Watson-Watt, prior to embarking upon a military career, had been a meteorologist and had worked for the United States Weather Bureau. After World War I, he worked on the applications of radio to meteorology and, in the 1920s, importantly assisted in the development of the radio sonde.8 Following a year at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and a year of duty in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, Blair assumed command of the Signal Corps Laboratories in 1930. It was while he was in charge of the Laboratories that he initiated the Signal Corps first radar project and guided the Signal Corps efforts in this field through the early 1930s. Blair had no great singleness of purpose toward the development of radar. He had his own theoretical concept of how it should work and he assigned someone to develop his ideas. His great interest, however, was to develop an effective research organization within the Signal Corps. He believed that the Signal Corps should stop its practice of giving out contracts for the design of separate piecesan antenna, a telephone, or a power generator, for exampleand should think in terms of whole assemblies, such as a field telephone system or a
RADAR: A CASE HISTORY OF AN INOVATIONCHAPTER II
complete radio set. It was his conviction that the Signal Corps Laboratory could best pursue such a policy of system design and standardization, keeping in close touch with the universities and commercial laboratories, and purchasing commercial samples for study, but avoiding contracting for the central research work.9 Blairs consuming interest in research as an end in itself may account for his somewhat dead-end pursuit of his microwave project, in spite of the existence of an insurmountable state of the art obstaclethe lack of an adequate high-power microwave oscillator. From a theoretical standpoint he knew that he was right, but from a practical standpoint he may have actually delayed the Armys development of radar. He may not have been as determined to develop a workable radar as he was to develop the best possible radar. The contrast between his approach and Watson-Watts Cult of the Imperfect could not be more striking. As one of his contemporaries described him, he was a sweet but slow moving character whose real achievement is that he did inject real research into the Signal Corps Laboratories.10 In the long run, however, his theoretical analysis of how best to develop radar proved to be correct and his was a major contribution. In 1937, his health began to fail and in October of the following year he retired from the military service. Lieutenant Colonel Roger B. Colton Blair was succeeded as Commander of the Signal Corps Laboratories by Lieutenant Colonel Roger B. Colton who had been his executive officer for two years. Colton is the second and perhaps most widely recognized candidate for the title of Father of Radar in the United States Army. He was a graduate of Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Like Blair, he had previously had tours of duty with the Signal Corps Laboratories and in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer. The similarity with Blair stops at this point, however, because Colton had the drive, the singleness of purpose, the willingness to substitute the attainable for the theoretical, and the impatience to succeed, of a Watson-Watt. Colton had a way of reducing complicated theories to their least common denominator. A good example of this are his rules of thumb published in a 1935 Signal Corps Bulletin: (1) Frequencies below 100 kc...require extensive and expensive antenna systems (2) Frequencies between 100 and 1,500 kc are generally useful... (3) Frequencies between 1,500 and 2,500 kc are especially good for vehicles, small boats, and airplanes, and for short and medium distances,
9
but in airplanes it is generally preferable to use frequencies from 5,000 to 6,000 kc;... (4) ... (5) Frequencies above 30,000 kc are for very short distances (6) Frequencies above 300 mc (300,000 kc) behave very much like light and are hard as yet to produce efficiently.11 Instead of pursuing the theoretically best microwave radar, he pushed the development of sets which could be built within the state of the art, at lower frequencies. At the same time, however, he identified the bottleneck in microwave developmenttube technologyand decided to do something about it. Following his motto, Learn to walk before you run, he developed a plan for research and development into higher frequencies by the development of vacuum tubes and circuits in progressive stepsup 100 mc, 200 mc, 400 mc, 600 mc, and 1,200 mc. He foresaw that antiaircraft guns would go to much greater bores than three inches, at a time when the prophecy that the Army would have 90 millimeter guns seemed fantastic. Furthermore he recognized that the precision that would be required to provide them with effective target information made extremely important a breakthrough in the microwave radar field.12 One of Coltons greatest assets was his willingness to stand up for his ideas against all opposition, regardless of the rank or position of his opponent. He was also not above a little intrigue and deception, if he felt that such was needed to win his point or get money for his projects. The descriptions of Colton by his contemporaries almost unanimously express admiration for his leadership ability and they emphasize his overwhelming determination to succeed. Some of the typical comments are as follows: Coltons inspired leadership seemed to convert normal engineers and physicists temporarily into composites of Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein.13 He lacked tact but was far ahead of his time.14 Colton always realized that the Signal Corps pre-war 5-and-10 cent store thinking was wrong and knew that he must get the Signal Corps away from its conservative attitude. Colton had the right idea about what it takes for modern research and development and dared to stand up with his ideas.15 Great credit is due Colonel Colton for he pushed the development of radar virtually alone....It was his fixed purpose to develop a radar instrument that would work, then standardize upon it.16 An impression of mild intrigue which Colton would resort to when necessary comes from his own
words: I had to use tricks, too. I was once told by the Chief Signal Officer not to send any Signal Corps engineers to board meetings of the several armsthen was told six weeks later to try everything to meet the desires of the arms. In this case, I followed the second order and disregarded the first. I would do nothing without an order but, if one officer of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer gave me an order I thought wrong, I would get another officer to give me an instruction that would enable me to get around the initial faulty instruction.17 To Blair belongs the credit for being the first United States Army officer to recognize the importance of radar; for developing a theory which, although ahead of its time, was sound; and for initiating the first radar project. To Colton belongs the credit for lifting the project from the doldrums; for giving it a new breath of life; and providing the tremendous surge of energy, enthusiasm, initiative, and determination which enabled the SCR 270 radar set to be on duty, guarding the shores of Oahu on the fateful morning of December 7, 1941. That its warning went unheeded and a great national tragedy occurred only emphasizes all the more the importance of the technical triumph of Blair, Colton, and the many important contributors with whom they worked. A Contrast Although the research of the British Air Ministrys Bawdsey Laboratory, the Naval Research Laboratory, and the Signal Corps Laboratories was parallel, there were some noteworthy differences among them. The Naval Research Laboratory was set up as a research laboratory, specified and supported by Congress in the name of research. It could range farther within the imaginations of its scientists than was possible in the Signal Corps. Experimentation at Fort Monmouth had to be directed toward an immediate application, toward developing a specific and practical piece of equipment. For large research, although much of the Armys early work on radar constituted an exception, the continuing policy was always to turn to commercial firms to get it accomplished by contract.18 Watson-Watts Bawdsey Manor operation, on the other hand, was more of a special project than a laboratory, although a laboratory environment and attitude persisted. Its one and only purpose was to develop radar. Nothing interfered with this mission. By contrast, both NRL and the Signal Corps Laboratories were conducting research on projects in the first half of the 193040 decade that were considered more important than radar and were given higher priority. Watson-Watt started his radar development with an appropriation of 10,000,
10
a recognized need, and, after his first successful demonstration of the phenomenon, full support of his government. On the other hand, during the early stages of their radar projects, the Army and Navy researchers in the United States had none of these things. Despite the many differences in method,
the personalities of the principal motivators, the conflicting philosophies of the laboratories, and a wide discrepancy among the projects starting dates, Bawdsey, NRL, and the Signal Corps Laboratories completed successful service test radar models within a few months of each other.

NOTES TO CHAPTER II [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Watson-Watt, The Pulse of Radar, op.cit., pp. 1338. Ibid, p. 44. Ibid, p. 46. Ibid, p. 48. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 9698. Taylor, Dr. A. Hoyt, The First 25 Years of the Naval Research Laboratory, (Washington: Navy Department, 1949), pp. 1213. Interview with Dr. Harold A. Zahl, September 12, 1960. Dr. Zahl is Director of Research of the U.S. Army Signal Research and Development Laboratory, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Thompson, Dr. George Raynor, Presentation to meeting of the Washington History of Science Club, February 27, 1958. Dr. Thompson at the time of the lecture was Chief of the U.S. Army Signal Corps Historical Division. Terrett, Dulaney, The Signal Corps: The Emergency, (Washington: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1956), pp. 8990. Interview with O. M. Brymer, Government Sales Representative of the Western Electric Corporation, 15 February 1950, on file in Signal Corps Historical Office. Colton, Major Roger B., Radio Energy Radiation and Propagation, (Signal Corps Bulletin No. 86, September-October 1935), pp. 1825. Interview with Colonel Albert F. Cassevant, 10 February 1950, on file in Signal Corps Historical Office, p. 4. Vieweger, Arthur L. and White, Albert S., Development of Radar SCR-270, (Article published separately by the U.S. Army Signal Corps Research and Development Laboratory, 1060), p. 1. Interview with Cassevant, op.cit., p. 4. Interview with Brymer, op.cit., p. 6. Woodbury, David O., Battlefronts of IndustryWestinghouse in World War II, pp. 92110. Interview with Major General Roger B. Colton, 14 February, 1950, on file in Signal Corps Historical Office. Terrett, op.cit., pp. 4344.
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12] [13]
[14] [15] [16] [17] [18]
RADAR: A CASE HISTORY OF AN INOVATIONCHAPTER II
11
12
Chapter III
What is Radar?
Radar is a device which detects invisible or distant objects by means of reflected radio waves and is capable of locating them accurately in space. Radar can detect with the speed of light any object that will reflect its waves, whether in the sky, on the sea or on land. It can almost literally see by means of its radio waves, quite as the eye sees by means of light waves. More than that, it can determine the objects range, that is, the distance to it in miles and yards with fantastic accuracy. Since the speed of the waves is a known constant, and since the radar receiver can measure, in millionths of a second, the time taken by the radiation from the radars transmitter to reach the object and be reflected back, the distance can be determined in an inconceivable fraction of time, with accuracies measured in yards or even feet. 1 In the 19th century, it was discovered that light, like sound, is a periodic disturbance, and that certain of the characteristics of light, particularly the phenomenon described as interference, can best be understood by analogy with certain similar occurrences in the field of soundon the assumption that light consists of transverse waves, with each color of the spectrum representing waves of different length. With the demonstration of the existence of radio waves and the discovery of x-rays, it was realized that the visible spectrum is only a small portion of a much more extensive spectrum of electromagnetic waves, most of which man cannot perceive directly by his senses. These electromagnetic waves vibrate in a plane perpendicular to the direction of the ray. They consist of a periodic electrical disturbance and a periodic magnetic disturbance at right angles to one another. To demonstrate the existence of these waves, we can set up standing waves, explained later in this chapter, by the interference effects of a direct and a reflected wave. When this is done it can be shown that these standing waves consist of periodic variations in the electrical and magnetic intensities as measured along the line of propagation. In the case of the electrical vector, a succession of nodes, or high values
Notes
of electrical potential, are separated by a series of antinodes; distance between each pair of nodes or antinodes is called the wavelength. An identical value for the wavelength is obtained if the value of the magnetic field-strength is similarly measured. The velocity of a wave moving out from a source, such as a radar transmitter, can be measured by determining the time required for the wave to pass a given point. The number of complete oscillations or cycles passing that point per second is called the frequency. The wavelength is always given in meters and the frequency in cycles per second. The wavelength of the longest and lowest frequency waves is usually measured in kilometers and the frequency in cycles per second. In the broadcast and short-wave bands, wavelengths are expressed in meters and the frequencies in kilocycles. In the higher bands, wavelengths are given in meters or centimeters and frequencies are given in megacycles. The earliest radars operated on wavelengths between 10 meters and 50 centimeters and at frequencies between 30 and 600 megacycles. Radar today is built to operate on wavelengths below 5 meters, usually in the centimeter wave or microwave bands. Interference phenomena provide striking evidence of the periodic nature of sound and light. When two sets of transverse waves traveling in the same direction encounter each other, the effect is additive and the amplitude of the resulting wave is the sum of the amplitudes of the separate waves. Interference effects are also observed when the paths of waves from two sources intersect. This results in the production of a new periodic motion which, if the two sources are of equal intensity but of slightly different frequency, may be stronger than either source alone. These beat notes can readily be detected in the throbbing sound of an out-of-tune piano. A similar interference phenomenon can be observed when waves from the same source reach a distant point after traveling by two different paths. These out-of-phase waves are often experienced when a sound reaches a listener simultaneously by
13
a direct route and by means of an echo from some nearby surface. In concert halls, the effect of such interference is to blur and distort the sounds of the human voice and the musical instruments. A final and important example of interference occurs when two trains of traveling waves pass through one another in opposite directions and set up standing waves. In radio, however, these waves, when set up by the interference of a wave and its own reflection can be most useful. Because the interfering waves are the same wavelength and frequency, the standing wave has the same form as the wave from which it is created and the result is to arrest the wave for further study. In radio and acoustics, standing waves are deliberately produced in the laboratory in order to permit a direct measurement of wavelength. When a radar set is placed in operation, an emission of ultrahigh or superhigh frequency waves is sent out from a transmitting station. This radiation is concentrated into a beam which can be pointed steadily in a chosen direction or can be made to sweep back and forth in an arc, rotate in a full 360 degree circle, or otherwise scan a given region in which a target such as an aircraft or ship is likely to be found. The target intercepts and reflects a small fraction of the beam. A still smaller portion finds its way back to the neighborhood of the transmitter where it is picked up and amplified by the radar receiver. The radiation from the transmitter is not sent out in a continuous train of waves but in short bursts or pulses lasting only a few millionths of a second. These bursts of energy are separated by relatively long intervals, sometimes two or three thousandths a second in length, and during this period the faint echo signal is received. The cycle is then repeated. After the returning signal has been detected and amplified by the receiver, it is made to appear on the screen of a cathode ray oscilloscope. This display device uses the motion of a pencil beam of electrons to record or measure small and rapidly changing voltages. The beam of electrons is projected from an electron gun which serves both as the source of electrons and as the means of focusing them into a sharp beam. This beam passes through two pairs of deflection plates and impinges on a fluorescent screen where it forms a spot of light. When an alternating potential is put on the pair of horizontal deflection plates, the spot is swept back and forth across the tube at great speed. Due to the slow response of the eye, a steady bright light, called the sweep line appears across the face of the tube. If a signal voltage, such as a returning echo from a radar receiver is put on the vertical deflection plates, the beam is sharply deflected upwards or downwards to produce a blip. This type radar indicator is generally referred to as an A-scope. When a radar pulse is started on its way, the main pulse is recorded at the beginning of the trace and the
14
echo, which is picked up by the receiver after the spot has travelled some distance across the tube, produces a second weaker blip at some point to the right of the outgoing pulse. This process recurs many times a second and the succession of nearly identical transient images are added together by the eye to form a static image. The cathode ray oscilloscope serves as a precision timing device which determines the distance to the target by measuring the length of time it takes the pulse to complete its round trip to the target. Since the distance traversed by the spot is proportional to the time elapsed, the distance to the target can be read off the sweep line in miles or yards, according to the calibration. Except for limitations imposed by the horizon, the range at which a radar set can detect a target depends upon the power it can transmit to the neighborhood of the target, upon the sensitivity of the receiver to pick up the faint echo, and upon the size, shape and electrical properties of the target itself. The power impinging upon the target depends both on the watts of power generated by the transmitter and the success with which the radio energy is concentrated into a narrow beam. Separately from the power considerations, the maximum and minimum ranges at which a radar system can be used depends upon the length of the pulses and the interval between pulses. If the pulse lasts too long, it will obscure targets close by. The interval of silence between the pulses, however, determines the distance from which a target can send back an echo without having it obscured by the next outgoing pulse. The highest-power radar systems use a resting time of 2000 microseconds which enables objects to be seen out to 200 miles. The determination of bearing and elevation depends upon the properties of the antenna system. If a sharply directed beam of energy is used, and the antenna is mounted so it can rotate, it is only necessary to determine the angular position which gives the strongest signal on the indicator to determine the approximate bearing of the target. The precision of the bearing depends upon the angular width of the beam. The sharper the beam, the more accurate will be the determination of the bearing. The determination of elevation is greatly complicated by the effect of ground reflection of the beam. If some of the transmitted energy hits the ground, the energy that strikes the target will be made up of both direct and reflected waves. Distortion results to the point that it is impossible to determine altitude merely by changing the angle of the antenna. Therefore, the ideal solution for height-finding is a beam that is narrow enough or so high above the ground that the reflection problem is eliminated. A radar system is made up of distinct units, usually called components, each of which has a
specialized function in the cycle of events by which a pulse of radio energy is transmitted and the returning echo received. When the radar system is turned on, the cycle is initiated by a unit called a timer or synchronizer which sends a triggering impulse to the modulator and to the sweep generating circuits of the indicator. In the modulator, the low-voltage trigger impulse is transformed into a high-voltage, carefully shaped square pulse. The pulse from the modulator excites the transmitter which proceeds to radiate r-f (radio-frequency) energy in pulses of the same shape, and at the same repetition rate, as the pulse from the modulator. The r-f pulses are then radiated into space from the antenna. While this is taking place the beam of the cathode ray tube is tracing out a sweep line or time-base. While the transmitter is operating, the special switch called the T-R or transmit-receive box prevents all but a small portion of the outgoing r-f from leaking into the receiver where it could do considerable damage. This small portion, however, passes through the receiver to the indicator where it appears as an initial deflection, colloquially called the main bang, marking the beginning of the sweep. When the radiated pulses encounter a target, they are reflected back to the antenna and picked up. The T-R box passes the weak r-f signal to the receiver where it is amplified and converted into a video signal which appears as a pip on the sweep line of the indicator. The receiver employed in radar is of the superheterodyne type which is widely used for ultra-high frequency communication purposes. It consists of a crystal detector and mixer, a local
oscillator and several amplification stages. The local oscillator is a separate source of energy of frequency which is different from the transmitted frequency by a given amount. In microwave radar this amount is 30 megacycles. This energy is fed to a mixer where it is combined with the received signal. The output of the mixer, a new frequency resulting from the combination of the input frequencies, is called the intermediate frequency. This i-f is then amplified. In the later stages of the receiver, the signal is converted to a video frequency, further amplified and then fed to one or more cathode ray tube indicators. There are several types of cathode ray indicators, each designed for a particular purpose, and each identified by letters such as A, B, C and J. The most important of all indicators, however, is the PPI or Plan Position Indicator. In this indicator the sweep line runs from the center of the tube, which represents the location of the observer, to the periphery. This line rotates about the face of the tube in synchronism with the angular rotation of the antenna. Signals appear as intensity modulations of this sweep line. Because of the long-persistent phosphors chosen for the fluorescent screen of the PPI, the rotating line sweeps out a map in polar coordinates of the region being scanned.2 Radar is complex in some respects and simple in others. As we shall see in the next chapter, its ancestry dates back over three-quarters of a century and its technology is built upon the findings of long list of distinguished contributors.

NOTES TO CHAPTER III [1] Thompson, George Raynor, History of Radar: A Modern Military Technology, (Paper presented to the Washington History of Science Club, Feb. 27, 1958), p. 2. Guerlac, Henry E., Radar, unpublished manuscript, pp. 1436. This description of radar and how it operates is a condensed version of an excellent but more technical description in Chapter II of Guerlacs manuscript.
[2]
RADAR: A CASE HISTORY OF AN INOVATIONCHAPTER III
15
16
Chapter IV
The Long Prelude (18731922)

Phase I of the Invention of Radar
Radar is a device which detects invisible or distant objects by means of reflected radio waves and is capable of locating them accurately in space. Radar can detect with the speed of light any object that will reflect its waves, whether in the sky, on the sea, or on land. It can literally almost see by means of its radio waves. More than that, it can determine the objects range, that is, the distance to it in miles and yards, with fantastic accuracy. Since the speed of the radio waves is a known constant, and since the radar receiver can measure, in millionths of a second, the time taken by the radiation from the radars transmitter to reach the object and be reflected back, the distance can be determined in an inconceivable fraction of time, with accuracies measured in yards and even feet. The electromagnetic waves that are produced by a radar set are the same general type radio waves that are used for communications, radio broadcasting and television. There are differences, however, between radio and radar waves and these are primarily the greater amounts of radiated electrical power required by radar so that it can obtain a detectable return signal, and the special antennas required to concentrate the radar signal into a beam. Because of the radio background of radar, it is important to take a look at the early history of radios development, since this history also provides an insight into the early history of radar. Many of the events that permitted radar to arrive when it did, and the many obstacles that kept it from arriving earlier, are also landmarks in the story of radio. Maxwells Theory Although many important discoveries in electricity had occurred earlier, the drama of radio can be said to have begun with the promulgation of Maxwells theory. Radio waves, or more correctly electromagnetic radiations, were originally postulated by James Clerk Maxwell, as an explanation of electric motion, from considerations of light and light waves. In his Treatise of Electricity and Magnetism, published in 1873, Maxwell combined, into a single theory,
the existing facts concerning light, electricity, and magnetism. He showed by means of mathematical formulae that electricity consists of waves which behave like light waves and that light waves are themselves electromagnetic radiations. The most striking consequence of Maxwells theory was that there should exist waves as yet undiscovered which could be propagated through space with a velocity equal to that of light; furthermore, that these waves could be produced wherever oscillatory currents are set up; and that they could be reflected from conducting surfaces and refracted by dielectrics according to the classical laws of geometrical optics. 1 Among the many experimental physicists who became interested in Maxwells theory and mathematical equations was the German scientist, Heinrich Hertz. During the 1880s, he performed several laboratory experiments in which he used electrical sparks as transmitters of electromagnetic radiation and, in 1887, Hertz successfully verified the existence of the radio waves which Maxwell had postulated. Hertzs experiments permitted him to generate and detect the earliest known radio waves and to prove that these waves did in fact behave like light waves. Hertzs New Discovery While conducting his radio experiments, Heinrich Hertz made a new discovery which fifty years later was to become the basic principle of radar. He proved that the radiation from his spark transmitter was being reflected by a metal plate, just as a glass mirror reflects light waves. In 1888, he described his experiments as follows: In experimenting upon the action between a rectilinear oscillation and a secondary conductor I had often observed phenomena which seemed to point to a reflection of the induction action from the walls of the building. For example, feeble sparks frequently appeared when the secondary
Notes
are at the end of this chapter on page 25. 17
conductor was so situated that any direct action was quite impossible, as was evident from simple geometrical considerations of symmetry; and this most frequently occurred in the neighborhood of solid walls. In especial, I continually encountered the following phenomenon: In examining the sparks in the secondary conductor, when the sparks were already exceedingly feeble, I observed that in most positions of the secondary conductor, the sparks became appreciably stronger when I approached a solid wall, but again disappeared almost suddenly close to the wall. It seemed to me that the simplest way of explaining this was to assume that the electromagnetic action, spreading outward in the form of waves, was reflected from the walls and that the reflected waves reinforced the advancing waves at certain distances and weakened them at other distances, stationary waves in air being produced by the interference of the two systems. As I made the conditions more and more favorable for reflection, the phenomenon appeared more and more distinct, and the explanation of it given above more probable.2 With these words, Hertz was describing what might be called the worlds first radar experimentthe foundation upon which all the other greats in the development of radar would subsequently build. The confirmation of Maxwells theory and the proof of the existence of radio waves stirred great interest in the 1890s, both among physicists interested only in increasing mans storehouse of knowledge, and among applied scientists and inventors who were interested in developing radio communications as a commercial product. The telephone had appeared in the 1870s and the telegraph much earlier. The idea of being able to communicate over great distances without being restricted to a pair of wires excited the imaginations of creative men everywhere, such as Fessenden in the United States, Bramly in France, and Popoff in Russia. As a result of this interest, concurrent developments of radio communication theory, radio techniques, and radio equipment were launched throughout the world. Early Microwave Research The physicists continued their efforts to extend Hertzs experiments, and they explored the higher frequencies that we know today as microwaves. This work was particularly significant to the subsequent development of radar because it is by the use of microwaves that radar has proved most effective. On the other hand, the inability to generate microwave frequencies at high power, some forty years later, proved to be the major obstacle to the development of radar. Although the microwave pioneers were not
18
thinking in terms of a new miracle weapon, a more vigorous pursuit of their experiments might have had a marked effect on the advancement of military technology. Nevertheless, Righi, Klemencic, A. D. Cole, Lebedow, and others, using waves of only a few centimeters in length and at very low power, were able to perform quasioptical experiments which were not practical with Hertzs longer waves. Interest in the microwave field soon waned, however, and scientists generally dropped their investigation of microwaves and reflected wave phenomena. After 1900, only a few men continued to explore the upper reaches of the frequency spectrum. Little interest was evidenced by industries, governments, or individual inventors.3 It is perhaps ironic that Hertzs reflected wave discoveries, which would eventually be used to develop a weapon that would contribute greatly to his countrys defeat and destruction, should be submerged and generally ignored by scientists for a quarter-century. There are two main reasons why microwave research fell by the wayside, and both are closely related. Early experimenters confirmed that microwave frequencies have line-of-sight properties. Therefore, they thought these frequencies to be worthless for long range communication. On the other hand, Marconi had achieved great commercial success with the longer waves. He had created an image of long wave radio as the only means of long range radio communication. In his research, Marconi had turned to the longer radio waves because it was easier to get high power at these wavelengths. When Marconi spanned the Atlantic with his radio in 1901, a truly remarkable achievement at the time, he proved that certain of the lower frequencies were not limited by the earths curvature. By this success, he administered a coups de grace to any serious studies of the use of higher frequencies for radio communications. It was clearly understood by all knowledgeable scientists at the time that short waves, which must conform to the established laws of physics, could not be detected beyond the horizon. Therefore, short waves were obviously useless for long distance radio communications. Not until more than two decades had passed would this almost unanimous verdict of the scientific community be reversed. Thus, short wave and microwave theory joined Hertzs reflected wave phenomenon on the library shelf of known but not usable facts. The lack of feasible applications had blinded the scientific community to mankinds ultimate need for further exploration of the upper frequency bands. Cathode Ray Oscilloscope Around the turn of the Twentieth Century, several other events which were later to play an important role in the development of radar were taking place. The first of these in period of time was the invention
of the cathode ray oscilloscope by Ferdinand Braun in 1897.4 This invention was to become a key component of radar. Braun combined a flat disc cathode, a wire anode fed in from the side, an annular diaphragm which limits the beam, and a zinc sulphide fluorescent screen in a rather simple arrangement. The earliest use of a cathode ray tube was for the study of radio circuits and the transmission of radio waves. Any widespread use at that time was severely restricted, however, because Brauns equipment was large and awkward to move about. Great difficulties were encountered in maintaining a constant vacuum, and very high voltages were required. In 1905, Wehnelt suggested an important improvement that eventually made it possible to overcome one of the principal disadvantages. He proposed the use of a hot, lime-coated, filament as the source of electrons. This suggestion made it possible to operate the cathode ray tube at reasonable voltages. The Airplane The new discoveries in the field of radio were joined by another new invention at the turn of the century which, in the next four decades, was destined to play a major role in the story of radar. In the early 1900s, the airplane first appeared on the world scene and the parallel developments of aviation and radar were to become inextricably interwoven in the drama and tension of the decade that preceded World War II. The first airplane was a crude, ungainly, cumbersome, and ugly mechanism, but it added a new dimension to mans ability to transport himself. It stimulated the imaginations of a host of youngsters and adults alike, and it opened a new frontier whose exploration is still increasing in scope and tempo. The airplanes ultimate use as a terrible weapon of war was not visualized by more than a handful of people, however, and the need for a device to locate it in space was probably not recognized by anyone. Nevertheless, from its inception a deadly race began between the threat of military airpower and a defense against the threat. History proves that neither contestant has yet won the race but that radar has been one of the principal reasons why the defense has been able to maintain a tenuous and frightening equilibrium. First Radio Detection Device The first suggestion for a device which would detect objects by the use of reflected radio waves coincided with the invention of the airplane. In 1900, Nikola Tesla called attention to the phenomenon of electromagnetic wave reflection and predicted that we may determine the relative position or course of a moving object, such as a vessel at sea, the distance traversed by the object, or its speed.5
RADAR: A CASE HISTORY OF AN INOVATIONCHAPTER IV
In 1904, a patent was issued to a German, Christian Hulsmeyer, in both Germany and England for a method of detecting and recording distant metallic objects (ships, railway trains, etc.) in fog or at night. The patent application showed a drawing of a steamship carrying this equipment, sighting an unidentified vessel by wireless. Hulsmeyers idea was sound. The simple equipment that he used to detect boats on the Rhine River worked up to distances of two kilometers, but it was laughed at as a technical toy. Hulsmeyer tried valiantly, but in vain, to arouse interest, not only in Germany and England where he had obtained his patents, but in Holland and the United States as well.6 Although, at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, an occasional collision occurred at sea because of fog or darkness, such unfortunate events were just one of the hazards of going to sea. No one felt any strong compulsion to do anything to prevent such collisions. Likewise, the airplane at that time was still considered only a fantastic idea by a bunch of dreamers. Its subsequent use as a weapon of great destructive potential was not yet recognized and certainly the need for a defense against it was not a serious problem to the military planners of the day. Thus can be seen the dampening effect on a new idea or proposal that results when there is no clearly recognized need for a new innovation. Although many related techniques essential to the ultimate success of radar had yet to be developed, the basic theory, principles, and techniques were already known to scienceyet they remained unused and undeveloped for another quarter century. The Vacuum Tube One of the most important radio components, which later proved to be a major obstacle to radars development, appeared on the scene at this time. This was the vacuum tube. Although the vacuum tube was invented by the early part of the Twentieth Century and was greatly improved during the first decade of the 1900s by the work of Lee DeForest, its coming was not greeted with overwhelming enthusiasm. For the first 15 to 20 years of its economic life, it had to compete with the much cheaper crystal detector for radio use. Even the discovery of the amazing property of the electron tube to generate continuous oscillations of any desired frequency was not eagerly seized upon by radio engineers. For another decade, these men continued to look at the solution of long distance radio communications problems in the improvement of alternators and in designing bigger and better spark-gap transmitters and Poulsen Arc Generators. Restrictions imposed by patent rights, the lack of stimulating commercial investment, and general distrust of the reliability of the vacuum tube were major obstacles to its more rapid development
19
and wider practical application.7 Not until the 1920s did the construction of better vacuum tubes become a major undertaking in the radio industry. Pulse Transmission Another key technique subsequently used in radar, pulse transmission, began to be explored about 1910 for an entirely different reason. It was used for underwater measurement. Initial attempts to measure distance by the timing of energy pulses, however, actually date back to the Seventeenth Century when Mersenne measured the velocity of sound in air by a crude pulse echo method in which he used a pendulum to time the echo. In 1855, M. F. Maury, a pioneer oceanographer and Superintendent of the National Observatory, attempted unsuccessfully to measure the ocean depths by detonating from the surface a charge of gunpowder on the bottom of the sea, and then determining the time it took the sound to be heard. This method was subsequently used successfully by Bohn to measure the depth of a lake in 1912. The British Admiralty also developed a more sophisticated application of this principle. They arranged for a steel hammer to strike a steel plate in the bottom of a ship and thus send out a highly damped compressional wave. This wave was picked up, after reflection, by a hydrophone.8 Development of an operational need for underwater measurement devices was speeded up by the terrible Titanic disaster and the accompanying loss of life. The need became urgent to the extreme a short time later when World War I brought the introduction of the submarine as a major innovation in warfare. In fact, the detection of submarines became so important that many people thought that national survival might depend on the development of a successful detection technique. Such techniques and devices eventually became practical. The successful Langevin-Chilowsky system, which produced supersonic beams at 30 to 40 thousand cycles per second, was devised shortly after the end of World War I. Although the submarine, effective as it was, did not cause the defeat of the United States, and a workable detection device was developed too late to be of use in the war, the new knowledge of pulse techniques, even though they were developed for a different application, became of great importance to the subsequent development of radar. Early Aircraft Detection Devices In addition to the submarine, World War I also brought the introduction of the airplane as an instrument of warfare. The gay and debonair pilots and the code of sportsmanship to which they subscribed, however, gave no substantive indication of the terrible instrument of destruction into which
20
the airplane would evolve in the short span of two decades. Nevertheless, the embryonic threat of airpower awakened in some military leaders an awareness that there existed a need to be able to detect airplanes before they arrived overhead, and to be able to locate them in space. Projects were soon underway to develop detection devices. The principal means of detection at first was light. Flares and star shells were used to illuminate the battlefield, and searchlights attempted to catch zeppelins in their beams. Light proved to have severe limitations, however, because an aircraft was almost overhead before it came within reach of the searchlight batteries. Other means were needed and new avenues were explored. Major Edwin Armstrong, a Signal Corps scientist with the A.E.F., conceived the idea that short wave ignition noises from a gasoline airplane engine could be picked up and used to detect enemy aircraft. He had learned that these ignition noises interfered with normal radio communications and that airplane engines had to be carefully shielded to prevent such disturbances. Because the earlier widespread fascination with Marconis long waves had interrupted research in the short wave frequency band, Armstrong lacked suitable equipment with which to detect and amplify the ignition-created short waves. These waves were shorter than any that had previously been used in radio communications. To solve this problem, Major Armstrong developed the first superheterodyne receiver. Like the submarine detection device, however, it also came too late for use in World War I. Nevertheless, the superheterodyne receiver became one of the major components of radar in the next decade.9 At the same time that Armstrong was developing the superheterodyne receiver, a second group of Signal Corps scientists was exploring the possible detection of infra-red radiation from airplane engines and exhausts. This group, under Master Signal Electrician Samuel O. Hoffman, was working with Professor George B. Pegram at Columbia University. Their approach was to use a Hilger thermopile mounted in the focus of a parabolic mirror to detect objects whose temperatures were higher than that of their backgrounds. This experiment was tried unsuccessfully in France in August 1913 and again, with moderate success, at Langley Field, Virginia, in January 1919. Infra-red detection played a role in the subsequent development of radar but in a negative manner. Infra-red detection became a moderately successful technique but continued infra-red research, even when the limitations of infra-red had become apparent, overshadowed and partially blocked the Armys early attempts to initiate radar research. As will be seen in a later chapter, the Signal Corps first radar set also had an infra-red detector mounted on the same chassis.10
Other attempts were made to develop sound detectors with which to pick up and amplify the drone of distant airplane engines and to give a rough indication of their direction. The French Army used an orthophone in 1917. At about the same time, the British produced an acoustical detector of the reflector type.11 Scientists understood the physical limitations of these devicesthe basic fact that the objects to be detected were already flying at almost half as fast as sound travelsbut they proceeded with their developments anyway because they had nothing better.12 The deficiencies of these devices were fatal; and they did not give sufficient warning in most cases to permit interceptors to be sent up to meet the attackers before they arrived overhead. Still, they were being improved upon as late as 1936.13 The work of Armstrong and the French in 1917 revived temporarily an interest in shorter waves and the upper portion of the frequency spectrum. Marconi, whose successful long waves had dampened the previous interest in short waves, also explored the higher frequencies. In 1917, in association with C. S. Franklin, and in collaboration with the Italian Government, he achieved transmission distances of 20 miles in the two to five meter band.14 Nothing came of these experiments, however, for they merely confirmed existing scientific opinions. It was generally agreed that any wavelength much below 200 meters was worthless for long range communications. As a result, this portion of the frequency spectrum was relegated to the amateurs who made up the membership of the American Radio Relay League.15 Naval Research Laboratory Founded By the end of World War I, Dr. A. Hoyt Taylor, the wandering nomad of Naval research, had settled down at the Anacostia Naval Air Station with his radio research team and was continuing to work with long waves. He was also taking a look at the shorter waves and was experimenting with the use of five meter wavelengths. A major portion of his time, however, was devoted to getting the Naval Research Laboratory built and organized. On July 7, 1915, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels wrote Thomas A. Edison that one of the most important needs of the Navy was for machinery and facilities for utilizing the natural inventive genius of Americans to meet new conditions of warfare and that he intended to establish a department of invention and development to which all ideas and suggestions from either service or civilian inventors could be referred for determination as to whether they contained practical suggestions for the Navy to take up and perfect. He outlined his ideas in more detail and ended by asking Edison to act as chairman of a board of consultants or advisors for the projected departments
of the laboratory. Edison accepted about a week later and the board was completed by including two members from each of the eleven largest engineering societies in the United States. This group was entitled the Naval Advisory Board, a name that was later changed to Naval Consulting Board of the United States. The committee made its report in 1916. It recommended the establishment of a Naval Research Laboratory and, in great detail, outlined what was considered to be its physical and organizational needs. Armed with this report, Daniels attempted that same year to get the necessary funds from Congress, and almost succeeded. The House passed an act appropriating $1 million for the laboratory and an additional $500 thousand for the first years operation. The bill was delayed in its final passage by the Senate until after the War. The bill was finally passed in 1920. Many officials in the Navy did not look with favor on the new facility and certain congressmen wanted to cancel the appropriation entirely. Had it not been for the efforts of Admiral William Strother Smith, NRL probably would not have been started and perhaps never occupied after it was finished. Admiral Smith was technical aide to Secretary Daniels at the time that the NRL bill was being considered. On his shoulders fell the job to appear before the appropriate congressional committees and try to block the cancellation of funds. Fortunately, he succeeded. Ground for the new laboratory was broken in December 1920 and the building was sufficiently completed for the laboratories to start their first research operations in 1923.16 Watson-Watts Lightning Recorder On the other side of the Atlantic at about this same time, Robert Watson-Watt was actively engaged in his experiments to find an accurate method of locating thunderstorms. His earliest efforts had been hampered by the lack of a device which would tell him from what compass bearing the loudest or most frequently repeated atmospheric noises were coming. He obtained from Budapest in 1916 a lightning recorder which gave no directional information but which made, on a spiral pen-drawn line which formed a time scale, cross markings which indicated the strength of each radio crash received. Watson-Watt began work to improve the lightning finder and in 1921 was able, by using a continuously rotating directional aerial, to obtain information on the direction of the lightning flash by determining the direction in which the aerial was pointing when the cross mark was made. He was not satisfied, however, with this rather crude device, and he tried many other experiments. Watson-Watt concluded from some of his early work that if he could find a vacuum tube, somewhat
21
similar to the television picture tubes that we know today, he might be able to solve his problem. The pencil of electrons which produces a tiny spot of light where it strikes the tube face would be reflected vertically to draw a vertical luminous line from the signal received from the north-south antenna. When acted upon simultaneously by the two antenna, it would draw a line reading the actual direction of arrival of the incoming radio waves. Watson-Watt tried several of the early cathode ray tubes but none was sensitive enough to meet his demands. In November 1922, however, he finally obtained the tube that he needed. The knowledge of cathode ray technology gained by Watson-Watt during this period, and also during his continuing experiments of the next decade, proved invaluable to him when his efforts turned to the development of radar in 1934.17 Political Environment as Deterrent to Innovation Scientific innovations do not emerge from a vacuum. To understand events that impede or advance technological progress, it is often necessary to view them in the perspective of the political environment of the day. Radar is no exception. The first few years after World War I was a period of conservatism in politics and in social philosophy. The Harding Administration which took office in 1921 regarded itself as an instrument for the advancement of business. These years were taken up with the liquidation of the warthe restoration of industry, transportation, finance and agriculture to a peacetime basis; payment of the public debt; reduction of taxation; and the provision of veterans benefits. There followed a rapid change in manufacturing techniques, a badly distributed industrial prosperity, and agricultural distress. President Harding called the period a return to normalcy, but it was a strange normalcy. President Hardings normalcy period was characterized by political and business corruption, a decline in liberalism, official apathy toward reform of any kind, and an ardent nationalism that took a repressive and intolerant form.18 This was also a period of world disarmament negotiations, now that the world had been made safe for democracy. President Harding, in his first year in office, called a conference of the nine powers with interests in the Pacific Ocean to consider a limitation on armaments. The conference was held in November, 1921, and the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy agreed upon a program that called for the maintenance of a naval ratio of 5:5:3 for the first three countries and 1.7 for each of the other two. There was also to be a scrapping of designated ships and a ten-year holiday in the construction of capital ships. By agreeing to this treaty, the United States sacrificed an opportunity to become the worlds greatest naval power. She scrapped fifteen new capital
22
ships on which over $300 million had already been spent.19 The period following the Great War was also an era of materialism. Morrison and Commager describe the era with the following caustic words: Disillusion and cynicism spread to every part of the social body, including a paralysis of will and a flight from reason strange to the American experience. Everywhere there was a profound distrust of reason and, as men lost faith in reason, they ceased to use the discredited instrument. There were no grand ideas, only a sophisticated rejection of ideas; there was no faith, only renewed superstitions masquerading as faiths. For all its cascading energy, the age was negative rather than affirmative, incontrovertible in repudiation but feeble and unconvincing in its affirmations. Never before had so many men known so many excellent arguments for rejecting the heritage of the past; seldom did a generation bequeath so little that was permanent, so much that was troublesome, to the future.20 Role of Airpower Not Recognized The conservatism of the civilian government and the populace as a whole did not escape the military arm of the government. Conservatism was particularly applicable to the subject of airpower. Although the airplane had been used in France with some success, there was a decided lack of enthusiasm for it in the War and Navy Departments, and among many of the top generals and admirals. Marshal Foch had wisely warned the military leaders of the world of the future dominance of the airplane in these words: The military mind always imagines that the next war will be upon the same lines as the last. That has never been the case and never will be. One of the great factors in the next war will obviously be aircraft. The potentialities of aircraft attack upon a large scale are almost incalculable. But it is clear that such attack, owing to its crushing moral effect upon a nation, may impress public opinion to the point of disarming the government and thus become decisive.21 Almost as if he intended to prove Marshal Fochs allegation that the military mind imagines the next war will be fought with the weapons of the last, Major General C. P. Summerall, one of Pershings top commanders in the A.E.F., made the following statement before a Congressional committee: Any arm that is new is always supposed to have some mysterious power. The machine gun after 1898 was going to decide all wars and we have advocates of a separate machine gun corps....Before the war
we heard that the French field gun was going to wipe away all enemies. I was with French artillery officers on the battlefield where the first Marne took place. They told me that they saw nothing for the new guns to shoot at. We shall be disillusioned in the same way if we rely too much on the airplane.22 These views, were symptomatic of the military opinion of the post-World War I period. Despite nation wide conservatism and general lack of confidence in the airplane, a small corps of crusaders fought for their faith with the sincerity of the early Christian ascetics. Many achieved martyrdom but they never gave up the fight. They knew that they had to deal with military leaders and Congressional committees whose inordinate reverence for antiquated methods left them with only two ideasthat everything old and militarily romantic was right, and that everything that was new was doubtful and should be left alone. The leader of the air power zealots, Brigadier General William Mitchell, had attained such commanding views of aviation and had made such heretical proposals that the War Department began to fear that Congress might listen to him. Among other things, Mitchell had recommended the establishment of a Secretary of Defense with subheads under him in charge of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. He had also urged adoption of the military art of vertical envelopment, and the training of the youth of America in dynamics. He and his supporters fought to embolden the public understanding and to inspire confidence in the flying age. Mitchells superiors all but shattered the bold, inquisitive, and scientific spirit of aviation on which much of the future progress of the nation would have to depend. What happened to Billy Mitchell is history. He was demoted and then court-martialed, convicted, and cashiered out of the service. His court-martial was personally ordered by President Calvin Coolidge who was convinced that the airplane would never progress beyond the limits of scouting purposes.23 The U.S. Navy was a little more receptive to the idea of military aircraft, but not much. The battleship admirals were just as obstinate as the Army generals but, despite the widespread lack of enthusiasm for naval aviation, Congress in 1919 authorized the conversion of the collier Jupiter into an aircraft carrier to be renamed the Langley. The completion and commissioning took place on March 20, 1922, and the first successful takeoffs and landings were made shortly thereafter.24 There was almost universal disbelief, however, that an airplane could be effective against a battleship and even when Billy Mitchell, on September 5, 1923, sank the battleships Virginia and New Jersey off Cape Hatteras in 7.5 minutes from an altitude of 6,000 feet, there was little interest in the possible destruction of dreadnoughts by airplanes.25
Captain William Leahy stated at the time that Sinking a motionless battleship with air bombs proves very little. He and most observers were satisfied that, with new protection, battleships would remain unlikely targets for airplanes.26 First Military Radar Proposal From the accumulation of technical knowledge of radio propagation and the rise of the airplane as a military weapon came inevitably the first proposal for the military application of Hertzs reflected wave phenomenon to the detection of aircraft in space. On June 20, 1922, Guglielmo Marconi made an historical suggestion for the use of reflected waves for just this purpose. He was guest of honor at a joint meeting of the Institute of Radio Engineers and the Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York City. At this meeting, he was presented the I.R.E. Medal of Honor in recognition of his work in wireless telegraphy. At the close of his acceptance speech, he made the following comment: As was first shown by Hertz, electric waves can be completely reflected by conducting bodies. In some of my tests I have noticed the effects of reflection and deflection of these waves by metallic objects miles away. It seems to me that it should be possible to design apparatus by means of which a ship could radiate or project a divergent beam of these rays in any desired direction, which rays, if coming across a metallic object, such as another steamer or ship, would be reflected back to a receiver screened from the local transmitter on the sending ship, and thereby immediately reveal the presence and bearing of the other ship in fog or thick weather.27 About three months later, in mid-September 1922, the earliest experimental confirmation of Marconis idea took place at the Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory at Anacostia, D.C. Dr. Albert Hoyt Taylor and Leo Clifford Young began to explore the possibilities of 5 meter waves for communication, and to discover the properties and propagation characteristics of these waves. Dr. Henry Guerlac in his excellent unpublished account of radar describes the experiments as follows: The equipment included a vacuum tube transmitter with a tube which never had been used below 100 meters, equipped with special circuits that enabled it to go below five meters. This was modulated by a 500 cycle current applied to the plate. The antenna was non-directionalwhich made the interference effects so much the more noticeableand consisted of a 46 inch straight wire connected to the plate coil. A simple receiver with audio output picked up
23
and amplified the signal from a half wavelength wire receiving antenna. The receiver was installed in an automobile and the first experiments were made on the grounds of the Naval Air Station, the transmitter being set up near the door of the laboratory, only a few feet above the ground. Almost at once interference effects were noticeable. As the car drove away from the transmitter and passed certain steel buildings from which some of the radiation was reflected, a vary sharp series of maxima and minima were observed. The sound was now intensified and weakened, so that a fluctuation was heard as the car moved away from the transmitter. This effect was strongly pronounced and clearly resulted from the simultaneous reception of energy coming directly from the transmitter and energy reflected from the buildings. Since the path lengths were different the waves alternately tended to reinforce and destroy one another. The frequency of the fluctuation varied with the speed of the car. The shielding effect of other objects was also clearly evident. Such things as a passing automobile, a screen door, or a network of wires, like the backstop of a tennis court, caused marked effects. Sometimes if signals were not received, moving the receiver a few feet would bring them in strongly. When the transmitter, in order to clear as many natural obstructions as possible, was installed on the compass rose at the Air Station, an increased range was obtained, but reflections and interference patterns continued to be observed. Experiments on the transmission of energy over water were tried by leaving the transmitter on the compass rose and driving the car with the receiver to Haines Point across the Potomac from the station. The same interference effects were also noticed, and it was discovered that they came from clumps of willow trees near the receiver.
