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Show ' : ; r- 1)1 -th -" ' Radar Saved Britain Will Remodel Industry- - Electronics Proves of Great Value to Amer- It J j ican Air and Naval Forces ;i During Present War. By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator. about 30 miles away. He reported it to his superior, but that gentleman, gentle-man, knowing American planes were out at the time, took no action. Lockard was eventually given the Distinguished Service medal. The rest we had better try to forget while we still must "remember Pearl Harbor." Human service failed to carry the message that the Jap air fleet was coming, but radar had done Its part bf the Job. Radar has grown to be a giant since then. This is what "Impact," an official publication of the assistant assist-ant chief of air staff (intelligence) says: "The use of radar in military operations op-erations is in its infancy, but it has permeated every phase of air warfare. war-fare. It is used In strategic bombing bomb-ing by both British and American heavies. It makes night fighting and Intruder operations possible. It literally liter-ally saved England in the battle of Britain.' And' it provided for the control and direction of virtually every ev-ery day or night sortie flown by the TACs (tactical air force planes) during the winter (of 1944-45)." The importance of the part which the American tactical air forces played from the battle of Normandy right up to V-E Day is acknowledged acknowl-edged by everyone, though there may be differences of opinion as to the relative achievements of the various branches of the service. (Tactical bombing and strafing is that part of air force activity which is an integral portion of the individual individ-ual land force operations, as much a part of the battle plan and its execution aslie disposition of artillery. ar-tillery. Strateffic homhine Is the WNU Service, Union Trust Building, Washington. D. C. (Thit it the first ol tuo articles by v Mr. Baukhate revealing torn of the remarkable achievements of radar and explaining how it operates.) Little by little the world is learning learn-ing more of the secrets hidden in that magic, five-letter word which, ' spelled backward or forward, means the same thing, but whose real meaning is still a mystery. I Jjyj, mean R-A-D-A-R. 'T I have written It down that way because its derivation is one mystery mys-tery that we can reveal. Before it went into "classification," which is what they say in the army when they mean something can't be mentioned men-tioned in public, radar was an important im-portant but little known, copyrighted, copy-righted, commercial label. It is really four words in ope: Radio Direction and Ranging. Early in the war there were some stories printed about a German airplane air-plane which had a television camera In it which could send back pictures of the territory beneath It. Shortly thereafter all mention of such an apparatus stopped and the dark and mysterious career of radar began. be-gan. Radar and television are not the same thing, but there are similarities simi-larities and if we can believe that actors In a studio in the RCA building build-ing in New York can be seen out In Westchester county by -people sitting sit-ting around a television set, we can believe that another little gadget can register the presence and location loca-tion of a distant object (like a plane or a warship) and, if it is moving, tell which way it is going and how fast. "softening up," the long range air attacks.) And radar was a vital part of the success of the tactical operations in Europe from D-Day on because of Its help in getting a fighter-bomber to its target and getting. -it home again in weather which is too bad for normal operations. ' It controlled night fighters, photo and mapping planes, picked out targets tar-gets and kept track of enemy planes in the area. To quote an official comment: "On the western front, despite constant overcast conditions during dur-ing the last winter, the IX, XIX and XXIX TACs were able to operate at maximum Strength continually. On the other hand, the 1st Tactical air force, which was without radar equipment last November, flew only two missions that month, one of these abortive because of the weather." As to the long-range, strategic Radar Will Soon Be Industrie' Marvel As I said, we knew the Germans had been working on such a device early in the war. This is how radar was born in this country:. . Back in 1932 two scientists observed ob-served that something happened to a radio wave when lt hit the wide side of a building and also when a ship went across its path. Research continued, but the war sent radar into hiding. On November 14, 1942, a Jap 'battleship slipping through the sea near the Solomon islands was suddenly struck by a salvo of shots from an American ship eight miles away. The Japs went down to Davy Jones' locker without knowing what hit them. They never saw the American ship t, , which fired the shots. Nor did the Americans ever see the Japanese warship except as it appeared as a bomber, which has to cross half a continent to get where it is going, If bad weather envelopes it, radar la, of course, invaluable for keeping its location. Radar is also an integral inte-gral part of the fire-control. Commercial Aviation Will Profit Greatly Cam- I speculation as to raaar s ultimate possibilities are unlimited, both in war and peace. Any ordnance expert ex-pert will tell you that a "controlled missile" that is, a bomb such as the deadly German "V" bombs, which flew from Holland to England Eng-land can, with certain improvements, improve-ments, be made much more deadly. Not only can they be made to fly much farther aeress the Atlantic, over the North Pole but they can be accurately aimed and directed di-rected at an area such as a city and ruthlessly destroy lt. Radar can do that and many other things it has not yet attempted. There are, likewise, like-wise, an infinite number of ways in which radar can and will serve a peaceful world. In commercial aviation, the man in the control tower, the traffic cop at the airport, will be able to locate lo-cate all of the planes in the vicinity by day or by night. In cloudy weather weath-er and clear. And.it must be remembered re-membered that regulating the traffic traf-fic is going to be one; of the most Important problems of tomorrow's skyways, for there will be a tremendous tre-mendous Increase In the number ol plases which will be in use and a similar increase In their speed and size... Radar can warn the planes themselves them-selves against collision and the presence pres-ence of land masses, high tension wires, tall buildings or other obstacles ob-stacles to their flight And, ol course, will permit safe landing even in a dense fog. Radar Finds Military Target!. little "blip" of light on a tiny screen. Radar did it On a winter day, I sat in a room at the Willard hotel in Washington. London was trembling under the terror of night bombing. Sitting at a table before us was an officer of the Royal air force. After i few general gen-eral remarks, he made what was to us an astounding statement; name ly, that defense against daytime bombing had been perfected and a method of ending the effectiveness of night attack would soon be in operation. 1 The tide had been turned in the battle of Britain and, though we didn't know it then, radar had. done that, too. Between these two events was another an-other one we don't like to talk too much about. Over In the Hawaiian islands on December 7, 1941, Pvt Joseph -tockard, though not supposed sup-posed to be on duty at the time. Was listening to a ' detector," an apparatus which strangers weren't . allowed to approach In those days. Lockard "detected" an airplane |
