Radar in World War II - How one invention changes warfare forever.
Latest hand-picked WWII news.
Scottish WWII paratrooper Hugh McIntyre, who helped steal elite German radar, honoured
A daring British paratrooper who was killed while stealing a Nazi radar has been honoured in the French village where he perished. Hugh McIntyre, 28, was shot to death by Nazis in 1942 during the elite squadron's first ever raid in the country. The Scottish rifleman parachuted into the snow-covered village of La Poterie Cap-d'Antifer and helped to capture a nearby villa before he was killed by machine gun. His 120-strong team continued on their mission - called the "Biting Raid" - and managed to commandeer parts of a state-of-the-art radar dish. British scientists used the dish to develop radar blocking techniques to hide allied aircraft from German sensors.
(dailymail.co.uk)
Lee Davenport: A physicist who developed the radar, which automatically adjusted the angle of antiaircraft guns, dies at 95
Lee Davenport, a physicist who developed a radar device that helped bring on Allied victories, has passed away at the age of 95. In February 1941 he joined the secret Radiation Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (the Rad Lab, as it came to be known), where he oversaw the day-to-day work and the testing that created the SCR-584 (for Signal Corps Radio). It was a microwave radar device with a sophisticated scanning technique to track an enemy plane and a computer to adjust automatically the angle of antiaircraft guns to shoot it down. The device, far more complex than the radar used by the British, faced its first combat test when it helped gun crews face the Luftwaffe at Anzio beachhead in Italy in early 1944.
(nytimes.com)
Denis Cayford: RAF specialist navigator in the Pathfinder Force took part in the Great Escape
Berkeley Denis Cayford, a veteran of the earliest WW2 bombing campaigns, joined the Stirling-equipped No 7 Squadron in January 1943 and was one of the first navigators to be trained on the H2S (the first airborne ground scanning radar system). On August 23/24 1943, he was on the mission to mark Berlin when searchlights spotted his Lancaster and a German night fighter attacked - setting an engine on fire and forcing the crew to bail out. As a POW Flight Lieutenant Cayford ended up in Stalag Luft III, where the Great escape took place. He was well down the tunnel when a German guard discovered the exit.
(telegraph.co.uk)
Ontario radar museum reveals more of once-secret wartime work
It was 1942 and military recruit Ted Chown was sent to an isolated station on Canada's West Coast. At first, he had no idea what he'd do there. Nor did most Canadians. For 50 years, the work remained secret. But a part of mystery comes out March 7 at Secrets of Radar Museum (Ontario, Canada). The museum will celebrate the stories of 6,000 Canadians who made up the Canadian military's top secret radar division during World War II. The museum has 3 galleries filled with radar equipment, training manuals and veterans' personal archives. On March 7, the museum will bring out the veterans' lesser-known stories with special archives and station magazines.
(lfpress.ca)
Robert Watson Watt: pioneer of radar (Article no longer available from the original source)
Robert Watson Watt's genius lay in devising a system that could be operated by non-specialists under wartime conditions, which turned the tide in World War II. In 1935 he put forward his memorandum for locating enemy aircraft by means of the radio pulse technique. The time delay in the return of the echo from the aircraft is used to determine the range. In this respect, there was simultaneity of discovery in various countries; but no government other than the U.K. took up the implications so quickly. The development of radar was a team effort with Watson-Watt as its captain.
(thehindu)
Archives of radar system that enabled British to beat Luftwaffe
Archives of 11 UK scientists, including two of the pioneers of radar, are to be preserved. The National Cataloguing Unit will catalogue the work of the 11 physicists and mathematicians. Among the group is the Nobel Prize winner Sir Martin Ryle who helped develop the radar system that enabled British pilots to defeat the german Luftwaffe. The work of the Unit ensures the archives are accessible for research. They will be placed in the libraries or archives in Cambridge, London, Nottingham, Oxford and Reading.
(bbc)
Experimental WWII radar technology - H2X Pathfinder (Article no longer available from the original source)
Lt. George Main was the First Pilot of a B-17 Flying Fortress, equipped with experimental, top secret radar technology dubbed H2X Pathfinder, the first airborne radar ever used - designed to identify targets hidden behind layers of clouds. The airfield at Amendola, Italy, was the home base of the 15th Air Force, 97th Bomb group during the Allied advance of World War II. During 15 months the 15th Air Force destroyed all gasoline production within its range, as well as 6,286 enemy aircraft. It knocked out all major aircraft factories within its sphere and crippled the enemy's transport system. It spearheaded the advance of allied armed forces.
(lompocrecord)
B-24s and the highly classified radar jamming technology
Earl Siler served in the 36th Bomber Squadron attached to the Eighth Air Force during World War II. The B-24 Liberator squadron was assigned the top secret mission of jamming German radar in advance of bombing runs by B-17 Flying Fortresses. Radar and radar jamming technology was in its infancy during WWII and highly classified. Problem was that the B-17s at the time couldn't run their jamming equipment and operate the bomb bay doors at the same time, so the B-24s would take off 30 minutes before the B-17s and run their jamming equipment over the target zone over the Axis powers and Nazi Germany.
(havasunews)