While these experiments were in progress and unobstructed signals were being received from the other side, the steamer Dorchester, a wooden vessel of no great size, passed down the channel. Fifty feet before the bow of the steamer crossed the line of vision between the transmitter and receiver, the signals jumped to nearly twice the previous intensity. When the steamer actually passed across this line they dropped to half the normal value. Again when the stern of the vessel had passed fifty feet farther downstream, the signals rose to normal intensity, then up to about double, and then dropped back again.28 On September 27, 1922, a memorandum drawn up by Taylor was transmitted from the Commanding Officer of the Anacostia Naval Air Station to the Bureau of Engineering. This memorandum described the experiments that had been completed, suggested possible military uses of the device, and requested that the Bureau approve the continuance of the five meter work as an officially sanctioned project with a problem number.29 Thus ends the long prelude to the development of radarfifty years of progress in radio in which it advanced from Maxwells postulations to Marconis world-wide commercial network. This period saw the invention of the airplane, the cathode ray tube, the vacuum tube, the superheterodyne receiver, directional antennas, and pulsing techniques. It was a period of slow but steady progress in science and also in war. The United States fought two wars during this period. But the prelude was over. The airplane, despite the mossbacks in high circles, was here to stay and to grow unbelievably in speed and range. It would eventually become a threat to the existence of the free world and end up as its salvation. So, Dr. Taylors memorandum was a fateful one and its significance was great. It was now up to the Navy Department to decide whether the time was right for radar to join the nations arsenal of weapons.
24
NOTES TO CHAPTER IV [1] Guerlac, Henry E., Radar, Unpublished manuscript, p. 49, and Thompson, George Raynor, History of Radar, A Modern Military Technology, pp. 45. Hertz, Heinrich, Electric Waves, (1881) (Chapter 8On Electromagnetic Waves in Air and their Reflection). Pierce, G. W., Principles of Wireless Telegraphy, (1910) and Wenstrom, William H., Historical Review of Ultra-short Wave Progress, Proceedings of the I. R. E., Vol XX, No. 1, pp. 9698. Johnson, J. B., The Cathode Ray Oscilloscope, Journal of the Franklin Institute, Vol. CCXII, No. 6, 1931, pp. 687717. Terrett, Dulaney, The Signal CorpsThe Emergency, (Washington, D.C., Office of Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1956), p. 41. Terrett, ibid., p. 41. Bekker, Cajus, RadarDuell im Dunkel, (Oldenburg/ Hamburg: S. Stalling Verlag, 1958), p. 46. Mouromtseff, I. E., A Quarter Century of Electronics, Electrical Engineering, Vol. LXVI, No. 2, Feb. 1947, pp. 171177. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 6170. Revolution in Radio, Fortune, XX (Oct. 1939), p. 86. Terrett, op.cit. pp. 1920. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 4445. Armstrong, E. H., Vagaries and Elusiveness of Invention, Electrical Engineering, Vol. LXII, No. 4 (1943), p. 149. Hoffman, S. O., The Detection of Invisible Objects by Heat Radiation, Physical Review, Vol. XIV, No. 2 (1919), pp. 163166. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 43. Terrett, op.cit., p. 36. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 44. Marconi, G., Radio Telegraphy, Proceedings of the I. R. E., Vol. X, No. 4 (1922), pp. 215238. Franklin, C. S., Short Wave Directional Wireless, Journal of Institution of Electrical Engineers, Vol. LX (1922), p. 930. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 52. Taylor, A. Hoyt, The First 25 Years of the Naval Research Laboratory, (Washington D.C.: Navy Department, 1949), pp. 12. Watson-Watt, Sir Robert, The Pulse of Radar, (New York: The Dial Press, 1959), pp. 2129. Morison, Samuel Eliot and Commager, Henry Steele, The Growth of the American Republic, (New York, Oxford University Press, 1956), pp. 515519. Ibid., pp. 497500. Ibid., p. 549. Smith, A. Corbett, Riders of the Air, (London: Grant Richards, Ltd., 1923), p. 199. Neon (Pseudonym), The Great Delusion, (New York: The Dial Press, 1927), p. 164. Gauvreau, Emile, The Wild Blue Yonder, (New York: E. P. Dutton Co., 1944), pp. 111112. United States Naval Aviation in Review 19111951, (Bureau of Aeronautics, Department of the Navy, 1951). Fifty Years of FlightA Chronicle of the Aviation Industry in America 19031953, (Eaton Manufacturing Company, 1953), p. 28. Gauvreau, op.cit., p. 114. Marconi, Senatore Guglielmi, Radio Telegraphy, Proceedings of the I. R. E., Vol. X, No. 4, 1922, p. 237. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 6567. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 6768.
[2] [3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8] [9]
[10]
[11] [12] [13] [14]
[15] [16]
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[19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]
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Chapter V
The Rise of Radio (19221930)

Phase II of the Invention of Radar
An important distinction needs to be drawn at the beginning of this chapter. At the time that Hertz made his experiments with reflected waves, he did not think of his device as radar nor, for that matter, as any kind of military weapon. Had he been a marine engineer, perhaps he might have associated his discovery with a practical application for its use, but he was a physicist. His experiments were directed solely toward explaining the mysteries of the universe. Likewise, when Marconi made his famous 1922 speech at the I. R. E. meeting, his statement was in the category of a conjecture rather than a serious proposal for a military weapon. Up to that moment, no one had attempted to use Marconis proposal to build a useful device. Hoyt Taylors and Leo Youngs Potomac experiment, on the other hand, was an attempt to satisfy a definite military need. Their experiments were not fundamentally new. They were merely discovering for themselves what Hertz had discovered over three decades earlierbut they were making an important contribution, nonetheless. They were associating a particular scientific discovery with a specific military need, for the first time, in an effort to invent a new and useful device. Their ability to recognize the existence of a need for radar was several years ahead of its time but it was significant. As Dr. Robert Page, Director of Research at the Naval Research Laboratory describes it: Necessity may be the mother of invention but like every offspring an invention must also have a father. The father is the man with the ideathe inventor. A successful invention must have both parents. There must be a marriage between the need and the idea for satisfying the need. 1 Taylors memorandum, in his words, was not received enthusiastically by the Navy Department.2 He had mentioned several possible uses of his proposed device, including directive communications, landing of aircraft at night or through overcast, and shipboard
Notes
use to detect other ships. The memorandum suggested that : : : possibly an arrangement could be worked out whereby destroyers located on a line a number of miles apart could be immediately aware of the passage of an enemy vessel between any two destroyers of the line, irrespective of fog, darkness, or smoke screen.3 But the lure of such multi-purpose items of equipment was not strong enough at the time to attract support within the Navy Department. In fact, Taylor never received a reply of any kind to his memorandum. Dr. Taylor apparently made no effort to follow through on the memorandum nor to attempt to generate support for it. Although he was a forceful, energetic, and enthusiastic administrator, he was principally a scientist. He had proved the feasibility of his proposal and, as far as he was concerned, it was up to the Navy to do what they pleased with it. We can only surmise why the authorities of that era could not see the possibilities that Taylor and Young saw. Perhaps the Secretary was too busy defending himself against the charges of corruption that had been leveled at him and was to force his removal from office or, in the spirit of the times, a successful application had to be almost a certainty before the military heads of the Navy Department were willing to risk any of their all too scarce funds on a new development. Another possibility, frequently encountered when money is in limited supply, was the problem created by rotating assignmentsofficers might not have been willing to start a new project that could not be finished before the end of their assignments in the Navy Department.4 It is also possible that Taylors failure to promote his project was attributable to his preoccupation with other matters. In January 1923, he departed for a three months cruise with the fleet in Caribbean and Pacific waters. Upon his return to Washington on April 4th, he found his assistants in the Aircraft Radio Laboratory busy packing up equipment for the move from Anacostia Naval Air Station to the new location at Bellevue, as the Naval Research Laboratory was
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then called. Most of the next month was spent in getting temporary facilities arranged so that research work could be resumed as soon as possible.5 By the time of NRLs official commissioning on July 1, 1923, the research program was again well under way. Early Days at NRL An earlier mention was made of the effect of the political environment on technological innovation. It must be stated that the physical environment in which the innovator must work is also an important factor as we can see from a look at the conditions under which research was being conducted at the Naval Research Laboratory. The early days at NRL were rather spartan by todays standards. The experiences of the first occupants of the new building were hectic at times and rewarding at others. The first antenna towers at their disposal were 90 foot high pine poles. On top of one of these slender poles was mounted a small, square, box-like room in which the radio engineers did some of their early work on detection finders. It was impossible to work in the box on windy days because of the swaying of the pole. On the other hand, if the box was left unused for any appreciable length of time, a pair of eagles insisted on building a nest in it, and had to be chased out before it could be used again. The research equipment of the laboratory was very meager and consisted mostly of items brought from the previous location. There was little new equipment. Fortunately, the laboratory had acquired, prior to its opening, some 34 carloads of surplus Army machinery and equipment. Much of this was used to equip the shop and the remainder was piled alongside a railroad spur near the shop building. On the other side of the track were another 25 carloads of scrap material, much of which had come down from the Naval base at New London. This area was known as the Dump. The exposed junk pile contained many usable meters, many thousands of feet of various types of cable and phosphor bronze antenna wire, and an enormous quantity of brass, copper, iron and steel devices. During the lean and hungry days of the Thrifty Twenties, the dump turned out to be a bonanza to the Laboratory. NRLs work was handicapped at times by a lack of heat. The fires ware secured at 3:00 in the afternoon to conserve coal and were built up again at 4:00 AM. On very cold mornings the Laboratory would not get warm until late in the morning. On many a winter day, there was no heat at all on the North side of the upper floor. There was also an unsatisfactory water supply system and a lack of adequate and nearby housing for the Laboratory personnel.
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In spite of the inconveniences, NRL apparently was a pleasant place to work. The Old-Timers look back on their first days at NRL with a good deal of nostalgia and consider the station to have been a Happy Ship. Many believe that the first decade was the most productive in NRLs history in terms of important work turned out per man hour. Funds were meager, the staff was small, and they had to fight for nearly every project undertakenbut the programs were carefully chosen and their successful completion produced very fruitful results.6 The careful selection of projects to pick only those which promised almost certain success may account in part for the apparent unwillingness of NRL personnel to wage a fight with the Navy Department over the radar project. There were simply too many important things to do to be concerned very much about the Navy Departments turn-down of a single project. Hams Perform the Impossible One of the important NRL programs in the early 1920s was a high frequency effort which had been touched off by discoveries of ham radio operators. In a previous chapter, it was pointed out that there was a universal belief among scientists that the higher radio frequencies were impractical for long distance communication. It was stated that the governments of the world had turned this part of the frequency spectrum over to the amateurs. In hindsight, this decision might appear shortsightedbut it was also fortuitous. The hams were willing to attempt experiments that the scientists had rejected as being contrary to the accepted laws of physics. In November 1923, the world of radio enthusiasts was startled to learn that Leon Deloy, a French amateur operator from Nice, had established a two-way connection across the Atlantic with two American hams, F. H. Schnell and J. L. Reinartz. This extraordinary and wholly unexpected achievement pointed immediately to the unique advantages of short waves for long distance communication. The accomplishment was soon repeated many times by amateurs everywhere. In that year and the next, often by operating vacuum tubes at ten times their rating, the hams of America, Europe, Asia, and Australia linked up the World with their short wave radio. The lead of the amateurs was followed quickly by the communications industry, and Marconis long wave blanket over short wave exploration was finally thrown off. RCA and Telefunken soon established shortwave transoceanic circuits. In 1923, the Westinghouse station, KDKA, began broadcasting on 100 meters to Europe and America. In July 1924, the Marconi Company signed a contract with the British government and the Dominions to build four short wave stations to connect England with India and the Dominions.7
U.S. Navy Steps Up High Frequency Research Dr. Hoyt Taylor, who had developed into an enthusiastic amateur while operating station 9YN at the University of North Dakota, became intensely interested in the short wave developments, and he initiated at NRL a program of close cooperation with the amateurs. Simultaneously, he began a campaign of selling the high frequency program to the Navy. After he and Leo Young demonstrated that a 50 watt high frequency transmitter would permit better communications to Balboa than that which was being provided by a 250,000 watt long wave transmitter at Annapolis, the Navy Communication Service began to become interested. The first mobile high frequency transmitter and receiver built at NRL were installed in the rigid airship Shenandoah, and worked successfully until the Shenandoahs tragic crash. The culmination of the selling campaign came, however, when Taylor persuaded the Navy Department to place high frequency equipment on the old U.S.S. Seattle, the flagship of a fleet which visited New Zealand and Australia in the summer of 1925. The flagship was able to maintain daily contact directly with Washington, not for all hours of the day, but long enough to get all of its traffic through. Despite this and other successful tests, the Navys communication traffic experts were reluctant to move to the higher radio frequencies. One of their principal objections was the number of different frequencies that would have to be used at different hours of the day and night, and the inconvenience of shifting from one frequency to another. The necessity to change frequencies several times during a twenty-four hour period appeared to them to be a possible source of unreliability. They did not like it. Admiral Ridley McLean, Director of Naval Communications, however, backed NRLs recommendation to use high frequencies and with his help the resistance of the other communicators was overcome. Short Wave Comes into its Own The consequences of the work of the amateurs and the U.S. Navy on high frequency radio were of great significance to the subsequent development of radar. The immediate effect was a research effort into the puzzling question of why these short waves gave such unexpectedly long range in contradiction of the laws of physics. This work, in turn, served to open up the field of ionospheric research, and to encourage the exploration of even shorter waves. From the ionospheric studies eventually came pulse radio transmissionone of the major secrets of radars successful operation. From the high frequency studies and developments came major improvements in vacuum tubes.8
RADAR: A CASE HISTORY OF AN INOVATIONCHAPTER V
Thus, Leon Deloy and his two American friends triggered off a chain of events which up to that time had been ruled out by the scientific belief that the line-of-sight properties of the higher frequencies made them infeasible for long distance communication. After November 1923, many persons were curious to discover whether better transmission could be obtained below 100 meters. The exploration of the shorter waves continued unabated for the next decade.9 This work was extremely important to radar because it was in the short wave band that radar first appeared. The rapidly expanding development of the short wave portion of the frequency spectrum gave a boost to the vacuum tube industry which, in the early 1920s, was struggling to pass from infancy to childhood. The actual impetus to the development and progress of the high vacuum electron tube began on November 5, 1920, the day that radio broadcasting made its debut on the American scene. On that day, Frank Conrad, an engineer of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, prearranged a systematic broadcast by KDKA in Pittsburgh of the results of the Harding-Cox election. Conrads success with this project was followed by a period of rapid development of many new types of electron tubes to meet the growing and diverse needs of a mushrooming radio broadcasting industry. Conrad himself was a contributor to the vacuum tubes progress. One of his early inventions was a tube whose filament could be heated from a single dry cell instead of the six-volt storage battery. Improving the Vacuum Tube With the birth of the broadcasting and short wave communication industries, it was soon apparent that vacuum tube technology was deficient. Major breakthroughs were needed in tube design and tube capabilities but, paradoxically, when these features did materialize, they were slow to be accepted. In 1921, for example, an idea was conceived to simplify tube operation by completely eliminating the A battery. As a result, detector and amplifier tubes were designed for alternating current operation of the filament. The idea was simple but no one had previously attempted to apply it to small detector and amplifier tubes. The idea was also resisted vigorously. The new designs that followed from the early development of tubes with AC heater wires were so unconventional, in terms of the accepted practices of the day, that many competent radio engineers, and the firms for whom they worked, opposed their adoption. It was not until 1927, for example, that RCA finally adopted two of the new tube types for an item of equipment. The development of high frequency power tubes was also a slow process, despite the renewed interest in the upper portion of the frequency spectrum.
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The original KDKA broadcast was made with two 50-watters. It soon became apparent to the tube designers that power output measured in kilowatts could only be achieved with external water cooled copper anodes. The main problem in constructing such tubes was to obtain a reliable, vacuum tight, metal to glass seal between the anode and the glass envelope that supported and insulated the tube structure. This problem was solved by Housekeeper in 1922. He developed a tapered knife-sharp edge to which glass could be sealed securely. It was not long before ten to twenty kilowatt tubes were being constructed, but no efforts were made to go into mass production at that time. The radio manufacturing companies simply did not anticipate that the future demand for these tubes would ever exceed more than a few tubes a month. Modern electronic engineers can hardly imagine the difficulties that were encountered by the early vacuum tube developers and manufacturers. To draw anodes to precise dimensions was literally impossible at the time, and extensive research in that direction was too expensive to be warranted by the small demand for tubes. Glass blowing was another problem in the construction of water cooled tubes. For a decade or longer no machine tools were used by the large tube manufacturers in fabricating glass envelopes. All work was done by hand by skilled glass blowers. As the demand grew for larger and heavier tubes, however, the manufacturers were forced to design and use glass blowing machines. As a result, 100 and 200 kilowatt tubes appeared on the scene toward the end of the 1920s.10 The cathode ray tube was also developing slowly during the 1920s, but it was still only a laboratory device which needed a lot of pumping to keep up the vacuum.11 Although the cathode ray tube is commonly associated with television today, it obviously was not used for that purpose in the 1920s. The earliest experimental television used mechanical scanning for both pickup and image reception, and it employed such devices as the Nipkow disk or the perforated drum.12 By 1930, however, the cathode ray tube had been developed to the point that it was finally adopted for television use. It was also acceptable for the early radar experiments. Across the Pacific, at the University of Osaka, two Japanese scientists were also working with high frequencies in the 1920s, and they too made a major contribution to the subsequent development of radar. Professors Yagi and Okabe developed a device that aroused great interest in the western world in the 1930sthe split anode magnetron. They showed by 1923 that this type of magnetron was capable of generating oscillations of extremely high frequencies, up to several thousand megacycles, although its power output was low. Following publication of their work, magnetrons of 30, 20, 10, and even 2 centimeters
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were soon developed in other countries. Thus with a 10 centimeter magnetron, it was possible to produce microwave powers of 1 or 2 watts.13 A little over a decade later, the British development of a multi-cavity magnetron, a great grandchild of the Japanese device, made microwave radar a possibility. Microwave radar went on to become a major weapon against the Japanese Kamikaze attacks on the United States Pacific Fleet in World War II. It also contributed immeasurably to the defeat of the German buzz bomb assault on Britain toward the end of the war. High Frequency Transmitters and Receivers Transmitting and receiving equipment for high frequency operations was also receiving increased attention, particularly at NRL, during the mid-1920s. The high frequency transmitter built for the ill-fated Shenandoah had used a 7.5 watt tube for a master oscillator and a 50 watt tube for a power amplifier. Even with the best possible precautions in the way of shielding and constancy of the supply voltage, severe difficulties with frequency stability were encountered. The power amplifier, if operated on the same frequencies as the master oscillator that excited it, had to be balanced or neutralized to prevent it from going off on its own and oscillating on some wholly unstable and undesirable frequency. NRL set up a program to apply crystal control to high frequency transmitters. The crystals used were not the usual galena receiving crystals but piezoelectric crystals. These crystals had been known for forty years, but their ability to oscillate mechanically and thereby control high frequency electrical oscillations was a relatively recent discovery. The first high-power crystal-controlled transmitter in the World was built at NRL in 1924 by L. A. Gebhard, assisted by Matthew Schrenk and Edwin L. White. For many years it handled the nightly broadcasting of official Navy Department business to the American Embassy in London. This set fed ten kilowatts of radio frequency into an antenna consisting of a one-quarter wave vertical iron pipe, working in connection with a star shaped iron pipe counterpoiseall mounted on top of the machine shop at NRL.14 The first shipboard crystal-controlled master oscillator transmitter operating on more than one frequency was the XA, a 500 watt set that was installed in June 1925 aboard the cruiser, U.S.S. Memphis, just prior to her departure for France. In addition to the XA, the Memphis carried a breadboard model of a 60 watt transmitter which had a wider range of frequencies. The breadboard transmitter was quite useful for experimental work and was employed frequently to supplement the XA. After proving itself on the Atlantic cruise, the breadboard model was
shipped to Balboa and became the first high frequency set in the Canal Zone. On the Memphis voyage to France, Dr. Taylor accompanied the new transmitting equipment and effectively used a technique that he was to repeat continually during the next quarter century of his association with the development of NRL. He staged a demonstration for the ships captain in an effort to obtain his support for the new equipment. One night at 11:00 PM, while the ship was in mid-Atlantic, the captain asked Taylor how his experiments were going. Taylor told him that he was communicating with practically anybody that he wanted to and had just talked with a chap in New Zealand. The captain seemed a bit skeptical, said that he had lots of friends in Wellington, and wondered if perhaps he could get some messages to them. Taylor replied: Certainly, will you write them out? The captain promptly wrote out three messages. Taylor immediately carried the messages to the radio room and, on the next schedule with New Zealand at 2:00 AM, they were transmitted. When the captain arrived at his desk at 8:00 AM the following morning, he found replies to all three messages awaiting him. Needless to say, Taylor had made a convert. The captain wrote the Bureau of Engineering that as far as he was concerned, all other transmitters could be taken off his shiphe did not need anything but the XA.15 NRLs first high frequency receivers were described by Dr. Taylor as soapbox models. They were sound in principle and adequately sensitive, but they were not sufficiently sturdy to be used for actual operations. Most of the early design work and theory development for the high frequency receivers was done by Leo Young. The first operational model, however, was designed and built by Malcolm P. Hansonincluding the one that worked successfully from the Shenandoah during her 1924 trip to the West coast. Some ten or twelve other high frequency receivers were built soon thereafter and installed in selected ships and stations so that operating personnel could become acquainted with high frequency radio techniques and thereby make valuable observations on subsequent tests. During the remainder of the 1920s, a continuing program of receiver improvement was maintained.16 The work done by NRL on high power crystal-controlled transmitters and high frequency receivers was extremely important to the later development of radar. To obtain detectable radio echoes from aircraft at 50, 100, or 200 miles, enormous amounts of transmitted power, plus an extremely sensitive receiver, were required. Radar signals, to be practical for either shipboard or ground mobile use, had to utilize the upper portion of the frequency spectrum. The scientists at NRL combined research and experimentation in both these areas in their development of new transmitting and receiving
equipment. The knowledge and technology that they accumulated in the early days at NRL proved invaluable a few years later when the development of radar was again considered. Pulse Transmission Revived The previous chapter described some of the early experiments which initiated scientific interest in pulse-echo transmission. In the early and mid-1920s, this technique received considerable attention by researchers looking into a new scientific disciplineionospheric research. The ionosphere is an electrically conducting region of the upper atmosphere that received its name in 1932 from Robert Watson-Watt.17 The existence of a layer in the upper atmosphere which reflects radio signals was discovered independently by Arthur Edwin Kennelly in the United States and Oliver Heaviside in England in the 1900s. Their proposals were descriptive in nature, but in 1912, Eccles worked out a quantitative theory on the assumption that the radio waves are refracted by the ions in the layer.18 Experimental verification of the theory did not occur until after the amateurs success in establishing trans-Atlantic radio communications in 1923 and the combined NRL-amateur discovery of the skip distance in 1924. John L. Reinartz, one of the two American hams who established the first trans-Atlantic radio circuit with Leon Deloy, teamed up with Dr. Taylor to investigate why signals, using very short waves, become weaker after sunset. They discovered that there seems to be a dead region lying between two regions of good reception. Dr. Taylor names this region the skip region, a term still used today.19 With E. O. Hurlburt, Taylor published a modified Eccles theory to account for the phenomenon. It was clear that these short waves were propagated for short distances in the conventional manner of longer waves but, in addition, there were also sky waves which reached great distances by being sharply refracted by the ionosphere. In regions where both the ground wave and the sky wave were received, violent fading was encountered because of interference effects between the two waves. The Taylor-Hurlburt paper laid the foundation for modern high frequency wave propagation theory.20 The stage was now set for further exploration of the ionosphere. Two English scientists who were also working with the short waves were the first persons to use reflected radio waves to measure the distance to the ionosphere from the Earths surface. They believed that there was a point at a given distance from a transmitter, depending on the frequency used, at which the strengths of the ground and sky waves would be sufficiently equal to produce strong interference. By varying the frequency of the transmitter by a
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small known amount in a brief time, they thought it would be possible to observe directly the interference effects at that point and determine the distance to the reflecting layer. From two experiments on the nights of December 11, 1924 and February 17, 1925, they obtained direct evidence of the existence of the reflecting layer and estimated it to be at a height of 80 to 90 kilometers.21 More important to the development of radar, however, was the work done in 1925 by Merle A. Tuve and Gregory Breit. They apparently undertook an investigation of the ionosphere without being aware of the similar experiments being conducted in England. Their method was much simpler than that used by Appleton and Barnett. In cooperation with Dr. Taylor and C. B. Young, they explored the distance to the ionosphere by sending out radio waves in discontinuous bursts or pulses. They then measured the time required for the returning echo to reach a receiver that was located near the transmitter. In developing their scheme, they proposed to send out pulses of such length and repetition that at a receiving station some distance away a pulse from the ground wave and sky wave could be distinguished. From the time delay separating the two received pulses, plus knowledge of the distance separating the transmitter and receiver, the height of the ionosphere could be estimated. Breit and Tuve made arrangements for their transmissions with four radio stations and several enthusiastic amateurs residing in the Washington area. The radio stations were NKF at the Naval Research Laboratory; KDKA, the Westinghouse station at Pittsburgh; WWV, the Bureau of Standards station in Washington; and WSC, the RCA station at Tuckerton, New Jersey. The best results were obtained from the transmitter at the Naval Research Laboratory. Here again, we see how inextricably the work at NRL was woven into the scientific buildup of radar. In addition to the favorable location at NRL, Breit and Tuves successful results were attributable in large measure to the high constancy of the frequency emitted by NKFs crystal-controlled transmitter. This was the same set that was built the previous year by L. A. Gebhard and modified by him for the ionospheric experiments. Experiments began on July 28, 1925. The receiver was located at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, eight miles southeast of the Naval Research Laboratory. The pulses, or interruptions in wave trains, as Breit and Tuve described them, were obtained by applying an alternating current frequency of about 500 cycles per second to the amplifier tubes of the transmitter. The received pulses, which lasted about 1/1000 second, were recorded by a Western Electric cathode ray oscillograph in the first test and by an oil immersed General Electric oscillograph in the second. The change in oscillographs was made because the General Electric device permitted
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photographic records to be obtained as confirmation of the visual observations. From these experiments, Breit and Tuve estimated the height of the ionosphere to be between 50 and 130 miles above the earths surface.22 Also from these experiments came the first transmission, reception, and time delay measurement of reflected radio pulses. It was to be ten years, however, before this technique would be adopted by the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army Signal Corps as the standard type radio transmission for radar. Improvements in measurement techniques followed closely upon Breit and Tuves initial success. Breit quickly suggested a better method for pulsing the transmitter. The use of the 500 cycle alternating current had produced pulses very close together, separated by an interval scarcely greater than the pulse length. The limited duration of this interval had led to difficulty in distinguishing multiple reflections and had resulted in poor resolution for small distances. The new method used the multivibrator circuit of Abraham and Block as a basic pulse forming circuit. With this important innovation, it was possible to get shorter pulses, up to one or two ten-thousandths of a second, that were separated by relatively long intervals. Of almost equal importance to ionospheric measurement and to the future of radar was the adoption of the cathode ray oscilloscope and the abandonment of the mechanical oscillograph. George Goubau in 1930 reported that he had used a cathode ray tube with a circular or elliptical trace which he had synchronized with the pulse cycle. The circular trace was later modified to become the PPI scope of present day early warning radars. Except for the frequencies employed, the length of the pulses, the intervals between pulses, and the absence of directive antennas, the apparatus used for ionospheric research at the end of the 1920 decade bore considerable resemblance to the radar systems that were to come soon after.23 It is this resemblance, perhaps, that accounts in large measure for the common thread of ionospheric research that runs through the lives of the key contributors to the development of radar. Blair Becomes Interested in Radio Detection Shortly after Breit and Tuves experiments, the attention of Major William R. Blair, a soldier-scientist in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, was attracted to the problem of detecting airplanes in space. In the spring of 1926, Blair was attending the Armys Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. It was customary at that time, as it is today, for each of the Armys combat arms and technical services to send someone to the college to lecture to the students on the latest trends and developments in military equipment and techniques. Two of the lectures that Spring struck a discordant note in Blairs
mind and prompted what was to become an important interest in aircraft detection. The Coast Artillery Corps representative described with great pride the latest developments in the sound method of locating aircraft. The Army Air Corps representative said that racing planes had already achieved speeds of 300 miles per hour, and that military planes would soon be going that fast too. To Blair, an Army scientist who had already achieved prominence because of his development of the radiosonde, these two presentations indicated that something was lacking in the Armys plans. It occurred to him that at 300 miles per hour, two-fifths the speed of sound, the airplane would be almost overhead before any defensive action, triggered by the sound detector, could be initiated. In his college days, Blair had worked under the German born scientist, Michelson, at the University of Chicago, where he received his doctorate in physics in 1906. While working toward this degree, Blair became interested in short electric waves. In 1905, he set up a spark gap transmitter and other equipment in the stock room of the laboratory where he was working part time to obtain funds to supplement a scholarship. The major project of the laboratory at that time was an effort to determine the radius of action of a molecule. Some of the experiments attempted to measure the thickness of soap films, and Blair joined in the work with his short wave electric wave setup. He measured the refraction of a prism of paraffin in the usual way. He then melted the paraffin into ten or twelve relatively thin plates, measured the index of refraction again, and obtained different results. The difference was about the same as the other experimenters were getting with their measurements of the thickness of soap film. Since he was almost ready to do the work for his doctoral thesis, Blair requested and was granted permission to do his work in this field. In subsequent experiments, using a Michelson interferometer, he satisfied his colleagues that the difference in refraction between the large prism and the thin plates resulted from a change of phase in the short electric waves as they passed through the film.24 These experiments, which may seem far removed from the general subject of radar, are nonetheless significant to its history because Blair used radio frequencies between 750 and 3,000 megacycles for his laboratory experiments, with his best results being obtained at 1,500 megacycles. He discovered that at 1,500 megacycles he could get very definite reflections from objects around him, including wood, which is normally considered a non-conducting material. His scientific curiosity was aroused, and he wanted to know why this unexpected phenomenon should occur. He therefore conducted other experiments with high frequency radio waves and wooden reflectors. From these experiments, he
developed a theory that a piece of wood becomes a conductor of electricity at the higher frequencies.25 It is an interesting parallel that Blair, like Taylor and Young, was repeating basically the same experiments that Hertz had made almost two decades earlier, and was getting the same results. Although the experiments were not new, the knowledge gained by Blair in his doctoral work was to be recalled from his mental storehouse some twenty years later, and be used to suggest a solution to a major military problemhow to locate an aircraft in space. We shall also see this knowledge having an adverse effect later. It possibly delayed the realization of the urgently needed solution because of Blairs preoccupation with microwave frequencies and his reluctance to embark upon what at that time was a more feasible approach. While he was at the University of Chicago, Blair had also assisted Michelson in his early experiments with measurement of the speed of light. When Blair came to realize in the mid-1920s that sound detection of aircraft was dangerously impractical, his previous experience with measuring the speed of light came to mind. He reasoned that if the process of measuring lights speed could be reversed, the exact measurement of the time delay of a reflected radio signal, which moves at the same speed as light, would determine the distance to the object from which it had been reflected. From his experiments with microwave and his discovery of the conductivity of wood at high frequencies, he also know that the material of which airplanes were constructed would reflect these microwaves. By associating this fundamental knowledge with the existence of a clearly perceived need, Blair developed the theory of radar. His theory eventually resulted in his being granted the basic United States patent for radar on August 20, 1957, over thirty years later. Blair Proposes Army Radar Development Following his graduation from the Command and General Staff College, Major Blair was assigned as Chief of Research and Engineering in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer in Washington. After becoming acquainted with his new duties, Blairs thoughts again turned to aircraft detection. He discussed his ideas with Major General Charles McK. Saltzman, Chief Signal Officer of the Army. Saltzman had a working knowledge of physics and quickly perceived that Blairs idea had merit, but he cautioned Blair not to distribute the information too widely until funds could be obtained to implement a development program. In early 1928, Saltzman arranged a joint meeting among the Signal Corps, the Ordnance Technical Committee, and some members of the Coast Artillery Corps so that Blair could present his proposal for the use of radio to detect approaching
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aircraft. Saltzman wanted to determine if any interest could be developed in the idea. Despite the logic of Blairs arguments, the meeting was unsuccessful. Neither the Coast Artillery Corps nor the Ordnance Corps was willing to allocate any funds for a Radio Position Finding project. Their prior detection experience and their vested interest in existing devices precluded their acceptance of the new idea. The Coast Artillery representatives were thinking in terms of the range of their antiaircraft artillery weapons. They did not feel that they needed information about the aircraft until it was ten miles from their firing batteries. The Ordnance Corps had just obtained new models of the latest sound detection equipment of which they were quite proud. If the Coast Artillery officers did not feel that they needed information beyond the distance that could be covered effectively by the sound equipment, the Ordnance officers could see no reason why they should spend their scarce funds to provide it. As incongruous as it might seem, the Army Air Corps was not present at the meeting and apparently was not even invited. The relation between the Signal Corps and its Army Air Corps offspring was not cordial in those days, to say the least. This coolness may account in part for the Signal Corps failure to extend to the Air Corps an invitation to hear Blairs presentation. Blair estimated at the time of the 1928 meeting that he would need $75 to 100 thousand for the project. Almost ten years passed before the Signal Corps received any funds, either from the War Department or the Combat Arms, for the project.26 Watson-Watt Invents CRDF On the other side of the Atlantic, Watson-Watt was actively engaged in his thunderstorm tracking experiments and was making a major contribution to the science of meteorology. After he obtained his first cathode ray oscilloscope in November 1922, he soon developed a Cathode Ray Direction Finder (CRDF). He demonstrated his new device in the spring of 1923 to scientific officers from the Admiralty, but they expressed doubts about its practicality. Watson-Watt, a zealot about anything that he undertook, let his Aberdeen-Angus stubbornness prevail and, despite the doubts expressed, continued his efforts to improve the methods for tracking thunderstorms. He was outstandingly successful. In another test, subsequent to the Yorkshire demonstration for the Admiralty, a CRDF installation near St. Andrews gave an accuracy better than one degree on the atmospherics radiated by lightning flashed near Slough. It discriminated correctly between flashes a few miles east of Slough and those a few miles west. The distances involved were over 100 miles. As the CRDF continued to prove its value, the observation of lightning flashes and thunderstorms
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passed in successive stages from directional observation, through simultaneous observations at several stations, to continuous recording over a widely spread network that gave closer simultaneity and continuity. Stations were soon located in such places as the Shetland Islands, Abukir in Egypt, and Bangalore in India. In the year 1925, two of the CRDFs were also being used by German scientists who were collaborating with Watson-Watt in his meteorological experiments.27 Much of the work being done in radio research was consolidated in 1927 into an officially unified Radio Research Station, Slough. Watson-Watt found himself in charge. Apparently, he was not too happy in this position. Mental rebellion against formality and rigidly guided research activity seemed to be ever-present with him during the next six years. He soon developed, or perhaps it already existed and was merely intensified, a strong aversion to laboratory traditions. His mind was too active and too restless to be fenced in by the precedents established by some long forgotten predecessor. His attitudes and strong emotions on the subject were clearly expressed in his book, The Pulse of Radar. He stated that: The opiate of complacency and tradition is an insidious drug which is liable to poison the policy maker and the individual scientific worker alike. It is the more dangerous because, far from being a scheduled poison, it carries a label of respectability which has got itself, inadvertently and almost unnoticed, transferred from fields where authority and discipline are at once virtues and armaments. A very distinguished professor at Harvard got near one of the several kernels of the problem when, asked by an earnest visitor to state the rules of his research laboratory, he replied, Cal-Coolidgewise: Every man buys his own smokes. It is both ironic and humorous that, several years later, when Sir Robert set up the famed Bawdsey Research Station, the birthplace of British radar, he found fixed in the mosaic floor of the entrance hall the motto Plutot mourir que changer, [Rather die than change].28 Aviation Sets New Records While the accumulation of knowledge and further insight into the mysteries of radio was proceeding relentlessly and slowly throughout the 1920s, the airplane was developing at an almost unbelievable pace into a formidable weapon. Radar and the airplane had a date with destiny and the developers of the airplane seemed determined that the airplane would not be late for the occasion. It seems incomprehensible in hindsight that the scientists who were doing so much to increase the speed, range, altitude capability, armament, and firepower
of military aircraft did not recognize the need for a device to locate accurately in space enemy airplanes which were sure to have equivalent capabilities. If such recognition existed in the 1920s in high official places, it was a well guarded secret. Following World War I, aviation captured the imaginations of a whole new generation of young military leaders. Despite the mossbacks in high places and the sacrifice of Billy Mitchell on the altar of military discipline, the airplanes capabilities multiplied at an expanding rate. There was an insatiable desire to conquer new frontiers and to fly faster, higher, and farther than anyone else had flown before. On May 8, 1919, three Navy amphibians set out on the first crossing of the Atlantic. Twenty one days later, on May 29th, one of the planes, commanded by Lieutenant Commander A. C. Read, arrived at Plymouth, England. They had traveled by way of Newfoundland, the Azores, and Portugal.29 Other assaults on distance records soon followed. On April 18 and 19, 1922, Lieutenants MacCready and Kelly of the Army Air Corps stayed aloft at Dayton, Ohio, for 36 hours, 5 minutes, and 20 seconds, covering a distance of 2,541.2 miles, and setting a Worlds endurance record.30 The following year, on May 2 and 3, the same two officers crossed the United States from New York to San Diego, a distance of 2,650 miles, in 26 hours and 50 minutes. This was the first non-stop coast to coast flight, and it was made in a Fokker T-2 transport.31 Greater vistas continued to beckon to the daring young pilots. On April 6, 1924, Frederick Martin and three Army lieutenants departed from Seattle in four Douglas cruisers for the first flight around the world. A little less than six months later, on September 21, 1924, two of the planes completed the trip in the total elapsed flying time of 363 hours.32 The North pole also began to share in the aviators attentions and, by 1926, the attempts to fly over it had reached the stage of a great international competition. Nine expeditions were being prepared for the 1926 summer season, but the polar derby was won in the late spring by Navy Commander Richard Byrd. He flew over the North pole on May 9, 1926, in a Ford Tri-motor plane.33 The United States was gradually becoming bomber conscious in the 1920s. Following World War I, the desire to produce a bomber with good clear lines was predominant in military aviation circles and, in the next few years, the concept of the American bomber was born. The Curtiss Company, Glenn L. Martin, and others turned their attention in this direction. The first bomber was built in 1920. It was powered by two engines that produced 1,000 horsepower. It carried three tons of bombs, but it was not a great success. Research and design work continued and in 1925 the first Keystone bomber made its appearance. The new plane had a 66 foot wingspan, was powered by a single 800 horsepower engine, and was fitted with
machine guns for protection. There soon followed the era of the twin-engine bomber. The first of these was the Curtiss Condor, a twin-engine biplane with exceptionally high performance characteristics for its day. The Condor was followed in rapid succession by other bombers bearing such well known names as Douglas, Martin, Consolidated, Boeing, and Lockheed.34 Another new frontier that attracted the fancy of the new generation of airmen was speed and speed records fell at almost every turn. In 1921, the Pulitzer Race was won by Bert Acosta in a Navy Curtiss racer at an average speed of 176.7 miles per hour. The same race went the following year to an Army pilot, Lieutenant R. L. Maugham, also flying a Curtiss racer, at an average speed of 205.9 miles per hour. His record had hardly entered the record books before it was surpassed four days later by Brigadier General Billy Mitchell in another Curtiss plane at a speed of 224.38 miles per hour. In November 1923, Lieutenant Alford Williams raised the mark to 256.6 miles per hour. At this point in the competition, the Secretary of the Navy stopped further speed record attempts by Navy pilots because flying was becoming too dangerous. The Army operated under no such restrictions and continued to establish new speed records almost at will. The 1925 Pulitzer race went to Lieutenant Cyrus Beatty at 248.98 miles per hour. In that same year, Jimmy Doolittle, another Army lieutenant, won the Schneider trophy and on the next day set a new speed record for seaplanes245.71 miles per hour. The contest for speed records soon became an international competition. In 1926, Major Mario de Bernardi of Italy, set a new Worlds record for seaplanes at 250 miles per hour. He was flying a Macchi. 1926 was also the year that Willi Messerschmitt made his first plane and the British introduced the first supercharged engine.35 Although the airplane by 1926 had been able to fly non-stop across the United States, had reached speeds of better than 250 miles per hour in straightaway flight, and had been able to circumnavigate the globe by making a series of short flights, there were few military or political leaders in the United States who looked upon the airplane as an actual threat to the nations safety. After all, we had both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as buffers between us and any would-be aggressors. Consequently, there was little or no recognition of the existence of a need for a device to provide early warning of an impending enemy air attack. Such an attack was obviously an impossibility. An airplane could never carry enough fuel to fly the ocean non-stop. Then came the year 1927! That memorable year brought the first faint recognition of the airplane as a threat to the security of the United States, and ushered in a remarkable series of distance flights.
35
The year 1927 marked a significant advance in the development of aviation. Transatlantic flights became special objectives for the airmen of many nations and the United States in particularbut there were many obstacles to be overcome. Officially, no country sanctioned the flights. Aircraft construction was beginning to be very costly and the men who were attracted by the challenge of the conquest of the Atlantic were forced to find wealthy patrons. Charles A. Lindbergh, the famous Lone Eagle, was no exception. He was financed by the business men of St. Louis. America first acknowledged Lindberghs aspirations to fly the Atlantic with skepticism and derision. He was the only pilot who proposed to fly alone and for that reason the newspapers dubbed him The Flying Fool. His reason for flying alone was a sound one. He wished to replace a navigator with extra fuel that would allow him a margin of error of about 300 miles. He placed more faith in the duration of the flight than in navigation. He seriously doubted that he could miss the entire continent of Europe, regardless of any errors in navigation that he might make. Lindbergh took off from New York City on May 20, 1927 and, after 33.5 hours in his Ryan monoplane, he arrived at Le Bourget airfield near Paris. On those two fateful days, the Atlantic shrank considerably in size and the United States found herself much nearer to the recurring political intrigue and strife of the European continent. Other flights quickly followed. Two weeks later, on June 4th, Clarence Chamberlain flew non-stop from New York City to a point just 165 miles from Berlin, a distance of nearly 4,000 miles. His elapsed flying time was 42 hours. On June 29th, Commander Richard Byrd made the third non-stop crossing. Within another month, two more Americans landed in England.36 The Pacific Ocean, like its Atlantic sister, was not immune to the assaults of American airmen and, in 1927, the Dole Air Derby from Oakland to Honolulu was won by Arthur Goebel and William Davis with a tine of 26 hours, 17 minutes, and 33 seconds.37 The year 1927 was notable for its assaults on speed records as well, and the transoceanic flights in no way detracted from the speedsters efforts to fly faster than anyone had flown before. The 1927 Schneider trophy went to Flight Lieutenant Webster of the RAF who piloted his Supermarine S-5 float plane at a speed of 281.65 MPH. The following year saw Flight Lieutenant Darcy Grieg in the same type plane raise the record over the 300 MPH mark. After the passage of another year, Wing Commander Orlebar reached a speed of 357.7 MPH and on September 29, 1931, Flight Lieutenant Boothman attained the incredible speed of 407.5 miles per hour in a Supermarine 6B.38
36
One of the most significant aviation events during the 1920s, from a strategic defense point of view, occurred during the naval maneuvers of 1928. Two aircraft carriers, the Saratoga and the Lexington, had been commissioned in 1927.39 During the 1928 exercise, it was shown conclusively that aircraft in large numbers could operate successfully with the fleet. A night raid of over 250 planes was launched successfully against the Panama Canal from carriers 150 miles at sea. This event highlighted the rapidly increasing need to improve the Canal Zones vital defenses.40 The Conservative 1920s Most of the 1920 decade could be described as a period of business as usual. There was little effort by the government to interfere with or shape the destiny of the United States. Harding was followed by Calvin Coolidge who had little to his credit in the way of constructive legislation or political ideas. He had equally little to his discredit. It is characteristic of the man that he is best remembered for his vetoes. Yet this dour, abstemious and unimaginative Silent Cal became one of the most popular of American presidents. He believed in the status quo and, although he had the integrity that was lacking in the administration of his predecessor, he continued the same political and economic policies. Under his auspices, the policies of high tariffs, tax reduction, and government support of industry were pushed to extremes, and a high plateau of prosperity was attained. Despite the tax reductions, however, the national debt was lowered because of Coolidges active practice in government of the New England virtue of thrift.41 To the military leader who was trying to keep his forces at combat readiness for an emergency, and at the same time attempting to develop the weapons to provide victory in the next war, Coolidges thrift seemed something less than a virtue. It was translated into reduced budgets, accusations of waste against the military, lack of support from the executive branch of the government, and numerous other obstacles in the path of progress. Major General Charles McK. Saltzman, the Armys Chief Signal Officer, even found himself obliged to deny, in his 1926 annual report, the assertion that the Military Establishment was standing by in idleness and wastefulness. Saltzman found his offices effectiveness threatened by Coolidges one and two per cent clubs, the economy devices of the Coolidge administration. These cuts forced Saltzman to pare the skin from a budget that had already lost its flesh. Both he and his successor, Major General George S. Gibbs, were forced to make budget cuts, and their dedicated efforts to have the funds restored in subsequent budgets were to no avail.42
President Coolidge was succeeded by his Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, who by his brilliantly successful administration of relief organizations in Belgium, Russia, and the Mississippi Valley, had earned a reputation as a great humanitarian. By his active and progressive administration of the Commerce Department, he had also won the confidence of American business. The Hoover regime is remembered in American history, not so much for the great depressionwhich would have come no matter who was presidentbut because it represented the last stand of rugged individualism.43 Hoover had been swept into office by an overwhelming majority and he carried with him a majority of both houses of Congress. The tremendous public support and enthusiasm that he received seemed to be a mandate to continue the policies of the previous eight yearspolicies of which he had been one of the principal architects. Times were good, business men were full of confidence, and the stock exchange boomed. Most business men and investors prepared to reap still higher profits and enjoy an even higher standard of living. The average value of common stocks soared from 117 in December 1928 to 225 the following Septemberbut the gains were mostly paper profits and, to a disastrous extent, the purchases were credit purchased. Stockbrokers increased their bank borrowings from $3.5 billion in 1927 to $8.5 billion two years later. In January 1929, no less than $1 billion worth of new securities were floated. The crash came in October 1929. On the 21st of that month the prices of stock began to sag; on the 24th over 12 million shares changed hands; and on the 29th came the catastrophic crash. Once under way, the spiral of depression swept out in an ever widening curve. Millions of investors lost their savings and thousands were forced into bankruptcy. Debts climbed, purchases declined, factories cut down production, workers were fired, and the wages and salaries of those who were able to retain their jobs were slashed drastically. The mortgages on the farms were foreclosed, real estate values tumbled, and tax collections dropped alarmingly. Governmental economies began to be practiced on a large scale.44 The days of the one and two per cent clubs of the Coolidge Administration seemed like unbridled prosperity when compared with the economies that were practiced in the early 1930s.45 Radar Again Proposed to the U.S. Navy It was at this period in the nations history that the Naval Research Laboratory made its second attempt to convince the Navy Department to approve a project to investigate the possible use of reflected radio waves to detect and locate airplanes in space.
The Naval Research Laboratory revived its interest in radio detection when a young associate engineer, L. A. Hyland, accidentally detected radio waves that were reflected from an aircraft. Taylor and Young had considered the possibility of airplane detection at the time of the 1922 observations, but they were not convinced that the reflected energy from a plane would be great enough to be detected. To them, therefore, the surprising thing about Hylands discovery was not the fact that the plane reflected the waves, but that the effect was large enough to be detected. In the summer of 1930, Hyland was working on direction finding experiments at ultrahigh frequencies. As part of these experiments, he was studying the directional reception obtained with a single-wire antenna about fifteen feet long and attached fore-and-aft along the fuselage of an experimental 02U plane. The aircraft was being tested on the ground about two miles from the transmitter at the compass house of the Naval Air Station. Hyland was observing the maximum and minimum signals obtained as he turned the plane around on the compass house, pointing it now toward and now away from the transmitter. On June 24th, in the early afternoon, he noticed that occasionally, after turning the plane so that a perfect minimum was obtained, an unusual and unexpected phenomenon was seen. For a time, a signal would come in irregularly when only a steady minimum signal should have been observed. After repeated observations, it became apparent that these observations occurred only when planes flying in the vicinity of the air station crossed the line between the receiving antenna and the transmitting station at NRL. Hyland was so startled by the discovery, particularly since he immediately recognized its implications, that he dropped his work and rushed to tell the laboratory director about his discovery. Hyland repeated the experiment the next day for C. B. Mirick, head of the Aircraft Radio Section, and two members of the Laboratory staff. In preparation for the experiment, arrangements were made for a plane to make specially requested flights at various altitudes between 1,000 and 4,000 feet. This experiment was also successful and Dr. Hoyt Taylor, who was advised of the discovery at once, directed that the work be vigorously pursued. A small portable field receiver with a single-wire antenna was hurriedly thrown together, and the experiments were repeated at distances of four, six, and ten miles from the transmitter. In each instance the presence of planes was detected by the periodic variation (beat) of the signal received from NRL. In a memorandum to Commander Almy, Assistant Director of NRL, the phenomenon was described by Hyland as resulting from interference between a directly transmitted wave and a wave reflected or re-radiated from the airplane.
37
Similar experiments with the same observations were made during the late summer and early autumn of 1930. On November 5, 1930, Dr. Taylor prepared a memorandum to the Chief of the Bureau of Engineering in which he invited attention to the earlier observations of 1922, and emphasized the potential usefulness of the equipment to detect moving objects and to determine their velocity. Taylor emphasized the possibility of using the principle on shipboard to avoid collision in fog with an iceberg or another ship. According to his proposal, a very short wave beam transmitter would be located at one end of the ship and a receiver at the other.
With this memorandum, the second phase of the invention of radar was at an end. Eight years had elapsed since Hoyt Taylor and Leo Young had made their initial observations of reflected radio energy as the Dorchester steamed slowly down the Potomac. The knowledge of radio had progressed slowly but tenaciously during the remainder of the 1920 decade, but the capabilities of military airplanes had increased many times more. Radio had had a quarter century head start, but the airplane was closing the gap at a dangerous and threatening pace. The decision by the Navy Department on Hoyt Taylors recommendation would be a crucial one.46
38
NOTES TO CHAPTER V [1] [2] Interview by the author with Dr. Robert M. Page, Director of Research, NRL, 5 December 1960. Taylor, A. Hoyt, The First 25 Years of the Naval Research Laboratory, (Washington, D.C., Navy Department, 1948), p. 17. Ibid., p. 18. Interview with Dr. Page, op.cit. Taylor, op.cit., p. 13. Taylor, op.cit., pp. 79 and 24. Guerlac, Henry E., Radar, (Unpublished manuscript) p. 53, and QST, January 1924, pp. 912. Taylor, op.cit., p. 18. Taylor, A. Hoyt, The Navys Work on Short Waves, QST, May 1924, pp. 914. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 5354. Mouromtseff, I. E. A Quarter Century of Electronics, Electrical Engineering, Vol. LXVI, No. 2, Feb. 1947, pp. 171177. Interview with Page, op.cit. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 5859. Mouromtseff, op.cit., p. 178. Taylor, A. Hoyt, The First 25 Years of the Naval Research Laboratory, op.cit., p. 19. Ibid., pp. 2122. Ibid., p. 21. Watson-Watt, Robert, The Pulse of Radar, (New York: The Dial Press, 1959), p. 70. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 7475. Kennelly, A. E., On the Elevation of the ElectricallyConducting Strata of the Earths Atmosphere, Electrical World and Engineering, Vol. 39, No. 11, March 15, 1902, p. 473. Heaviside, Oliver, Telegraph Theory, Encyclopedia Brittanica, Tenth Edition, Vol. 33, p. 215. Reinartz, John L. The Reflection of Short Waves, QST, April 1925, pp. 912. Taylor, A. H., Investigation of Transmission on the Higher Radio Frequencies, Proceedings of the I. R. E., Vol. 13, No. 6, 1925, pp. 667683. Taylor, A. H., and E. O. Hulburt, The Propagation of Radio Waves, Physical Review, Vol 27, 1926, pp. 189215. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 76. Taylor, The First 25 Years of the Naval Research Laboratory, op.cit., p. 21. Appleton and Barnett, On Some Direct Evidence for Downward Atmospheric Reflection of Electric Rays, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series A, Vol. 109, 1925, pp. 621641. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 78. [22] Breit, G., and M. A. Tuve, A Test of the Existence of the Conducting Layer, Physical Review, Vol. 28, No. 3, Sept. 1926, pp. 1516. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 7880. Taylor, The First 25 Years of the Naval Research Laboratory, pp. 1920. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 81. Interview by the author with Colonel William R. Blair, U.S. Army Retired, December 6, 1960. Ibid. Ibid. Watson-Watt, op.cit., pp. 2936. Ibid, pp. 4041. Frazer, Chelsea, Heroes of the Air, (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, Inc., 1926), pp. 2751. Grey, Charles G., The History of Combat Airplanes, (Norwich University, 1941), p. 55. Frazer, op.cit., pp. 181212. Frazer, op.cit., pp 247296. Frazer, op.cit., pp. 297427. Ayling, Keith, Bombers, (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, Inc., 1926). Grey, op.cit., pp. 54100. Dixon, Charles, The Conquest of the Atlantic by Air, (J. B. Lippincott, 1931), pp. 104129. Fifty Years of FlightA Chronicle of the Aviation Industry in America 19031953, (Eaton Manufacturing Co., 1953), p. 37. Grey, op.cit., pp. 54100. United States Naval Aviation in Review 19111951, (Bureau of Aeronautics, Department of the Navy, 1951). Johnston, S. Paul, Flying Fleets, (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pierce, 1941), p. 17. Morison, Samuel E., and Commager, Henry Steele, The Growth of the American Republic, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950), Vol. 2, pp. 520531. Terrett, Dulaney, The Signal Corps: The Energency, (Washington D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1956), p. 70. Morison and Commager, op.cit., pp. 520531. Morison and Commager, op.cit., pp. 532546. Terrett, op.cit., p. 70. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 102105.
[3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
[23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37]
[9] [10]
[11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]
[38] [39] [40] [41]
[19]
[42]
[20]
[43] [44] [45] [46]
[21]
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40
Chapter VI
The Arrival of Radar (19301935)

Phase III of the Invention of Radar
At the time of the Navy Research Laboratorys second recommendation that a radar project be undertaken, the need for a device to detect and locate airplanes in space had become more apparent. Most of the mossbacks who had occupied high places in the Navy Department at the time of the first recommendation in 1922 had retired. A new generation of leaders who were more aware of the threat of the airplane as a military weapon and who foresaw the importance of the aircraft carrier both as an offensive tool and a defensive threat was emerging. Unfortunately for research and development activities in the 1930s, however, the purse strings on military spending were drastically reduced as a result of the depression and military research and development bore a substantial part of the reduction. 1 Captain E. J. Marquart, Director of the Naval Research Laboratory at the time of Hylands discovery, recognized the difficulties of getting the radio detection project approved by the Navy Department, but he also appreciated the significance of the discovery. Marquart endorsed Taylors memorandum and stated that the matter was of the utmost importance. In his comment, he pointed out that if the device could be developed it would be of the greatest military and naval value for defense against enemy aircraft. He recommended that a program be set up for the development of the apparatus and that it be given a high priority.2 Shortly thereafter, the project was approved by the Navy Department, and Project Number W5-52 was assigned to a task for research on the use of very high frequency radio waves to detect the presence of enemy vessels or aircraft.3 Although the need had thus been officially recognized, the approval of Taylors proposal did not carry with it an allocation of funds. NRL merely had permission to work on the project whenever personnel were available or if the Laboratorys staff was sufficiently interested in its success to work on it after hours. The work performed on the project during the next twelve months was limited because of the lack
Notes
of funds and the existence of other higher priority projects. At the end of the year, NRLs director advised the Chief of the Bureau of Engineering that the pressure of other problems had prevented the prosecution of research on the radio detection project and that: Until greater priority is given in this work and additional time and facilities are made available, progress must be limited to such research as can be made during intervals in the prosecution of other work having greater immediate importance.4 Despite the lack of tangible support for his project, however, Hyland and others at NRL devoted much time to the undertaking after normal duty hours. By autumn, work had progressed to the point that the airship Akron was asked to circle the Naval Research Laboratory in order that high frequency direction finders might be calibrated. These tests were made with personal equipment belonging to Hyland and Young and at their own expense. The tests successfully picked up energy reflected by the Akron from three Washington commercial broadcast stations.5 By the beginning of 1932, a detection system that used a directional continuous-wave, 30 megacycle transmitter proved capable of locating airplanes fifty miles away, but it was not found suitable for shipboard installation. During the 1931 tests, no real distinction was made between the contrasting needs for detection of ships and aircraft. Work was concentrated on aircraft detection for a very simple reasonmany aircraft were constantly in the air over the Naval Research Laboratory at Anacostia. They provided ample targets without special arrangements having to be made or costs, for which no money was available, being incurred.6 Navy Reveals Radar Secrets to the Army Following NRLs determination that the first experimental model was infeasible for shipboard operation, because of the size of the antennas required for its operation, the Secretary of the Navy officially
41
informed the Secretary of War on January 9, 1932, of the Navys radio detection work. The memorandum stated in part: Certain phases of the problem appear to be of more concern to the Army than to the Navy. For example, a system of transmitters and associated receivers might be set up about a defense area to test its effectiveness in detecting the passage of hostile aircraft into the area. Such a development might be carried forward more appropriately and expeditiously by the Army than by the Navy. Other applications of special interest to the Army may occur to the War Department.7 If the Navy had discontinued its work on radar, it might be suspected that the Secretary of the Navy, or his advisors who wrote the memorandum for his signature, had held grave doubts about the applicability of the radio detection principle for shipboard use. Perhaps they did, but work on the project continued anyway, and additional progress was made during 1932. A plausible explanation of the Navy Secretarys action comes from Dr. Robert M. Page of NRL. He told the author that: The Army was responsible for defense of the land area of the United States and the 1931 experimental set looked like it might be of great importance to the Army for this purpose. The Navy could not get money from Congress for a project in the field of air defense of the United States. It was not in their mission. Therefore, we started the development of a set with smaller antennas and turned the previous development over to the Army. We believed that the Army would be more likely to obtain funds for it.8 Army Signal Corps Undertakes Detection Project At the time of the Secretary of the Navys disclosure to the Army, Major William R. Blair was Director of the Signal Corps Laboratories at Fort Monmouth. He had assumed command in the summer of 1930. A previous chapter described the unsuccessful efforts of Blair to arouse interest in radio detection within the Army. Therefore, it is not surprising that soon after Blair found himself in charge of the Laboratories, he initiated a detection project to inquire into the potentialities of both high frequency radio and heat detection methods. Project 88 was set up in February 1931 and given the title Position Finding by Means of Light. Its real purpose, however, was to explore electromagnetic radiation in the radio-optic fieldthat portion of the radio frequency spectrum which spans both microwaves and infra-red waves. Blair placed first emphasis on heat detection and assigned the project to the Sound and Light Section of the Laboratories. A radio detection project followed in 1932.9
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Blair was not particularly impressed with the Navys radio detection work, although he probably was influenced by it more than he cared to admit. In December 1930, he attended an NRL demonstration at the invitation of Dr. Taylor, at which Taylor explained Hylands discovery, and discussed NRLs experiments with the new phenomenon. At this meeting, Blair was personally offended by an action of Taylors. This probably unintended affront adversely affected Blairs subsequent opinion of the Navys radar work, and caused Blair to be unwilling to see much good in anything that NRL did thereafter. Here was one of the many random factors which kept influencing radars course. According to Blair, after Taylor had finished his explanation of NRLs radar project, Taylor invited the other people present to make comments. Blair said that no one present seemed to understand what Taylor was saying except him. When it came his turn to speak, Blair told Taylor that NRL should have expected this phenomenon because no new scientific principles were involved. Blair attempted to explain what he meant by this statement, and also started to describe his own 1906 experiments. Taylor adjourned the meeting, however, before Blair finished speaking and, according to Blair, he was never invited to NRL again. Thirty years later he still remembered the incident as if it were yesterday, and still resented Taylor deeply.10 Blair objected to the Navys first experimental effort because it seemed to offer no precision. The tests showed generally that there were airplanes in the air but not where each one was located. Blair felt that the sets accuracy was too poor to be useful to the Army. At the time of the Secretary of the Navys memorandum to the Secretary of War, Blairs opinion of the NRL radar project had not changed. As a result, he made no effort to build on the information supplied by the Navy. Perhaps another factor affecting Blairs unwillingness in 1932 to take over the Navys project was the influence of the Signal Corps only customer for aircraft detection equipment, the Coast Artillery Corps. In terms of antiaircraft fire, the Navys beat method sounded unpromising. The guns would have no exact firing data and the attacking planes would be past and out of sight before the firing batteries could obtain it.11 Despite Blairs objections to the Navys work, however, there is no evidence that he had started any detection experiments of his own at the Signal Corps Laboratories prior to the Secretary of the Navys memorandum. Project 88 was restricted entirely to infra-red detection and it was not until after the Secretarys communication that Blair set up a radio detection research endeavor. During the year 1932, spasmodic work on radio detection was continued at NRL, but with little effective results. Attempts were made to
determine how well the velocity of aircraft could be determined from the beat frequency of the interference effects. Some scattered observations were made between ships, and a tug which passed between two stations was detected two miles away. Nevertheless, comparatively little attention was paid to such slow moving objects, because faster aircraft showed the phenomenon much more readily and were available at all times. Airplanes were detected at distances as far as 50 miles from the transmitter.12 Blairs Radio Position Finding Project got under way in 1932, under the auspices of the Sound and Light Division. Two men were initially assigned to itFloyd Ostenson and W. D. Hershberger.13 Blair, remembering his personal experiments with microwaves in his 1906 doctoral work, directed the initial research toward microwave experimentation. He thought that only the higher frequencies would permit the use of antennas small enough to make mobile radar feasible. Blair was convinced that size requirements which made NRLs first experimental model unsuited for shipboard installation would also make a long wave set unsuited for field use in the Army.14 Theoretically, microwave radar should have been an ideal solution to the detection problem but Blairs preoccupation with microwaves led the Signal Corps into a blind alley. The state of the microwave art had simply not advanced far enough by 1932 to make these waves feasible for any use that required large amounts of power. The main obstacle was the lack of suitable vacuum tubes, which was a result of the long years of little or no research in the higher frequencies of the frequency spectrum. Three Years of Negligible Progress The years 1930 through 1933 saw the beginning of radio detection projects by both the Army and the Navybut little progress was made by either. Although lip service, at least, was given to the NRL project by the Bureau of Engineering, the Signal Corps Laboratories project was apparently being carried out without the approval, and perhaps without even the knowledge of, the Chief Signal Officer and other officials in the War Department. Neither project was granted an allocation of funds, and each received almost the minimum amount of effort possible to avoid losing its status as an active project. One reason for the slow progress was probably the erroneous belief that the concept of radar was known only to the military establishment of the United States. There was no apparent need to hurry the project. In the Secretary of the Navys letter to the Secretary of War, he stated that the phenomena upon which it is based are not known in any other country, or outside of our own military organizations in this country, except in the
RADAR: A CASE HISTORY OF AN INOVATIONCHAPTER VI
Patent Office where applications for patents are being held in a confidential status.15 This illusion of secrecy was shattered on January 12, 1933, however, when three engineers of the Bell Telephone Laboratories, Carl R. Englund, Arthur B. Crawford and William W. Mumford, described to an open meeting of the Institute of Radio Engineers their independent discovery that radio waves are reflected from aircraft and can be detected.16 The Naval Research Laboratory in 1933 continued its efforts to improve the beat method of radio detection and to develop a workable military device, but the work failed to progress beyond the exploratory stage. A suggestion was made for a specific piece of military equipment but it subsequently proved impractical. The experiments of the past three years had proved that planes could be detected at much greater distances by radio than by sound or heat detectors, and that a rough idea of the distance and speed of the aircraft could be obtained, but little information as to the distance and speed of the aircraft could be provided by a single station. To overcome this severe handicap, a proposal was made to establish a chain of transmitting and receiving stations which could be evenly distributed along the line to be guarded. These stations would report to a common center where the results would be correlated. This proposal was used the following year to build an apparatus for a historic demonstration for a Congressional Subcommittee.17 Meanwhile, at the Signal Corps Laboratories, Blair had assigned Hershberger to continue work alone on the microwave detection project. Blairs belief in microwaves, however, was not fully shared by Hershberger. The latter recognized that the Navys beat method was not practical for Army purposes because of its inability to provide precise location information, but he gradually came to realize that the state of the microwave art was not sufficiently advanced to permit the use of microwaves for radio detection in the immediate future. On several occasions, Hershberger suggested that his experiments should be conducted on longer waves so that more powerful transmitters could be employed. His suggestions fell on deaf ears, however, because Blair was firmly convinced that only by the use of the higher frequencies could antennas be made small enough for radar to meet the Armys mobility requirements. Hershbergers suggestion also raised jurisdictional problems within the Signal Corps Laboratories. The Sound and Light Division to which Hershberger was assigned was restricted to research in that portion of the frequency spectrum below one meter in wavelength, while Watsons Radio Section did the work above one meter. Hershberger in the fall of 1933 made another important suggestion. He proposed that the Signal
43
Corps should adopt the pulse method instead of the beat method of detection. His proposal received serious attention, but was not accepted at the time. Hershberger also made attempts to key his five watt transmitter with a multivibrator, but his efforts were unsuccessful. Most of Hershbergers energies continued to be directed toward fruitless microwave research. No serious effort was made to push the pulse proposal.18 The lack of progress at the Naval Research Laboratory from 1930 through 1933 was attributable in large measure to the worsening of the great depression which had hit the country in late 1929. In the early 1930s, Naval appropriations were severely cut and a pro-rata share of the cut was passed on to the Bureau of Engineering which provided almost 80 per cent of NRLs funds. The funds available for radio and sound projects were thus severely restricted at a time when the work at NRL should have been expanded. Personnel cuts were ordered at NRL, and two of the key scientists in the Radio Division were ordered dropped from the payroll. Some of the officers of the Radio Division were very much upset by the release of Mr. C. B. Mirick, head of the Aircraft Section of the Radio Division. They were unable to persuade the Bureau chief to rescind the action and got around the difficulty by rehiring Mr. Mirick at a higher salary on a contract basis. The total annual savings resulting from all dismissals was less than $12 thousand per annum. Even in the desperate circumstances of the early 1930s, the firing of these two men seemed uncalled for, particularly when the other scientists at NRL agreed to accept a reduction in pay to make up the difference. As events developed, the scientists received the pay cut in addition to losing the services of Wheeler and Mirick. At one time in the depths of the depression, the salary of all civilian employees of NRL was reduced 23 per cent.19 On two different occasions, the entire Laboratory came near to being closed for economy reasons, but each time Dr. Hoyt Taylor successfully intervened. Because the Radio Division was by far the largest division of NRL, it was frequently called upon to provide rebuttal testimony at Congressional hearings or at Navy Department Inquiries. Dr. Taylor developed into a key witness who was usually able to avert disaster. One of the attempts to close the Laboratory would have been extremely humorous if it had not been so serious. A high ranking official of the Navy Department was making a weekend cruise down the Potomac in the Navy Secretarys yacht. On passing the grounds of the Naval Research Laboratory, he pointed to the white buildings on his left and asked what that installation was. Someone finally advised him that it was the Naval Research Laboratory and then he asked Well, what do they do over there? No one in his party knew the answer so the official wrote
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himself a memorandum, noting that in the interest of economy the activity might as well be abolished. He had made several moves in that direction before the key officials at NRL heard of his plans and were able to stir up opposition to his senseless efforts. It is indicative of the depression period, perhaps, that the attempt to close NRL progressed so far without any investigation being made either of the necessity for or the advisability of closing the establishment.20 NRLs First Radar Appropriation Dr. Hoyt Taylor had many friends in the Congress and he apparently had no inhibitions about calling on them for assistance when it was needed. He frequently combined Congressional relations with his favorite method for drumming up support, the demonstration. One of the historic occasions in which his efforts were particularly successful was a demonstration for members of the House Subcommittee on Naval Appropriations in February 1934. The committee included a Congressman who subsequently had great influence on the development of radar because of his ability to assure that essential funds were provided. The Honorable James Scrugham, later a senator from Nevada, had been educated as an engineer and still retained his engineering interest. He kept up with many projects being accomplished at NRL in the field of microwaves which, in 1934, meant waves of any frequency higher than 100 megacycles.21 Following the February demonstration, there was a period of waiting during which no action was taken by the Subcommittee to provide funds. Dr. Taylor, with the permission of the Director of NRL, and accompanied by Dr. Hayes of the Sound Division, went to see Congressman Scrugham. The Congressman was at that time the most powerful member of the Naval Appropriations subcommittee. Taylor and Hayes made a strong plea for additional appropriations from Congress, and suggested that the additional funds be earmarked for long lead time investigations, particularly in the fields of microwaves and supersonics. Scrugham listened in silence, asked a few questions, but promised nothing. Taylor and Hayes left his office feeling discouraged, but a few days later Scrugham called Taylor and gave him the good news that the Subcommittee had agreed to give NRL an additional $100 thousand to spend on the long range research program that Taylor had suggested. There was jubilation at NRL because, in the depression days of 1934, $100 thousand looked more like $100 million would today. Because of the normal delay between favorable action by an Appropriations Subcommittee and passage of the annual appropriations bill by both houses of Congress, several months elapsed before NHL received the funds, but the radar financial drought was ended at last. In the meantime,
another windfall for radar occurred. The Bureau of Aeronautics gave the Sound Division $15 thousand to work on a sonic altimeter. The sound division believed that the new radio echo work was more promising to the solution than sound methods and, with the consent of the Bureau of Aeronautics, turned $10 thousand over to Taylor for his use. In the following year, Congress again appropriated $100 thousand to NRL for long time exploration. In the next two years, they doubled and tripled the amount.22 One of the scientists at NRL who helped set up the historic demonstration for the Congressional Subcommittee was Robert M. Page, a young scientist who had been with NRL about eight years. He was later to become one of the greatest contributors to Naval radar. Page brought to the project fresh ideas, and he gave it a shot in the arm at the very time that it seemed to be getting nowhere. Assignment to the project was invigorating for Page also. He was still at the bottom of the civil service ladder, after eight years of productive work, and the project on which he had been working for three years had just been canceled for lack of funds. He was a bit discouraged. It was a fortunate circumstance, therefore, both for Page and the future of radar that he became available when he did and that he was assigned to work with Leo Young. From these two fertile brains sprang forth, among many innovations, the first successful pulse radar.23 U.S. Navy Turns to Pulse Radar The revolutionary significance of radar was not recognized in the early 1930s by all to whom its secrets were disclosed. It encountered a good deal of skepticism and, in some instances, the resistance amounted to outright antagonism. Opposition even existed within the Radio Division, where radar was being developed. The shortcomings of the beat method were generally known and they were a major cause of the opposition. Only by removing the weaknesses of the beat method could the opposition be overcome. Pulse radar eventually became the weapon with which the enemies of radar were silenced.24 At the time that Page was assigned to the radar project, attempts were under way to change the beat method development to higher frequencies, and thus permit the use of small antennas. A few weeks later, the focus of radar research switched to pulse transmission, although both beat and pulse methods remained as parallel approaches for a while longer. Page makes no claim to having thought up the idea of pulse transmission. He attributes all the credit to Leo Young, his associate and early boss in the pulse investigations. The use of the pulse technique, developed by Breit and Tuve in 1925 with the assistance of Young and Taylor, first occurred to Young at the time of Hylands discovery.25 Neither
Young nor anyone else at NRL did anything about it during the first few years of radars development. Many problems would have been involved in producing the required short waves, and building a receiver to detect them. There would have been an even more difficult task of building an indicator or electronic time base upon which to display the transmitted and received pulses and measure the extremely short intervals of time. When it finally became apparent that the beat method was not likely to produce an effective military device, Youngs thoughts again turned to pulse transmission. Before undertaking the project, however, he made some mathematical calculations to determine the feasibility of the idea, and he discussed his findings with Dr. Taylor and several other associates. Young began his investigations without official approval. He worked without assistance and after hours on the design of a timing circuit which would operate a cathode ray tube with a circular sweep. After the likelihood of success became evident, Young persuaded his superiors to assign him another man to work on the problem full time. His suggestion encountered opposition and would probably have been disapproved if Pages previous work had not been terminated at just that time in that history of radars development.26 Page knew little about the radio detection project when he was assigned to it. He had hardly had time to familiarize himself with the preceding work before he was asked to help set up the demonstration for the Congressional subcommittee. His was a perceptive mind, however, and he recorded the results of his thinking in a log book. From Pages log book, we learn that he thought the inability to determine the direction of the reflected signal was radars principal defect. He also contributed some positive ideas and listed four objectives for radar that he considered essential to a successful device: 1. It should be possible to locate the transmitter and receiver close together so that they could both be on the same ship. 2. The device should be capable of detecting aircraft at ranges of up to 50 to 100 miles. 3. Determination of whether the object is approaching or receding should be possible. 4. The speed of the detected aircraft should be provided. Page began work on the project on March 14, 1934. The entry in his log for that date states: Upon failure of the Bureau of Engineering to reopen the decade problem, work was resumed with Mr. Young on the Airplane Echo Problem in a manner similar to that by which supersonic depth finding is accomplished.27
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During April and May, Young and Page worked on sweep circuits to produce a circular trace on the cathode ray tube. They obtained their first pulses by means of a multivibrator circuit which had recently become popular in ionospheric work. This circuit did not give as sharp a pulse as they had expected but, after experimenting with other approaches, they found that it was the best that they could obtain at the time. Young and Page were anxious to produce pulses which were separated by a relatively long resting period. Therefore, they made the circuit asymmetrical. The first pulses were about ten microseconds long. NRLs success with the multivibrator circuit marked the first time that pulse keying had been performed at such extremely short pulse lengths. There was still little enthusiasm for the radar project among many responsible officials within the Navy, even at NRL. The project continued to be carried on under the old beat system project number and up to that time it had never received other than a low priority. A number of times during the year, Page was borrowed from the project and assigned to other more pressing problems. According to Pages log book, approximately fifty per cent of his time in 1934 was spent on special assignments which were not in any way connected with radio detection.28 Army Radars Infra-Red Competition At the Signal Corps Laboratories, where Hershberger was pursuing his hopeless quest for a workable microwave radar, radio detection was still not the major undertaking in the detection field. The principal effort was directed toward infra-red research and, despite the obvious weaknesses of sound detection, projects were still being worked on to improve the existing sound detection equipment. At the Aberdeen Proving Ground, in 1926, the Army Ordnance Corps had detected an airplane by reflected infra-red waves,29 and this discovery had been partly responsible for the inability of Major Blair to convince the Ordnance representatives in 1928 that radio detection was the ultimate answer to the airplane location problem.30 During the course of 1928, the Army Ordnance Corps Frankford Arsenal shifted its infra-red research to the then-promising technique of detecting aircraft by a two-way method. This technique detected reflected infra-red energy that had been emitted by a source on the ground. By the end of 1928, aircraft were being detected at slant ranges of up to 5,000 yards.31 In 1930, the Ordnance Corps withdrew from infra-red research and the Signal Corps obtained full responsibility for this scientific field. All information and knowledge accumulated by the Ordnance researchers was turned over to the Signal Corps Laboratories and the Frankford Arsenal approach became the basis for the infra-red work being
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accomplished under Blairs newly established Project 88.32 Blair was not enthusiastic about the infra-red work in progress at the Laboratory, but he had no alternative but to continue it. The Signal Corps Laboratories enjoyed much less freedom of action than their counterparts at NRL. Officially they could undertake no research and development project until one of their customers, the Armys Combat Arms, established a user requirement. When Blair became Laboratory Director in 1930, the only user requirement for aircraft detection being worked on in the Laboratory was a Coast Artillery infra-red project. The Army Air Corps apparently was not concerned at that time with equipment with which to detect enemy aircraft. They were too busy trying to obtain much needed funds to continue their own airplane development. Consequently, the only avenue open to Blair was to tie his radar project unofficially and illegally to the Coast Artillerys infra-red project, and to try to persuade the Coast Artillery, after the fact, to become interested in radio detection.33 In addition to his efforts to sell the Coast Artillery on the advantages of radar, Blair tried another approach. This indicates the unusual measures to which the early radar developers would resort to get radio detection accepted and to obtain funds for its development. Blair learned that Dr. S. H. Anderson, an infra-red expert with the Army Air Corps, was available for employment. The project on which he had been working had been canceled because of a slash in Air Corps funds. Blair offered Anderson a job at the Signal Corps Laboratories Sound and Light Division. Anderson accepted and was assigned, in addition to his duties as head of the section, a personal jobthe study of the penetration of fog by various regions of the infra-red portion of the frequency spectrum. Blairs purpose in setting up such a special arrangement for Anderson was to use the findings of a nationally recognized infra-red scientist to prove to the Coast Artillery that infra-red detection of aircraft was infeasible. In short, Andersons job was to disprove the value of infra-red, instead of the more conventional and positive role of proving its worth. Blair was willing to gamble that his professional judgment was correct and that Andersons findings would support his contentions. Anderson may not have been aware of Blairs intentions, however, because he did an outstanding job of infra-red research. He got transmission through fog with infra-red until he reached way down the frequency scale. At the extreme lower end of the scale, he was able to obtain an increase in penetration of about 50 per cent more than he could by visible light. Blair pointed out, however, that If you can only see 100 yards in fog, it doesnt do you much good for aircraft detection purposes to be able to see 200 yards.34
Tests performed during the next two years confirmed Blairs professional opinion. With reflected infra-red rays, even such a favorable target as a Navy blimp could only be detected at a maximum range of 32,000 yardsabout 18 milesby using a considerably stronger source of radiation than could be provided by four sixty inch searchlights. During 1933, the reflected infra-red project was abandoned and Hershbergers microwave research was substituted.35 The old method of detecting heat radiated by an airplane engine, however, was continued for several more years. The Coast Artillery was not willing to gamble on the yet unproved radio detection because infra-red, with all its shortcomings, did provide some early warning capability. In 1930, the Signal Corps thought that it had resolved the jurisdictional dispute over infra-red within the Army when it took over the Ordnance Corps project. In 1934, however, it became apparent that another conflict had cropped up. The Hawaiian Department, in a suggestion forwarded to the Signal Corps, had proposed that Millikans black light be adapted to alert the coast of Oahu with a system of ultra-violet beams impinging upon photo-electric cells. An incoming ship or landing party could be detected by an interruption in the beam. This proposal is one of the first, if not the first, indications that a need for detection equipment was beginning to be recognized by the Armys field commanders. The Signal Corps Laboratories pointed out the impracticability of the proposal and showed that, since such rays are tangential to the earths surface, the only way to cover the islands approaches would be with a dense series of beams. Some of the apparatus would have to be placed at least 250 feet above the water line. The exchange of correspondence over the Hawaiian Departments suggestion attracted the attention of the Army General Staff to the fact that two secret thermal research programs were in progress in two parts of the Army. The Signal Corps had suggested that infra-red might turn out better than ultra-violet and this suggestion drew an objection from the Corps of Engineers. Charged with responsibility for developing searchlights, the Engineers had been working with infra-red detection ever since a 1933 Air Corps antiaircraft exercise at Fort Knox, Kentucky, had shown that sound warning equipment was unsatisfactory. Pending a War Department decision on which service was to retain responsibility for infra-red development, both the Signal Corps and the Corps of Engineers kept their detection projects in force.36 By the summer of 1935, the Signal Corps succeeded in developing an infra-red detector that surpassed all previous efforts in this field, but the success of its tests brought the Signal Corps some
unexpected and unwanted publicity. As events turned out, this detector was to be the last to be developed before the Armys attention finally turned from the distractions of sound, infra-red, and microwave radio detection and concentrated on the development of a feasible radar. The new infra-red detector was so sensitive that heat given off by a ship could be picked up over the horizon. Its tests were centered around the Coast Guards destroyer type ship, the Pontchatrain. The place selected for the tests overlooked the New York harbor. The Pontchatrain was given orders to choose a random course and run without lights. The new equipment, with a searchlight simulating a coast defense coupled to it, was to search for the ship. If the invisible vessel could be found and directly illuminated without searching, a hit was to be scored. To alert mariners to what was about to take place, the Lighthouse Division of the Department of Commerce sent out the following message on July 16th: A searchlight will be used for experimental purposes at Navesink Lighthouse intermittently between 9:00 PM and 12:00 PM during the period between July 30th and August 9th, 1935. The searchlight will be used principally over an area extending some four miles southeastward from Scotland Lightship. On seeing the notice, an alert local reporter sensed an important news item and submitted a story to a New York newspaper. His story, which surmised that the Army was going to make some mysterious tests, was given front page treatment. Metropolitan reporters quickly deluged the Signal Corps Public Relations Officer at Fort Monmouth with requests for information. They were unable to learn anything except that tests were going to be conducted and that the test area would be closed to visitors. The reporters left unhappy but, as events subsequently would prove, with no intentions to give up their efforts to obtain a story. Later in the month, a cordon of military police was suddenly thrown around the Lighthouse grounds. This action leaked out to the press, and they became even more certain that a big story was about to break at Navesink, but they were unable to get past the armed guards. Not to be outdone, some reporters remained close to the restricted area, actively participating in surf bathing and even night fishing. The Signal Corps was aware of their presence, however, and quietly changed the starting time from 9:00 PM to 12:00 PM. Unfortunately for the success of this attempt at secrecy, the night was exceptionally warm. Neither the local residents nor the reporters had departed the beaches by midnight. At exactly midnight on July 29, 1935, an 800 million candlepower searchlight lashed out in pursuit
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of the blacked out destroyer. A great light of dazzling brilliance pointed out to sea and at the end of the pencil-like beam stood the ghostly outline of the Pontchatrain. No running lights were in evidence. As suddenly as it appeared, the light vanished only to come on again and again, boring a hole through the night as its awesome brilliance each time pinpointed the same fast maneuvering ship. For three hours the weird spectacle continued. The destroyer cruised all over the outer waters of New York harbor but was unable to elude the relentless infra-red directed searchlight. Hours later, headlines appeared across the nation with the story. Mystery Ray sees Enemy at 50 miles read the headline in the New York Times. Army Mystery Ray Spots Ship 48 of 50 Times reported the Long Branch Record. We have a Mystery Ray, solemnly stated Arthur Brisbane, a renowned columnist of the day. The Army was subjected to great pressures to reveal the story, both from reporters inquiries and from internal pressure that it was necessary to counteract the wild speculation that took place in the press. Restraint won out, however, and the story was not told for more than a decade. The infra-red detector had been successful against a large, relatively slow surface vessel, but how effective would it be against fast moving and considerably smaller combat aircraft? The Signal Corps began to prepare its new equipment for a showdown with the Corps of Engineers. The answer to this question was to be supplied early in 1936.37 Early German Radar The radio detection work being performed during the first half of the 1930s decade at the Naval Research Laboratory and the Signal Corps Laboratories, plus that at the Bell Telephone Laboratories and the RCA Laboratory, was being duplicated with varying degrees of success throughout the World. The opinion of the Secretary of the Navy that only the United States military establishment knew about the radio detection phenomenon would have been extremely dangerous if it had been widely believed in the United States military circles. Fortunately for the progress of American radar, information that the Germans had embarked upon aircraft detection projects was known in the United States by 1935. The September 1935 issue of Electronics carried an article about a German set, manufactured by the Telefunken firm, which could project a Mystery ray on ten centimeters. It was reported to be capable of locating ships and airplanes through fog, smoke, or cloud. Scientists working for the German Navy had in fact begun the development of a weak microwave radar for ship detection as early as 1933.38 In 1934,
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the Germans obtained radio reflections at a distance of 20 meters from the hull of a decommissioned battleship in Luebeck Bay, and later at a distance of 2,000 meters from another target ship at Schilkee. The Reich Navy permitted these experiments to fall into some neglect, but the fact that the equipment could detect aircraft interested the Luftwaffe. Reichsmarschall Goering summarily rescued the project from the German Navys inattention but its future development took a different course. It by-passed the microwave dead end into which the American Signal Corps experiments had entered.39 After 1934, the words radio reflection became a military secret in Germany, to be mentioned in public only on pain of death.40 Changing Environment of the Early 30s Despite recognition among informed military circles that other countries in the World were developing new detection techniques, an increase in tempo of the United States radar development was slow to arrive. Not until 1935 was the lethargy in high places overcome. One of the major contributing factors of the lack of interest was the unbelievably devastating depression. There was also a change of national administrations in the middle of the early 1930s. The Republicans had come up with a program to liquidate the depression but it came too late, both for political purposes and for effective economic results. By mid-1932, every indication pointed to a Democratic victory. President Hoover, laboring under the dead weight of hard times, could only recite his efforts to cope with the depression, and prophesy that a Democratic victory would mean that the grass will grow in the streets of a hundred cities, a thousand towns. He also reaffirmed his faith in rugged individualism and the American system. Too many voters feared that the foundations of the American system were already being destroyed by Mr. Hoover and the Republicans to take his impassioned warning seriously. On election day, Roosevelt won by a 6 million vote majority, and swept into office a Democratic Senate and House of Representatives. When Roosevelt took office, the depression had reached its lowest level and most dramatic stage. By March 1933, the nation was gripped with a banking crisis. Two-thirds of the banks in the nation had been closed by official decrees. The shock of this financial disaster was felt throughout the American economy. Roosevelt told the people that This nation asks for action, and action now! Setting forth a general program which he promised shortly to elaborate in detail, he warned Congress and the country that the emergency called for emergency measures. Because Roosevelt knew how to dramatize himself and his policies and how to create a favorable climate
of opinion, he inspired loyalty to his ideas as well as to his person. The mass of the common people felt that the government had been given back to them. Within a year, Congress had enacted a far reaching program of social and economic legislation. At the end of four years, Roosevelts program had assumed the outlines of a revolution. The most important political development of the early 1930s, however, was not the New Deal, but the catastrophic breakdown of international security in world affairs, and the impact of international anarchy upon the United States. The breakdown of collective security was neither sudden nor unexpected. It was a disintegration, rather than a collapse. There had been little real security in the immediate post-war years, but there was peace of a sort. There was also general acknowledgement of the sanctity of treaties and the necessity to preserve peace and international law. With the advent of the 30s, however, peace was soon shattered and treaties and international law were repudiated. Unappreciated by the average American, and unmentioned in Roosevelts second term inaugural address, a new threat to peace, law, and American security, had arisen. This threat was embodied in totalitarianism as expressed in the political organization of Italy, Germany, and Japan. The essence of totalitarianism was the subordination of all individual interests to the interests of the State. Its object was the division of the world into spheres of influence. Each sphere was to be controlled by one of the three master nations. Its method was the ruthless use of force. Italy, under Mussolini, had inaugurated the first such state in 1922. Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933 and improved vastly on the Italian political model. Japan borrowed methods and techniques, rather than philosophy, from these European powers with whom she would soon enter into an alliance.41 The increasing international tension was accompanied by a further rise of the airplane as military threat. During the months of June and July 1931, Wiley Post and Harold Getty set a new world girdling record of eight days, fifteen hours, and fifty one minutes.42 By the end of 1932, the Atlantic had been flown successfully thirty-five times, and thirty-one of the flights were non-stop.43 In 1932, Glen L. Martin Company produced the B-10 bomber with two 650 horsepower Cyclone engines. It was the fastest medium bomber of its day. 1934 brought the most important event in the history of the American bomberthe birth of the four-engine Boeing B-17, the Flying Fortress. It later became the early work horse of World War II. The first B-17 crashed during a test flight, after a 2,000 mile flight at an average speed of 250 miles per hour. Additional models quickly followed, however, and non-stop performance soon reached 3,000 miles.44 A more ominous aviation
development, the rapid rise of German airpower, paralleled the American successes in the early 1930s. 1934 was also a year of international political crisis. It was the dividing line between peace, however tenuous, and the build-up for war. In addition to the rise of Hitler, 1934 saw the breakdown of the Geneva Disarmament Conference, the murder of Dolfuss in Austria, the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia, Italys first threats toward Ethiopia, and Japans denunciation of the Naval Treaties of 1922. Hitlers ruthlessness and total disregard for human life were never more evident. In June of 1934, Hitler suspected a plot against his regime. He personally arrested Ernst Roehm, Chief of Staff of the Nazi Storm Troopers and an old friend and supporter. Roehms main crime was that he had built his Brown Shirt Organization to a size which caused Hitler to begin to fear it. On the morning of his arrest, Roehm was placed in a cell and given a revolver. When he refused to take his own life, the cell door was opened within a few minutes and he was riddled with bullets. Hitler thereupon began a systematic liquidation of all known opponents. All afternoon the executions proceeded in Munich. From time to time, the firing parties had to be relieved because of the mental stress of the soldiers. By the time that the mass purge was completed, the total number of persons who had been executed was in excess of 5,000. The lesson of the Munich liquidations did not go unnoticed in the British capitol. Neither did the rise of German air strength escape British attention. Near Panic in Britain The initiation of a British radar program was a direct result of the final collapse of European collective security in 1934 and 1935, and a fearful recognition by the British of the potential threat of German airpower. None of the complacency embodied in the traditional isolationism of the United States was present in England by the first part of the year 1935. With Hitlers growing strength and his establishment of the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe, in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles, the mood of official London was more akin to panic than to complacency. Winston Churchill challenged the Baldwin government to action. On November 28, 1934, he addressed the winter session of the Commons in these prophetic phrases: I assert, first that Germany already, at this moment, has a military air forcethat is to say, military squadrons, with the necessary ground services, and the necessary reserves of trained personnel and materialwhich only awaits an order to assemble in full open combination; and that this illegal air force in rapidly approaching equality with our own. Secondly, by this time next year, if Germany executes
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her existing programme without acceleration, and if we execute our existing programme on the basis which now lies before us without slowing down, and carry out the increases announced to Parliament in July last, the German military air force will this time next year be in fact at least as strong as our own, and it may be even stronger. Thirdly, on the same basisthat is to say, both sides continuing with their existing programmes as at present arrangedby the end of 1936, that is one year farther on, and two years from nowthe German military air force will be nearly fifty per cent stronger, and in 1937 nearly double. According to Churchill, A disaster of the first magnitude had befallen us. Hitler had already obtained parity with England. Henceforward all the unknown, immeasurable threats which overhung London from air attack would be a definite and compelling factor in all our decisions.45 In addition to the knowledge that Germany was secretly building an air force, another cause of grave misgivings came to the fore. The air exercises of 1934 had drawn attention to the general inadequacy of the protection against enemy aircraft. They highlighted the ineffectiveness of the observer corps, then the chief source of warning information, and of sound locators; the primitive state of operations rooms; and the poor communications that connected them to the observation and listening posts. There was much conversation and morbid speculation throughout all of England about the German air threat and, within the Air Ministry, there was even greater speculation than in the country at large. There was a growing feeling that the country was defenseless and that only a startling new air defense development could provide real protection against air attack. In January 1935, the Secretary of State for Air appointed a committee composed of distinguished scientists to consider how far recent advances in scientific and technical knowledge can be used to strengthen the present methods of defense against hostile aircraft. This committee was named the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defense (CSSAD). It received no publicity and carried out its investigations in the greatest of secrecy.46 The idea to set up such a committee was the brainchild of H. W. Wimperis, the Director of Scientific Research, Air Ministry, and his assistant, A. P. Rowe. Wimperis called attention to the immense difficulties of defending a city against hostile aircraft. He pointed out the greater speed and higher ceilings of modern aircraft, their quieter engines, and the ease with which they could be flown with automatic pilot in cloud or fog. He proposed that a committee be appointed under the chairmanship of H. T.
50
Tizard, Rector of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, and chairman of the Aeronautical Research Committee. The committee would intensify research into new defense measures.47 Watson-Watt Proposes Radar By the time that the committee held its first meeting, some important spadework had already been accomplished. Wimperis, who had been added to the CSSAD following his recommendation that it be formed, was also a member of the Radio Research Board and a personal friend of Watson-Watt. Sir Robert was then Superintendent of the Radio Department of the National Physical Laboratory. This organization is the equivalent to the United States Bureau of Standards. Wimperis called Watson-Watt by telephone one day and invited Watson-Watt to come to see him at the Air Ministry. When Watson-Watt arrived, Wimperis asked him what he thought about the prospects for some form of damaging radiation in defense against enemy air attack. Watson-Watt replied at once that he thought the prospects very poor indeed, but he would consider the problem quantitatively and then prepare a memorandum on the possibilities. Watson-Watt mentally translated Wimperis damaging radiation to mean some form of death ray. Back in his office, Watson-Watt prepared a formalized problem and turned it over to a trusted assistant, A. F. Wilkins, for a mathematical solution. They discussed the problem in some detail and Watson-Watt confirmed their conversation with a written memorandum in which he repeated his pessimistic views. The memorandum showed that they could not hope that an aircraft would linger long enough, in the most intense beam of energy that they could produce, to interfere with the working of the engine or weaken the aircrafts structure. The concluding paragraph read: Meanwhile attention is being turned to the still difficult but less unpromising problem of radio detection as opposed to radio-destruction, and numerical considerations on the method of detection by reflected radio waves will be submitted when required. Watson-Watt, with good reason, considers this document the birth certificate of British radar. Wilkins almost immediately asked for the promised numerical considerations and Watson-Watt posed, therefore, another question for him to undertake. The question ran somewhat as follows: Assuming that the wing span of a big bomber can be represented by a simple horizontal wire; (a) What current would be produced in the wire by radio waves of the great intensity that we are sure
we could play on it, the wave length used being twice the span, this at a distance of some five or ten miles from our radio sender? (b) What will be the intensity of the radio wave that is sent back to our sending site by the wire carrying the current calculated in (a)? Wilkins calculations were most exciting to Watson-Watt. They proved conclusively, even with a numerical error that Watson-Watt inadvertently made, that the detection of aircraft by reflected radio waves was feasible. Watson-Watt submitted Wilkins findings as an enclosure to a memorandum to Wimperis dated February 12, 1935. It read as follows: I enclose, herewith, a memorandum on the Detection of Aircraft by Radio Methods in accordance with our letter of 6 February. It turns out to be so favorable that I am still nervous as to whether we have not got a power of ten wrong, but even that would not be fatal. I have therefore thought it desirable to send you the memorandum immediately rather than to wait for close rechecking.48 Watson-Watt decided to send the memorandum unofficially to Wimperis because he wanted Wimperis to reword or rephrase it in language best suited to sell the CSSAD on the idea. Watson-Watts favorite subject in high school had been English. He is proud of his command of the English language but he recognized that he might unintentionally include some technical terminology that might be confusing to an uninitiated reader. He knew that Wimperis was personally acquainted with each member of the committee and he could rely on Wimperis to assess the extent of technical language which the memorandum could contain without being subject to misinterpretation or misunderstanding. Wimperis did in fact rewrite the memorandum and he presented it to the CSSAD on the morning of 27 February 1935. The memorandum was an amazing document. It suggested pulse transmission, avoided the pitfall of microwaves into which the U.S. Army Signal Corps had fallen, and it completely described a workable radar, although no confirming experiments of any kind had yet been conducted.49 While Watson-Watt and Wilkins were working over the mathematical calculations and Watson-Watt was preparing the draft of his memorandum, the first meeting of the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defense was held on January 28, 1935. Wimperis, whose suggestion had fathered the Committee, explained what he considered to be the main air defense problemhow to detect and locate accurately in space the position of enemy aircraft. He found that the other members of the Committee were in general agreement. He then made his surprise announcement. Wimperis advised his colleagues that his friend
Watson-Watt had given him reason to believe that short-wave radio waves emitted from a ground source could be reflected from the wing and fuselage of an airplane and then be detected on the ground, thus enabling the presence of the airplane to become known to the air defense forces. A memorandum on the subject was promised to the members of the Committee within a few days. The Committee promptly agreed to consider Watson-Watts idea after they had had time to study the memorandum.50 Wimperis also discussed the matter personally with his immediate superior, Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, the Air Member of Research and Development. He advised Dowding that he had sufficient confidence in Watson-Watts judgment to recommend spending 10,000 on an experimental project. Dowding, who in his long and dedicated career, had picked up the nickname Stuffy, demonstrated a bit of the skepticism that probably had helped him earn his nickname. He said that these scientific blokes can prove anything by figures. He indicated that he wanted better evidence than a bit of speculative arithmetic on a scrap of paper, and he suggested that he be given a demonstration.51 At Wimperis request, Watson-Watt went to see Dowding at the Royal Aircraft Establishment which he was visiting at the time. Watson-Watt told Dowding that he would give a demonstration which would show that the amount of energy reflected from an aircraft was adequate to fit his forecasts, but he would only do so if he were permitted to write the rules of the test. Dowding was surprised, to say the least, by such an unexpected approach and demanded to know what rules Watson-Watt had in mind. They were simple. If the results were positive, the Committee would be justified in going ahead with a development project. If they were negative, they would not mean a thing! Watson-Watt explained that the test would be a hurried trial with makeshift apparatus. It would be hastily adapted and not designed specifically for the job to be done. Under these circumstances, the chances for failure were great and it would not be wise to render a final judgment on the potentialities of radio detection of aircraft on the performance of a crude lash-up of equipment. Somewhat to Watson-Watts surprise, Stuffy agreed to the conditions.52 Arrangements for the show-me test were soon completed. A. P. Rowe was selected to be the official eyes and ears of CSSAD. Wilkins and a handy man drove off one evening toward the BBC short wave station at Daventry and set up their receiving equipment some ten miles from it. Watson-Watt and Rowe arrived the next morning, February 26, 1935. An aircraft from the Royal Aircraft Establishment had been instructed to fly to and fro along a line which was the center of the short wave beam from Daventry. The plane did not hold the line very accurately but its
51
flight pattern sufficed for the test. Watson-Watt and Wilkins had first balanced out all but a very minute fraction of the very strong signal from Daventry so that the cathode ray indicator on their receiver showed just a stub of a vertical line. Soon the stub began to grow and pulsate until it was waxing and waning between an inch and a quarter and a half inch. It steadied momentarily and then dwindled, still pulsating, as the drone of the engine faded with distance. They watched several runs. Some were badly off course, but they were satisfied that the indications were unmistakable when the plane was eight miles away. Rowe and Watson-Watt drove off to London, showing no visible signs of excitement or elationexcept one. They had to turn back after several miles to pick up Watson-Watts young nephew whom they had left sitting on a grass bank beyond classified range of the secret trial. Rowe, the CSSADs referee, was convinced of the soundness of Watson-Watts idea. He reported to the Committee: No disturbances of the character usually obtained with sound and heat detection were noticed, continuous evidence was unmistakable. It was demonstrated beyond doubt that electromagnetic energy is reflected from the metal components on an aircrafts structure and that it can be detected. Whether aircraft can be accurately located remains to be shown. No one seeing the demonstration could fail to be hopeful of detecting the existence and approximate bearings of aircraft at ranges far in excess of those given by the 200 foot sound mirrors. First British Radar Project The next day, February 27, 1935, was a fateful one for the future of radarand for the survival of Britain. The CSSAD, or Tizard Committee, as it became known, considered Watson-Watts memorandum, as rewritten by Wimperis, and gave the go signal to higher authority. Dowding still actively doubted whether 10,000 should be spent on a purely defensive project when some still unknown offensive device might become a claimant for the Air Ministrys all too scarce funds. The Committee decided, however, that the test results were much beyond their expectations and should be followed up. Within a few days, Watson-Watt was authorized to begin work.53 Watson-Watt entered upon his new endeavor with a certain amount of reluctanceit was his first venture into defense research and developmentbut he also entered into it with great confidence. As he looks back upon his early radar experiments, he is quick to point out that the elements of innovation are frequently all available. Its the putting them together that counts and that creates a discovery.
52
The building blocks that Sir Robert needed to construct the first radar set were already in existence as early as 1930. The proposal that he outlined in his now famous memorandum to the Tizard Committee included no concepts that were not within the state-of-the-art. He expected to make improvements, of course, and anticipated that many of the building blocks would need modification, but the work that would be required to make the necessary improvements held no fears for him. He was already an experienced innovator and successful inventor. He was not counting on still non-existent microwave power, untried techniques, radical advances from marginal components, or for the aid of luck toward satisfying a marginal calculation. Watson-Watt knew that even if his computations were off by a power of ten, there would be sufficient radiated power to permit effective detection. He recognized that there was much to do, but he also knew that it could be done. Perhaps more importantly, Sir Robert was scared of what would happen to Britain if he failed. His reliance on the known and the proven for his first experimental models illustrates clearly Watson-Watts philosophy of applied science: The Importance of Not Being Too Clever.54 Within the next thirty days, Watson-Watt had selected his initial staff, had chosen the site for his laboratory and masts, and had begun to design a transmitter and receiver. The selection of an experimental site where work could go forward in appropriate secrecy required an extensive search. Eventually, someone in the Air Ministry suggested an RAF bombing range and small landing field located on an island named Orfordness. The island was just off the east coast of England, about fifteen miles north of Harwich. It was actually a spit of land close to shore and was separated from the mainland at its northernmost point by about fifty yards of water. The island or peninsula was fifteen miles in length and it presented a most formidable and uninviting appearance. It was dismal, windswept, and uninhabited. Except for a few broken-down huts and dilapidated hangars dating from World War I, it was a deserted waste.55 It failed by only a few miles to be the nearest point in all England to Germany. On May 13th, Watson-Watt and his team moved into the first buildings at Orfordness. By this time, A. F. Wilkins who had made the initial mathematical calculations for Watson-Watt and had taken the Daventry measurements joined Bainbridge-Bell, another worker at the Radio Research Station, to develop the receiver. E. G. Bowen, who had just recently come to the Radio Research Station, was put to work on the transmitter. By May 29th everything was working smoothly, short of attempting to track aircraft. They were receiving the ionospheric echo of pulses of much shorter duration than ever before.56
Watson-Watt took little part in the experimental work. He devoted most of his time to defending and promoting the project at the level of the Tizard Committee and the Air Ministry. He held long and frequent discussions with Rowe whom he found to have a special gift for scientific statesmanship and intense zeal for the radio detection program. Both men were anxious to secure the maximum support for the work without sacrificing independence or allowing it to become entangled in service red tape. Failure of the First Demonstration Just a little over four weeks after the work had begun at Orfordness, Watson-Watt and Rowe decided to conduct the first detection experiments and to have them coincide with the grand opening of Orfordness. The opening was to be attended by the members of the Tizard Committee. The members arrived on the island, accompanied by Watson-Watt, on the morning of Saturday, June 15th. That afternoon the first formal experiment was attempted. An Air Force Valencia troop transport plane, provided especially for the test, flew in from the landward side through one lobe of the antenna beam. Although both the transmitter and the receiver seemed to be working perfectly, for some reason that was never discovered reflected signals from the airplane were not observed. On the next morning, another flight with the Valencia was made and this time the test failed completely. Conditions for radio reception were terrible and nothing resembling a signal was ever detected. The screen was confused with atmospheric and noise interference. Fortunately for the project, the members of the Tizard Committee did not seem in the least dismayed by the initial setback. On Monday, June 17th, the day after the departure of the Committee, the first real signal was picked up accidentally but in the presence of Watson-Watt who had remained behind. It was a dramatic moment. The signal was strong and first appeared on the scope at a range of 17 miles. The plane that caused it was a Scapa flying boat. Watson-Watt reported to the Committee later that the plane was continuously tracked to and from a maximum range of 46
kilometers. He added that the signal responses at the maximum range reached by the aircraft were of such magnitude that a much greater range could have been obtained. British Radars Early Crossroads During the summer of 1935, the stations performance steadily increased and the detection range went up step by step from 25 to 60 miles. While this work was going on, a demonstration of the inadequacy of the British air defenses vividly emphasized the importance and urgency of the project under way at Orfordness. Mock night air raids were held about the middle of August against a complex of naval shipyards and other installations. The results were discouraging and frightening. Twenty-one bombers scored hit after hit in the Southampton area against a helpless defense. The London Times carried a solemn warning of the peril that the nation was facing.57 By the end of the summer of 1935, the main features of an RDF system had been blocked out. The term RDF was coined in August to mislead possible enemy agents by suggesting mere radio direction finding.58 It was now time to consider the future of radar. Should its development be continued until it showed much greater promise; should it be discontinued; and the funds thus freed reallocated to offensive weapons as Stuffy Dowding still seemed to believe; or should an attempt be made to establish an operational system without delay? The decision might prove critical to the very survival of Britain. A race with destiny might be in the making. Hitlers war drums could easily be heard across the English Channel and the tones were ominous. Britain had proved to its own pessimistic satisfaction that it lay helpless before any organized aerial assault. Action was imperativebut time was short and the limited supply of funds made it impossible to pursue all avenues of scientific approach at once. The weight of one of the most important decisions in British history lay squarely on the shoulders of the Air Defense Research Committee.
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NOTES TO CHAPTER VI [1] Taylor, A. Hoyt, The First 25 Years of the Naval Research Laboratory, (Washington D.C.: Navy Department, 1948), p. 29. Guerlac, Henry E., Radar, Unpublished manuscript, p. 105. Bureau of Engineering, U.S. Navy, Radio Division, Problem Specifications: Problem No. B1-1, 25 Nov. 1930: Problem No. W5-52, 21 January 1931. Almy, E. D., First Endorsement (27 June 1941) to memorandum of Hyland to Secretary Knox. Oberlin, E. G. (Director of NRL) to Chief of Bureau of Engineering, 2d Endorsement of C-F42 1/67 (4574) 30 December 1931. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 105106. Page, Robert M., Personal Interview with author, December 5, 1960. Secretary of Navy to Secretary of War, Subject: Radio-Use of Echo Signals to Detect Moving Objects, January 9, 1932, NRL files, Eng. C-F42-1/43 (1-4-W8). Page interview, op.cit. Terrett, Dulaney, The Signal CorpsThe Emergency, (Washington, D.C. Dept. of the Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, 1956), p. 38. Terrett, Dulaney, The Signal CorpsThe Emergency, (Washington, D.C. Dept. of the Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, 1956). Blair, William R., Personal interview with author, December 6, 1960. Terrett, op.cit., p. 40. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 107. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 155156. Blair, interview, op.cit. Secretary of Navy letter, op.cit., (see footnote 7) Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 107108. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 108109. Blair interview, op.cit. Taylor, op.cit., p. 29. Taylor, op.cit., pp. 3233. Taylor, op.cit., p. 34. Taylor, op.cit., pp. 3940. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 118. Page interview, op.cit. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 111. Page interview, op.cit. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 113. Pages Log, Vol III, p. 79, entry March 1431. Pages Log, op.cit. Terrett, op.cit p. 38. Blair interview, op.cit. [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] Guerlac, op.cit., p. 152. Terrett, op.cit., p. 38. Blair interview, op.cit. Blair interview, op.cit. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 153. Terrett, op.cit., pp. 3839. Zahl, Harold A., From An Early Radar Diary, Coast Artillery Journal, XCI, No. 2 (March-April 1948), pp. 810. Thompson, George R., History of Radar, A Modern Technology, (A paper presented at the February 27, 1958 meeting of the Washington History of Science Club by Dr. Thompson.) Terrett, op.cit., p. 42. Thompson, op.cit. Morison, Samuel E., and Commager, Henry Steele, The Growth of the American Republic, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950), Vol. II, pp. 580585 and 632635. Fifty Years of FlightA Chronicle of the Aviation Industry in America, 19031953, (Eaton Manufacturing Company, 1953), p. 50. Proceedings of the Founders Meeting, (Institute of Aeronautical Science, Inc.), held at Columbia University, January 26, 1933. Ayling, Keith, Bombers, (New York: Thos Y. Crowell Co., 1944). Churchill, Winston S., The Gathering Storm, Vol I of a 6 volume history of World War II, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1948), pp. 90129. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 216217. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 217218. Watson-Watt, Robert, The Pulse of Radar, (New York: The Dial Press, 1959), pp. 5154. Interview with Watson-Watt by the author on December 15, 1960. Ibid. Watson-Watt, The Pulse of Radar, p. 63, and interview with Watson-Watt. Ibid., pp. 6364, and interview. Ibid., pp. 6465. Ibid., pp. 66, 8388, and interview. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 225. Watson-Watt, The Pulse of Radar, p. 113. Watson-Watt, The Pulse of Radar, p. 114. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 233236. Watson-Watt, The Pulse of Radar, p. 114.
[2] [3]
[4] [5]
[38]
[6] [7]
[39] [40] [41]
[8] [9]
[42]
[10]
[43]
[44] [45]
[11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]
[46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58]
54
Chapter VII
The Race with Destiny (19351939)

Phase IV of the Invention of Radar
We have not only to fear attacks upon our civil population in our great cities, in respect of which we are more vulnerable than any other country in the world, but also attacks upon the dockyards and other technical establishments without which our Fleet, still an essential factor in our defense, might be paralyzed or even destroyed. Therefore, it is not only for the sake of a world effort to eliminate one of the worst causes of suspicion and of war, but as a means of restoring to us here in Great Britain the old security of our island, that this matter should receive and command the most vigorous thought of the greatest of men of our country and our government, and should be pressed forward by every resource that the science of Britain can apply and the wealth of the country can liberate. 1 These words were spoken by Winston Churchill to the House of Commons on June 7, 1935, the day before Stanley Baldwin became Prime Minister of Britain. They were prophetic of the decision that was to come in September. The Air Defense Research Committee decided that it was imperative to go into production at once, despite the many problems that this action would create. They agreed to proceed in two stages and initially to allocate 60,000 for a Thames Estuary system of five stations. This plan was based on tactical information supplied by Air Ministry officials who assumed the probability of a German invasion of the Lowlands, but did not seriously consider the possibility that Germany would successfully conquer and occupy France.2 Plans for the new stations were drawn up during September, but work did not begin immediately. Design of the radar equipment was frozen at its then existing level of development because Watson-Watt felt that firm design specifications were essential when the equipment went into production. It was also decided that the initial equipment which had been used for the tests would be installed at Orfordness, and that the same wavelength would be used. To
Notes
obtain increased range, the 75 foot towers that were initially employed were to be increased in height to 250 feet. The first of the 250 foot towers was erected at Orfordness. It became the keystone of the Chain Stations of the historic British warning system. Bawdsey Research Station The staff of the Research Station at Orfordness continued to grow, as Watson-Watts recruiting efforts paid off. By autumn, it was apparent that a new and more convenient site would soon be needed for the rapidly expanding project. Watson-Watt, Bowen, and Wilkins drove up and down the southern coast of Suffolk looking for an appropriate location. They eventually discovered a large estate called Bawdsey Manor. It was located just south of Orfordness on a 60 foot cliff overlooking a river estuary. The Air Defense Research Committee approved the choice, and immediate action was taken by the Air Ministry for its purchase. Watson-Watt planned to use part of the main house for laboratory space and the rest for a residential area for the staff. Other laboratory facilities were to be constructed on the grounds. The move to Bawdsey Manor was a slow process and it was not completed until May 1936, at which time Watson-Watt, Wilkins, Bowen, and their colleagues were officially transferred to the Air Ministry Research and Development staff. Watson-Watt was given the title of Superintendent, Bawdsey Research Station. The late spring and most of the summer were spent in recruiting new personnel to supplement the initial staff of six persons. Watson-Watt roamed the countryside requesting, demanding, and wheedling the release of high grade research men. His efforts were successful. By August, the staff had increased to twenty and shortly thereafter it reached fifty. Although the men at Bawdsey Manor were under civil service regulations, they enjoyed at first a unique and beneficial laxity in the enforcement of the usual rules. The group resembled an Oxford or Cambridge college more than a government laboratory. For about six months, they were not required to keep the usual
55
government working hours and were oblivious to most of the civil service regulations. Most of the men were bachelors, lived together, ate together, and some of their best ideas and most fertile discussions took place around an evening fire. Gradually this idyllic state of affairs came to an end. Visitors began to arrive in increasing numbers and Watson-Watt saw a necessity for stricter compliance with the regulations. Air Ministry UltimatumSucceed on Next Test or We Withdraw By the late summer of 1936, preparations were under way to give the Secretary of State for Air and other high officials of the Air Ministry a demonstration of the effectiveness of a CH (Chain HomeEd.) station. A demonstration was long overdue, for the new device had long been supported by top officials without proof of its effectiveness. Several demonstration dates had been selected but each time that a new date drew near, it became necessary to postpone the test. To delay any longer would probably result in the loss of support of the Royal Air Force. Despite the urgent need for it, however, Watson-Watt doubted that they were really ready for a demonstration. Nevertheless, he was forced by circumstances to proceed and a system was devised to transmit bearing and range data from Bawdsey Manor to the Fighter Command Headquarters in London. The tests began in the middle of September 1936. A series of mock raids were made by a squadron of flying boats coming in over the North Sea. The results of the exercises were disappointing, if not a complete failure. No echoes at all were received on the first, and perhaps most important, day of the demonstrations. A frantic effort was made to get some sort of performance before the tests were concluded. Bowen was called back from another project and, with Gerald Touch, built a new transmitter in 48 hours. With the new equipment, the attacking planes were successfully picked up at a range of 90 miles. The original failure had created an extremely poor impression, however, and the Air Ministry prepared an exceptionally critical report of the tests. Watson-Watts team at Bawdsey was given a few more months of life. Then there would be another test which would have to succeed or the Air Ministry would withdraw its support of the project.3 The explanation of the failure was comparatively simple. Bowens original success had been attained with makeshift equipment which he had assembled and put together without detailed engineering specifications. He operated the transmitter tubes at far more than their rated capacity and when one burned out he simply replaced it with another. Bowen subsequently left the Chain Home project to work on airborne radar equipment and his successors set
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about designing a new transmitter that would provide the required high power without burning out the vacuum tubes. During the crucial tests, they were more conservative in their operating procedures than Bowen would have been. Consequently, they failed to achieve sufficient radiated power. When Bowen was called back for the last 48 hours of the test, he again fired up the transmitter with no regard for tube life and made the test work. Following Watson-Watts ultimatum from the Air Ministry, work on a new transmitter received increased emphasis.4 Parallel Developments in the United States Navy Meanwhile, in the United States, the Navys radar development was also moving slowly. After Robert Page was assigned to the radar project at NRL in early 1934, he worked rather spasmodically on the project for the remainder of the year. In July, he attempted unsuccessfully to modify a receiver for pulse reception and in November he helped to build a new transmitter. When completed, the transmitter was installed on the roof of Building 1 at NRL. It pointed out across the Potomac, looking slightly upstream, in order to pick up aircraft that flew regularly up and down the river. Attempts were made by Page in December and January to obtain echoes by the pulse method but they were unsuccessful. No pulse echoes were detected and none were seen on the cathode ray tube. The outgoing pulse was so widened by the receiver that it appeared on the screen as a large blob. When the echo signal was received, it was lost in the blob and was undetectable except by its beating against the main pulse. Discouragement reigned supreme at NRL until Page was eventually able to reason his way to the cause of the failure. He soon realized that a fresh start would be necessary.5 At the time that Page made his tests and attempted to detect pulse signals, he was exploring a new field. No one had yet detected pulse signals after they had been reflected from an airplane and the equipment that he was using was inadequate for the purpose. The pulse transmitter had been engineered specifically for pulse work but the same approach had not been used for the receiver. It was merely a modification of an existing set. During the tests, Page also found to his surprise that he was receiving echoes from nearby objects. In his modification of the receiver, he had focused entirely on the airplane and had completely overlooked the additional returns that he might get from other objects. He had thought that if he looked at the airplane he would not see anything else. Despite the gloom and discouragement that followed the tests, Page later came to consider them successful. The transmitter had worked properly and he had discovered weaknesses in the receiver that he was able almost immediately to correct.6
The failure of the test was taken seriously by Pages superiors and there was a strong feeling that the pulse project might be another blind alley like the earlier detection effort. The work went forward during the remainder of 1935, however, but with very low priority. Page continued to search for a solution. A propitious start was made when he ran across a theoretical article from the results of which he was able to work out the relationships required in a pulse receiver. He decided that to design a receiver capable of withstanding and recovering from the effect of the transmitter pulse, it would be necessary to overcome the blocking effect of the strong transmitter signals on the receiver input tubes and reduce the feedback to zero, thus eliminating the ringing in the receiver that distorted the received signal.7 Because of low priority, it took Page five to six months to complete a new receiver. Much of his work could be performed only by resorting to subtle subterfuge. As long as the particular problem on which he was working could be classified as general high frequency research, there were no restrictions on his efforts. To get around the dampening effects of a low priority and general lack of support for the radar project, Page eventually installed a phone jack in the chassis of his radar receiver and called it a high frequency communications receiver. In this way, he was able to charge his time to an authorized project that held a higher priority than radar. At the same time he did not have to worry about the likelihood of his being discovered working on an unauthorized task. By September and early October, 1935, he was able to make a few measurements, despite spending most of his time on another project.8 For several months, a series of confidential monthly reports had been transmitted to the Chief of the Bureau of Engineering. They showed, among other things, that after a year and a half only two men were assigned to the projectPage part time and Leo Young a very small portion of the time. Eventually, in answer to Pages constant request for additional personnel to be assigned to the project, a young engineer, F. C. Guthrie, was placed under the direction of Page. Guthries assignment marked a real milestone in the development of radar at NRL. Beginning with November 22, 1935, the date of his joining the project, real progress began to be achieved.9 Guthrie immediately began work on a new low power experimental transmitter. The first model was built with acorn tubes. It gave less than one watt of peak power and permitted pulses of about 20 microseconds. Guthrie next built a transmitter using the same design, but with commercial transmitting triode tubes. After he had assembled and tested the transmitter, it was installed in a field house underneath the big transmitting array at NRL and between the two towers that supported it. At the same time, Pages new receiver was installed in the penthouse of Building 12.
RADAR: A CASE HISTORY OF AN INOVATIONCHAPTER VII
With this experimental equipment, radar echoes were successfully observed at NRL on Tuesday, April 28, 1936. The initial results were modest but promising and planes were detected at distances up to 2 1/2 miles. Since the beam was stationary, planes that did not stay in the beam were quickly lost. On the other hand, the beam was so narrow that it was difficult for a plane to stay in the beam, even intentionally. On the following day, the plate voltage was raised from 5 kilovolts to 7.5 kilovolts. On April 30th, a plane was tracked out to 8 3/4 miles. A little over a week later, on May 6th, successful demonstrations were given for Captain Cooley, the Director of NRL, Hoyt Taylor, and Leo Young. Planes were tracked out to 17 miles. Taylor was enthusiastic about the success of the demonstrations, but he was concerned that the experimental equipment was too cumbersome to be used aboard ship. He urged that Page and Guthrie immediately give consideration to the use of higher frequencies. He stressed the desirability of a duplexing system which would permit a single antenna to be used for both transmitting and receiving.10 Guthrie and Page promptly turned their attention to the implementation of Taylors suggestions. Colton Steps Up Signal Corps Effort In the U.S. Army Signal Corps, a new performer appeared on the radar scene. In the summer of 1934, Lieutenant Colonel Roger B. Colton was assigned as Chief of Research and Engineering, Office of the Chief Signal Officer. At that time, he apparently knew nothing of the radio detection projects in progress at NRL and the Signal Corps Laboratories, but he soon became acquainted with radio detection in general. Shortly after he assumed his new duties, he was approached by a civilian who said he thought planes could be detected by radio. Colton asked him to submit a proposal, but he never showed up again. A few weeks later, Colton heard that the Navy was detecting airplanes by radio, but he was advised by his colleagues that the project was secret and the Navy would not tell the Signal Corps about it. Colton apparently did not learn of the work that Hershberger was doing at Fort Monmouth until after the first part of 1935. Coltons first real understanding of radar came in the summer of 1935 when he received an invitation from the General Electric Company to attend a demonstration of the radio detection of airplanes. Colton was accompanied by an officer from the Office of the Chief of Coast Artillery who was in charge of aircraft detection for the Coast Artillery Corps. The demonstration, with a high frequency set and a 60 inch parabola receiving antenna, was a complete failure.
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Coltons inquisitive mind immediately sought a reason for the failure. In his early days in the Coast Artillery, before he transferred to the Signal Corps, he had worked on sub-aqueous sound ranging. He had become well versed in antenna capabilities and limitations. When the General Electric demonstration failed, Colton was convinced that it would have been successful if the antenna design had been different and if the antenna had been larger. He believed that the key to success would be an antenna large in terms of wavelength, regardless of the type antenna used. Coltons preoccupation with antenna design was to result, a few years later, in a major contribution by Colton to radars success. After the unsuccessful demonstration, the General Electric officials took Colton to see one of their executives, Dr. C. W. Rice, who ran his own research laboratory independently of other General Electric research activities. Colton was shown a three centimeter magnetron and a parabolic antenna which he considered of adequate size in terms of wave length to provide a good beam signal. Rice explained that he had not tried his equipment on airplanes but had been picking up moving vehicles at approximately one half mile. Rice also pointed out that his magnetron was extremely difficult to build and only one out of ten or twenty worked properly. Colton was fascinated by Rices work because it was his first real knowledge of radar. When Colton returned to Washington, he immediately took steps to prompt the Signal Corps Laboratories to start work on radio detection. It is rather strange that, although Hershberger had been working on his microwave project for more than two years, Colton apparently knew little or nothing about his work. Nevertheless, Colton, although he was not fully convinced that radar was the best method to detect airplanes, thought the technique sufficiently promising to give it major attention. A few days after Coltons visit to General Electric, the Bureau of Standards sent the Chief Signal Officer a paper concerning radio detection. The description of the Bureau of Standards work was not particularly interesting to Colton because it used a two station method that he thought worthless. Several years before, in his underwater experiments, his adverse opinion of the two station method was crystallized when he found it impossible for two stations to be sure that they were on the same target when there was more than one target in the area. Having mentally rejected the two station method, Colton decided that all detection work in the Signal Corps in the future should use the pulse method. Fortunately, this opinion was in agreement with Blairs thinking and no conflict between the two was to follow.11 Late in the year 1935, Colton called Blairs attention to the work being done by the Bureau of Standards. At a conference held at Fort Monmouth on
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December 5, 1935, Colton requested that Hershberger write an appraisal of the Bureau of Standards method and accompany it with a general statement as to the best method to detect airplanes by radio. Colton also suggested that Hershberger come to Washington to call on the Bureau of Standards and visit the Naval Research Laboratory to take a look at what they were doing. That date, December 5, 1935, just 13 days after Guthries assignment to the radar project at NRL, marks the real beginning of radar development by the Signal Corps. From that date, Blairs preoccupation with microwaves no longer prevented investigations into more feasible avenues of approach. Hershberger reported, upon completion of his appraisal, that the proposal of Diamond and Dunmore at the Bureau of Standards was essentially the same technique as the beat or interference method developed earlier at NRL. Hershberger, who had long been in disagreement with Blair over the Signal Corps concentration on microwaves, used the opportunity to submit a report to call the attention of his superiors to the principal reasons for the failure of the Armys detection programlack of personnel support and preoccupation with microwaves. Hershberger compared the two methods of detection under consideration by the Signal Corps: the method requiring the transmitter and receiver to be physically separated, and the electrical shuttering method which promised to permit the transmitter and receiver to be operated in close proximity. He described the second scheme as a tremendous undertaking and concluded: If the problem of aircraft detection is to be prosecuted with vigor, more personnel is needed for experimental work in building tubes, developing circuits and apparatus, and conducting field tests. It is not a one-man task. During January, 1936, Hershberger spent a half day at the Bureau of Standards where he learned that Diamond and Dunmore had done no experimental work on radio detection. He also spent a day and a half at NRL. At the Naval Research Laboratory, Hershberger witnessed a demonstration of the interference method which he described in great detail in his report. He also learned of the new work that Page and Guthrie were doing, but he was unable to witness a demonstration of this effort. It was to be some three months later before Page and Guthrie would conduct their first successful test. Hershberger described their method as somewhat akin to the pulse method of measuring the heights of ionized layers in the ionosphere. He remarked that a method somewhat similar was under consideration at the Signal Corps Laboratories and would probably be tried if time and facilities were made available for the purpose. The Signal Corps method to which Hershberger referred was his own proposal which he
had been trying unsuccessfully for months to get Blair to adopt. Hershbergers report was forwarded to Major General James B. Allison, the new Chief Signal Officer of the Army, during the second week in February 1936. It carried with it a strong indication by Blair that he preferred the pulse method. The report stated that with the necessary directive and facilities the Laboratory could produce tangible results within a short time.12 The report also indicated regret that radio detection work was only a sub-project of thermal detection work at the Signal Corps Laboratories. It asked for money to give radio detection full standing.13 Signal Corps Wins Jurisdictional Dispute Coincidentally with the investigation and report by Hershberger, which Colton had triggered and Blair had supported, another event was taking place that was to give radar the recognition at the War Department level which it had not enjoyed for the eight years that had elapsed since Blairs initial radar proposal in 1928. Following the successful infra-red demonstration at Navesink Lighthouse on July 29, 1935, arrangements were made to ship the equipment to Fort Monroe, Virginia, for a demonstration for the Coast Artillery Board and representatives of the War Department General Staff. This test was to be, in effect, a competition between the Signal Corps and the Corps of Engineers infra-red equipment. The competition was held as planned and the Signal Corps equipment performed with the same accuracy and certainty that it had displayed on that warm July night when it had provoked nation-wide speculation as the Armys new mystery ray. The Engineer equipment also performed well, but the Signal Corps was clearly the victor. From this showdown, however, three somewhat unexpected decisions came from the Coast Artillery Boarddecisions which were to have great significance for both radar and the Signal Corps.14 First, it was decided that the use of infra-red for detection of aircraft did not appear too promising, since the problems introduced by absorption of fog, clouds, snow, and rain appeared basically unsolvable; second, other methods must be given greater emphasis, particularly the use of radio waves which penetrated all atmospheric variations; and third, the General Staff should assign full responsibility for research on detection of aircraft and marine targets to the Signal Corps.15 Blairs tactics of defeating infra-red by improving it to the point that it reached its maximum capability had finally been successful. The decisions of the Coast Artillery Board were confirmed by the War Department in February, 1936. The War Department directive that followed emphasized the Armys desire that the development of these detectors be given the highest priority practicable,
with particular emphasis on the development of the detector of aircraft. The directive was accompanied by a set of military characteristics for a heat detector to be used against marine surface craft and for a detector of aircraft. Both detectors were thought of primarily as searchlight directing devices. No mention was made of the use of a detector for early warning purposes. To the contrary, the military characteristics specified that the aircraft detector must give 20,000 yards range under average atmospheric conditions, and 10,000 yards with rain, mist, smoke, and fog. It would have to point a searchlight within one degree in azimuth or elevation. The Signal Corps victory was clouded because no funds were provided for the new task. Although Allison asked the War Department for less money than a single SCR 268 radar would cost after Pearl Harbor, a mere $40,000, the response was negative. The War Department reply said that: The funds set up for research and development of Signal Corps projects are considered sufficient in the view of the many other pressing needs of the Army. The development of an efficient means of detecting the approach of aircraft is considered of such vital importance to all branches of the Army that it is considered essential to place it in the highest priority. It is therefore directed that the Chief Signal Officer provide the additional funds required for the development of the detection of aircraft by a reduction in the amounts now set up in the fiscal years 1936, 1937, and 1938, for less urgent projects. The dilemma of the War Department, aware at last of the importance of radio detection but incapable of providing the necessary funds to develop it, could hardly be more evident. Although the Chief of the Coast Artillery joined with the Chief Signal Officer in a vigorous reclama, the War Department did not waver from its previous position. It refused to provide any additional funds.16 Developments In Other Countries Germany The Anglo-Saxon countries were not the only countries working on the aircraft detection problem. In Germany, Goerings interest in radar had not resulted in any significant increase in the German development effort, although it did keep the project alive. Even as early as 1936 the Germans were expecting to have the war all their own way and were planning to carry it to the enemy on their own terms. A defensive weapon, therefore, had little attraction for Hitler and his advisors. One radar set, later to be known as the Freya, was under development, however, and it appeared to offer what was then a very high degree of accuracy for distance measurement. The first model was on 62 centimeters and provided a peak operating power
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output of approximately two kilowatts. A much later version operated on 53 centimeters, with a power output of 50 kilowatts. Pending the development of suitable apparatus for simultaneous operation with a single antenna, the transmitting and receiving antennas were arranged in two reflectors, two to four meters in diameter, with one above the other. As the radar did not permit bearings to be taken in azimuth and elevation, but could only follow the target roughly by determining the maximum echo, it could only be used as an early warning device and for distance measurement. To obtain bearings, a supplemental infra-red instrument was planned but never used. The Germans, like the Americans, discovered that the range limitations and the deleterious effects of weather conditions were too great to permit any great reliance on infra-red detection.17 Japan Across the Pacific, the Japanese had also begun to work on radio detection by 1936. Their effort was under the direction of Professor R. Okabe and his mentor, the famed Dr. Yagi, Dean of Science of the University of Osaka. These two scientists were already world renowned for their development of the split plate magnetron and other accomplishments in the radio field. Okabe designed an interference or beat method radio detection system for the detection of passing aircraft. In his method, a radio transmitting station sent a continuous radio frequency signal, with superimposed audio modulation, in as narrow a beam as convenient, to a distant receiving station. If an airplane entered the transmission path, the normal uniform signal was disturbed. Instead of being steady, it came in with a strong beat. According to Yagi, the idea arose as a result of his trip to Germany before the first World War. During his visit, he claimed to have studied the effects of the presence of foreign objects in radio fields. He tried to interest the Japanese military leaders in radio detection, but he ran into the same type resistance and general lack of interest that had been encountered by both Taylor and Blair in the United States. By the mid-1930s, however, the Japanese had attacked Manchuria. They were entertaining dreams of world conquest, and the search for new weapons increased in tempo. Yagis idea became more attractive, and the military leaders encouraged Yagi and his associates at the University of Osaka to apply their knowledge to the advancement of war techniques. Okabe then started his experiments under Yagis watchful eye. Okabes method had the great advantage of not requiring large amounts of radiated power. It has a greater disadvantage, however, of being unable to
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determine the exact position of an airplane within the beam between the transmitter and receiver. Okabe tried long and hard to solve this problem but was never able to do so. There is some reason to believe that the Japanese studies of the beat method of detection did not date back to Yagis pre-World War I trip to Germany, as he claimed, but were prompted by the published writings of Dr. C. W. Rice of General Electric. Rices papers on the subject of radio detection appeared in American journals in 1936. The Japanese emphatically deny that they were influenced by Rices articles, but all Japanese research and development engineers of that period were familiar with Rices work.18 If the influence of Dr. Rice on Japanese radar was of any significance, however, there would be an interesting parallel. This is the same Dr. Rice whose work impressed Colton during the summer of 1935 and provided Colton with his first real knowledge of radar. Whether or not the Japanese based their work on Rices studies, they kept alert to all significant developments that were being published in America that might have military applications. The unwanted and unsolicited publicity of the Signal Corps infra-red detection experiments off the New Jersey shore in 1935 was not missed by the Japanese. They studied the articles about the United States Armys mystery ray intently because mystery rays and activities related thereto were of particular interest to Japanese military leaders of the mid-1930s. They decided that the news stories about the New Jersey tests were incomplete and lacked authentic technical information. Details were desperately desired, so the Japanese decided to come directly to the source and ask for additional information. Perhaps they reasoned that the Good Neighbor policy might stretch across the Pacific, or perhaps they thought that someone might be careless enough to provide the information without considering the source of the request. Whatever the Japanese motivation, Captain Lawrence Clayton could hardly believe his eyes on an October morning in 1935. He opened a letter postmarked Japan and found a request for details of the recently completed tests. Clayton promptly rushed the letter into Colonel Blair and pointed out that the letter was written on the official stationary of the House of Okura. Clayton added that he knew that the largest single stockholder of the company was the Emperor of Japan. The Armys reply was a classic in military terseness and brevity.19 France The French were also investigating radio detection in the mid-1930s. By 1936, they had developed an unusual radar for ship detection and had installed
is shown in margin of original with plate underlinedin handwriting.Editor
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it on the French liner Normandie. This equipment transmitted ultra-high frequency radio waves (15 centimeters) in a 45 degree arc in front of the bow. When the radio waves encountered an object not more than a dozen miles away, they were reflected into a sensitive receiver and amplified so as to be heard in a telephone receiver. This was a sort of ear-radar and an extraordinary advance. Unfortunately, it had the same limitations for military use as the experimental models developed by Hershbergerits range was too limited for effective aircraft detection.20 Thus by the end of the first half of 1936, Englands Bawdsey Research Station, the United States Armys Signal Corps Laboratories, and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory had brought their radio detection projects through the maze of non-acceptance, lack of support, competition with other methods of detection, outright opposition, dead-end approaches, and state-of-the-art roadblocks to the threshold of success. The German and Japanese efforts, however, were not showing an equal amount of progress. Although the personnel working in each of the British and American laboratories was conscious of the rising might of the new Germany, little did they realize that the race with destiny was to be so short. Only three years remained to the developers of radar to complete their missions before the hot coals of international discontent were to be fanned into a global holocaust. British Radar Moves Ahead The workers at Bawdsey Manor, acutely aware of the ultimatum that their next demonstration must work or else, settled down to improve the system and assure its reliability. Everyone worked at top speed. Bowen was taken off the airborne project because of the importance of the next trials and resumed work on the new transmitter. Even Watson-Watt himself pitched in and, on one occasion, climbed up one of the towers in a howling wind to fix an antenna. Up to this point, he had considered that maintaining his good relations with the Tizard Committee and the Air Ministry was his most important duty. The ultimatum, however, made it essential that he change the focus of his attention until the test of fire, as he called it, was satisfactorily passed. When the tests were repeated in April 1937, most of the aircraft operating in the exercise were reported with good accuracies at distances of up to 80 miles. One detection was made at 112 miles. During the test, a flying boat was tracked continuously from take-off to landing, a period of 80 minutes. The radar operators were able to report that the plane did not follow its flight plan, but circled one lightship for a considerable time before setting its course for its next turning point.21
As a result of the outstanding success of the test, it was decided to implement the second stage of the Chain Home system and to build twenty additional stations along the east and south coasts of Great Britain.22 During 1937, construction work began in earnest and by August three stations, plus the first filter center (located at Bawdsey Manor) had been completed. By the end of the year, the five stations planned for stage one had been completed. In September 1938, all five went over to twenty-four hour operation under the control and operation of the Royal Air Force. For the first time, the new early warning technique had become an integral part of the British Air Defense System. Once the stations were in operation, however, the consequences of giving a non-military research laboratory complete responsibility for the development of a military device quickly became apparent. Much can be said for the genius of Watson-Watt in coming up with his brilliant answer to a terribly difficult problem. Even more plaudits can be added for his ability to organize the effort, recruit a staff, cut through red tape, deal with the Tizard Committee and the Air Ministry, and establish a productive work environment. But the time consumed by Watson-Watt in taking care of the external factors influencing the work at Orfordness and Bawdsey Manor was time that was badly needed in supervising the research activities of the team of young and mostly inexperienced physicists that he had assembled. The course that Watson-Watt chose to follow was politically and strategically sound, but technical achievement was equally important and it received too little attention. It is most unfortunate that Watson-Watt could not have been identical twins. He had the great capacity needed to do either the political or the technical job well, but he could not add enough hours to the day to do both. Without a strong hand at the helm to provide daily guidance and supervision, and to make known essential operational and maintenance requirements of the R.A.F., there was a tendency at Bawdsey to overlook the fact that someone other than the staff at Bawdsey would have to operate and repair the equipment. The system, from an engineering standpoint, was not up to the R.A.F.s minimum standards. Breakdowns were numerous. The early English radar sets were an engineers nightmare, imperfectly designed, even crude in many respects, and they were very fragile and temperamental. Much engineering redesign had to be undertaken after the stations were in operation, and scientists had to be detached from Bawdsey to assist with the work.22 Nevertheless, with all its shortcomings, when the German juggernaut began to crush its way across defenseless Europe, the Chain Home System was in operationawaiting its opportunity to unite with the Royal Air Force in a glorious and valiant defense of the British Isles.
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British Radar Diversifies During the latter half of 1935, despite the emphasis on completing the Chain Home radar system, the staff at Bawdsey Manor began to diversify its radar effort to meet the needs of the ground forces for mobile early warning equipment, the Royal Air Force for intercept, and the Royal Navy for detection of surface vessels. Watson-Watts friend, Colonel Peter Worlledge, who had assisted him in Egypt with his early lightning studies, heard that Watson-Watt was doing something new and interesting. On July 4, 1935, Worlledge brought his chief from the War Office, the Master General of Ordnance, to see Watson-Watt. This visit, after the necessary policy and budgetary matters had been settled, led to the setting up at Bawdsey Manor of an Army Cell on October 16, 1936. In the interval between the visit and the activation of the Army Cell, the staff at Bawdsey Manor kept close tabs on all radar progress that might be of particular value to the Army. They also built an early experimental mobile model and housed it in a 3-ton house-body truck. The set gave pickup ranges of 40 miles with service field masts. After a series of trials on 4 meter wave lengths in which a range of 60 miles was achieved on February 24, 1936 and gapless tracking was established by June, it was decided that 13 meters, despite all adverse considerations, would be a better wave length for mobile early warning radars. A new model was tested on October 23, 1936 and demonstrated to the War Office on December 6th. It was accepted and, although many subsequent improvements followed, December 6, 1936, marked the addition of an early warning capability to the arsenal of the British Army.23 Concurrently with the mobile project, an attempt was also undertaken to develop a small radar set which could be carried in an airplane. Watson-Watt discussed the possibility of airborne radar with his colleagues in October 1935. By February 1936, sufficient thought had been given to the idea to enable him to decide to submit a definite proposal to the Tizard Committee. The project was approved and Bowen was assigned the task. Gerald Touch became Bowens immediate aide. The Air Armament Establishment at Martlesham, some ten miles away, provided the flying facilities required for Bowens experiments.24 Bowen and Watson-Watt, after a series of discussions about the desired characteristics of an airborne radar set, agreed that it should be very light, compact, and have a much shorter minimum range. The short minimum range requirement proved to be the most difficult to attain for, although the minimum range of the early warning radars was about five miles, the airborne radars would require less than 1,000 feet. By February 1936, the minimum range had
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been set at 150 feet and the maximum range at five kilometers. Bowens first experimental work on the new project began with an attempt to develop a one meter receiver, using acorn tubes from the United States. After the receiver was successfully completed, he turned to the development of a transmitter for the same frequency, but the work had to be abandoned. There were no tubes, either in England or America, that could give a reasonable power output at one meter. It was necessary, therefore, to turn to a wavelength that was more feasible. Bowen decided on six meters. On this wavelength, the first successful detection of one aircraft by another aircraft was made before the end of the year, but the plane carried only a receiver. The illumination of the target plane was accomplished from the ground. After several attempts were made to use shorter wavelengths by experimenting with different kinds of vacuum tubes, a new project, known as the RDF-1 1/2 was undertaken. This system was a cross between an RDF-1, the Chain Home radar, and an RDF-2, the as yet undeveloped airborne radar. An RDF-1 1/2 was actually assembled but the work was soon dropped in favor of a 300 megacycles per second set which was built by Gerald Touch around Western Electric door knob tubes. In August 1936, the first of the airborne systems was installed in an Anson aircraft. During the first test, Touch flew with the equipment because Bowen was on annual leave. Touch thus became the first British scientist to fly with airborne radar and see a ship from the air on a radar scope. On his indicator, Touch picked up a 2,000 ton freighter at 4 to 5 miles, and then circled over it. The system, however, had many shortcomings. It could not determine bearings; its transmitter power was inadequate; and its range capability was limited to about one kilometer. The range capability was eventually increased to 20 to 12 miles. Unfortunately, although the performance was excellent, the sets operational limitations made it unacceptable for war time use. During his early flights with the equipment, Bowen noticed that it showed very strong ground reflection but very little sea return. Ship echoes were so strong and clear that immense advantages were perceived from a set which could detect shipping from the air. During the remainder of 1937 and most of 1938, the airborne detection project was oriented toward ship detection.25 U.S. Navy Gives Radar Top Priority At the Naval Research Laboratory in the United States, efforts were continued in 1936 to improve the
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to 12 is in all versionsprobably should be 20 to 120. Editor VOLUME 21, NUMBER 8, PART II, AUGUST 2006
performance of Page and Guthries pulse radar and a series of successful demonstrations were staged. After a preliminary showing for Bureau of Engineering officials in early June, 1936, a demonstration for a group of visiting admirals was conducted on June 26th. The visitors included Admiral H. R. Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, and Rear Admiral Harold G. Bowen, Chief of the Bureau of Engineering and later to become one of radars most enthusiastic supporters among the higher echelons of the Navy. As a result of the demonstration, the importance of the new equipment was established and the problem of radio detection was given the highest possible priority within the Naval Research Laboratory. Admiral Bowen, in a letter to the Director of NRL, stated, as Taylor had correctly anticipated at an earlier date, that the work should now be centered upon providing for shipboard use of equipment operating at the highest frequency consistent with obtaining the required power and providing in a single device both detection and ranging.26 Although the attention of Page and Guthrie promptly turned to developing improved equipment on higher frequencies, the 28 megacycles per second apparatus used for the demonstration for Stark and Bowen was kept in operation for use in further demonstrations during the remainder of 1936.27 Prior to the 1936 demonstrations, Taylor tried a new approach in his campaign to generate greater interest in the radar project at the Bureau and Departmental levels of the Navy Department. In the reports from the Director of NRL to the Bureau of Engineering, starting with October 1935, he included references to the radio detection developments of other countries, including Germany and France. He mentioned that several of the current magazines had disclosed that activity was underway in Germany and that they appear to have put considerable thought and work into this problem and have worked out a system for area protection, making use of centimeter waves. In another report, he cited the news release concerning the development of the Normandies device for detecting obstacles in her path.28 Dr. Taylor, who strived diligently to promote detection within the Navy for the first six years of the existence of Project W5-2S, gained the assistance of two important allies in 1936. Rear Admiral Bowen joined the selling team after the successful demonstration in June 1936. He became a moving force in convincing officials of the Navy Department and members of Congress that radar was important and that there was need for adequate funds to support an expanded radar development program. The second new member of the selling team was Captain Hollis M. Cooley who became Director of the Naval Research Laboratory in 1935. He was the first of NRLs directors to make a conspicuous effort to
publicize, within the Navy at least, the radar and other projects at NRL. Captain Cooley had been Assistant Chief of the Bureau of Engineering prior to heading the laboratory and he had a large number of influential friends in the Navy Department. On one pretext or another, he persuaded many leading naval officers to come down to the Laboratory. He almost always arranged a demonstration of the latest radar equipment for them. As a result of his efforts, far more important people than ever before became familiar with the work and facilities of NRL. The Naval Research Laboratory, which had been looked upon as an ivory tower of reticent scientists gradually came to be accepted as an important part of the Navy organization.29 The record of successful operations during demonstrations was almost miraculous. There was seldom an operational failure, although there were several close calls. On one occasion, the equipment was inoperative until minutes before the demonstration and worked perfectly throughout the test. On another occasion, serious and inexplicable interference was encountered just before an important demonstration. At the last minute, the cause was found to be a faulty commutator in one of NRLs generators. In the autumn of 1936, the radar equipment was demonstrated for Admiral A. J. Hepburn, Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet. In February 1937, it was shown to Charles Edison, Secretary of the Navy, and to Admiral William Leahy. The continued success of these demonstrations was an important factor in marshaling support for the development of naval radar. Before the end of 1936, the long string of successful demonstrations for the friends of the infectiously enthusiastic and capable Captain Cooley had begun to pay dividends. Expressions of interest in radio detection equipment began to arrive from the Fleet. In December, Admiral Hepburn forwarded Captain Cooley a letter that had originated in the Fleet during the tactical exercises that were held off the Pacific coast in October. The Commanding Officer of Destroyer Division Sixty One called attention to the need for a device to penetrate fog and to increase the tactical and fire control efficiency of the Fleet and to reduce the dangers to navigation. Apparently unaware of the radar work that was under development at NRL, he called attention to the recent publicity concerning the Normandies radio detection apparatus. All endorsements, added to the letter as it was enroute to the Navy Department, strongly supported the request. Admiral Hepburn forwarded this letter to the Chief of the Bureau of Engineering, together with another communication from the same destroyer division commander in which he commented on a later tactical exercise that was held in November 1936. The second letter included the following
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comments: Fog again played a major part in the tactical exercisedelaying the sorties from San Diego, interrupting exercise three and forcing abandonment of exercise five. In each of these instances, radio gear of the Normandie type would have been of great assistance.30 This letter apparently was dispatched with considerable vehemence because it also reported that the destroyer division commanding officers flagship arrived at Exercise Four, to join the group screening the Ranger, after the exercise was completed. NRL Shifts to Higher Frequencies While Captain Cooley, Admiral Bowen, and Dr. Taylor were actively campaigning to sell radar to the Navy Department and the Fleet commanders, work was being carried on at NRL to shift the radar developments to higher frequencies. During the second half of 1936, Guthrie attempted to duplicate on 50 and 80 megacycles per second the results that had been obtained at 28 megacycles per second. Page was experimenting at even higher frequencies, doing some work at 5 meters and some at 9 centimeters. The need to find a frequency that would permit the use of antennas small enough to make radar feasible for shipboard operation was urgently felt by Page and Guthrie. Any avenue that seemed to lead to smaller antennas was explored. Page says that his work with 9 centimeters was undertaken primarily because 9 centimeter vacuum tubes had become available in the mid-1930s. By July 1936, Guthrie had redesigned the field house transmitter to work on 50 megacycles per second and had obtained good results out to 15 miles. In mid-September, he began work on an 80 megacycles per second antenna array. When it was completed, Pages receiver was attached to the array and excellent results were obtained at ranges out to 30 miles. Attempts to use these frequencies were soon abandoned, however, because of the successful development of a 200 megacycles per second system that was eventually to be used for the first shipboard operation. Early in May, the problem of developing a 200 megacycle system that would operate on a single antenna for both transmitting and receiving was assigned to A. A. Varela, a new engineer assigned to Pages group. Varelas specific job was to design a transmitter and perfect a duplexing system suggested by Young and Page. While these components were being designed, a novel all-metal antenna array was being built for the new frequency, and the engineering of a new 200 megacycles per second receiver was
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being carried out under Pages direction by John Gough and G. E. Pray of the NRL Receiver Group. The 200 megacycles per second system from which the Navys first shipboard radar equipment was developed, received its first echoes on July 22, 1936, less than three months after the project had begun. The performance of the equipment was encouraging but not impressive. During the initial tests, the maximum range at which an aircraft was detected was 10 to 12 miles because of low transmitter power and poor antenna gain. Reflections from objects on the ground were stronger than with the 28 megacycles per second equipment. One of the most significant developments of this period was the complete success of the new duplexing equipment, built by Varela, which enabled the transmitter and receiver to be operated on the same frequency. For duplex operation to be possible, a switching device which would protect the receiver from the enormous surge of power from the transmitted pulse and thus permit the echo to be detected without being blocked by the outgoing pulse was essential. In early discussions between Page and Young about the feasibility and practicality of a single antenna, Young suggested the essentials of the idea which Varela successfully developed. The winter of 193637 was spent in completing the assembly operation and building a rotatable antenna. In the early spring of 1937, NRLs executive officer, over the strong objections and against the best professional advice of Page, insisted that the 200 megacycles per second experimental equipment be installed aboard the destroyer Leary and be tested on trips down Chesapeake Bay. The tests proved little and probably delayed progress for a few weeks, but they did permit the engineers to observe radar for the first time in the absence of ground clutter. The tests also reemphasized a major weakness of all development efforts to that timeinsufficient transmitter power. The tests caused the focus of NRLs development activity to be centered on the design of more powerful transmitters. During the remainder of 1937, new transmitter designs were developed and tested, but they proved to be unsatisfactory because of the continual failure of transmitter vacuum tubes. These tubes were satisfactory for the uses for which they were designed, but they were unable to stand up under the extreme voltages of the radar transmitters. Toward the end of the year, the long series of failures was finally ended by the successful development of a new transmitter by Robert Page, Guthrie, Varela, and I. H. Page. The new transmitter, the capstone in the development of the first operational Navy radar, employed six vacuum tubes in a ring structure and used the recently developed Eimac 100TH tubes in a ring oscillator. The new tubes had been developed for the Army Signal Corps by Eitel McCullough, Inc., a small but
dynamic and skillful concern located in San Bruno, California. The firm had specialized for years in the design and manufacture of tubes for the radio amateur market. Because Eitel-McCullough officials were aware that hams were likely to operate their transmitters at higher than the declared power outputs, the companys tube designers made allowances for the overloads to be expected. They assured that their tubes were ruggedly built and could sustain much abuse. Eitel-McCulloughs design experience peculiarly qualified it to build the transmitter tubes that were needed to meet the enormous power requirements of radar transmitters.31 NRLs new transmitter was completed in January 1938. It became the first successful transmitter anywhere in the world to be operated on 200 megacycles per second. On January 23rd, the transmitter was attached to its antenna, and, on February 1st, planes were tracked out to 40 miles. Two weeks later, in a demonstration of the equipment, a plane was tracked out to 50 miles. Within another three days, a duplexer that was built according to Youngs original idea was added, and the system was operated on a single antenna with satisfactory results. Page recorded the event in his notebook: This completes the entire 200 Mc development of radio echo equipment. This development was started on the 8th day of May 1936 and completed on the 17th day of February 1938.32 U.S. Navy Develops Prototype Model The next step to follow a successful test would normally be the installation of service test models aboard a ship to determine if the equipment would work in an actual shipboard environment. NRL, however, had another hurdle to cross before it could begin the service test phase. It had to make a crucial decision whether to freeze design and build a prototype model for the service test, or continue the efforts to build a more compact set using higher frequencies. The Bureau of Engineering, in consultation with Captain Cooley and Dr. Hoyt Taylor, decided to give highest priority to carrying through with the 200 megacycles per second equipment for use in the fleet. The Director of NRL advised the Bureau of Engineering that the development and installation of a service test model aboard a battleship would take about one year. Accordingly, the main effort of the Laboratory for the next eight months was directed toward the design and construction of a prototype system. This system was given the designation XAF. The design work was carried out by Guthrie, the two Pages, Reppart, and Varela. No electrical improvements were madeonly mechanical modifications necessary to fit the XAF for shipboard installation. The electrical design was frozen as of February 15th.
The completed service test model was installed aboard the U.S.S. New York in December 1938. It was given exhaustive and rigorous tests on fleet maneuvers that were carried out in the Caribbean area during the months of January and February 1939. The XAF was operated and supervised, and the tests were conducted, by Robert M. Page, with the assistance of Reppart and Guthrie. In general, the trials were extraordinarily successful. They exceeded in every respect the most sanguine expectations of Page and the other NRL officials. The radar set was subjected to severe operating conditions, and ran continuously for 16 to 14 hours a day in high winds, through rain storms, and during gunfire. There were few failures, and the ones that occurred were readily repaired. Radar had finally arrived in the United States Navy, and its acceptance by the fleet commanders who had seen it in operation was almost instantaneous.33 Thus, the development of radar in the U.S. Navy, which had been initiated on September 27, 1922, by the original Taylor memorandum to the Navy Department, reached its climax 16 1/2 years later aboard the battleship U.S.S. New York. The successful development came less than three short years before the United States was plunged into the greatest war in history. Unfortunately, although radar gave the United States Navy a substantial advantage over the Japanese fleet, time did not permit an effective operational system to be completed before the outbreak of hostilities. Signal Corps Pulse Radar Work began on the Armys first pulse radar shortly after receipt of the War Departments promised set of military characteristics in the spring of 1936, despite the War Departments refusal to provide the needed development funds. General Allison, the Armys Chief Signal Officer, gave radar the Signal Corps highest research and development priority. Armed with this support, Colonel Blair robbed the previous top priority communications development programs of sufficient funds and personnel to support the radar undertaking. Allison warned Blair not to talk much about the unauthorized shifting of resources to the radar project, but he agreed that it should be done. Allison apparently believed that there would be delays if he did not get the project under way immediately. He was convinced that the potentiality of the weapon was too great to tolerate delays of any kind.34 By 1936, Hitlers war drums were beginning to be heard, even in the United States, and Allison felt a sense of urgency about the need to speed up the development of radar. In April 1936, Robert Page of the Naval Research Laboratory returned Hershbergers call on NRL. He was shown the Laboratories and shop at Fort
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Monmouth and given an opportunity to discuss the detection problem. At Hershbergers request, Page agreed to forward the brief NRL monthly progress reports to the Signal Corps Laboratories. The first indication that NRL had achieved success with the pulse method seems to have been provided to the Army by the sudden and unexplained cessation of these reports. This occurred when the project was upgraded from a confidential to a secret classification by the Navy. Apparently the Army was not permitted to receive secret data from the Navy. Thus, at a time when the Signal Corps was in greatest need of information about pulse transmission, Navy security regulations intervened to deny the desired data.35 Nevertheless, the Navys success with pulse techniques had considerable influence on the course of events within the Signal Corps. Consideration was given several times during 1936 to renewed consultations with the Navy, but the success of experiments conducted by the Signal Corps in December 1936 caused the Signal Corps officials to decide against such a step. The official start of the development of pulse radar as a high priority project in the Army, began at the Signal Corps Laboratories on May 15, 1936. Using a design that Hershberger entered in his notebook in February, shortly after his visit to NRL, the Laboratories began the development of a pulse transmitter which would operate in the neighborhood of 100 megacycles per second. This project marked the first time that Hershberger had been able to get Blair to depart from his insistence that microwaves were the only solution to the radio detection problem. By the end of June, Hershberger, with the assistance of Robert H. Noyes, a transferee from the Aircraft Laboratories at Wright Field, had built a 75 watt pulse transmitter, and had firmed up a complete system design for a 100 megacycles per second radar system.36 In Washington, General Allison again requested additional funds from the War Department for the radar project, and again he was refused. By this time, Allison apparently had come to realize that further pleas for money would fall on deaf ears until he had something spectacular to demonstrate to the War Department General Staff. Accordingly, he took the only step available to him. He diverted $75,741 in fiscal year 1937 money to the radar project. The funds became available to Blair in November 1936. Allison enjoined Blair to have something to show by the end of the year. He stated that he wanted to try again at that time to obtain funds for the radio detection project from the War Department, and thus be able to stop robbing important communications projects of sorely needed funds. Blair established his target date for a major demonstration of pulse equipment as June 1, 1937.37
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Colton Transferred to Signal Corps Laboratories In August 1936, Lieutenant Colonel Roger B. Colton was transferred from the Office of the Chief Signal Officer in Washington to the Signal Corps Laboratories at Fort Monmouth. He became executive officer to Colonel Blair. Coltons efforts of six months before to get the Laboratories out of their dead end approach to radar were beginning to show results. Colton was conscious of General Allisons desire to have demonstrable equipment available by the end of the fiscal year. Shortly after his arrival at Fort Monmouth, he began to make his influence felt. In October 1936, Hershberger left the Signal Corps Laboratories to complete his doctorate in physics at the University of Chicago. Colton seized upon the opportunity to recommend to Blair a complete reorganization of the radar project. Colton suggested that a separate section be established for radar development, with Captain Rex V. D. Corput as project officer and Paul Watson as chief engineer. Blair agreed in general with Coltons suggestion, but he decided to assign the radar project to the Radio Section as an additional project, instead of setting up a separate section. The result turned out to be essentially the same. Watson, who was head of the Radio Section, became the project engineer, and Corput became the project officer. The main difference between Coltons proposal and Blairs decision was that Corput and Watson had projects other than radar to share their time and energy. In January 1937, Watson reorganized his Radio Section into a Receiver Group, a Transmitter Group, and an Engineering Group. Only the latter was not concerned with radar development.38 By late fall, 1937, a multivibrator keyer which produced a 300 volt pulse that was powerful enough to operate a 100 watt transmitter had been developed. The Laboratories effort next turned to the design of a receiver that would recover quickly enough from the outgoing impulse to be able to receive the weak returning echo signal. This was the identical problem being worked on by Varela at NRL, with the advice and assistance of Page and Young, but there was no exchange of ideas nor progress reports between NRL and the Signal Corps Laboratories at the time. Thus, each laboratory solved the problem in a different way, and neither attempted to compare and exchange concepts with the other. By December 1936, the Signal Corps work had progressed to the point that a demonstration, using a rather crude array, was possible. Therefore, on December 14th, the equipment was moved to a point near Princeton Junction, New Jersey, on a busy air lane. The receiver was set up about a mile from the transmitter. This separation was necessary to shield the receiver, with the help of a grove of trees, from the transmitters radiation. The equipment worked
successfully and the tests were repeated with equally good results on the following day. Emphasis on Antenna Design Colton had followed the tests with keen interest. Although the Princeton Junction tests were generally satisfactory, he was dissatisfied, particularly with the antenna design. He considered the antenna system to be totally inadequate for the wave length used. He decided, therefore, to intervene in the development of the antenna and to inject some ideas of his own. He soon found, however, that his ideas conflicted with one of the practicalities of Army research and development. Colton wanted to build the largest antenna, in terms of wave lengths, that could be physically manipulated by operating personnel, but to do so would be difficult to justify. The only authorized radar project at the Signal Corps Laboratories was a Coast Artillery requirement. The Coast Artillery was the only customer interested in radar at the timethe Air Corps did not become interested until the following yearand the Coast Artillery wanted small, compact, mobile antennas. Colton refused to be restricted by the Armys military characteristics at this early stage of radars development, however, and he proceeded to build what he described as a weird and wonderful system of antennas which could be thought of as being finally reducible to mobile form.39 Reduction in antenna size could be accomplished only by a shift to higher frequencies, but no one at the Signal Corps Laboratories knew the optimum frequency to be employed within the then existing state-of-the-art. Colton wished to avoid running head-on into the high frequency roadblock that had stifled radars progress with the Signal Corps during the first half of the 1930s decade. On the other hand, he realized that the 100 megacycles per second frequency that was being used in the 1936 development might be lower than absolutely necessary. He therefore directed the project engineers to make a systematic survey of all vacuum tubes available for transmitter applications, and to test the more promising ones for reliability, technical performance, and ruggedness. From this survey, it was determined that 200 megacycles per second was the highest frequency that could be used effectively until improved vacuum tubes could be developed. A project at this frequency was immediately initiated as a parallel development to the 100 megacycles per second undertaking, although the latter was continued because of Allisons directive that equipment must be ready for demonstration by June 30, 1937. The 200 megacycles per second frequency also permitted Colton to overcome the antenna size problem and reduce the antenna to a mobile configuration.40
Critical Demonstration for the Secretary of War By the spring of 1937, there was sufficient progress to warrant staging a demonstration and one was scheduled for the Secretary of War for May. In preparation for the demonstration, a more powerful transmitter was developed by Marks and Baller. They used a pair of RCA 806 air cooled tubes and operated them well above their rated voltage. Other significant improvements in components were emerging at the same time, and the range at which tracking was possible was steadily increasing. To assure that everything was ready for the showing to the Secretary of War, General Allison scheduled a preliminary demonstration for himself on May 18th and 19th. Also present were the Chief of the Coast Artillery, the Assistant Chief of the Air Corps, and representatives of the Ordnance Corps and the Corps of Engineers.41 This demonstration apparently marks the first time that the Army Air Corps was brought into the radar picture.42 The demonstration was moderately successful. It was conducted both in daylight and at night, with sufficiently satisfactory results that Allison felt safe in going ahead with the demonstration for the Secretary of War that was scheduled for the following week. An interesting feature of the demonstration was the reliance still being placed on infra-red detection despite Blairs lack of faith in it and the Coast Artillery Boards rejection of it. According to the test plan, the radar apparatus, with its greater range and searching ability, would be used to pick up the target planes, but when they came within antiaircraft artillery range the detection work would be turned over to an infra-red detector because of its greater directional accuracy at closer ranges.43 Colton states that everyone concerned with the test was hedging. They did not want to give up infra-red detection completely until radar had been proved feasible beyond the shadow of a doubt.44 During the first test, the weather was bad and the infra-red equipment worked poorly. Only four passes by the target plane were detected and these by the radar alone.45 After the first demonstration, the Army Air Corps became vitally interested in the new radio detection project. Up to this time, the Signal Corps Laboratories had been working entirely on the problem of getting firing data for the Coast Artillerys antiaircraft artillery batteries. It had not concerned itself with the early warning needs of the Air Corps. At dinner on the evening after the first days demonstration, May 18, 1937, the Air Corps representative, Brigadier General H. H. Hap Arnold, asked if the Signal Corps could not give him at least 50 miles so that he could have time to get his pursuit planes in the air. Allison and Blair assured him that such a development was rather simple and could be accomplished within three years after the establishment of the required
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military characteristics. Arnold agreed to see that the military characteristics were provided immediately, and they were received by the Signal Corps within a few weeks.46 The second demonstration, on May 26, 1937, was an historic occasion. It brought to an end the initial phase of the Armys radar program, and it also resulted in an allocation of funds. This was an accomplishment which Blair and General Saltzman had attempted nine years earlier, and which succeeding Chief Signal Officers had been seeking ever since. Present for the demonstration were the Secretary of War, the Honorable Harry H. Woodring; the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Malin Craig; and other dignitaries, including members of the Military Affairs Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The demonstration was carefully planned to make it easy for the visitors to recognize and understand the significance of the new weapon with which most of them were becoming acquainted for the first time. In daylight, the target planes were followed visually with telescopes controlled by the radar and the thermal detector. At night, the planes were illuminated by searchlights that were tied in with the antenna. When the plane came into the range of the searchlights, anyone who wished to do so could push a button and see the plane in the searchlights beam. In addition, a large dial that indicated distance to the target plane was placed in a conspicuous location where it could be seen easily by the visitors.47 For the crucial night demonstration of the radar set that was to become known as the SCR-268, a B-10 bomber, with lights turned off, was scheduled to attempt a sneak raid over Fort Monmouth. This was to be a simulated battle situation that pitted antiaircraft guns against a bomber. Success would be measured by the radar controlled searchlights ability to illuminate the airplane in time for effective antiaircraft artillery fire. The Secretary of War and his guests were particularly asked to watch one searchlight which was coupled to the radar equipment and would automatically point in the direction indicated by the radar. Three other searchlights, not controlled by radar, were positioned within a mile radius to provide support for the radar-controlled light. When a target was picked up by any one of the lights, the other three would immediately swing over and cooperate to intensify the target illumination. The search area for the three supporting searchlights was to be in the vicinity of the tip of the radar-controlled light. About twenty minutes after the test began, radar picked up a target at a height of 10,000 feet and a range of 6 miles. Almost immediately, the pilot searchlight pierced the sky and there at the end of a pencil beam of light, looking something like an iridescent fly, was the target plane. One by one the other lights moved over to aid in the track. The plane
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was escorted over the distinguished guests, a perfect target for antiaircraft fire. The visitors were impressed and the Signal Corps officials were delighted. Several more runs were made, and all were successfully detected. The Secretary of War later wrote to the Chief Signal Officer, on June 2 1937, about his pleasure with the results of the tests. He stated that they gave tangible evidence of the amazing scientific advances made by the Signal Corps in the development of technical equipment.48 Signal Corps Ordered to Begin Production General Malin Craig, the Army Chief of Staff, who was standing beside General Allison during the test, turned to him and said Jimmy, I would never have believed this possible if I hadnt seen it with my own eyes. I want you to get these experiments away from here (the tests were conducted on Route 35 near Red Bank, New Jersey) because they are in too public a place. I also want you to begin production at once. Blair, who was with the two generals, immediately interposed an objection. He stated that there were one or two improvements that he had to make first. Craig stopped him and said Its good enough for me right now. Allison then directed Blair to begin drawing up the necessary plans, including the modifications that he wished to make, to get the equipment into production at once.49 Despite the success of the demonstrations and General Craigs desire that production be initiated immediately, Blair and Colton recognized that the equipment did not quite satisfy the military characteristics that had been established by the Coast Artillery Corps in February 1936. The tracking information was not continuous; the error in azimuth was considerably larger than the one degree that had been specified; although the maximum range requirements could be met under average atmospheric conditions, the minimum range performance was poor; and, lastly, the equipment was certain to be vulnerable to jamming. Therefore, developments to correct these deficiencies were continued. A Radar Appropriation at Last One of the most important aftermaths of the successful demonstration was an increased appropriation for the Signal Corps Laboratories. Prior to the demonstration, Colton was asked by Lieutenant Colonel Louis B. Bender, Coltons successor as Chief of Research and Engineering in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, if he could do the radar job with $50 thousand a year. That was the amount that the General Staff had in mind. Colton replied that he could do the job in three years if he could get $250 thousand a year, but it would take fifteen years if he was to be limited to $50 thousand. When
General Allison came to Fort Monmouth for the demonstration for the Secretary of War, he again asked Colton if he could get by for $50 thousand a year. Colton replied that he would rather try to eat soup with a fork than try to do the job with $50 thousand. Colton convinced Allison that he needed considerably more money than the General Staff had been willing to allocate. Allison eventually persuaded the General Staff that it should ask Congress for $250 thousand for the radar project. The General Staff, however, although it agreed to ask for the money, was certain that Congress would refuse to appropriate so much money to develop an untried idea like radar when there were so many other things that the Army urgently needed. To the surprise of the General Staff, Allison, and almost everyone but Colton, Congress didnt bat an eye when told that the Signal Corps wanted $250 thousand for an airplane detection project. The money famine at Fort Monmouth was thus finally ended.50 Coltons Invention In trying to overcome the deficiencies noted during the May 1937 tests, Colton made his only radar invention. It was an extremely important contribution. In 1921, while he was a member of the Coast Artillery Board, Colton had participated in tests of a radio direction finder that had been developed by the Bureau of Standards. The device consisted of two crossed loops, at 90 degrees to each other. The lobes of the antenna patterns of the two loops overlapped in the center and formed a hollow, or V. The RDF had a mechanical interruptor that switched at high speed from one antenna to the other. The idea intrigued Colton at the time that he was testing the device, and he filed the idea in his memory for future reference. Therefore, when the azimuth error during the tests proved to be greater than the military characteristics permitted, Colton revived the idea that he had tucked away fifteen years earlier. He decided to use two lobes on both the horizontal and vertical antennas. To do this, it was necessary to transmit from a single lobe antenna, receive on a two lobe vertical antenna and a two lobe horizontal antenna simultaneously, and adjust to get a sharp cleavage between the lobes. Coltons method provided an accuracy of less than one half degree, but it did so when the signal strength was at its minimum, rather than its maximum. Thus Colton originated an idea that permitted the United States Army to have its first mobile radar set, the SCR 268, capable of providing azimuth and elevation data. James Moore, an engineer at the Laboratories, designed the receiver that made Coltons idea a practicality. Even with new antennas and receiver, the SCR 268 still could not provide accurate range data. The Coast Artillerys military characteristics had only
specified direction. The Coast Artillery thought of radar as a device which would place searchlights on target and, once the aircraft had been located by the searchlights, the firing positions would use the usual Ordnance computers, optical trackers, and optical range finders to provide firing data. Colton, on the other hand, thought it important to know the distance between the radar and the plane that was being tracked. Although no requirement for this information had been established, he directed that a project be set up. A reserve officer on active duty with the Laboratories conceived the idea of a phasing apparatus which would permit range data to be read directly from a dial. His idea was quickly translated into hardware and, when it proved successful, the SCR 268 became the first three dimensional radar in the world.51 Colton Replaces Blair In the fall of 1937, Colton was sent to the Army War College. He did not participate in any of the work that went on during the next ten months, although the improvement projects that he had started before he left were continued in his absence. When he returned to Fort Monmouth in the summer of 1938, Colton found Blair in the hospital and no one pushing to get radar into production. Blair never returned to active duty, but retired in October 1938 for physical disability. Upon returning from school, Colton was appointed Acting Director of the Signal Corps Laboratories and, after Blairs retirement, he became the director. He thus became fully responsible for the radar project which, before assuming his new command duties, he could only influence with the consent of Blair.52 Drama at Fort Monroe Colton immediately began to press for completion of a service test model. The first such model, the SCR 268-T1, which was the only one of its kind ever built, was completed early in September, 1938. It was scheduled for test within a few weeks. The schedule was unpredictably interrupted later that same month by a hurricane that swept the east coast. The radar set, which was in an exposed position at Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook, was severely damaged. It was not until mid-October that it could be completely restored. Preliminary tests were then carried out by Coast Artillery officers at Fort Hancock. After the tests were completed, the equipment was transported to Fort Monroe, Virginia, but not without incident and confusion. While crossing the Delaware River by ferry at Pennsville, the heavy weight of the radar set almost capsized the ferry. A few miles farther down the highway, the trailer, with its precious radar cargo, became stuck in a Civil War vintage covered bridge across the Susquehannah River at Havre de Grace,
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Maryland. The trailer had to be backed up for two miles, much to the consternation of the State Police and thousands of angry motorists. On the evening before Thanksgiving, 1938, the convoy, after three hectic days and nights on the road, rolled into Fort Monroe. The service tests by the Coast Artillery Board soon began.53 During the weeks that followed, many tests were conducted under controlled conditions. Airplanes were sent to record heights and they were detected easily. Long range detection possibilities were demonstrated beyond question. Hedge-hopping planes were detected in time for hasty defense measures. Artillery bursts were found to register on the radars indicators, thus suggesting methods for fire control which led to newer and more accurate weapons at a later date. The tremendous potentialities of the equipment became more apparent with each succeeding test. Equipment failures, which occurred from time to time, could be corrected. Size could be reduced and efficiency could be increased. But a new and exciting weapon had arrived for the Armys use in the yet unhatched World War IIa war that was to begin in only three years.54 The Coast Artillery concluded that the device warranted a continuous and energetic development program. The most important decision at that time was the one that recommended the classification of the SCR-268 as required type, development type, and limited procurement type. Freely interpreted, this meant that the set was being adopted as regular army equipment. This official recommendation was approved by the Adjutant General on March 29, 1939.55 After the completion of the service tests, the Coast Artillery Board arranged a demonstration for a number of Army Air Corps officers. During the demonstration, one of the most dramatic incidents in the development of radar occurred. A B-10 bomber from Langley Field, with its lights extinguished, was to make a number of simulated bombing runs over Fort Monroe at an altitude of 20,000 feet. As the pilot gained altitude, he reported a broken cloud layer at 10,000 feet that would require him to navigate partly by instruments. The clouds were expected to break and the weather to be satisfactory for searchlight operations by the time that the bomber could be on course. At 20,000 feet the pilot leveled off and reported his position as about 30 miles west of Fort Monroe. He said he was coming in for his first run. The Air Corps visitors, many of whom were extremely skeptical of radar and most of whom were seeing it for the first time, gathered around the radar set. They awaited the announcement that contact had been established. It did not come. Despite the apparatus showing every indication of being in perfect working order, the plane had not been detected by the time that the pilot reported Now directly over Fort Monroe at 20,000 feetunless there are other
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instructions, will turn and fly west 25 miles and repeat course. The pilot repeated the run for the assembled fliers and many of them became even more dubious of the new device when the pilot again reported Am now over Fort Monroe at 20,000 feetwhere is that searchlight you fellows were talking about? When the Air Corps visitors began to leave in disgust, Dr. Harold Zahl, the Signal Corps physicist in charge of technical operations, said that he thought it imperative that they look to the east and see if by chance the pilot was off course and over the ocean. Colonel Schuyler, the Coast Artillery officer directing the tests, said that he hardly thought it necessary because the boys at Langley did a lot of night flying. Zahl insisted on one more run and then a chance to scan the eastern sky. The third run from the west was no more successful than the other two. Schuyler then agreed that they should try Zahls suggestion and search toward the east. If no contact was established, the test was to be called off. Orders were given to reverse the search field. Slowly the three massive antennas were turned 180 degrees to face the Atlantic Ocean. Almost immediately, the operators cried target...target...target and the radar started tracking. The remaining visitors returned quickly to the radar equipment and were shown the blip on the oscilloscope. To be sure that they were tracking the right plane, the pilot was requested to bank his plane for identification. Almost immediately, the blip on the oscilloscope bobbed up and down as the reflecting area of the airplane varied because of the turning motion. When the pilot leveled off, the blip again became stationary. Colonel Schuyler, noting the seriousness of the situation, grabbed the microphone and told the pilot that he was far off course. He was 23 miles east of Fort Monroe, to be exact, and heading for Europe at a high rate of speed. Schuyler advised the pilot to turn and fly west. As the pilot did so, the radar began to show decreasing range. The control operator was able to calculate the ground speed of the airplane. He found that the pilot was bucking 120 miles per hour head winds, and had a ground speed of only 20 miles per hour. It would be a full hour therefore, before the pilot could be overhead. After the hour had passed, the radar showed the airplane to be at a distance of 12,000 yards. This was within searchlight range. The light was turned on but only a white disk on a cloud two miles above the earth could be seen. The white disk moved slowly but continuously westward under control of the radar and eventually came to a break in the cloud cover. With all eyes straining for the sight of the planes glistening wings, and with the lives of the crew at stake, there at the end of the beam was a little fly speckpulled back from danger by an inevitable electronic force. This chance event opened up a new
use for radar, aid to navigation, and acceptance was instantaneous. Radar equipment would continue to be improved for years to come but no longer would it be necessary to convince the Armys leaders that the Army needed a radio detection capability. They now demanded it.56 The Signal Corps immediately turned its attention to the problem of going into production and completing the development of the early warning radar sets, the SCR 270 and 271. Radar Girds for War By the beginning of the year 1939, less than a year before Hitlers Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht were to begin their relentless conquest of Europe, the United States Army Signal Corps, the United States Navy, the British Air Ministry, and the German Luftwaffe had a new weapon in their arsenals, each with a different level of sophistication, but each capable of being developed further into a variety of superbly effective weapons, with an unlimited number of applications. Watson-Watt and his team at Bawdsey Manor were already exploring new uses. An Army cell had been set up. Experiments with airborne intercept radar had been initiated and then re-directed toward intercept of surface vessels for a variety of naval uses, including nighttime submarine detection. The second stage of the Chain Home system was being constructed. In the spring of 1938, the first ASV (Air to surface vessel) radar was tested during exercises in which the R.A.F.s Coastal Command and the Royal Navy were jointly participating. Bowen and Touch spent several days explaining the equipment to Admiralty officials and representatives of the fleet air arm and the Coastal Command. Then on successive days, Bowen and Touch demonstrated the equipment successfully with maximum pickups of surface vessels at distance of ten to fifteen miles. Both the Fleet and the Coastal Command became interested in adding ASV radar to their planes, and the Admiralty requested that six planes be fitted for ASV trials at once. The equipment was to be used for scouting and following, and the Navy insisted that the beam should describe a circle around and beneath the aircraft. During the spring and summer months of 1938, Bowen and his men struggled to satisfy these requirements. At the same time, work was resumed on AI (airborne intercept) radar. In September 1938, Bowen and his ASV radar again participated successfully in Fleet exercises, and their success whetted the Admiraltys appetite for even more ASVs. During the exercises, which were to last for 48 hours, the whole of the Coastal Command was to engage in tracking down a group of several ships, including the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Courageous. The exercises were scheduled to begin at 7:30 AM but Bowen, in one of Bawdseys Ansons, took off at 7:15,
before any of the Coastal Commands planes left their bases. At 8:15, he picked up the task force on the ASV equipment. He followed the signal to the target and found the Courageous surrounded by her protective array of ships. The appearance of the Anson brought all planes off the deck of the Courageous, but weather closed in on the ships and Bowens plane was not intercepted. The Coastal Commands planes were also hampered by the weather. They searched in vain for hours but could not find the Courageous. Bowen returned to the base before noon and informed the Air Ministry of his success by telephone. His reception was rather frigid when the duty officer discovered that he was a civilian. Bowen was rebuked with crushing dignity with the statement: You should know that the exercise was called off, on account of bad weather, several hours ago!57 After Bowens remarkable achievement, the Admiralty renewed its pressure to obtain ASV radars, and Bowen attempted to help them. He tried to get the Air Ministry to order six ASVs and to provide six aircraft, with engines properly screened, for use in the Admiralty trials. The ASV radar had been greatly improved over the past several months. Both Bowen and Touch were convinced that it could soon be developed into an effective detection system, if the Air Ministry would authorize them to proceed with the task. In the meantime, the AI radar work, which had been resumed in mid-summer, was showing promise. A range of 10,000 yards on the broad side aspect of a Handley-Page bomber had been obtained. Now that the AI radar had sufficient range capability, attention was turned in September to the development of a better method of direction finding.58 Peace in Our Time September 1938 was not a happy month in British history, although high drama and high tragedy were the order of the day. Mr. Chamberlain personally directed British foreign policy and in this capacity directly controlled the British role in the Czechoslovakia-Germany crisis of that period. Chamberlain held his first meeting with Hitler on September 16th at Berchtesgaden. Upon his return to London, Chamberlain recommended a policy for immediate and drastic action, namely, the transfer of predominantly German speaking Czechoslovakian districts to Germany. Subsequent British conferences with the French resulted in an ultimatum to the Czechs on September 19th for an immediate cession to Germany of all areas in Czechoslovakia containing more than fifty per cent German inhabitants. The ultimatum was followed up on the night of the 20th with a call on President Benes of Czechoslovakia by the British and French ambassadors. They urged
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Benes to accept the Anglo-French proposals before producing a situation for which France and Britain could take no responsibility. Under this pressure, the Czech government bowed to the Anglo-French pressure on September 21st. On the 22nd, Chamberlain met again with Hitler at the Rhineland town of Godesberg and carried with him the details of the Anglo-French proposal that they had forced the Czechs to accept. Hitler declared the proposal unacceptable. He demanded that all Czechs be cleared out of the Sudetenland by the 26th and that the territory be turned over to the Germans by the 28th. If his demands were not met, the Wehrmacht would march into the area on October 1st. He also added that this is the last territorial claim I have to make in Europe. Chamberlain returned to London on the 24th and, after three Cabinet meetings on the following day, he decided to reject Hitlers demands. It seemed that a showdown had arrived, and the opposing forces were aligned. The Czechs had a million and a half men behind the strongest fortress line in Europe. The French Army was partially mobilized, and reluctantly preparing to honor Frances treaty obligations to Czechoslovakia. Just before midnight on September 27th, the British Admiralty ordered the mobilization of the fleet for the following day. It seemed that war might be only a few days off. On the evening of the 27th, the same night that the Fleet was ordered to mobilize, Chamberlain broadcast to the British nation his hatred of war and stated that I would not hesitate to pay a third visit to Germany, if I thought it would do any good. After delivering his speech, he received a letter from Hitler which offered to guarantee the new frontiers of Czechoslovakia. It stated that Hitler was willing to give assurances about the manner of carrying out a plebiscite. Chamberlain replied by telling Hitler that he was willing to come to Berlin to discuss arrangements for the transfer with Hitler and with representatives of the Czech government. Hitler promptly accepted the offer, and Chamberlain flew to Germany for the third time in the month of September. The fateful meeting was held at Munich on September 29th, and a memorandum was drawn up and signed at 2:00 AM on the morning of the 30th. It essentially accepted Hitlers Godesberg ultimatum. The Sudetenland was to be evacuated in five stages beginning on October 1st. The evacuation was to be completed within ten days. The Czechs, who were not permitted to be present while the fate of their country was being decided, were handed a copy of the memorandum and, on that day, accepted the inevitable and bowed to the tragic decisions. The Peace in Our Time which Mr. Chamberlain had so bravely and, as events turned out, so foolishly sought was a shaky peace. It was to last less than a year. Almost immediately after Chamberlains return from Munich, Hitler re-emphasized his distrust
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of the British, particularly Duff Cooper, Eden, and Churchill. He announced his decision to continue the construction of the German fortifications in the west with increased energy. Duff Cooper, the First Lord of the Admiralty, running against the overwhelmingly favorable tide of British public opinion that greeted Chamberlains actions, resigned from the cabinet. He sparked a long and emotion charged debate in the House of Commons over the defense of the Empire. It was brought out during the debate that Britain was hideously unprepared for war. Great Britain had allowed herself to be far surpassed by the strength of the German Luftwaffe. All her vulnerable points were unprotected. Barely a hundred antiaircraft guns could be found for the defense of London, and these were in the hands of untrained men. When the debate was over, however, Chamberlain won an overwhelming vote of confidence, 366 to 144, with 30 or 40 dissentient Conservatives registering their disapproval by abstention. Churchill, in a letter to Duff Cooper, summarized the tragic situation in concise but striking phrases: Chamberlain has got away with everything. Munich is dead, the unprepardeness is forgotten, and there is to be no real, earnest, new effort to arm the nation. Even the breathing-space, purchased at a hideous cost is to be wasted.59 Britains Fateful Decision It was at precisely this period in British history that the Air Ministry had to make an important decision about the future direction of radar. The Chain Home system was under construction, and the first five stations had been completed. The airborne radar efforts were proceeding in two directionsASV for the Fleet and AI for the R.A.F. The Admiralty was requesting that it be provided ASV sets immediately for test purposes. If the tests proved satisfactory, as everyone at Bawdsey thought they would, the Admiralty would probably wish the set to be placed in production. On the other hand, the Chain Home system was not accurate enough to guide an interceptor sufficiently close to the vicinity of an enemy bomber on a dark night to guarantee contact. An additional air-to-air capability was needed and, although progress was being made in AI radar, much development work remained to be done. At this stage in the evolution of the Bawdsey Research Center and the electronics industry in Britain, there were serious doubts among many officials of the Air Ministry that both the ASV and AI radar projects could be accomplished simultaneously without both suffering from a serious lack of resources. Thus, the stage was set for another of the fateful decisions associated with the history of the development of radarand the race with destiny was
about to be decided. Only a few, a very few, months remained for effective work before radar was to take its place among the great military innovations of the
era. That time had to be used wisely. It was up to the Air Ministry to decide how it was to be spenton AI radar or ASV radar!

NOTES TO CHAPTER VII [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] Churchill, Winston, The Gathering Storm, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1948), pp. 149150. Watson-Watt, Robert, The Pulse of Radar, (New York: The Dial Press, 1959), p. 114. Guerlac, Henry, Radar (Unpublished manuscript), pp. 238243. Personal interview by the author with Sir Robert Watson-Watt, December 15, 1960. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 115117. Personal interview by the author with Dr. Robert M. Page, December 5, 1960. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 117-118. Page interview, op.cit. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 118119. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 119120. Personal interview by the author with Major General Roger B. Colton, (U.S. Army Retired), December 5, 1960. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 160163. Terrett, Dulaney, The Signal Corps: The Emergency, (Department of the Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, 1956), pp. 4445. Personal interview by the author with Dr. Harold A. Zahl, Director of Research, Signal Corps Research and Development Laboratory, September 12, 1960. Zan, Harold A., From and Early Radar Diary, Coast Artillery Journal, Vol. XCI, No. 2 (March-April, 1948) p. 10. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 163164. Hoffman-Hoyden, A. E., German Radiolocation in Retrospect, Interavia, Vol. VI, p. 623. Wilkinson, Roger I., Short Survey of Japanese Radar, Electrical Engineering, Vol. 65, (August-September 1946), pp. 370377. Zahl, From an Early Radar Diary, op.cit., p. 10. Feelers for Ships: New Microwave Equipment Described, Wireless World, Vol. XXXVIII, (June 26, 1936), pp. 623624. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 243 Watson-Watt, op.cit., p. 115. Interview with Watson-Watt, op.cit. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 243246. Watson-Watt, op.cit., pp. 116117. Watson-Watt, op.cit., p. 121. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 245251. Interview with Watson-Watt, op.cit. Memo from BuEng (H. G. Bowen, Chief of Bureau) to Director of NRL, subject: Radio: Bureau of Engineering Problem W5-2S: Aircraft Detection and Ranging, 22 June 1936, NRL, files C-567/36 (6-10-W9). [27] [28] [29] Interview with Page, op.cit. Monthly report of 7 January 1936, NRL files C-49 r/EN8 (W5-2S). Taylor, A. Hoyt, The First 25 Years of the Naval Research Laboratory, (Washington D.C.: The Navy Department, 1949), p.41. C.O. Destroyer Division Sixty One to Commander, Destroyer Force 2, November 1936, and endorsements. NRL file DD355/A-16-S (253). Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 123125. Interview with Page, op.cit. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 125133. Interview with Page, op.cit. Pages Log Book, Vol. IV, pp. 1013, 2728, 3334, 5868, and 73. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 133142. Personal interview by the author with Colonel William R. Blair, (U.S. Army Retired), December 6, 1960. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 137. Terrett, op.cit., pp. 4546. Terrett, op.cit., p. 45. Interview with Blair, op.cit. Interview with Blair, op.cit. Interview with Colton, op.cit. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 165. interview with Colton, op.cit. Interview with Colton, op.cit. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 169. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 170. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 170. Interview with Colton, op.cit. Terrett, op.cit., p. 47. Interview with Blair, op.cit. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 170. Interview with Blair, op.cit. Zahl, From an Early Radar Diary, op.cit., pp. 1011. Interview with Blair, op.cit. Interview with Colton, op.cit. Interview with Colton, op.cit. Interview with Colton, op.cit. Interview with Blair, op.cit. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 175176. Zahl, From an Early Radar Diary, op.cit., pp. 1213. Zahl, From an Early Radar Diary, op.cit., p. 13. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 176177. Zahl, From an Early Radar Diary, op.cit., pp. 1315. Watson-Watt, op.cit., p. 125. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 251255. Churchill, op.cit., pp. 298339.
[30]
[31] [32]
[33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38]
[14]
[15]
[16] [17] [18]
[19] [20]
[39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59]
[21]
[22] [23] [24] [25] [26]
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Chapter VIII
Radar Becomes Operational (19391941)

Phase V of the Invention of Radar
The efforts of the Admiralty, supported by Bowen, to convince the Air Ministry to provide ASV radar sets and suitably screened airplanes for a series of ship detection tests were doomed to failure. Nothing further was done to engineer a system for detection of surface vessels from the air until after the outbreak of hostilities. Instead, the Air Ministry and the Tizard Committee placed increased emphasis upon the Bawdsey group to accelerate the AI radar development. To them, the German Luftwaffe was a far more immediate threat than the German Navy. As history unmistakably shows, their assessment of the threat was correct. Work on the AI system had been resumed in the summer of 1938. It was followed soon thereafter by a study of the reflection behavior of aircraft, and a systematic determination of reflection coefficients for the various aspects of target planes. An improved system was put together during the winter of 193839, and extensive tests were made to check the elevation accuracy and azimuth pattern. The measurements were made from plane to plane and involved hundreds of hours in the air. The Battle night fighter was first flown in June 1939. Its AI radar system provided a maximum range of two miles and a minimum range of 1,000 feet. At that time, these ranges seemed adequate for a night fighter. AI Radar Goes into Production Although the Airborne Intercept radar equipment was the crudest sort of laboratory model, it was demonstrated during June to a succession of Air Ministry and R.A.F. officials, including Professor Lindeman (later Lord Cherwell), Churchills scientific advisor, and to Churchill himself. Perhaps the most significant demonstration was the one for Sir Hugh Dowding, the same Stuffy who, several years before, had demanded a demonstration of the radar principle for the Tizard Committee. Sir Hugh was taken aloft through the clouds to participate in a mock interception. Dowding was very favorably impressedeven though there was a minor crisis
when he inadvertently put his fingers on the high voltage terminals of the transmitter. He afterwards remarked: We must have these things in the R.A.F. Following Dowdings return to his office in the Air Ministry, Bawdsey received a request for thirty Battle aircraft to be fitted with AI radar equipment before September 1st. For the Air Ministry to request production models of a piece of equipment which existed only as a crude laboratory device was a striking parallel to a similar situation when Watson-Watt was ordered to build five Chain Home stations immediately after he had demonstrated his first breadboard model. The request was certainly extraordinary, because the design was embryonic, the systems engineering was incomplete, no plans had been made for production, much of the material that would be required for fabrication was not readily available, and the deadline was impossiblealmost! The demonstrations hardly warranted such confidence by Dowding. The test had only proved that it was possible to detect another plane when it was generally known where the plane was located. There had been no proof that it would be possible to intercept an enemy attacker under combat conditions. There was as yet no means with which to direct an interceptor to a point where his radar would be in range of the enemy target plane. Nevertheless, the group at Bawdsey worked extremely hard, usually putting in about 90 hours per week on the project. At Martlesham, a small group headed by Hanbury Brown was in charge of installation. At Bawdsey, Bowen and Touch worked on the components and negotiated with the civilian companies that were brought into the picture. Metropolitan-Vickers was commissioned to build the transmitter, and the Pye Radio Company performed prodigies, making intermediate frequency (IF) strips from television receivers. Pye produced 70 receivers in ten days. In August, 1939, the planes arrived. They were on hand long before the equipment was ready, but they were Blenheims instead of the Battles that had been promised. Nevertheless, as complete systems became available, they were tested
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by Bowen and Touch and immediately installed in the Blenheims by Hanbury Browns crew. About six Blenheims had been equipped by the time that the war began on September 3, 1939. They were immediately transferred, together with Brown, to Northolt Airdrome so that they could be near Sir Hugh Dowdings headquarters during the testing and training period. The first two weeks of September were devoted to a series of controlled tests under the direction of the Royal Air Force. The tests included range, elevation, and azimuth performance. They were conducted under the watchful eye of Dowding, who visited the airdrome almost every day. The rest of the 30 AI radar installations were completed during September, and the operators obtained a reasonable number of flying hours, although not against the enemy. The tests, under simulated combat conditions, demonstrated the weakness of the equipment and indicated the tremendous obstacles that would have to be overcome before the new device could be used against an enemy. Despite the temperamental qualities of the equipment, however, and a lack of operator experience, actual interceptions were found to be possible. In early October, another demonstration was staged. The radar sets did not perform as well during the demonstration as they had during the one earlier in the summer. They provided a range of only 9,000 feet, but some important lessons were learned. It was discovered, for example, that better ground to air communications were needed, and it was imperative to have improved teamwork between the pilot and the operator. After the demonstration, the Blenheim aircraft were transferred to Martlesham Heath where they were used to train AI radar operators. A few weeks later, a program was launched to develop the capability of the Chain Home stations to perform fighter direction duties. Laboratory Moved to Dundee It was clear to everyone by the summer of 1939 that, in the event of war, Bawdsey Manors location was too exposed for such an important research activity. Preliminary steps were taken to move the Laboratory to Dundee. When the war began on September 3rd, the move was far from being completed, and indescribable confusion reigned. At lunch that date, the superintendent announced that everyone had to leave by nightfall. After a period of near chaos, the move to Dundee was finally completed, and a period of considerable expansion was begun. The work at Dundee was centered on improving and expanding the Chain Home system. One of the most interesting and significant projects to be placed under development in the autumn of 1939 was
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the PPI, or Plan Position Indicator. This work was under the direction of G. W. A. Dummer, a commercial engineer before the war, who soon became one of Britains outstanding indicator experts. By January, 1940, the PPI was in a fairly advanced state of development, and it provided the definition that added greatly to the British radar sets of that time. Many new developments followed the move to Dundee. Radar increased in capability as mobile radar units, gun laying radar, a new low coverage Chain Home system, and experimental centimeter systems were added to the radar arsenal. Further efforts were made to improve the AI radar. The Mark I was followed by a Mark II and a Mark III, but all were without notable success. The equipment was poorly received, and it was harshly criticized by the R.A.F. for its inadequate minimum range. Many of the radar developers of that period have since come to believe that it was a mistake to try to introduce the equipment with such speed, and in such a primitive state of development. It gave the equipment a bad name in the Royal Air Force and did the night fighter program more harm than good. Critical Reappraisal of AI Radar After serious discussions at all levels as to how the airborne intercept radar program could be salvaged, it was decided that a completely new design was necessary, with particular emphasis on the minimum range requirement. A great effort began at Dundee, under the direction of W. B. Lewis, and outside help was obtained. The Electrical Musical Instruments Company (E.M.I.) was given a contract for the development of an improved modulator. The Royal Aircraft Establishment (R.A.E.) was called in and it contributed its engineering experience. It helped with the overall design, developed a package suitable for installation in aircraft, and assisted with the design of the E.M.I. modulator. The modulator provided a final solution for the minimum range problem. From these combined efforts emerged the AI Mark IV, the first successful radar for night fighting. The set had a maximum range of 20,000 feet, and a minimum range of 400 feet. One of the most important factors in the development of the Mark IV was the creation of the Fighter Interception Unit (F.I.U.), an experimental unit that was created expressly to introduce AI radar into the R.A.F. Early in the spring of 1940, Hanbury Brown was sent to join the F.I.U., and serious testing and operational development began. All subsequent stages of testing and experimentation with the Mark IV were accomplished by Brown and the F.I.U. In the autumn of 1940, the unsatisfactory Mark IIIs were replaced with Mark IVs. Exhaustive tests were then made to determine how to operate the equipment most
effectively and what further modifications might be required. The F.I.U. squadrons began to evolve tactical and operational doctrine that was based on experience gained both in practice interceptions and in actual combat with the enemy. The earliest known instance of a German attacker being shot down with the help of Mark IV AI radar came in November 1940. Installation and tactical experimentation continued through the winter of 193940, during which there were scattered technical successes. The night fighters became effective for the last part of the Battle of Britain, but real effectiveness was not possible until special Ground Control Intercept (G.C.I.) equipment was successfully developed in the spring of 1941. The ASV Mark II Radar The Air to Surface Vessel radar which had been shelved when the Air Ministry decided to accelerate the AI radar program was quickly revived after the outbreak of war. Its development followed much the same pattern as the AI development. The initial equipment was operationally unacceptable, and outside aid was called in. After continued poor results, a completely new design was begun in February 1940. In March, the Royal Aircraft Establishment was added to the development team. Most of the component development was accomplished by civilian firms. The Pye Radio Company designed the receiver and indicator. The E. K. Cole Company developed the transmitter. Later, the E. K. Cole Company also assumed responsibility for a receiver-indicator unit. The overall supervision and coordination of the development of the ASV Mark II was performed by Gerald Touch. The first prototype set was completed in October, 1940. The ASV Mark II was a much better radar than the Mark I. It was a completely engineered set; it had reliability and longer life; the transmitter was more powerful; the receiver had an additional radio frequency (RF) stage and a cathode follower; and, finally, the Mark II had a six inch instead of a four inch cathode ray tube. It became the first successful airborne search radar. 1 The progress of radar in England, from Watson-Watts famous memorandum of February 1935 to the CH, CHL, MRU, AI, and ASV sets of 1941, had been nothing less than phenomenal. The race with destiny had been a deadly serious contest. The enemy was tough, capable, and ruthless. But the race was won by the British, and the miracle weapon of the scientific world was ready to take its place among the great military achievements of the British nation.
Notes
U.S. Navy Radar Goes into Production In the United States, the successful trials of the XAF radar during the Fleets battle maneuvers of January through March 1939 had at last sold radar to the United States Navy. The skepticism of the officers who were in on the secret quickly turned to amazement, and then to enthusiasm. The U.S.S. New Yorks skipper, Captain R. M. Griffin, wrote glowing reports to the Chief of Naval Operations. The squadron commander, Rear Admiral A. W. Johnson, wrote: The XAF equipment is one of the most important military developments since the advent of radio itself. The development of the equipment is such as to make it now a permanent installation in cruisers and carriers. During the battle maneuvers, the XAF piled up an impressive list of accomplishments. First, it proved, by obtaining accurate ranges and bearings on land masses, that radar was to become an extremely valuable aid to thick weather navigation. Second, it proved conclusively that it could provide early warning of enemy ships approaching, long before they were in striking distance. Third, it achieved promising results in determining ranges and bearings on aircraft and all types of combat vessels, including partially submerged submarines. Fourth, the XAF proved that it was capable of standing up under battle conditions. The XAF was able to obtain echoes from large sea birds and from projectile splashes. On a few occasions, the NRL operators were even able to follow projectiles in flight. The XAF was not the only radar equipment tested during the maneuvers. A 385 megacycles per second set, built by RCA without the help of NRL but in accordance with designs and specifications furnished by NRL, was installed on the U.S.S. Texas for comparison with the XAF during the same cruise. The RCA equipment, which had been designated the CXZ, had not been completed nor adequately tested prior to its installation on January 4 through 6, 1939. That the installation could be completed in less than three days was made possible because the equipment was mobile. Its largest unit consisted of a transmitter that weighed about 1,000 pounds and was mounted on four large rubber tired canisters. The CXZ was not nearly as effective as the XAF. It had extremely limited range capability, its performance was unreliable, and it was unable to withstand the effects of gunfire from the Texas fourteen inch guns. The captain of the Texas reported the equipment as being in a highly experimental stage and unsuitable for war. Nevertheless, the trials of the CXZ proved that a 400 megacycles per second frequency could be used, and that the higher frequency offered advantages over the lower frequency of the XAF. Particularly, it permitted the utilization of smaller antennas.
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RADAR: A CASE HISTORY OF AN INOVATIONCHAPTER VIII
An extremely important meeting was held on May 1, 1939 in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. Its purpose was to discuss the next step in the procurement of radar equipment of the XAF type. The meeting was attended by an impressive list of officers who represented the operating elements of the fleet and the various bureaus. The Naval Research Laboratory was represented by Captain Cooley, Lieutenant Commander Pierce, Dr. Hoyt Taylor, Robert Page, and L. A. Gebhart. Page was the spokesman for NRL. He described the results of the tests aboard the New York, discussed the limitations of the new device, and mentioned the various possibilities for improving it. As a result of the meeting, the U.S. Navy decided to adopt radar. Twenty CXAM sets, copied almost to the last bolt from the XAF, were ordered from RCA in October 1939. The first set was delivered in May 1940 and it was installed aboard the U.S.S. California. The other sets soon followed and all were aboard selected battleships, cruisers, and carriers on December 7, 1941. The shipboard installations were made under the guidance of civilian radar specialists who had been carefully trained for the job by NRL.2 Other U.S. Navy Radar Developments Closely connected with the development of radar for naval use was the development of a suitable recognition system. Many components of such a system had already been worked out by the time that the United States entered the war. The adoption of radar by the United States Navy in 1939, and the disclosure of the British developments in both radar and recognition devices during the following year, provided an ideal opportunity for the development of a joint British and American Identification of Friend or Foe System (IFF). It was incorporated in future radar developments.3 Gunfire control radar also went into NRLs program in 1939. As soon as the NRL specialists had digested the results of the 1939 fleet maneuvers, they became convinced that radar would be extremely useful for gunfire control. The problem was discussed with representatives of the Bell Telephone Laboratories. It was agreed by the conferees that shorter wave lengths would be essential for fire-control purposes. The Bell Laboratories already had a short wave project underway for communication applications, and the group working on this project was brought into the radar secret. The Bell officials agreed with the position of the Navy representatives that radar explorations at wave lengths as short as 40 centimeters (16 inches) should be initiated. Research into this area was of such a pioneering and speculative nature, however, that it was not possible to predict that any useful military equipment would result. Under the rules then controlling the Navys contractual
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procedures, it was not practicable to contract for a speculative research and development program, although both the Navy and the Bell Laboratories recognized the importance of the invention that could possibly materialize from the research. To get around the apparent roadblock, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the parent organization of the Bell Laboratories, authorized the Laboratories to proceed with centimeter research without a Navy contract. AT&T felt that if the research was successful, contracts subsequently could be entered into for equipment development work. This decision by AT&T, which was a combination of patriotism and shrewd business judgment, was most fortuitous. Had Bell Laboratories not proceeded immediately with this research, fire control radar probably would not have been in production and installed on some of the ships of the United States Fleet by the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The first research model was completed by the summer of 1939, and it operated at about 60 centimeters. Tests were performed at Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, in June 1939 and were considered successful. Additional testing and improvement continued throughout the summer. By autumn, adequate knowledge was available to undertake the development of a radar set to meet specified performance requirements. At last, the U.S. Navy awarded the Bell Laboratories a development contract, and work began on December 31, 1939. By December 1940, the equipment had been developed to the point that a demonstration could be conducted for the Navy. Following the demonstration, it was jointly decided that 40 centimeters would be adopted as the operational wave length for gunfire control radar. The urgency of the need for gunfire control radar was so great that the Western Electric Company, another subsidiary of AT&T, was authorized to proceed with the manufacture of a fire control set with all possible speed. Real teamwork was established between the developers and the builders. As soon as the design of an element of the equipment was complete, Western Electric immediately began to manufacture it. By such a procedure, production of the complete set could be begun within a few months after completion of the overall design.4 Initially, the Naval Research Laboratory provided only general guidance to the Bell Laboratories but later so many complexities appeared that NRL set up a separate Fire Control Section. The tasks of the new section were to adapt radar techniques to already existing optical fire control directors, and then to develop antennas and circuits that would do the job without the aid of visual instruments. In the beginning, the Line officers of the Navy were very skeptical about radar gunfire control. After the night victories of the South Pacific in the winter of
194243, however, particularly the Second Battle of Savo when radar was credited with saving an outnumbered American task force, the Fleet became completely sold on its use.5 Meanwhile, the improvement of radar as a search and early warning device was progressing rapidly. The greatly increased speed and numbers of military aircraft and the need for radar aboard smaller ships, necessitated the development of smaller antennas and components. Much of this work was done by NRL, but the development of better vacuum tubes by the American radio industry also provided a major assist. One of the great shortcomings of the early radar sets was the difficulty of reading and interpreting the information that was displayed on the fluorescent screens. This problem was overcome by NRLs invention of a PPI scope similar to that concurrently developed by the British. This ingenious device displayed radar information in a highly realistic manner and permitted the plotting of a large number of targets simultaneously. The Navy also developed a compact airborne radar set. Work was well under way at the time of the XAF tests. When the United States entered the war, a number of components had been developed. NRL soon decided, however, that the British AI Mark IV was a more practical device for fighter direction, and the airborne effort switched to adopting the AI Mark IV for use in the United States Navy. The Radio Division modified the Mark IV with some of its own components and came up with a workable airborne radar.6 Although radar alone did not enable the United States Navy to defeat the combined threat of the Japanese and German Fleets, it played a significant role, particularly in the early days of the war when the U.S. Fleet was on the defensive. Once the United States was able to rebuild its combat naval strength to parity with the enemy, radar was not as important as it had been earlier. Nevertheless, it still continued to tip the scales in many crucial battles. Had radar been in existence for a longer period of time prior to Pearl Harborlong enough to develop an effective operational early warning systemthe course of history might well have taken a different turn. U.S. Army Radar Goes into Production The United States Armys development of radar, like that of the U.S. Navy and the British, also was speeded up during the two years preceding the entry of the United States into World War II. After the dramatic service test at Fort Monroe, the Signal Corps proceeded to ready the SCR-268 for production, not on the 100 megacycles per second previously tested, but on a higher 205 megacycles per second frequency. The production model of the SCR-268, which was designated the SCR-268-T3, was not the invention
of a single electronic genius, but the product of many people, working long hours, under trying conditions, and possessed of an overwhelming sense of urgency. The early troubles with the set were mostly mechanical, rather than theoretical, but they were many. The pulse and echo theory was as sound as the theory of the compression engine, but the mechanical designs of the SCR-268 were not. To overcome numerous deficiencies, the skill, engineering know-how, and ingenuity of a dedicated laboratory staff were essential. Among the many significant contributors to the success of the SCR-268 were Harold Zahl who pioneered in the development of the ultra-high frequency vacuum tube; James Moore who made Coltons lobe switching idea into a reality and thus worked out a valuable switching system; John J. Slattery who constructed most of the transmitter antennas; John Marchetti who contributed the final design of the keyer; John Hessel who engineered some of the earlier receiver models; and Paul Watson, the chief, who guided their hands through periods of despair, and welded their talents into a highly efficient scientific team.7 Another significant contribution to the SCR-268 was made by the Eitel-McCullough Company. This was the same company that was mentioned earlier as having supplied the vacuum tubes that made the Navys XAF radar a possibility. Following the survey of available vacuum tubes that had been initiated by Colton in 1938, it was decided to ask the Eitel-McCullough Company to produce a higher powered tube on 200 megacycles per second by modifying existing Eimac 100 TL tubes. This energetic concern responded with models that were based on designs suggested by the Signal Corps. They shipped the tubes by air express within a few weeks of the request. From this development came the Eimac TS tube that was eventually procured in quantities running into the tens of thousands. It was the Eimac 100 TS tube that permitted the Signal Corps to design the 205 megacycles per second transmitter used in the final production models of the SCR-268. The improved SCR-268-T3 radar was service tested April 15th through 25th, 1940, at Fort Hancock by a sub-committee of the Coast Artillery Board. The tests were not as extensive as those of the previous year, but the Board noted the improvement in accuracy, the marked reduction in size, and the greater ease of operation. As a result of the recommendations of the Board, and additional recommendations from the Signal Corps Technical Committee, the set was officially standardized and classified as secret.8 Even before standardization of the SCR-268-T3 was made official, however, production began on a crash basis. Eighteen sets were built by the Signal Corps Laboratories for training purposes. The first set was completed in December 1940. The Laboratories purchased some of the components, built others,
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and conducted the final assembly operations at Fort Hancock. It was soon decided at a conference in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer in Washington that piece-meal procurement and in-house fabrication should be abandoned in favor of contracting with a single commercial supplier. Bids were requested from RCA and Western Electric Company on July 1, 1940, and a contract was awarded to Western Electric in August of the same year. The initial order was for 212 sets, ten of which were to be delivered before February 21, 1941. The contract was subsequently amended twice and eventually increased to a total of 520 sets.9 When Colton and Corput first went up from Fort Monmouth to Western Electrics Kearny plant at Breeze, New Jersey, to talk about getting the SCR-268 into production, the plant officials had to go to the vice-president of the company to obtain consent to accept the contract. They sensed that they would be undertaking a difficult and sizable task, and they were correct. At times, they had nearly 200 people working at Fort Hancock alone. It was here that they tested the first production model of the SCR-268. It could not be tested operationally at the Kearny plant. The first set was placed in a hangar at Fort Hancock and all Signal Corps personnel were kept out. There was much apprehension, since the juice had not been put to the set at Kearny. The Western Electric technicians fairly sweated with tension as they turned on the power. There was an audible sigh of relief by all present as the meter hands moved up to the proper readings, with no flash or popping of burning elements, no coronas, and no smoke. Western Electric continued the test for several days, but continued to keep away the deeply interested Signal Corps officials. Finally, they let in Corput, the project officer, and little by little the rest of the military.10 SCR-268 Becomes Operational During the autumn of 1940, a school for Staff Sergeant technicians was conducted at the Fort Hancock facility. Shortly thereafter, in early 1941, the first installations outside the United States were completed in Panama. By October 1941, seven SCR-268s were at various battery positions in the Panama Department. By December 7, 1941, 16 sets were assigned to Coast Artillery units in Honolulu, and another was installed on Skeleton Hill in Iceland to help protect the North Atlantic convoy routes. The SCR-268 remained the Armys standard searchlight radar until January 1944 when microwave radar was introduced.11 The SCR-268 assumed an odd role in the war. As one writer described it: Nobody liked it very much but everybody wanted it badly... Its performance was satisfactory for pointing
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searchlights, although it was considered too bulky. It was not quite accurate enough for precision gun-laying, but it was the only available American set that permitted an effective antiaircraft barrage through overcast. Its power gave it greater range than necessary for either of these...purposes, but not quite enough...for...early warning...12 U.S. Armys Early Warning Sets After Brigadier General H. H. Arnold, Assistant Chief of the Army Air Corps, had become interested in radar (following the successful demonstration of the SCR-268 in May 1937), the Signal Corps began development of two early warning radar sets, the SCR-270 and the SCR-271. The entry of the Air Corps as an interested customer introduced a demand for a radar model of longer range than the SCR-268. The additional range was essential to provide early warning to interceptor squadrons. A lack of understanding by the Army Air Corps of the potentialities of radar, however, led to a set of vague military characteristics. These, in turn, led to subsequent confusion and misunderstandings between the Signal Corps and the Air Corps. The military characteristics were prepared by the Army Air Corps and approved by the War Department. They specified that the early warning set should provide a range of 50 miles and have sufficient accuracy to permit interception of enemy planes by friendly fighters. Since the phrase sufficient accuracy to permit interception made no direct reference to height finding, and since the technical problem of ground clutter makes almost impossible a determination of elevation at long distance unless the plane is at high altitudes, the Signal Corps assumed that the Air Corps was not interested in a height finding capability.13 A further ambiguity involved the degree of mobility required by the Air Corps. Mobility, important to an antiaircraft artillery crew, did not seem to the Signal Corps to be essential to scan the skies at long range from a permanent defense site. In theory, an airplane 93 miles away could be detected in a thousandth of a second. An airplane 930 miles away would take ten times as long, but the difference between the two times is negligible. On the other hand, the increasing speed and range of aircraft, and hence the need to find them earlier, was a sharp reality. To the Signal Corps, the need for an early warning radar set to generate a large amount of radiated power at the greatest possible range was more essential than mobility. Nevertheless, the Air Corps had specified mobility as a requirement, and the Signal Corps was compelled to provide it. As a result, the Air Corps requirement, soon after it became a separate project,
was subdivided into an SCR-270, a mobile set, and an SCR-271, a fixed early warning detector. Because the early warning set, even within the Army Air Corps specifications, did not require as much mobility as the SCR-268, it could work with larger antennas and thus avoid the use of a large number of untested and untried components that the Signal Corps was forced by circumstances to include in the design of the SCR-268. Nevertheless, when work began on the SCR-270/271 in the summer of 1937, it became apparent immediately that a more powerful transmitter would have to be developed. This would require more powerful vacuum tubes. Accordingly, a contract was let with the Westinghouse Company in October 1937 for the development of a high-power triode to operate on 110 megacycles per second. Westinghouse assigned the job to Mouromtseff and his team. Even with Mouromtseffs genius applied to the problem, however, the task was difficult. He made 84 tries before the first successful tube was built. The power requirement for 35 kilowatts at 100 megacycles per second was so high that most of the old rules of insulation, cooling, and general design were inapplicable. VHF frequencies had always meant extremely small partsbut small parts could not carry high power. In this and many other things, a direct reversal of the older concepts was necessary. Mouromtseff said that When the production engineers took a look at our new design, they doubted that such a tube would work. But that was nothing compared to the reaction of the workmen in the shop. Veteran glass blowers, many of whom had learned their trade from their fathers, flatly stated that this design was impossible to make in any quantity. But they had to swallow their words later because efficient mass production was achieved and they themselves helped accomplish it.14 Extremely difficult metal-to-glass seals had to be developed; filaments of tungsten, capable of standing five times the voltages previously considered the limit, had to be made; techniques for superfine scrubbing of the tubes to remove air and occluded gases had to be devised; complete design and construction of totally new manufacturing equipment had to be arranged. How well they succeeded is suggested by the fact that two of these WL-530 tubes in parallel could subsequently deliver 500 kilowatts instead of the specified 35 watts each. Neither Germany nor Japan ever produced a tube as effective as the WL-530. The Pearl Harbor Tube, as it became known, was a basic achievement that led the way to almost all subsequent long wave radar.15
This
The first of the WL-530 tubes was delivered in October 1938. By June 1939, an SCR-270 had been equipped with the new tube and was undergoing tests from the twin-towered Navesink lighthouse, the well known Twin Lights of the North Jersey shore. The SCR-270 tracked Mitchel Field aircraft out to ranges approaching 150 miles. A minimum range of 80 miles could be relied on.16 Aside from the new transmitter and its WL-530 tubes, the novel feature of the SCR-270 series was a system of duplex operation that permitted a single antenna to be used for transmitting and receiving. Although the need to use a single antenna was not as vital to the Army as it was to the Navy, the TR (transmit-receive) switch was an important contribution to the mobility of the SCR-270. The principle of the TR switch, the invention of Dr. Harold A. Zahl, was similar to that in a parallel device developed at NRL, although the two were independently conceived.17 In the summer of 1939, the SCR-270, which was proving to be the better of the two early warning radars, was approaching its service test at a rate considerably accelerated over that of the SCR-268. About a year and a half had elapsed between the demonstration of the SCR-268 to the high command and its service test, but the SCR-270s service test and its preliminary unveiling were almost simultaneous. The event took place late in the year 1939, just after the Germans had completed their conquest of Poland. It was attended by Secretary of War Woodring, General George C. Marshall, Major General Henry H. Arnold, and other official visitors. A systems setup which employed a pair of SCR-270s was assembled. One set was located at Meriden, Connecticut, and the other at Twin Lights. A control center was also located at Twin Lights. From the eastern tip of Long Island to the New Jersey coast just south of Atlantic Highlands, the two sets tracked a flight of B-17 bombers. One radar followed the northeastward course, the other the southwestward, and they consolidated their information by telephone with the control center. The service test was a success. After additional tests had conclusively proved its worth, the Army adopted the SCR-270 in May 1940.18 Early Warning Sets Go into Production A contract for a production quantity of SCR-270 radar sets was awarded to Westinghouse in August 1940. Prior to this time, the fabrication, just as in the case of the SCR-268, had been accomplished at the Signal Corps Laboratories. Both locally fabricated and commercially manufactured parts and components were used. Under the terms of the new contract, however, Westinghouse was only required to do production engineering of the various parts. No
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should probably be 35 kilowatts; see text aboveEditors
note.
further development work was required. From a laboratory model to the first production delivery, therefore, only six months elapsed. This was a remarkable achievement for both Westinghouse and the Signal Corps. It was even more remarkable that by December 7, 1941, 112 SCR-270s had been delivered to the United States Army.19 Deployment of the Armys Early Warning Radar The fabrication of the SCR-271, the fixed version of the SCR-270, was started early in 1940 and by June it was ready for deployment. Since it could be installed on towers and thus provide greater range, the Signal Corps Board recommended that it be used for strategic installations in lieu of the SCR-270. Of the strategic points to be defended, Panama was deemed to be of the first importance. Therefore, during the period in which the fabrication of the radar sets was being completed, sites were picked on both sides of the Isthmus of Panama to cover the Atlantic and Pacific approaches to the canal. The urgency was considered so great that the Army did not wait for the first production models to come from Westinghouse. The service test set that was used by the Signal Corps Board, plus an additional set that was fabricated by the Signal Corps Laboratories, was shipped to Panama in June 1940. Both became operational within four months. An installation at Fort Sherman, overlooking the Caribbean, went on the air on October 7, 1940, thus becoming the first Army radar to achieve operational status as a unit of the nations integrated plan for air defense. A number of SCR-270s were shipped to Hawaii during the latter half of 1941. By December 1941, six mobile stations were spotted around the perimeter of Oahu. The northernmost location was Opana Station where the incoming Japanese planes were first detected on December 7, 1941.20 The SCR-270/271 remained the Armys standard early warning radar set until the American troops reached Okinawa in 1944. A total of 794 sets, both mobile and fixed, were produced between 1939 and 1944. The Signal Corps made many improvements of the set during 1943 and 1944. The final version, mounted on a 400 foot tower at Oakhurst, New Jersey, tracked a single F-51 fighter plane out to 270 miles, losing the target only because of line of sight limitations.21 Subsequent Signal Corps Radar Developments After the United States entered the war, most of the radar development work was contracted to industrial laboratories and commercial firms. The work at the Signal Corps Laboratories consisted primarily of modifications to existing equipment and testing of the equipment that was being developed
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elsewhere. The Signal Corps radar development was concentrated at the Camp Evans Signal Laboratory at Belmar, New Jersey. This activity grew during the war to a peak personnel strength of 3,000 persons. Considerable work was done on the development of several versions of the Mark III IFF for use with various units of Army equipment. The most important new program, however, was launched during the preparation for the North African campaign. A new transportable, light weight, medium range early warning set, the SCR-602, later to be known as the AN/TPS-3, was developed. This set only weighed 1,000 pounds. It had a lightweight parabolic antenna and operated on 50 centimeters. The SCR-602 was manufactured by the Zenith Corporation and, by the end of the war, 650 sets had been shipped overseas.22 The unheeded warning of the operators of the SCR-270 that was located at a strange and remote spot called Opana Station, dramatized more than any other event, the important contribution that Signal Corps radar made to the U.S. Armys combat efforts during World War II. The Armys development of radar was brilliantly conceived by Major Blair, but the need went unrecognized. The development was not supported by the Armys high command until Colton shook loose the bonds of lethargy and literally put radar on the map. Thirteen years elapsed between Blairs original proposal to the Coast Artillery in 1928 and the delivery of the first SCR-270s to Hawaii in 1941but radar was present on the morning of December 7, 1941it was in operationand it worked. There might have been other surprise attacks, other Pearl Harbors, other national catastrophes, but for the dedication and devotion of a handful of talented scientists, and the inspired leadership of an equally small group of Signal Corps officers at the Signal Corps Laboratories. Germans Begin to Make Progress The successful development of radar by the British and United States scientists came none too soon. The German radar effort was also making progress. Only Hitlers fatal mistake of suspending all research and development in 1940, on the assumption that the war would be over in a year, enabled the Allies to have radar superiority in the decisive stages of the war. The Germans had the Freya, a ground set for early warning, in production when the war started in 1939. An 80 centimeter shipboard set, the Sestakt, was fully developed and under test. An excellent 50 centimeter antiaircraft gun laying radar, the Wurzburg, was also under development in the autumn of 1939. Neither Britain nor the United States had produced a set as good as the Wurzburg by the end of the first year of the war in Europe. The one area in which the Allies had a decided advantage, however, was airborne radar. The Germans had not developed such a set by 1940.23
In the summer of 1940, German antiaircraft radar took a step forward with the introduction of the Wurzburg, or Fu.M.G. 39T A apparatus. This set employed a wave length of 53 centimeters, and used a reflector that was three meters in diameter. The Wurzburg produced eight kilowatts of radiated power. It could be used both for short range scanning and for obtaining fire control data. The set had a range of 30 kilometers and a rather sharp beam. On the other hand, it could not provide satisfactory azimuth and elevation values, although this shortcoming was overcome by graphic plotting systems to such an extent that adequate initial values could be produced. At first, only a limited number of the Wurzburgs were available to the German Army. To make maximum use of these, however, the Germans developed an ingenious system. They introduced conversion tables that permitted a radar equipped gun battery to supply the directors of neighboring batteries and searchlights with distance, azimuth, and elevation values that had been converted to suit their own positions. Later in 1940, the Wurzburg was fitted with a defocused, rotating dipole antenna for beam direction finding. This device made it possible to supply the gun directors with continuous azimuth and elevation data. This innovation considerably improved the German antiaircraft defense by providing azimuth and elevation accuracies of 1/2 degree, and distance accuracy within 100 meters. Parallel to the development of the Wurzburg, another radar that was designated as the Manheim, was being developed to meet the precision requirements of German antiaircraft artillery. Like the Wurzburg, the Manheim employed a wave length of 53 centimeters and a three meter reflector, but it had twice the accuracy of the Wurzburg. Its construction was more rigid than the Wurzburg, and its gear mechanism had more precision. It also cost more and this economic consideration limited the volume of its production. The Manheim was used only at key points in critical defense areas. Jamming of the German radar by the Allies became a serious problem to Germany in 1942 after the frequency setting parts of a Wurzburg had fallen into the hands of the British. To meet this new jamming threat, the Germans developed a variable frequency radar as a counter-measure against it. German scientists also recognized that there was a possibility of passive interference through the dropping of artificial reflectors from Allied planes. This danger was described by German radar experts in detail in 1939, but the threat was given so little attention by higher headquarters that no counter-measure was worked out in time to be used against it when it eventually came. A test in 1942 confirmed the crippling effect of half wave length dipole window, but all mention of the subject and all work on the project was forbidden
so as not to give the enemy an inkling of this method of interference. The catastrophic effect of this ill conceived order was realized during an Allied air raid on Hamburg on July 24, 1943. The German antiaircraft radar equipment was rendered completely helpless by the mass employment of window. After the Hamburg fiasco, the governments order was withdrawn, and work to develop a counter counter-measure began.24 Japanese Achieve only Limited Radar Success When the war began in Europe in 1939, the Japanese, soon to be Germanys ally, had only Type A, or beat type, radar under development. This equipment operated in the 40 to 80 megacycles per second bands and over great distances. The longest line of detection that the Japanese had in use was a 400 mile beam between Formosa and Shanghai. It was not until 1940 that the idea of Type B, or pulsed radar, was seriously considered. A Japanese technical commission spent several months in Germany and returned with reports of pulse radar equipment being built in Britain. After 1941, the pulse technique was the only method on which Japanese research and experimentation was carried out. During the war, the Japanese installed both Type A and Type B radar sets side by side in the Armys early warning nets that surrounded Japan. Facilities were provided at information centers for simultaneously displaying the information from both types of sets. In Japan, electronics research was handled separately by the Army and Navy. Much of the Navys work was accomplished by its own laboratories. The Army, however, assigned most of its research to universities and technical institutes. It also had several radio manufacturers, however, engaged in vacuum tube and materials research. Incredible as it may sound, the engineers and electronics research personnel of the manufacturing companies were seldom told how their equipment worked in the field, and they were not allowed to watch radar in operation. Consequently, the radar designers had little opportunity to observe and correct their mistakes. D. Yagi was outspoken in his criticism of the manner in which the Japanese high commands had neglected electronics research. In the early days of the war, neither Army nor Navy officials could be convinced of the tremendous value of radar. They thought that the Japanese armed forces would always be on the offensive. They considered radar as a defensive weapon and therefore unnecessary. When they eventually discovered that they had guessed wrong, it was too late to catch up with the Allies. There were many able and well trained scientists in Japan, principally among academic and industrial circles, but no projects of any great importance were turned over to them. Small studies, carefully
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circumscribed by military objectives, were parceled out to individual professors to work on, but often they had no idea of the ultimate use of their studies in the radar field. As a result, the utilization of civilian scientists was very small, and the scarcity of competent electronics specialists was further compounded. The only significant original work of any consequence that was initiated in Japan after the outbreak of war in Europe was a magnetron research effort. It was carried out under the direction of Navy Captain Ito, a former student of Professor Okabe at Osaka University. As a result of Itos project, the Japanese Navy was producing 10 centimeter magnetrons, suitable for use in their shipboard search sets, as early as the autumn of 1941. Thus, microwave studies at that time were but a few months behind similar studies being conducted in the United States. In succeeding years, however, Japanese microwave development fell far behind. The best that the Japanese could ever do was to produce a tube that gave about 5 or 6 kilowatts peak output at ten centimeters; only reached 1.5 kilowatts of pulsed power at 2.7 centimeters; and produced just observable powers at 0.7 centimeters.25 Radar never proved to be an effective weapon in the Japanese military forces. Microwave Radar Succeeds at Last One of the greatest steps forward in the Allies development of radar came after the war in Europe had begun. This was a step that was never equaled by the Axis powers. It was the development of microwave radar by Britain and the United States. Microwaves had intrigued scientists in both countries since the earliest formulation of radar theory. We have already seen, for example, how Blair steered the Signal Corps radar effort into a blind alley and kept it there for five years because of his insistence that Hershberger must work only with microwaves. It was a blind alley because there was no known means of generating the great amounts of power required for microwave transmission. The scientific breakthrough that made microwave radar feasible was the development of a multi-cavity magnetron by scientists at Birmingham University in England. The techniques that permitted this outstanding invention to be converted immediately into a practical military device had already been developed in the United States. The marriage of the British multi-cavity magnetron with American microwave circuitry produced a line of new and fascinating electronic weapons. The work at Birmingham was launched under Admiralty auspices with a generous charter of freedomGive us many watts on few centimeters. Oliphant, Sayers, and Dawton undertook to explore the possibilities of the only existing highpower
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centimetric wave generator, the klystron, although high power at that time meant only a few tens of watts. Moon and Nimmo explored the klystron as an amplifier, mixer, or detector. Titterton tried to make the best use that he could, on 50 centimeters, of the micro-pup triode which had been widely used on 150 centimeters. Randall and Boot tried to modify Barkhausen tubes. They also considered the possibilities offered by plasma oscillations in mercury-vapor discharge tubes. When these approaches failed, they decided to make up a small magnetron as a test oscillator for the Barkhausen experiments. As the two men waited for an electric magnet that they urgently needed, they thought and talked a lot about magnetrons, not as test oscillators of quite low power, but as possible high power generators. They also saw quite clearly the limitations of the klystron. It was the electrical equivalent of an early toy that had two very small tin saucers face to face, soldered around their rims, and each with a small hole pierced through the center. Blowing through these two holes made the air in the resonant cavity thus formed vibrate at the natural frequency of the cavity. The harder one blew, the louder the note, but the pitch remained unchanged. The klystron had a comparable note in the form of electromagnetic oscillations of substantially constant frequency, but it was difficult to blow hard enough to get a really powerful oscillation. The Multi-Cavity Magnetron The older magnetrons were more sophisticated in principle, but even less effective in practice, than the klystrons. They blew a little whirlwind of electrons round and round inside the space of a circular cross-section of a metal cylinder. The cylinder was either complete, or divided by axial cuts into two, four, or more separate segments. The whirlwind was modulated in the same general way as its acoustic counterpart, the familiar air raid siren. There was almost daily evidence that very powerful electromagnetic waves could be generated in a magnetron. This was especially true if a moderately large number of properly shaped resonant cavities were nicely spaced around the wings of the electron whirlwinds circular stage. Randall had had experience both in a university laboratory and an industrial laboratory. He was a former Cambridge physicist who had also worked on thermionic valves in the research laboratories of the General Electric Company. As Watson-Watt described Randalls education background: One part...showed him what one could reasonably hope to do, the other what one could not reasonably hope to dobut also the kind of way in which the reasonable hopes could be fulfilled in practice.
One day Randall and Boot sat down quietly after luncheon. They arose for the usual laboratory tea with a few sheets of paper in their hands. The work of a single afternoon had gathered into a single note the manifesto for Centrimetric Revolution in Radar. The multi-cavity magnetron had been born. Some three months of machining, of manufacture of the ancillary equipment, big electromagnets, high tension rectifiers, etc., followed. Much of the heavy work of making the essential auxiliaries was done in the laboratory to avoid the long delays that might have resulted from outside purchase. On February 21, 1940, the new device was operated for the first time, and the results were spectacular. On the next day, a frequency measuring device showed the frequency to be 9.8 centimeters, instead of the ten centimeters at which the device had been aimed, but the technical near miss was a monumental achievement. Within three months, the redesigned and sealed-off resonant cavity magnetron, looking very much like it does today, was delivering fifty kilowatts of peak power at a wave length of 9.1 centimeters. On July 27, 1940, substantial power was delivered on five centimeters, and very soon thereafter came useful power on 1.9 centimeters. By May, 1941, parts for a ten centimeter magnetron designed to deliver three million watts were being produced.26 The Tizard Mission to the United States The possible applications of the new tube strained the British radar effort, despite the money and the skilled men that were being poured into the activity. The radically new design of sets that could fully utilize the multi-cavity magnetron, and the factory production of such sets in quantity, posed so great a problem that the British decided to share the secret with the United States. They sought to tap the great potential of the American laboratories and American industry, thus relieving some of the strain on their own war-torn facilities.27 The task of taking the multi-cavity magnetron to the United States and working out the hoped-for cooperative effort was entrusted to a group headed by Sir Henry Tizard. This group has since become famous in radar annals as the Tizard Mission. Tizard arrived in Washington, D.C. on August 30, 1940, and the other members of the mission arrived almost immediately thereafter. Sir Henry had authority directly from the Prime Minister to put all our cards, face upward, on the conference table.28 As a result of a series of conferences between the Tizard Mission and United States scientists, primarily from the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army Signal Corps, the American and British military leaders and scientists found out for the first time what the other was doing in radar. Although a satisfactory working relationship eventually was developed between the British and
the Americans, the first contacts were cautious. The British apparently considered themselves as magnanimous contributors to the United States radar effort. They were surprised to find that their generosity was not promptly accepted, and that the superiority of their radar developments and their multi-cavity magnetron were not immediately recognized and praised. Watson-Watt, although he was not part of the delegation, says that he is disposed to: ...believe accounts I have heard of initial skepticism in some U.S. defense circles about the honesty and sweep of this piece of enlightened self-interest on the part of a bunch of Limeys from perfidious Albion. Indeed I am still touched by the pathetically firm belief in the minds of otherwise intelligent Americans that every casual Britisher is subtle enough and clever enough to outmaneuver even far-from-casual Americans in negotiating at any level. It was, however, of the essence of the Tizard Mission that it was not negotiating; it came bearing rich gifts, but the Mission contained no ancient Greeks. It hoped, but it did not demand. It gave freely, and we received greatly, in consequence, but not by barter.29 Some of the Americans quickly came to believe that the British, instead of being the generous bearers of great gifts, had decided before the trip to the United States to follow a policy of praising British radar and running down the American, in the hopes that they could thus get the United States manufacturing concerns to go into production of British equipment. The Americans also found it difficult to distinguish between British accomplishments and British plans. A few of the more polite adjectives used by the Americans to describe the Tizard Mission were snooty, crusty, scornful, and antagonizing.30 Neither the U.S. Army nor Navy high commands reacted to the unusual circumstances of the Tizard Mission quickly enough to authorize full disclosure of the United States radar developments at the first meetings. The result was considerable fencing at the outset of the talks. An astonishing effect of the British free-wheeling intermingling of plans and development facts, was the sowing of a seed of suspicion among many United States Army leaders, particularly in the Army Air Corps, that Signal Corps equipment was inadequate, insufficient, belated, lamely derivative, and unworthy of any place in the same league with the British equipment. This was made possible because the British were able to speak freely and were unhampered by the necessity to disclose how much of what they were describing actually existed.31 The suspicion thus planted persisted for the duration of the war. As a result, there was strong and bitter resentment among many Signal Corps officers and civilian scientists against the British. The
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situation was exacerbated when one of the previous misunderstandings between the Signal Corps and the Air Corps over the height finding capabilities of the SCR-270 was fanned into a bitter controversy as a result of the Air Corps becoming enamored of the assumed superiority of British radar, particularly the Chain Home system that was protecting Britains east coast. There were substantial grounds for Watson-Watts belief that skepticism existed in United States defense circles. Some conferees on the American side were suspicious of the British suggestion that all should be perfectly open in telling what they knew, without jockeying for leverage. Some of the American participants in that 1940 conference still feel strongly, over twenty-five years later, that the United States was required to surrender national advantage at the conference table. In their opinions, the American equipment was far superior to anything that the British had at the time when the Tizard Mission first arrived in the United States. On the other hand, some of the participants on the British side were inclined to believe that they had little to learn from the Americans, either in the United States or Canada. They apparently expected that the relationship would be an exchange of British headwork for American handwork. The British Ambassador to the United States, the Marquess of Lothian, made it plain that what Great Britain was particularly anxious to obtain was permission to employ the full resources of the (U.S.) radio industry...with a view to obtaining the greatest power possible for emission of ultra short waves.32 Some members of the British delegation, in the presence of U.S. Army Signal Corps personnel, openly scorned the Canadians as colonials and stated that they did not want the Canadians in on the British secrets.33 Despite the difficulties generated by the seemingly condescending attitude of the members of the Tizard Mission, plus the newly developed resentment of many Signal Corps officers and civilian scientists toward the British and the general skepticism among almost all American radar developers, the two radar efforts were soon united in one of the great accomplishments of World War II. Both sides had more to learn about the other than they realized, and the learning process was not long in taking place. The truth probably is that neither would have brought radar technology to the maturity that it so quickly reached had they not shared their knowledge and talents. The multi-cavity magnetron became the means for the two countries to come together electronically. Once the initial sparring was over, both sides showed less reticence. The Signal Corps obtained the U.S. Armys permission to reveal to the British practically all classified technical developments. These included homing and instrument-leading methods, means of
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aircraft recognition, bombing-through-overcast, filter control networks, absolute altimeters, underwater and ground sound ranging, artillery spotting, and everything else in the whole range from wire throwers to death rays.34 The British, in turn, explained their many electronic developments, including the multi-cavity magnetron. Both nations had long range radar and both wanted microwave equipment, but radar could never achieve the desired variety and flexibility until its great weight and size could be reduced without losing any of the power which went into these qualities. The problem was one of developing a giants strength in a dwarfs armand that is what the multi-cavity magnetron did. It further revolutionized what was already a technological revolution.35 MITs Radiation Laboratory By a fortunate coincidence, the arrival of the first multi-cavity magnetron in the United States came at the precise time when the National Defense Research Committee was planning to set up the Radiation Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. To this organization, therefore, was handed the challenge of microwave radar. The immediate future of radar, which lay in pulsed microwaves, became the joint specialty of Division 14 of the Radiation Laboratory and its only real rival in the United States, the Bell Telephone Laboratories. The Radiation Laboratory eventually received vast appropriations of money and was able to operate with few restrictions and almost no limitations.36 It did very valuable work and it had one great advantage over the laboratories of the Army and Navy. It was not restricted to the requirements of a set of military characteristics. The Radiation Laboratory could thus explore any promising research avenue, develop equipment that it thought promising, and sell it to the Army and Navy before a need for it had been formalized into written specifications. Bell Laboratories Given Magnetron Development The selection of the Bell Telephone Laboratories to develop and engineer the United States work with the multi-cavity magnetron was a logical choice. The Bell Laboratories had worked closely with the Army and Navy on radar development since the mid-1930s. They were devoting almost half of their entire laboratory effort to radar science and technology. At the time of the Tizard Missions visit to the United States, the Bell Laboratories also were nearing completion of their 40 centimeter fire control radar for the Naval Research Laboratory. Thus, an experienced team was available to go to work immediately on the magnetron project.37
On Friday, October 3, 1940, the Tizard Mission visited the main office of the Bell Telephone Laboratories and took with them their 9.1 centimeter magnetron. After discussions about its capabilities, they left it with Dr. Mervin Kelly for the weekend. By the following Monday, Kelly and his colleagues had it working at a reasonable power level. They concluded that it was delivering about 6.4 kilowatts.38 This was more than fifty times as powerful as any other ten centimeter power source then known to the Bell scientists. Thus, the availability of the magnetron removed the seemingly insurmountable barrier to the rapid expansion of radar into the ten centimeter field. The new magnetron immediately proved feasible for incorporation into the design of Bells fire control radar. The vacuum tube of the previous transmitter had supplied only 2 kilowatts of pulse power at 40 centimeters. This was insufficient to provide, under all circumstances, the required ranges against enemy targets. The Bell Laboratories were able quickly to develop a 50 kilowatt magnetron which was put into quantity production in time for the October delivery of the new fire control set. Bell maintained friendly, close, and intimate relationships with both the British and the Canadians throughout the rest of the war. There was complete interchange of information between them. The Bell organization also performed another valuable function. Dr. Ralph Bown of the Bell Laboratories Research staff was one of a committee of four that was appointed by the National Defense Research Committee to initiate a program in centimeter radar research. Since the work of the Radiation Laboratory was sponsored by the NDRC and the work of the Bell Laboratories was sponsored almost wholly by the Army and Navy, it was important that the programs of the various laboratories be correlated to prevent duplication and insure complete coverage. Dr. Bown, together with Dr. Kelly, did most of the correlation work. The Bell Laboratories door was always open for the entrance of authorized visitors, and they freely sent their technical memoranda to all groups that had official clearances.39 Friction Between Signal Corps and Radiation Laboratory Although the Radiation Laboratory would come to provide many outstanding contributions to radar, the assignment of the multi-cavity magnetron and the microwave radar project to the as yet inoperative and non-existent Radiation Laboratory was resented by some key Signal Corps personnel. No one person, however, seems to have made the decision that the Radiation Laboratory would get the microwave program and the Signal Corps would work with longer waves. As one Signal Corps officer described it, It just sort of happened.
The Radiation Laboratory, with its lack of military control and military influence, apparently made many of the same mistakes that were made by the British team at Bawdsey. Some of their early radar models were laboratory devices which were not in a form that could be produced on factory assembly lines. It took a while for the personnel at Radiation to appreciate the realities and rigidities of tactical considerations. They sometimes failed to provide for adequate supplies of spare parts and components. These shortcomings were quick to be pointed out by the smarting Signal Corps radar developers, with such caustic comments as You cant fight a war with a blueprint. In time, however, most of the resentment wore off and an excellent spirit of cooperation prevailed between the two organizations during the remainder of the Radiation Laboratorys existence.40 What Did We Learn? In looking back over a span of two decades, we can see that radar came into being in different countries in different ways. The British set up a separate radar laboratory, entirely manned and directed by civilian scientists. There was little military influence on the development effort, other than general guidance. On the other hand, the United States radar program, prior to 1941, was conducted almost entirely in laboratories that were operated by the Army and Navy, with little civilian influence, although most of the research personnel were civilians. The British were able to complete their initial development in record breaking time, but the lack of military control over equipment specifications during development resulted in operational and maintenance difficulties after the equipment was turned over to the Royal Air Force. The system in use in the United States also had shortcomings. Both the Army and the Navy had regulations that required that a set of military characteristics had to be drawn up and approved by agencies other than the laboratories before work could be initiated. These regulations delayed the beginning of radar research until the high commands of the two services could be convinced that there was an actual need for a radio detection device and that money should be allocated for its development. As we have seen, it took many years to travel this path. That all three laboratories succeeded in their development efforts and had operational radar, as crude as the early sets were, available for use at the outbreak of war is a tribute to the dedicated, tireless, and often inspired efforts of a small group of unsung and all too often overlooked scientific heroes. Had electronics developments lagged in the two crucial years before the United States was brought into the war in the fight against the Axis powers, the effect on the conduct of the war would have been grave indeed.
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The arrival of the Tizard Mission and the birth of the National Defense Research Committee emphasized that military-civilian cooperation, which was vitally needed in those days, had arrived somewhat belatedly. Effective collaboration between the military services and the civilian scientific community had been lacking for too long. In times of grave national peril, it is not enough to have an all-civilian effort like that at Bawdsey or an all-military effort like that at NRL and the Signal Corps Laboratories. A combination of the two is neededthe best ideas of the best scientific brains in the country joined with the professional judgment of the nations top military men. The latter must provide advice as to how the scientific ideas can be used as military devices and what unique physical and operational capabilities they must have. It is well to recognize, however, that neither the scientist nor
the soldier is infallible. The scientist may think of a better military application than the soldier or sailor. Conversely, the military man may come up with a new technical approach that had not previously been considered by the scientist. But no nation should deny its military research and development effort the services of either group. They are both essential. Although the cooperation between the United States and Great Britain, between the Army and the Navy, and between the scientific and industrial communities and the military developed over an all too lengthy period of time, its successful arrival in 1940 rescued millions of persons from the agonized prolongation of the war.41 The radar that evolved from this cooperation was truly the miracle weapon of World War II.

NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII [1] Guerlac, Henry, Radar, (Unpublished manuscript), pp. 254287. Watson-Watt, Robert, The Pulse of Radar, (New York: The Dial Press, 1959), pp. 205213. Personal interview by the author with Sir Robert Watson-Watt, December 15, 1960. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 139145. Taylor, A. Hoyt, The First 25 Years of the Naval Research Laboratory, (Washington D.C.: Navy Department, 1949), p. 47. Taylor, op.cit., p. 47. Kelly, Mervin J., Radar and Bell Labs, Bell Telephone Magazine, 19451946, pp. 221225. Taylor, op.cit., p. 68. Kelly, op.cit., pp. 221225. Taylor, op.cit., p.68. Terrett, Dulany, The Signal Corps: The Emergency, (Washington D.C.: Department of the Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, 1956), pp. 122123. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 178. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 178182. Personal interview with O. M. Brymer, Western Electric Company, February 15, 1950, conducted by George Raynor Thompson, Signal Corps historian. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 182184. Davis, Harry M., The Signal Corps Development of U.S. Army Radar Equipment, Pt. II, 1945, pp. 9697, Sig C Historical Sec. file. Personal interview by the author with Major General Roger B. Colton, (U.S. Army, Retired), December 5, 1960. Terrett, op.cit., pp. 124125. Woodbury, David O. Battlefronts of IndustryWestinghouse in World War II, pp. 92110. Guerlac, op.cit., p. 128. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 188189. Terrett, op.cit., pp. 128129. Vieweger, Arthur L., and Albert S. White, Development of Radar SCR-270, undated reprint from Air Defense Commands Communications and Electronics Digest, p. 20. [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] Vieweger and White, op.cit., p. 21. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 189193. Vieweger and White, op.cit., p. 22. Guerlac, op.cit., pp. 201202. Thompson, George Raynor, History of Radar, A Modern Military Technology, paper presented at the February 27, 1958 meeting of the Washington History of Science Club, pp. 1314. Hoffman-Leyden, A. E., German Radiolocation in Retrospect, Interavia, Vol. VI, p. 623. Wilkinson, Roger I., Short Survey of Japanese Radar, Electrical, Engineering, Vol. LXV, Aug.Sept. 1946, pp. 370377. Watson-Watt, op.cit., p. 232237. Thompson, op.cit., p. 23. Watson-Watt, op.cit., p. 260. Watson-Watt, op.cit., p. 261. Personal interview with Colonel A. E. Cassevant and John Slattery, by Dulany Terrett and G. R. Thompson, 10 Feb 1950. Terrett, op.cit., p. 193. Terrett, op.cit., p. 192. Interview with Cassevant and Slattery, op.cit. Letter, OCSIGO to Brig Gen Sherman Miles, ACofS, G-2, 3 Sept 1940, Subject: Exchange of Sig C Info with British Mission, and memo reply, 4 Sept. 1940. Terrett, op.cit., pp. 195196. Terrett, op.cit., p. 196. Kelly, op.cit., pp. 221255. Watson-Watt, op.cit., p. 263. Kelly, op.cit., pp. 221255. Interview with Cassevant and Slattery, op.cit. Terrett, op.cit., pp. 201202.
[2]
[24] [25]
[3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
[26] [27] [28] [29] [30]
[8] [9] [10]
[31] [32] [33] [34]
[11] [12]
[13] [14] [15]
[35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41]
[16] [17] [18]
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Chapter IX
Obstacles and Roadblocks: A Summary
In looking back over the history of an innovation that was fifty years in the making, it is almost unavoidable to speculate as to what might have been. Although a state-of-the-art roadblock is frequently cited by many people in the scientific world to cover up bad decisions, it is also used justifiably to explain why progress is being delayed. Only with a well developed sense of hindsight can it sometimes be seen that the state-of-the-art did not necessarily have to be a major obstacle and that a different approach, an altered valuation, or a more considered judgment at some previous crossroads might have speeded up the arrival of the innovation by several years. Such was the case with radar, although many of the early pioneers were hesitant to say yes when asked the question: If you had received all the support that you deemed necessary, could radar have arrived appreciably earlier? Sir Robert Watson-Watt came closest to an affirmative reply. In his opinion, all components needed to build a simple but workable radar existed by 1930. He feels that if he had started work in 1930, instead of 1935, his Chain Home radar would have been developed earlier. He could not be pinned down to a specific date, however, although he was willing to admit that it was not a major scientific jump from his Cathode Ray Detection Finder, developed in 1927, to his first proposal for a radio detection device. 1 Robert M. Page said that in hindsight there were really no major technical bottlenecks in the development of radar. There were many problems to be solved but everyone had a solution. The arrival or discovery of the solutions depended to a great deal on the magnitude of the effort applied to find them. Page pointed out, however, that the state-of-the-art did not change by quantum jumps but grew over a number of years. Maybe, he stated, success could have been achieved earlier, but probably by monthsnot by years. Using the best knowledge available at the time, we found significant success. Had we been permitted to apply
Notes
this knowledge with components existing earlier, perhaps success could have been achievedbut I just dont know.2 Colonel William H. Blair doubted that radar could have been developed much earlier unless a large allocation of funds had been given to the project. In the tenor of the depression days in which early radar development began, this would have been unlikely under any circumstances that Blair could imagine.3 His successor, Lieutenant Colonel Roger B. Colton, says that We could not have brought radar into existence much earlier as a three dimensional, mobile set because of the antenna size problem and the 200 megacycles per second frequency restriction that was imposed by vacuum tube limitations. We could, however, have rung our cities at an earlier date with the type radar that Watson-Watt developed in Britain. This was not seriously considered because our cities were not threatened as were those of the British.4 Each of these fathers of radar was answering the question within the framework of his own experience, and each was probably correct in his assessment of the situation that existed at the time that he began work on radar. There were many problems and events, however, which happened earlier that might have speeded up the birth of radar by many years if the road signs had pointed in different directions. We shall take a look at some of the obstacles and the effect that they had on the course of the radar innovation. The problems must be considered in their proper time frame for the discussion to be meaningful. Therefore, they will be taken up by phases.
Editors Note: The phases that follow correspond to the phases shown on the foldout inside the rear cover.
Phase I(18731922) For the first twenty years after Maxwells early radio work and during the decade following Hertzs
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experiments with reflected radio waves, scientific curiosity increased among the worlds physicists. The thoughts of many men turned to the new phenomenon. Progress was made at a slow and deliberate pace, but prior to the turn of the century laboratory experiments had already reached the microwave portion of the radio frequency spectrum. This research work was performed by individuals who were primarily interested in the advancement of science. It was carried out in the campus environment of many great universities, and apparently little thought was given to the development of commercial devices that could be marketed for profits. Then came the highly successful Marconi as an inventor who converted the work of the past quarter century into a profitable business enterprise and thus influenced the direction of radio development for another twenty five years. If Marconis long waves had proved infeasible for transoceanic radio communications; If the discoveries of Kennelly and Heavisidethat an ionospheric layer girds the earth only a few miles above its surface and is capable of reflecting the shorter radio waveshad taken place before Marconis success with the longer waves; and If the physicists of the scientific community had not been so quick to accept as a fact that the line of sight properties of the shorter radio waves made them infeasible for long range communications, the history of radio, and in turn radar, might well have taken a different course. As it was, Marconis success, both technical and business, proved to the satisfaction of most contemporaries of his generation that long waves were the answer to long distance radio communications. Thus we can see a perfect example of how the acceptance of one successful innovation can cast a complete blanket over research and development in another and more promising one. Unfortunately for the fields of radio broadcasting, high frequency radio communications, VHF, UHF, and microwave radio communications, and radar, the greatest setback to progress was the lack of high power vacuum tubes for the higher frequencies of the radio spectrum. It was not until after the birth of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s that any serious attempts were made to develop significantly better vacuum tubes. Marconis long wave achievements, however, did not completely block all vacuum tube development. Tubes for the lower frequencies appeared in the early 1900s. Before 1920, these tubes had been greatly improved by the genius of the renowned Lee Deforest. Nevertheless, these vacuum tubes were not immediately successful. For 15 to 20 years, they competed unfavorably with the cheaper and more widely accepted crystal detector. Here we see an example of a new innovation, the vacuum tube, failing to achieve acceptance, primarily because it did the same thing and provided the same capability as a cheaper and already proved device. It is evident from
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this and other experiences that will be discussed later that technical superiority and increased capabilities of a new invention will not in themselves guarantee that the public will substitute it for an old, familiar, and proved item that has been in use for years. This is especially true if the new item costs more than the old and its advantages are only marginal. The pages of history are filled with the stories of inventors who died paupers because they lacked the talent or the determination to present their inventions in such a way that the public could easily recognize and was willing to accept their clear-cut superiority over the products then in use. Marconis brilliant success, both as an inventor and as a business man, is certainly the exception that proves the rule. It is somewhat ironic that the discovery that finally overthrew long wave radios dampening effect on exploration of the higher reaches of the radio frequency spectrum, thus removing a major obstacle to the subsequent development of radar, came not from university scientists dedicated to furthering mans knowledge of the unknown but from three amateur radio operators who merely wanted to talk to each other over their ham radio sets. Chance has frequently played a major role in new discoveries. In this instance, it likewise played a major part in opening up for the first time the vast new scientific fields of high frequency radio. The news of Leon Deloys trans-Atlantic radio transmissions startled the scientific, business, and military communities of the early 1920s and triggered a major development effort to capitalize on the new discovery. Although the new effort moved slowly at first, it mushroomed in less than two decades into one of the nations major industries. It generated research and development undertakings that were designed to improve existing radio equipment and to invent new items. Many of these new inventions ultimately became basic components of radar. It is doubtful that the adverse effects of Marconis success could have been avoided unless some contemporary of his had been fortunate enough to have had foresight equally as perceptive as the hindsight of the generation of a half-century later. It may have been another whim of the Goddess of Chance that Marconi appeared when he did but, whether or not she had a hand in Marconis accomplishments, we owe her a debt of gratitude for the role that she played in Deloys discovery. Without it, radar might have arrived too late to play a major role in the Allied Victory over the Axis powers a few short years later. Perhaps the most significant obstacle to the likelihood that radar might have been considered seriously before Taylors and Youngs 1922 proposal was the absence of a clearly recognized need for a device with radars capabilities. Tesla and Hulsmeyer had both proposed the use of radio detection to
determine the positions of ships. Collisions of ships at night or in fog, however, were so infrequent that no one could see any great need to finance a development program to produce such a device. A few years later, the Titanic disaster might have created sufficient interest to get a radio detection project under way, but the problems resulting from the worsening world situation and the United States entry into World War I pushed into the background measures such as a device to reduce ship navigation hazards. The airplane developed slowly prior to 1920 and it was considered more of a novelty than anything else. It was first used for military purposes in World War I, but its effectiveness for anything but scouting and dogfights with other airplanes was negligible. The airplanes ultimate combat potential was not sufficiently recognized nor appreciated to convince many military commanders that it would eventually become a primary military weapon. In their minds, if the airplane was only the plaything of a few daredevils, why should there be any great concern over its location in the sky? Even with hindsight, it is not too difficult to understand that as late as 1922 no one in official circles among the worlds governments considered the airplane a threat to his countrys national security. The need for a radar device to detect airplanes and ships was developing, and developing rapidly, but the need was not perceived by the people who would have to make the decisions necessary to initiate a development program. Coupled with the lack of recognition of a need for a device to detect or defend against enemy airplanes was a widespread conviction in the United States that the world had been made safe for democracy. The Kaiser had been defeated and the talk everywhere was of disarmament. The 5-5-3 Naval Treaty that emasculated the United States Navy was reflective of the spirit and emotions of the times. A nation that believes that peace on earth has finally arrived, and that the way is now open to concentrate on the material improvement of life, is not likely to select leaders who recognize the need for new and as yet undeveloped weapons to protect against as yet non-existent threats. Such was the case in the early 1920s when Taylor and Young suggested the approval of a radio detection project. A dedicated zealot, armed with missionary zeal, deep convictions about the importance of his invention, and fierce determination to sell it, might have had a fighting chance to obtain at least token approval of an airplane detection project. Dr. Hoyt Taylor, however, displayed no such zeal in 1922. Apparently he was not overly enthusiastic about the proposal. His attitude, that he had proved the soundness of the idea and that it was up to the Navy Department to do with it as they saw fit, was hardly the approach that will overcome all obstacles and leave the opposition lying in its wake. The mood of
RADAR: A CASE HISTORY OF AN INOVATIONCHAPTER IX
the era called for clever salesmanship but the approach actually employed was Here it istake it or leave it! Thus the first radar proposal inevitably was destined for failure. The state-of-the-art was not sufficiently advanced in 1922 to provide all the components needed to build a workable radar. The need for radar was not recognized by the decision makers of the period and the first proposal lacked the push of a dedicated and much needed zealot. Phase II(19221930) The failure of the first radar proposal to gain acceptance was not as disastrous to naval radar as it might seem at first glance. The fervor to develop high frequency radio for ship-to-shore and ship-to-ship communications resulted in the development of many components that later became vital parts of the early radar sets. Crystal-controlled transmitters, redesigned superheterodyne receivers, better vacuum tubes, and improved antenna construction were equally as important to radar as they were to radio. The concurrent work in allied scientific disciplines such as meteorology and ionospheric exploration contributed to radar many components and techniques, such as better cathode ray tubes and pulse transmission. Probably of equal or greater importance, this research developed skilled innovators who knew how to overcome the mechanical difficulties that are often encountered in converting electrical and radio theories into practical devices. This hard core of experienced scientists and technicians in a few short years formed the nucleus of the British and American radar development teams. Perhaps the greatest technical obstacle to the future development of radar during this phase was the continued and still serious problem of vacuum tube technology. The problem was two-fold. The design of tubes for the higher frequencies employed many features that had not been tried before, such as the use of alternating current heater wires. These new features generated many technical problems which had to be resolved concurrently as work progressed. The resolution of these difficulties caused many delays which were unavoidable but nonetheless exasperating to the people who were working on the various tube development projects. The second part of the vacuum tube problem was of a different nature. The new designs were so unconventional that for several years they met not only with resistance, but also with outright opposition. Not until 1927 were any of the new style vacuum tubes adopted for use in an end product by a major commercial firm. The state-of-the-art problem in this instance was real. Further progress in both radio and the as yet unborn radar could go forward only as fast as vacuum tube technology advanced. A greater effort in the
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1920s, i.e., more money and more engineers, would probably have resulted in much faster progress in the development of better vacuum tubesbut no such emphasis materialized. The military laboratories were severely restricted in their research and development activities by Coolidges economy measures. They lacked sufficient funds to contract for either basic or applied research in the field of vacuum tube technology. On the other hand, because it had been a long standing policy in the armed forces to rely on the nations academic and industrial laboratories for all basic and most applied research, the development of new and improved tubes could not be accomplished in-house. Nor could the major industrial firms see their way clear to spend large sums to develop new vacuum tubes for military or commercial radio transmitters and receivers. The demand for these items, in their eyes, was not likely to be great enough to permit the companies to recover any substantial development expenses. Thus, a technological impasse was created that lasted for almost a decade. The two-fold tube technology problem illustrates two classic roadblocks to successful innovationresistance to new ideas and the lack of adequate development funds. Of these, the resistance obstacle was the easiest to overcome. Recognition of the need for radar was developing rapidly. On the other hand, the funding problem worsened as the intentional thrift of the Coolidge Administration passed all too quickly into the catastrophic depression of the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations. Money became even more scarce. The resistance to the new vacuum tube styles disappeared by 1927, but government funds to buy additional vacuum tube research and development were not made available until a full decade later. Military funds for vacuum tube improvements might have been difficult to obtain under any circumstances, but neither Colonel Blair nor Dr. Taylor, the two military scientists who were attempting to arouse interest in radio detection, directed their energies directly to the vacuum tube problem. They apparently assumed that they would have to sell the whole package before directing attention to its individual components. Blairs attempts to convince the War Department staff and the Coast Artillery Corps that radio detection could be an effective device ran into another classic obstacle to new inventions, the successful and already accepted competitive product. In Blairs case, there were two competitorssound detection and infra-red detection. The Ordnance Corps had just completed the development of a brand new sound detector, of which they were justifiably proud, and they were advocating its use for antiaircraft artillery purposes. The Coast Artillery, which had sole responsibility within the Army for antiaircraft artillery, recognized the limitations of sound equipment, but they also knew that within those limitations it could be relied on most
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of the time. More importantly, it was immediately available. The Coast Artillery had also sponsored infra-red research projects that were being conducted by the Signal Corps, and workable infra-red devices were likewise available. At this point, the War Department was faced with a paradox. It recognized the need for an effective means of aircraft detection but it was faced with an equally great need to practice economy. Coolidges one and two per cent clubs saw to that. There simply was not enough money available to carry on projects in sound, infra-red, and radio detection simultaneously and, since radio detection was the newest and as yet untested proposal, it had to wait until additional funds could be obtained. More important even than the availability of money or the recognition of a need was the more specific problem of just what capabilities an effective detection device should have. Because the only Army customer for an aircraft detection device was the Coast Artillery Corps, the required capabilities were seen through Coast Artillery eyes. The Coast Artillery was not interested in early warning. It did not want to know the position of an enemy airplane until it came within range of the antiaircraft artillery firing batteries. Consequently, the range limitations of sound and infrared detection devices did not preclude their use for antiaircraft artillery purposes. This was an important and perhaps overriding factor in the Coast Artillery Corps refusal to allocate its all too scarce funds to explore Blairs idea. Although the United States Army Air Corps, in the 1920s, was actively engaged in designing faster interceptor planes and longer range bombers, it apparently was suffering from some of the offense only myopia that was later to plague Hitler and the Japanese High Command. It was not until 1937 that the Army Air Corps evidenced any interest at all in early warning radar. As is often the case in military circles, however, the Air Corps immediately wanted a set with twice the capabilities of the one then in the development stage, and they wanted it immediately. When the first production models of the first early warning radar sets reached the Air Corps in 1940, Air Corps officers were quick to point out the sets shortcomings. They criticized the developers and asked why the Army Air Corps could not have the superior sets developed by the British. In 1928, however, when Blair was trying to convince the War Department to undertake a radar development project, the Army Air Corps apparently was not invited to the presentation. Its needs for long range early warning devices were either not recognized by the other branches of the Army or they were conveniently ignored. Had the Air Corps been a party to the early discussions, the fatal weaknesses of sound and infra-red detectors might have been more easily spotted, and
radar development might have been undertaken earlier. The conflict between the Coast Artillerys detection needs and the Air Corps requirements highlights an important consideration for the innovator. He must avoid generalities in selling his idea or invention. It is not enough that a potential user or customer recognizes a need for an innovation. He must also clearly perceive that the capabilities or a particular device, as he understands them, uniquely satisfy his particular need, as he understands that need. Blairs proposal in the 1920s was so simple, after he had explained it, that all present at his presentation could easily see that radio detection, if it worked as Blair predicted, could detect airplanes at ranges far in excess of those provided by sound or infra-red detection equipmentbut the Coast Artillery Corps did not anticipate that target information beyond the range of conventional guns was required. To the Coast Artillery, Blairs proposed device satisfied a non-existent need. On the other hand, the Air Corps had a specific but unrecognized need for radar, but was not stimulated to awareness of the need because of not being invited to the presentation. The reason for this oversight seems lost in the depths of antiquity but, had the Air Corps been given the opportunity to hear Blairs talk and thus be confronted with the capabilities of radio detection, it might well have been startled into identifying a need for early warning radar sets and doing something about it. At the time of Taylors second proposal for the approval of a radio detection project in 1930, the situation in the Navy was comparable to that encountered two years earlier by Blair. A need for radar was recognized but no funds were available to allocate to the project. Because the organizational structure of the Navy is different from that of the Army, Dr. Taylor was fortunate enough to avoid a clash between conflicting interests. He was able to obtain approval to go ahead with a radar project. The approval, however, was not accompanied by funds. Nevertheless, Hylands discovery and Taylors memorandum recommending that it be given project status, marked the initiation of the first official military radar project in the world. Although the turndown of Blairs proposal in 1928 may have delayed the start of radar research in the United States Army, the arrival of Army radar was not necessarily affected by the disapproval. As we have seen in a previous chapter, even when Blair established a radar project, his preoccupation with microwaves led the project into a blind alley and kept it there until Colton rescued it several years later. Phase III(19301935) The deep depression of the early 1930s precluded the Naval Research Laboratorys radar project getting
off to a fast start. The depression likewise prevented Blair from obtaining funds for his project. Thus, the only work accomplished at the Navy and the Signal Corps Laboratories in the early 1930s was either unauthorized or performed after hours. Money was a critical problem and remained so for many years. By 1934, the off-duty development of the beat method of radio detection had been completed at NRL and Taylor was ready to shift to a pulse method. Sorely needed funds and official support, however, were still lacking and the officials at NRL decided that it was time to do something about it. With the consent of the Navy Department, they staged a demonstration for members of the House Subcommittee on Naval Appropriations. When no funds were available after a reasonable period of time following the demonstration, Dr. Taylor went personally to the Office of the Chairman of the Subcommittee to solicit his support for the radar project. Taylors visit was successful and the radar money problem at NRL was ended at last. A demonstration for key decision makers was a technique used effectively by Taylor throughout his career at NRL. Because unsuccessful demonstrations can cause considerable damage, Taylor was extremely careful to demonstrate only those devices for which satisfactory performance was almost a certainty. Dr. Taylor had a few close calls when things went wrong at the last minute, but he kept an adequate staff handy during demonstrations to make emergency repairs and replace defective components. In the Armys radar development effort, Blairs attempts to get additional funds from the War Department were supported fully by the Chief Signal Officer, Major General Allison, but without success. Finally, in 1936, Allison gave up hopes of getting funds from the War Department and diverted over $75 thousand to radar from other important Signal Corps research and development undertakings. It was not until a successful demonstration had been given for the Secretary of War and other high officials a year later that the Signal Corps received its first appropriation for radar development. In Britain, when Watson-Watts memorandum was being considered by the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defense (CSSAD) in February 1935, Stuffy Dowding also requested a demonstration before he was willing to allocate any funds to develop Watson-Watts idea. Although the demonstration employed a crude device that could not be dignified even by being called a breadboard model, it served its purpose. The money was granted. Here are three separate but parallel instances where the first money officially allocated to the research and development of a new innovation came only after a successful demonstration of the feasibility of the innovation. In each case, the degree of recognition of the need variedcomplacency on the part of the United States Army Air Corps; a lack of any
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real interest by the rest of the Army except the Signal Corps and the Coast Artillery Corps; less than enthusiastic support in the United States Navy; and near panic in Great Britain. It is generally accepted by most students of innovation that recognition of a need is important to the acceptance of a new device, but the term recognition needs clarification. In the discussion of the previous phase, it was pointed out that it is vital that the individual who perceives a need also sees the device, in his own eyes, as something that satisfies that need. To this we can add another requirement that is based on the importance of demonstrations. The person who perceives a need must also believe the device to satisfy that need is feasible. It can then be said that a new innovation, to be accepted, must be seen by a person as a device which is feasible; which can reasonably be expected to work; and which has capabilities, as the potential user understands them, which will satisfy a need as he perceives it. The introduction of an innovation may require a much greater effort than just letting the capabilities and advantages of the new device speak for themselves. Marketing the concept or idea in the best possible light, attempting to fathom the thinking of the person who must accept or approve the idea, and then slanting the sales pitch to that persons understanding assumes major importance in research and development, just as it dies in any kind of marketing. The lack of a real understanding of this basic approach may have played a more than minor role in the slow start of radar development in the United States. The human relations problem crept into the radar picture on several occasions. Although its overall effect on the speed at which radar was developed cannot be accurately assessed, one gets an impression that personal idiosyncrasies might have had more of a delaying effect than an expediting effect prior to 1935. Dr. Hoyt Taylors hand-off attitude in 1922, because he felt that he had proved the soundness of the radio detection concept and that it was up to the Navy to do with it as they saw fit, would seem to be an unaggressive and rather naive approach. But Dr. Taylors long record of achievements belies any such thoughts. He was a brilliant scientist, an extremely determined and capable administrator, and he was noted for obtaining success against all obstacles. It would appear, therefore, that he was not really convinced that he and Young had hit upon a sound idea. He apparently was not willing to stake his personal reputation on the proposal to an extent necessary to get the idea approved by the Navy Department. Blairs becoming offended at Hoyt Taylor, because he thought that Taylor had interrupted his comments and adjourned a meeting before Blair had finished speaking, is another example of how small incidents
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can affect an important project. Blair had been a guest of the Navy and he considered that Taylor was rude and inconsiderate not to let him finish his remarks. Blair felt so strongly about it that he remembered clearly every detail of the occasion almost thirty years after it happened. Consequently, as long as Blair remained Director of the Signal Corps Laboratories, he had little interest in anything that was going on at the Naval Research Laboratory. He continued to think of the work at NRL as being the same work that he had seen on his unfortunate visit. He apparently made little effort to keep up with the new developments at NRL, or to maintain active liaison with the Navy. Blair, of course, had sound technical reasons to discount the Navys beat method of radio detection and to look to pulse transmission as the best approach to radar. He also had technical justification for his belief that only with microwaves could antennas be made small enough, and radar accurate enough, to satisfy the Armys mobility and gun-laying requirements. His insistence, however, that research could only be conducted in the microwave field, even after it had been shown that the then state-of-the-art in vacuum tube technology made such an approach infeasible, was another of his inexplicable idiosyncrasies. There is no fool-proof way to avoid personality clashes, hurt feelings, or the dogged pursuit of the wrong avenue of approach. These things frequently happen. They must be resolved at the time and according to the circumstances involved. The important thing to remember is that they do happen. Everyone concerned with an innovation must be alert to prevent their mushrooming into major flareups which might jeopardize the innovations success. Personal idiosyncrasies in another of radars key figures, Sir Robert Watson-Watt, operated in the other direction. They actually helped to bring a workable radio detection device into being much earlier than might reasonably have been expected. In the United States, the Navy had spent several years working on its beat method and the Army had spent several years working with microwaves, both of which proved infeasible. Because Watson-Watt was a practicing pragmatist and confined both his famous memorandum of February 1935 and his early experiments to techniques and components which had already proved feasible in his earlier meteorological experiments, he was able to avoid similar dead-end approaches. He studiously avoided introducing new devices or new electrical components into his first breadboard models. As a result, he was able to show an experimental radar set within a phenomenally short period of time. Watson-Watts belief that he should adopt the do-able now and leave the desirable until later was a major reason for his being able to avoid the pitfalls into which his contemporaries in the United States had fallen.
Watson-Watts efforts to persuade the Air Ministry to undertake his radio detection proposal may have been an easier task than that faced by Taylor and Blair a few years earlier, but he brought to the job unique talents which aided him immeasurably. Watson-Watt realized, for example, that an idea must be sold. Even as early as the writing of his original memorandum, he turned to Wimperis for assistance so that the document would be in language easily understandable to Wimperis colleagues. He not only recognized the important role played by successful demonstrations, but he also was aware of the dangers inherent in unsuccessful demonstrations. Sir Robert very cleverly avoided the possible repercussions of a failure of his first showing for Sir Hugh Dowdings emissary by agreeing to stage the demonstration only if he could prescribe the rulesthe principal rule being that a failure would be meaningless. Demonstrations became a major means to develop support for Watson-Watts subsequent development efforts, and he used them effectively. Because the work was progressing so rapidly that it was constantly bumping into state-of-the-art roadblocks and difficult mechanical problems, there were inevitable failures, with varying repercussional effects. On each of the occasions when a demonstration failed, Watson-Watt dropped everything else that he was doing to give all of his attention to finding the cause of the failure. He corrected it with the least possible delay and then scheduled a new demonstration for the same officials who had been present at the unsuccessful showing. Although demonstrations play an important part in proving feasibility and thus loosening the purse strings, it is extremely important to the future of an innovation that the demonstrations be successful. It is equally or perhaps more important that the possibility of a failure should be anticipated, and a course of action be planned in advance. The plan must be implemented immediately when a failure materializes. To an observer of a demonstration, an unexplained or unexpected failure is usually not understood. It creates doubts and apprehensions unless he fully comprehends in advance that a failure may occur, or he is given an explanation immediately after the failure that he considers plausible. Watson-Watts understanding of this fact contributed greatly to his successful development of radar. The third phase of radars development began with a widespread feeling of resistance, because of doubts as to radars feasibility, as distinguished from the earlier lack of recognition of the need for radar. The development moved slowly because of the shortage of funds that resulted from the great depression. There were scattered state-of-the-art roadblocks, journeys into blind alleys, personal differences of opinion, competition from other detection methods, opposition from superiors, and numerous other obstacles to progressbut all of these had been overcome by the
beginning of Phase IV, and for a single overwhelming reason. The need which had been recognized in varying shades of urgency by officials at different levels of government in the United Kingdom and the United States, suddenly glowed bright red. Extreme danger was ahead. No longer was the speedy pursuit plane or the new long range bomber an inanimate object at which to point with pride because of its great engineering features. The airplane had suddenly become an ominous threat to the survival of the free world. It had fallen into the hands of a conscienceless military dictator, a man completely without scruples, who had brazenly written for all to see his intentions to rule the world. The simple need to detect airplanes in space could be postponed until the economy of the democratic nations started its upturn, but the need for an effective system to detect the death-dealing bombers of Goerings Luftwaffe was imperative. It could not be postponedit had to be accomplished at onceand Watson-Watts proposal, despite Dowdings request for an early demonstration, was seized upon as eagerly as if it had been the only life preserver among a group of drowning sailors. In figurative terms, it came close to being just that. Thus, to our earlier comments about the necessity to show that a new innovation is a feasible device with recognized capabilities that will satisfy a need that has been clearly perceived, we must add another clause: and is considered sufficiently urgent that something must be done about it. The Air Ministrys decision to go into production before it had witnessed even a moderately successful service test of Watson-Watts radio detection device indicates the urgency attributed to the need. Compelling urgency is a great spur to innovation. Phase IV(19351939) The real development of radar took place during Phase IV and, although there was still spotty resistance and opposition, most of the obstacles were of a different nature. There was still an occasional need for the radar developers to engage in a little subterfuge. We have seen how Page added a phone jack to the front of his radar receiver so that it would be mistaken for a communications receiver by visitors because it was the only equipment upon which he was authorized to work at the time. We have also seen how Colton, when limited in antenna size by the restrictions of a set of military characteristics, built his strange and wonderful system of antennas which could be thought of as being finally reducible to mobile form. Perhaps the most fascinating subterfuge of all was Blairs hiring of one of the nations top infra-red experts to develop infra-red detectors to their utmost capacity so that he could then show that even the best that they could do was not good enough. The
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necessity to resort to these tactics was soon ended, however, and by 1937 lack of support from higher headquarters was no longer a problem. At this stage, technical problems became more acute as the tempo of the development effort speeded up. The most pressing need was smaller antennas because the early models were too large for the Navys shipboard use or the Armys mobility requirements. Large antennas were practical for an island defense like that in England or Hawaii, where huge towers could be built along the coast line, but they were not feasible nor really needed for the defense of the continental United States. It was not likely that war would reach the western hemisphere, other than an improbable raid by a Japanese aircraft carrier. Because antenna size is directly related to the radio frequency employed, the only way by which antennas could be reduced in size was to utilize higher frequencies with the shorter wave lengths. At the beginning of Phase IV, no one had been successful in this undertaking. In fact, we have seen how Blairs persistence in trying to do so proved to be a blind alley that may have delayed the Signal Corps development of radar by several years. Nevertheless, the problem had to be solved or radar would not be useful to the Army and Navy. The seemingly insurmountable bottleneck that prevented the shift to higher frequencies was a complete lack of vacuum tubes at the higher frequencies which could generate sufficient radiated power to permit their use for detection purposes. Colton eventually found a solution by a simple trial and error method. He had his engineers at the Signal Corps Laboratories analyze the performance characteristics, ruggedness, and construction soundness of every available vacuum tube on the market. He then chose the one tube which most likely could be modified for use at a higher frequency. The tube was the Eitel-McCullough Companys Eimac 100TL. Its unique suitability could be attributed indirectly to the early discovery of Leon Deloy that short waves are usable for trans-Atlantic radio communications. Lady Luck again smiled on the developers of radar because the common practice of the hams to operate their sets at many times their rated power, and thus place an unbearable load on most vacuum tubes, had prompted the Eitel-McCullough Company to develop the Eimac 100TL to stand just such strains. It was not difficult for the company, therefore, when requested by the Signal Corps to do so, to modify the tube further to meet radars needs. The modified tube was used by both the Signal Corps and the Navy in their first 200 megacycles per second radar sets. Once the frequency problem was eased, Coltons invention of lobe switching, and the separate but simultaneous development of a transmit-receive
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switching device by Zahl of the Signal Corps and Varela of NRL, resulted in smaller antennas that permitted the Navys XAF and the Signal Corps SCR-268 to become operational sets. There were other technical problems that had to be overcome, particularly the development of the Plan Position Indicator (PPI) and an effective communications and control system for feeding information from the radar sets into a central filter. These were routine, although important, development projects and no major obstacles were encountered. Once the vacuum tube problem was overcome, radar had arrived. Another major deterrent to radars progress throughout Phase IV was a lack of effective liaison and information interchange between the various laboratories engaged in radar activities. An effective system to collect, collate, correlate, condense, and disseminate scientific data was needed in the 1930s, and it is still needed to an even greater extent today. The problem is not simple. It is complicated by a need to protect the nations security and to deny an enemy, or potential enemy, date that he could use to develop new weapons of war. The problem is also affected by commercial companies desires to keep proprietary information from becoming known to their competitors. The security problem cannot be overemphasized. We have seen how the early Japanese radar program was probably boosted by an article written by Dr. Rice of General Electric Company. In addition, the Japanese first learned of pulse radar from the Germans who had found out that the British were using it. The Germans obtained much valuable radar information, after the fall of France, from captured French scientists who had been let in on the British radar developments. It might be suspected that the Germans knew more about the British radar developments than the United States Army and Navy knew about each others radar projects. When the Signal Corps Laboratories and the Naval Research Laboratory first undertook radar projects in the early 1930s, there was an occasional contact between the two institutions. Blair and Hershberger visited NRL and Page visited Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, the Home of the Signal Corps. There were a few demonstrations at NRL to which Army personnel were invited and, at the request of Hershberger, the Navy sent copies of NRLs monthly reports to the Signal Corps Laboratories. These reports were provided for only a few months, however, because once the development of radar was classified Secret by the Navy, all communications with the Army came to a halt. An even greater vacuum existed between the radar developments in Britain and those in the United States. It was not until the Tizard Mission arrived in the United States in September 1940 that either
country had the slightest idea what the other was doing. It was known in both countries that radio detection work was going on in the other, but no attempts were made to compare ideas. In fact, military regulations of the time specifically precluded either the U.S. Navy or the U.S. Army from revealing any information about their projects to the British. Such precautions cannot be peremptorily condemned because the example of British secrets, which had been given to the French, falling into the hands of the Germans could be used as an effective rebuttal. Nevertheless, the absence of close liaison and effective communication between the Army and the Navy was an obstacle that should not have been allowed to persist and cannot be justified. Many of the reasons for the communications black-out between NRL and the Signal Corps Laboratories were not the fault of regulations or Departmental directives. They stemmed from the personal idiosyncrasies that were mentioned earlier. Blair, after he had been given what he considered a brush-off by Taylor, lost interest in further communications with the Navy. Because he thought their beat method infeasible, he was convinced that what the Navy was doing was not worth keeping up with. On the other hand, some of the engineers at NRL heard that, after the Signal Corps had used NRL information, that had been given to Hershberger by NRL, to develop a successful pulse radar, the engineers at the Signal Corps Laboratories had received pay raises of two full civil service grades. The NRL engineers had not received any pay raises of any kind and resented their ideas getting pay raises for others but not for themselves. Thereafter they were reluctant to volunteer any information to their Signal Corps counterparts. Although such reasons for a communications breakdown may seem petty, they were real. They were a matter of emotional involvement to the personnel concerned and their cumulative effect was damaging to radars progress. Another obstacle to radars progress was the problem of military characteristics. The problem was more acute in the Signal Corps than at either NRL or Bawdsey Manor. In the early 1930s, Blairs radio detection project was a bootleg effort and apparently without official War Department sanction. Once the Coast Artillery entered the radar picture and established a set of military characteristics, these MCs governed all further development work at Fort Monmouth. It has previously been shown that the Coast Artillery Corps had no interest in early warning radar and, since the Army Air Corps had not yet established military characteristics for such a weapon, the Signal Corps Laboratories could not work on early warning radar officially. Any time spent on early warning radar detection had to be a sub-rosa effort and, in fact, such work never took place. Thus, early warning radar was delayed for a year
or perhaps two because the Coast Artillerys project required all available manpower and facilities then available for radio detection work. Once the Army Air Corps became interested, following General Arnolds presence at the May 1937 demonstration at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, military characteristics for an early warning radar set were quickly formulated and work began at once. Success was soon attained and the SCR-270 radar sets were finished in time for the sets to be on site on Oahu on the fateful morning of December 7, 1941. Military characteristics can be ambiguous, as well as restrictive, as the unpleasant controversy between the Signal Corps and the Army Air Corps over the failure of the MCs to prescribe a height finding capability clearly shows. On the other hand, the absence of military characteristics that have been prepared by persons who are familiar with the operating problems and difficulties of combat conditions can also create troubles. The free hand given Watson-Watt during his development of the Chain Home radar system resulted in severe operating handicaps at the time that the system was turned over to the Royal Air Force for operational use. The group at Bawdsey comprised physicists, not airmen, and most were young and inexperienced. Their understanding of the rigorous environment and stresses placed upon equipment during tactical operations was not sufficiently comprehensive for them to anticipate the troubles that would occur later. It is evident that military users must prescribe certain features that an innovation must have, but perhaps the military characteristics should be so worded that these features are a minimum that must be obtained, rather than an inflexible scientific straightjacket. Phase V(19391941) By the time that radar went into production, most of the obstacles had been overcome. There were few bottlenecks remaining in the development of the first radar sets. The diversification that soon followed generated a new series of obstacles and roadblocks but they were of the same general order as those that had preceded them. One important lesson stands out, however, and that is the trouble that is encountered when a new item of equipment is introduced too soon. When Watson-Watt first started his original project, he was almost immediately directed to build operational models and to install a five station radar system. The threat of the Luftwaffe was acute, and desperate situations demand positive action. The subsequent operating difficulties encountered by the R.A.F., however, highlight the problems that can occur when attempts are made to use a new innovation before it has been thoroughly tested and its operating shortcomings and technical deficiencies removed.
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The mistake was repeated during the introduction of the airborne intercept (AI) radar sets. The same individual who had ordered Watson-Watt to start work on the Chain Home System, Sir Hugh Dowding, also ordered immediate production of AI sets at a time when only a crude breadboard model had been built. Again the situation was desperate and the need acute, but the repercussions of this predestined failure were much more severe than those that followed the initial failure of the Chain Home System. The AI radar was poorly received by the pilots. They did not trust it and harshly criticized the device for its inadequate minimum range. Its failure almost wrecked Britains night fighter program. Although a scientist finds it difficult to say no when he is directed by his superiors to place an item into immediate production, he probably will encounter less difficulties if he delays long enough to discover and correct the equipments deficiencies than he will if he blindly carries out the directive as ordered. A sharp contrast with Watson-Watts ready response to Dowdings immediate production directive was the Signal Corps actions following the Chief of Staffs directive in May, 1937, to place the SCR-268 radar into production at once. The Signal Corps scientists simply agreed with the General but continued to improve the set for another year and a half. They raised the frequency to 205 megacycles per second, added Coltons lobe switching mechanism and Zahls T-R switching device, reduced the size of the antennas to such an extent that the set actually had the mobility called for in the military characteristics, and then went into production. As a result, although the set was crude by comparison with todays radars, it worked well and had few remaining deficiencies to be corrected. If at all possible, an innovator must resist pressure to introduce or market his invention before it is completed and tested, or the result might very well be non-acceptance. In many instances, premature introduction is worse than unnecessary delay, and can only be justified under the most extreme circumstances. In fairness to Sir Hugh Dowding and Watson-Watt, it must be admitted that the circumstances in Britain were extreme, end extreme measures were called for. But in most cases, the threat of national destruction is not present to overshadow an innovation. Adequate time usually will be available for proper service testing and for the elimination of deficiencies. The Zealots The story of the development of radar would be incomplete without a final tribute to the zealots whose drive, determination, deep conviction, and unbridled enthusiasm played a major role in overcoming the many obstacles and roadblocks to radars success.
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Sir Robert Watson-Watt was officially recognized by the crown and knighted for his part in the British development of radar. His genius in being able to conceive radar so clearly that he could reduce his idea to a memorandum which was understandable to the CSSAD, and then to be able to convince such desperate skeptics that they should invest 10,000 to develop a device that existed only in his mind and on a piece of paper, may have saved an empire. Without radar, the Battle of Britain might have been only a prelude to the destruction of Britain. The race with destiny was a photo finish and if Watson-Watts brilliant conception had not come at the time that it did, the course of the free worlds history might have taken a different and more tragic course. His intellectual clarity, his perseverance, his ability to maintain cordial relationships with the agencies of the government that were essential to his work, his successful recruiting of a laboratory staff, his creation of a laboratory environment that was most conducive to positive research results, were major factors in the successful development of radar in Britain. At the Naval Research Laboratory in the United States, Dr. Hoyt Taylor played a similar but less spectacular role in guiding the destinies of naval radar. Through his constant use of the demonstration technique to convince superiors of the feasibility of radar and to obtain money from Congress, and his efforts to arouse interest among the fleet commanders and thus stir up a grass roots demand for radar, he made a contribution much more important than any offspring of his technical genius. During the latter half of the 1930s decade, Taylor was joined in his role as the Navys radar zealot by two remarkable Navy officers, Captain Hollis M. Cooley, who was Director of the Naval Research Laboratory from 1935 to 1939, and Rear Admiral Harold G. Bowen who succeeded Cooley in 1939. Before taking over his position at NRL, Bowen had been Chief of the Bureau of Engineering and, as such, was Cooleys immediate superior. Cooley had a large number of influential friends throughout the Navy, and he became a one man task force to convince these friends of the importance of radar. He buttonholed them in the halls of the Navy Building and, on one pretext or another, persuaded many of the leading naval officers of the day to come down to the laboratory for a demonstration. The interest thus generated, when added to the support that Taylor was working up among the fleet commanders, caused a ground swell of demand from the fleet that forced the opponents of radar in the Navy Department to capitulate. Bowen not only encouraged and supported Cooleys buttonhole techniques, but he also used his own considerable influence among the Navys top commanders to win them over to the new miracle device, radar. The combination of Taylor, Cooley, and Bowen provided invincible.
In the Army Signal Corps, Blair was the early standard bearer for radar, and he endeavored to launch it as a major project at the Signal Corps Laboratories. His main interest, however, was the development of the laboratories into a really effective research institution, and at this undertaking he was eminently successful. The real Signal Corps zealot, therefore, was Lieutenant Colonel Roger B. Colton, and it was he who put Army radar on the map. He discarded the theoretical for the practical, the desirable for the do-able; he staged successful demonstrations for the Armys high command; he recruited the assistance of some of the top technological talent in industry; he contributed one of the key inventions to radar that permitted the reduction of antennas to a feasible size; and, perhaps most important of all, he instilled in the civilian scientists a sense of dedication and loyalty which prevails to this date. All the Old-timers who worked with Colton in the 1930s consider him the finest Signal Corps officer that they ever met. Such
devotion to a military leader by a group of civilian employees is almost unprecedented in military annals. Even Coltons contemporaries of the pre-war period consider him the driving force that lifted radar to its great eminence as one of the miracle weapons of World War II. His contribution was greathis leadership without equal. Thus ends the long but fascinating story of radar, the evolution of an innovation. Its journey was long, its path was tortuous, and the obstacles were manybut its triumph was complete. To few weapons in history has civilization owed so much. The small band of dedicated patriots, mostly unrecognized and unsung by their fellow citizens, who presided at radars birth, nurtured it through its early childhood, guided it through its shaky adolescence, and pridefully saw it blossom into full maturity, belong among the nations elitethe really great military heroes of World War II.

NOTES TO CHAPTER IX [1] [2] [3] [4] Watson-Watt, Sir Robert, Personal interview by the author, December 15, 1960. Page, Robert M., Personal interview by the author, December 5, 1960. Blair, William R., Personal interview by the author, December 6, 1960. Colton, Roger B., Personal interview by the author, December 5, 1960.
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Epilogue
As mans knowledge increases with the growth of civilization nothing is ever the same from one day to the next and it is perhaps dangerous to use the experiences of the past to guide the decisions of the future. Nevertheless, the lessons of history can tell us many things and, if we use the information wisely and discretely, we can profit by our mistakes as well as our accomplishments. In reflecting back over the long history of the development of radar and the many obstacles that had to be overcome in the struggle for success, the author feels compelled to risk a little homogenization of his hindsight and foresight. Two areas, in particular, deserve attentionorganization for military research and information interchange. Each of these fertile fields has been plowed many times by other writers and there are almost as many proposals in each field as there are writers on the subject. It will not be disturbing, therefore, if the views expressed in this chapter do not find complete unanimity among the readers. Organization for Military Research The complexity of the needs of scientific research and development has increased by several orders of magnitude since the days of the development of the first radar sets and it would be naive to the extreme to try to correlate the multi-million dollar weapons systems development efforts of the 1960s with the hand-to-mouth type operation applied to radar development in the 1930s. Within the Signal Corps Laboratories, for example, the thinly spread research potential in 1931 had to cover the entire communications gamut; radio, wire and cryptographic projects; blind landing and navigation for aircraft; sound ranging for artillery; and a tremendous one man effort in meteorology. The top priority project, with five men assigned, was harbor defense, an undertaking consisting mostly of submarine detection and under-water sound ranging for fire control purposes against the threat of an enemy fleet. There were no R&D contracts and the total number of people devoted to Signal
Corps research and development in Washington, Fort Monmouth and Wright Field was less than 100, with $2,600 being a top annual salary for a few of the best civilian researchers. 1 All military research and development in the 1960s, however, is not confined to the large weapon systems contracts and in the non-weapons system areas some correlation and similarities between the problems of the 60s and the problems of the 30s is possible. At least a few words should be said about the controversial topic of military characteristics because, as in the early days of radar when the existence of one set of MCs and the absence of another combined to restrict the latitude of the Signal Corps scientists working on radar, they still exist within the Army today. As long as the Army must survive on less than enough money to perform its basic mission in the nations overall military strategy, competition for funds between all of the Armys needs will continue to be intense. As a result, it will be imperative that every dollar provide the greatest return possible and, in this light, each likely research and development project will have to be scrutinized closely. Many projects will fall by the wayside. In the previous chapter, we saw how military characteristics could be restrictive and we also saw, in the Bawdsey Manor developments, how the absence of clearly established requirements could cause operational and maintenance chaos when the equipment was turned over to the tactical forces. Obviously some middle ground is needed and some flexibility in the wording of requirements is essential. There are certain space, weight, shock, heat resistance and similar characteristics, particularly if an item of equipment is to be installed in an airplane, a tank or other vehicle, from which no deviation can be permitted. On the other hand, there are other characteristics which could be classified as desirable but not sine qua non and, as to the scientific avenue of approach, great latitude should be permitted the developers. An understanding of the complications
Notes
are at the end of this epilogue on page 108.
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imposed by inflexible military characteristics is growing within military circles and improvements have been evolving for several years. One of the greatest dangers of rigid adherence to the military characteristics system is the possibility that an important invention, another radar type innovation for example, might go unnoticed and undeveloped, or at best be delayed, because no one with authority to prepare military characteristics had perceived the need and supplied the Laboratories with the prerequisite MCs. The problem is recognized and attempts are being made to find a solution but it is still too early to determine if an adequate answer is available. The complete abolishment of the military characteristics system is not an acceptable answer and the preparation of improved MCs is only a partial solution. The problem is too complicated to lend itself to such easy resolution. In the words of Rear Admiral Rawson Bennett, Chief of Naval Research, There are no really novel ideas around for organization improvement to speed innovations.2 More important than the procedural problem of military characteristics is the division of effort, including talent, facilities and funds, between basic research, applied research, and development. During the radar development period, almost all of the military R&D funds went to the development part of the innovation cycle. We saw that a successful demonstration was required in three separate instances before funds were made available for the new radar project. Unless a new idea could be shown conclusively to be almost certain of success it was not likely to receive much support. The show me before I turn loose the money attitude was not peculiar to the 1930s alone, however, because it also existed in the 1950s. In fact, the attitude is common to all periods when budget restrictions are tight and this, of course is anytime there is not a grave national security threat. Today, the situation is drastically different. Basic research has become the Cinderella of military and industrial technology. Until recently an ill-fed, ill-housed stepchild, basic research is now enjoying its greatest popularity in American history. The date on which this transition began was October 4, 1957, when Sputnik I joined our natural Moon in orbit around the Earth. Today basic scientific research is recognized in Congress, optimized in the Executive Agencies, and eulogized in the press. Unfortunately it is still almost as widely misunderstood as it was before and not much better supported.3 Large sums are appropriated for research but there are still attempts to tie the funds to something tangible, something which shows possibilities of a big payoff. Responsible and conscientious public officials are quick to advertise that they are in favor of a greater research effort but are frequently unwilling to turn the money over to a renowned university physicist or biologist to devote to the projects
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which he thinks will provide the greatest benefits for mankind. It is difficult for both governmental and military leaders to understand or accept that scientific research is purely exploratory and that, when you explore, you cant be really sure of what you find. Negative results, like positive results, pass into the scientific literature and are valuable in steering future research into more fruitful channels, but to the leaders of a nation dedicated to the largest possible return on its invested dollar, negative results smack of failurea disgrace not to be tolerated. A classic example is the public criticism and aura of disapproval that surrounded the early failures of the Navys Vanguard missile. The project was highly experimental in nature, it was attempting to push the state-of-the-art, the chances of a misfire were great, but to a nation panic stricken over the new Russian moon, this highly successful experiment from which much valuable information was gained, seemed a colossal failure. Basic research has always been and still remains the virtually unknown and misunderstood end of the spectrum. It is an old axiom that knowledge breeds enlightenment which engenders progress but the reverse is also true. Ignorance breeds distrust which inhibits progress. Therefore progressthe progress of our military forces, of our economy and of our nationsuffers from ignorance of basic science.4 Because of the lack of understanding of the true significance of basic research, money is spent for many ill-considered projects masquerading in the guise of basic research while deserving and profitable research areas go unsupported. On the other hand, the frantic emphasis on basic research, whether understood or not, has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into this endeavor. At the same time, the ever present inclination to allocate funds only for the new items of equipment which show great promise of success has channeled other hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars into the development end of the R&D spectrum. In between these currently popular pastimes is the new step-child of the research and development familyapplied research. In the authors opinion, the area of applied research is really the hotbed of innovationthe area in which the inventor, the gadgeteer, the inventive small town American boy like Leo Young, kicks around the ideas and knowledge accumulated during the basic research period, and comes up with the automobile, the airplane, the first rocket, or the radar set. Applied research should be the area that offers the research laboratory the greatest opportunity to play around with ideas, to do things just because they are interesting, to be momentarily free from the inflexibilities of military characteristics. There should be no double entry accounting procedures to measure accomplishment against failure in the classic
balance sheet senseonly a record of successful achievement. Prevailing within the laboratory should be an environment conducive to the birth of ideasan environment similar to that which existed at Bawdsey Manor before the heavy stream of visitors forced Watson-Watt to enforce the civil service regulations more attentively, or an environment similar to that presently to be found at the Naval Research Laboratory. Applied research can be neglected and assigned a secondary role only at the sacrifice of the rate of innovation. Dr. Harold Zahl, Director of Research at the Signal Corps Laboratories, suggests that a line on a graph, showing a reasonable and logical division of R&D funds between basic research, applied research, and development, should rise at about a 30 degree grade with basic research at the lower end, applied research in the middle and development at the upper extreme.5 By contrast, a similar line reflecting todays expenditures probably would be U-shaped, although an accurate set of figures to support this assumption is not available due to the existing confusion and misunderstanding in the use of the terms basic and applied research. Creating an atmosphere of academic freedom in a military or industrial laboratory is not an easy task because of the practicalities involved. Military leaders want research to be concentrated on those projects for which military characteristics have been established. Directors of industrial laboratories are encouraged to channel their research efforts into avenues which will improve the companies existing products and develop new ones. It is extremely difficult, from a managerial standpoint, to provide laboratory engineers with the opportunity to do a little tinkering or to explore an interesting idea that might occur to them, and yet this is exactly what needs to be done. For maximum productive effort to be achieved, the natural inventive bent of the gadget-minded American engineer must be allowed occasional freedom of action. Some of the leading industrial laboratories have recognized the importance of permitting their research personnel greater freedom of action and have occasionally gone to the extreme of letting one of their scientists pursue an interesting avenue that opened up for him during his research, even if it meant assigning someone else to carry on the original work.6 Within the military, all three services have made some attempts to encourage the exploitation of new and perhaps offbeat ideas by their engineers, with varying degrees of success. Among the service research institutions, the Naval Research Laboratory probably has more freedom of action than most military research activities. Approximately one half of its budget is not tied to any specific research when appropriated, and the laboratory can allocate the funds as it sees fit among its various scientific fields. During Fiscal Year 1961 this amount was in the neighborhood of $18 million.
RADAR: A CASE HISTORY OF AN INOVATIONEPILOGUE
The selection of the projects for which the money will be spent originates with the personnel at the Branch supervisory level who recommend to Dr. Page what they think should be explored and why they think so. The work at NRL, as at most laboratories, is divided into two separate categories of projects, basic research and applied research. In the basic research area the men do work they think important to get experimental data and provide knowledge upon which to build or prove theory. For example, one group at NRL is studying the physics of the Sun. As Page points out, they are the only people who are sufficiently familiar with the details of their activities to know what measurements or information they should get next and therefore it would be illogical for Page or someone at the Navy Department to attempt to tell them what to do. The proper control in this type of research is to select scientists who are interested in a particular field in which research is desired, let them know in general terms what is being sought and let them do the work as they see fit. This is a most difficult premise for many top military and government officials to accept. In the second category, applied research, the NRL people attempt to solve a particular problem which may have originated either within the laboratory or from an external source. In either case, the directive provides a general presentation of the problem without any attempt to prescribe specific military characteristics. If the project originated within NRL, it probably started in a small way when someone thought he recognized a problem that needed to be solved. He then obtained clearance from Page to pursue it, charging his time to an account paid from the uncommitted funds allocated to NRL. Once he had developed something tangible he showed the work to people at the Bureau level. If they were convinced of the soundness of the idea, they might fund the project from their funds. If not, and if Page still thought the idea had merit, the project would probably continue to be paid out of NRLs funds.7 NRLs organization for research is not being held up to view as the ultimate but it does recognize the importance of applied research and the need for scientists and engineers to enjoy freedom of action. As these two factors become better accepted in both industry and the military, there should be a decided increase in the productivity of the larger laboratories. In addition to establishing an environment conducive to innovation, it is also important to have qualified personnel. Many military laboratories frequently bemoan the fact that they are unable to recruit competent young engineers because of the low salaries to which they are limited by civil service regulations. Other laboratories are frequently faced with the fact that one of their key men on a critical project has been lured away by the promise of more
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money from an industrial firm. There seems to be a common melody that we could get better scientists if we could only pay them more money. If this argument were sound and if scientists were interested only in working for the laboratory which would pay them the highest salary, there would be only second rate men in our great universities because their salary levels are lower than those of civil service. There would be even less top men in the military laboratories. As a result, the laboratories of the nations larger and richer corporations would be staffed with an elite corps of Einsteins, Edisons and Oppenheimers. The money argument is fallacious because to most men of science, recognition by their peers and the prestige of being generally accepted as one of the top men in a given field is far more important than gold. The laboratory that itself enjoys great prestige, that has a nationally or internationally renowned staff, that permits the academic freedom discussed in the preceding paragraphs, that has a competent technical director, and can boast with pride of a long list of scientific firsts, will not find itself suffering from a shortage of talent. It is of the utmost importance, therefore, that a company or military department should put first things first and, before worrying about the salary scale, develop a plan to build or rebuild the prestige of its scientific laboratories and their personnel.8 Numbered among the authors colleagues are many who will scoff at the preceding comment because they are convinced that most Americans, whether they are scientists or business men, are interested only in financial reward. Others will retort that you cant run a military laboratory on prestige, or that freedom of action is alright for the longhairs in the university laboratories but it wont meet the demands of the Armys military characteristics. These arguments are a surrender to the conservative doctrine: Lets dont upset the status quo. To follow the lead of those who refuse to lift a screwdriver unless it is stamped with the number of an approved MC is easy. To succeed in a campaign to raise the prestige and productivity of a scientific laboratory and eliminate the conditions which caused radar to take 16 years from the first proposal to the first successful service test is not easy. It may even be impossible. But it is a campaign which should be waged and it should receive the benefit of a good fight. One of the most difficult preparations for the campaign is the selection of the technical administrator of the laboratorya position requiring unique talents. Major General Roger B. Colton described these unique talents clearly when he stated:9 The job of the technical administrator is not to invent. In fact he tries to avoid inventing because if he does invent he wont have anybody working for him. The others will think he is picking their brains
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and he really is. The technical administrator must have a tremendous amount of conviction and muted enthusiasm. If he is too enthusiastic, the people in Washington wont believe him. He must have a team who believe in him and believes he is on the square. He must be able to get money and if he is refused he must keep working until he does get it. To overcome opposition he must make promises and time after time he will have to guarantee delivery on a certain day or he wont get any money. The promises may seem impossible when he makes them but they must be kept and, if he is the right kind of man who isnt constantly trying to take credit for everything that happens at the laboratory, The Team will pitch in to see that the promises are kept. It is important to let the team think it came up with an idea, even if the administrator knows it was his own, because they get satisfaction out of progress. He must be able to fight his way through several echelons of approval authority above him but he must do so in such a manner that they dont lose confidence in him, because confidence, both in those above and below him, is imperative. Finally he must not get mixed up in any interservice rows, even if he is positive he is right, because he will always lose. In these squabbles, even when you win youre dead. Any company or military service who can find another General Colton to take over its laboratory has most of the campaign already won but, unfortunately, there are not enough General Coltons to go around. Information Interchange The problem of information interchange was touched on lightly in a previous chapter and the complications engendered by the needs to maintain security precautions and protect proprietary information of commercial concerns were discussed. These are certainly serious problems but the greatest problem is sheer volume. How to handle the vast amount of material in literally thousands of magazines published throughout both the communist empire and the free world is a dilemma of staggering proportions. And we are not the only nation worrying about the seeming impasse. L. Volkov, in an article published in the Soviet Economic Gazette on June 24, 1960 described the problem this way: Every year more than 250,000 titles of books are published throughout the world, of which 50,000 are devoted to specified subjects. Fifty thousand scientific and technical journals are published, including between three and four million articles. Two hundred fifty thousand new patents are issued and more than 500,000 announcements and catalogues of firms. In brief, throughout the world in the course of a year there are published somewhere
around four or five million separate and scientific and technical information publications. Try in your mind to cover all this vast scope of published technical information. No genius has yet appeared who could be able to handle such a task.10 Mr. Volkov is assuredly correct. No such genius has appeared and the Russians are not waiting around for him to show up. They have established an organization to attack the problem and, although they admit it has its difficulties, it is making progress. At the head of this organization is the All-Union Institute of Scientific and Technical Information established several years ago. This establishment is under the jurisdiction of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the State Scientific and Technical Committee of the USSR Council of Ministers. Under the All-Union Institute are two special institutes and seven branch institutes, and throughout the country there are thirty branch organs of technical information. Supplementing these are nine special institutes of technical information in the union republics and eighty seven Central Bureaus of Technical Information in the eighty seven economic councils of the Soviet Union. The All-Union Institute of Scientific and Technical Information received special literature from 85 countries in 6 languages last year, including more than 12,000 foreign periodicals. The scale of the effort is indicated by the Institutes staff of 2,000, plus an additional 1,000 in the production and publishing organization. The work of the Institute is performed by famous academicians, corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences, doctors, professors, and about 200 candidates of sciences. There are more than 15,000 abstractors alone outside the regular staff. The output of this tremendous effort is a publication, similar to an encyclopedia, entitled the Referativni Zhurnal, which is certainly unique in the world. The journal is published in sixteen series and covers most of the scientific disciplines. In the form of short abstracts it provides information on everything new that is taking place in the scientific world, both in the Communist zone and the western world. From a practical standpoint it has many shortcomings. It is inaccessible to all ordinary engineering and technical workers because of its pricean annual subscription costs several thousands of rubles. It is unwieldy because of its size. The total volume of pages published in 1959 was 18,500, covering some 600,000 abstracts. It is so cumbersome that, among the Soviet librarians, it has come to be known in jest as the hippopotamus volume. The number of copies printed averages between 1,200 and 1,800 which, since almost 25% is sent out of the country, is so small that only a few scholars ever have access to it. It still does not cover all of the
RADAR: A CASE HISTORY OF AN INOVATIONEPILOGUE
fields of science and technology, and among those missing are transportation, light, and food. It takes six to eight months to get it published after the foreign publications are received and another month or more for the Soviet postal system to deliver them. The Institute, because of the magnitude of the effort it is attempting to accomplish, is bothered with extensive duplication of effort, wasted manpower, lack of a reference and information card file system, a confused organizational setup and an inadequate filing system. The deficiencies are realized, as evidenced by their being pinpointed in the June 24, 1960 article, and the need for mechanization and automation is being publicly discussed.11 Within the United States there is no central organization with a mission similar to that of the All-Union Institute. This does not mean that nothing is being done in this area because there are many clearing houses of information in the United States. Normally, however, these are within certain particular fields of endeavor, including the Federal government. It would seem that a centralized clearing house would be absolutely essential if the United States is to maintain its position vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. More importantly at first, perhaps, would be a compilation of a list of the individual clearing houses that already exist and preparation of a compendium of the formats of their information. We must see where we are before we decide where we want to go.12 One of the best sources of information about Soviet scientific achievements is the Monthly Index of Russian Accessions published by the Library of Congress in English. Translations of foreign technical papers are reported in the monthly publication of the Office of Technical Services, Department of Commerce, titled Technical Translations. OTS also makes available copies of reports and summaries from the Soviet literature made by the Joint Publications Research Service and the Central Intelligence Agency. In addition, commercial translating firms are issuing cover-to-cover translations of Soviet Scientific journals.13 A new source of approximately 66,000 pages of significant scientific and technical literature published in Russian, Polish and Serbo-Croatian is being made available to United States scientists through translation programs conducted in Israel, Poland and Yugoslavia by the National Science Foundation. The funds which make these translation activities possible have been accumulating since 1954 under the provisions of the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of that year. Countries purchasing U.S. Farm surpluses pay not in dollars, but in local currencies which the United States may spend only in the country of purchase. By a 1958 amendment to Public Law 480, these foreign currencies may now be used to collect, collate, translate, abstract and disseminate scientific and technological information.
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These translations are also distributed by the Office of Technical Services.14 Within the Department of Defense the organization that approximates most closely the organizational setup of the Soviets is the Armed Services Technical Information Agency (ASTIA). It collects and disseminates information on a request basis but provisions for qualitative services such as abstraction and analysis are not readily available; hence it is difficult to know precisely what is in the wealth of data processed by ASTIA. In specific subject areas, the Military Departments often form technical clearing house arrangements to suit their purposes. For example the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) participates in two clearing house arrangements for the exchange of information concerning research in propellant chemistry. These two agencies, the Solid Propellant Information Agency and the Liquid Propellant Information Agency, are supported jointly by ARPA, the three Military Departments and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Relevant technical reports are exchanged and distributed to all people engaged in propellant chemistry research, including contractors. An abstracting service is provided and the abstracts are distributed on an even wider basis.15 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) also has become sensitive to the need for a comprehensive technical information program and has recently established a new program directorate called the Office of Technical Information and Educational Programs. A fully integrated technical program is now being structured and in its development NASA is working very closely with the Department of Defense, the Atomic Energy Commission, the National Science Foundation, the British, French, Canadian and other friendly governments to minimize duplication and assure the maximum interchange of information. Close liaison is planned with commercial, quasi-governmental and professional organizations producing reports, journals and periodicals, or providing information services in the fields of the aeronautical and space sciences. The NASA program is still in its early stages of development. The responsibility for fostering cooperation and coordination among Federal Agencies and non-Federal organizations in programs engaged in scientific information was assigned to the Office of Science Information Service (OSIS) of the National Science Foundation by the President in September 1958. In addition to its coordination effort the OSIS monitors and assesses both domestic and foreign scientific information activities and acts as an information center regarding these activities.16 It also edits and publishes a bi-monthly magazine titled Science Information Notes which disseminates information
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about meetings and conferences to be held on the topic of information exchange, summarizes recent research and development activities in the field of information services, reports on science information activities abroad and invites attention to recent publications on the subject of information interchange.17 These are only a few of the agencies in the United States which participate in the widespread exchange of information. There are many others. The great multiplicity of agencies, plus the great volume of information to be exchanged, and the problems associated with the collection and processing of literally mountains of data, as typified by the difficulties the Russians are having with their ambitious program, combine to drive home with great force the magnitude of the problem which faces the United States. The problem will not go awayit will only get larger. The development of talents to aid in the prompt preparation of abstracts, extracts, summaries and translations from the foreign literature lags considerably in the United States. During the last school year there were only 482 universities and colleges out of 2,011 offering Russian language and area studies. Out of 28,000 high schools, only 225 have Russian language courses. Since 1940 only 16 Russian to English dictionaries have been published in the United States against 48 English to Russian dictionaries published in the Soviet Union. Practically every Soviet scientist has had English language instruction as an integral part of his training and this accounts for the 15,000 free-lance abstractors available to the All-Union Institute, for which we have no counterpart in the United States. Work is well along in the mechanical translation of Russian to English which will alleviate part of our problem of making materials available in such form that information can be extracted by non-Russian personnel. Within five years time, it is expected that the entire Soviet scientific and technical literature output could be mechanically translated. But this is only part of the solutionthe information must be bibliographically controlled and interested scientists notified of the arrival of new information in their fields of interest.18 One of the major problems facing all agencies engaged in information exchange is the selection of the information to be disseminated. The mass of data is so great that it is often difficult to know exactly what it is that one has or is passing on to others.19 Science is itself responsible for much of the difficulty. The attitude taken in the scholarly community that publication is a measure of achievement has caused a proliferation of trivia to the point that the significant scientific discovery becomes the proverbial needle in the haystack. Many universities make publication a requisite for promotion. This attitude raises the
question of motiveis the publication to expand the worlds range of knowledge, or is it partially to fulfill the promotion requirements? The exponential increase in scientific literature over the past two centuries has reached the stage that no scientist, regardless of his discipline, can keep up with the literature.20 Dr. Robert M. Page says that the problem has become so acute since World War II, and so much is published that is not important new information, that he has given up trying to keep up with the literature. He depends to a great extent on others to advise him when they run across something new and interesting among the reams of publication for publications sake.21 Therefore, we must reach the conclusion that the quantity of scientific publication is too high and the quality is too low. An inundation of the scientific community is inevitable unless satisfactory handling of technical literature can be accomplished. The situation is not completely hopeless, however, because much research is under way to improve the system of collecting information. In addition to the machine translation of Russian literature, there was one proposal that each author pick out what, in his opinion, were the ten or fifteen chief topical nouns which were covered by his article. These were to be published along with the article and were to be used as indexing subjects for the establishment of the machine memories. This idea fell by the wayside. One of the civilian electronics firms has done a lot of work on the classification of subject matter so that anybody seeking information on one subject would have a means of searching machine memories. The Library of Congress also has been active on this project but nobody has solved it as yet.22 The staff of the Committee on Government Operations of the United States Senate, headed by Walter L. Reynolds, recently completed a Study of Federal and Non-Federal Science Information Processing and Retrieval Programs. Their report is the most comprehensive and meaningful report published to date on the information exchange subject and provides an excellent picture of what is being done both within and outside of government.23 Perhaps the report will stimulate interest among the members of the Committee and lead to a more active exploration of the problem. The major obstacles to obtaining authorization and funds from Congress for a project to establish a central clearing house in the United States lie with the inability to make the critical necessity for this kind of an activity understood by the members of Congress. As both Colton and Taylor proved, however, Congress will take action and appropriate whatever is needed if it becomes convinced that the
national security is imperiled. The author is unable to estimate the amount of funds that would be required to establish a national clearing house for information exchange, but the cost of not setting up such an activity may be survival itself. We cannot count on the Russians to go on forever tolerating the troubles they are now having in their information exchange system. If they get theirs to work and we do not, they will be in the position of having access to all of the published research literature of the world and we will have access to only a fraction of that amount. The results would be disastrous. Although information exchange, or the lack of it, is a grave national problem, there is another fundamental issue which we should mentiona need to define problems with greater clarity. When there is no agreement on the problem under investigation, there can be no agreement on the solution. We saw this phenomenon repeated several times in the story of radar. If the solution is in doubt a variety of approaches are examined and the quantity of information available to support each is great. The retrieval of that which would have been unneeded if the problem had been defined more clearly places a heavy tax on our already too limited information exchange services.24 The space devoted to this discussion of the information interchange problem may well seem unnecessary in a case history of radar but its relevance can be established by the considerable delays that occurred at several times in the innovations history. If the allied problems of communication between our scientists and the collection of information about what the scientists in other countries are doing are not solved, there may well be other innovations of equal or greater importance than radar which would go unnoticed and remain unexploited for even longer periods of time. A case in point was cited by Leo Deuel in a recent paper. The great discoveries of Mendel, the famous Austrian biologist, which were reported in 1866 and 1869 in the Transactions of the Brunn Natural History Society, were not found by the rest of the world until about the turn of the century.25 If this could happen with the small amount of scientific publication in the nineteenth century, the odds of it happening in the mid-Twentieth are even greater. An integrated, nation-wide effort to define the problem develop an avenue of approach and reach a solution which takes into account the needs of national security and the protection of the proprietary interests of business firms is urgently needed today. Tomorrow may be too late. Unfortunately, the author has no magic solution to offeronly a deep seated conviction that the problem is critical.

RADAR: A CASE HISTORY OF AN INOVATIONEPILOGUE 107
NOTES TO EPILOGUE [1] [2] [3] Zahl, Harold A., One Century of Research, (Unpublished manuscript), p. 15. Bennett, Rear Admiral Rawson, Personal correspondence with the author, October 20, 1960. Holzman, Brig. Gen. Benjamin G., Basic Research for National Survival, Air University Quarterly Review, Vol. XII, No. 1, Spring 1960, p. 28. Holzman, Brig. Gen. B. G., Scientific Research in a Technological Air Force, Lecture at the Air University, January 18, 1960. (General Holzman at the time of the lecture was Commander, Air Force Research Division, Air Research and Development Command.) Zahl, Harold A., Interview by the author, Sept. 12, 1960. Visit by the author to RCA Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, October 1958. Page, Robert M., Interview by the author, December 5, 1960. Page, Interview, op.cit. Zahl, Interview, op.cit. Colton, Major General Roger B. (USA Ret.) Interview by the author, December 5, 1960. Colton Interview, op.cit. Volkov, L. Shirokii razmakh i neuteshitelnye rezultaty, Ekonomicheskaia Gazeta, June 24, 1960, Translation by NSF/osis: FSI, 10/17/60. Volkov, Ibid. Belden, Thomas G., Personal correspondence with the author, Nov. 18, 1960. (Dr. Belden at the time of the correspondence was a systems analyst and information expert with the Washington D.C. office of the Stanford Research Institute). [13] Howerton, Paul W., The Exchange of Technical Information: Prime Requisite for Scientific Achievement, address to the National Conference of the American Society for Quality Control, November 11, 1960. (Mr. Howerton at the time he gave the address was Deputy Assistant Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.) National Science Foundation, Scientific Information Notes, Vol. II, No. 4, pp. 12. Betts, Brig. Gen. A. W., Personal correspondence with the author, December 16, 1960. (At the time of the correspondence, General Betts was Director of the Defense Departments Advanced Research Projects Agency.) Day, Melvin S., Personal correspondence with the author, December 14, 1960. (Dr. Day at the time was Deputy Director, Office of Technical Information and Educational Programs, NASA.) National Science Foundation, op.cit. Howerton, op.cit., pp. 67. Betts, op.cit. Howerton, op.cit. Page, Interview, op.cit. Cook, Major General Earle F., Personal correspondence with the author, October 26, 1960. (Gen. Cook was formerly Chief Signal Officer of the Army, a position to which he was appointed after serving as Chief of Research and Development for the Army Signal Corps.) Day, op.cit. Betts, op.cit. Deuel, Leo, The Classics of Science, Library Journal, Vol. LXXXV, No. 13, July 1960, pp. 25292532.
[14] [15]
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Radar: A Case History of an Invention was prepared as a Term Report for a Research Seminar in Technological Innovation while the

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[6] [7] [8]