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IEEE Washington Section |
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Serving members in the District of Columbia and part of Maryland since 1903 |
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e S C A N N E R Calendar Index Technical Societies and Affinity Groups L I N K S |
History1940s-1950s: RecollectionsFortunately, there are still IEEE members who can recollect and report on their personal experiences in the wartime years and later. According to one account, from a British viewpoint: Early in World War II, there was an agreement between the British and the Americans aimed at avoiding duplication in military research and development. This identified certain fields of work where one side would do all of the work, and would share the results with the other side. Thus the United States was to do all of the work on guided missiles and would provide the British with their results. By the end of 1944, the end of the war was in sight, so this seemed to be the right time to send a team to report to the British Government on the American work in this field. Five of us were sent to Washington: an aerodynamicist, a specialist on gyroscopes and guidance systems (both from the Royal Aircraft Establishment) and two electronic specialists (from the Telecommunications Research Establishment), of whom I was one. The fifth member was a senior British civil servant, charged with making the arrangements with the US Government organizations, laboratories and companies we were to visit. We traveled by sea to New York and by train to Washington. After four years of blackout, rationing, shortages, air raid damage and general drabness, Washington was a revelation. With the bright lights, modern cars and abundant food, it was another world.The BAC was located on Dupont Circle. We all lived at the Gralyn Hotel at 17 and N St. NW. We used this as a base for visits over most of the US. The BAC had its own aircraft parked at Bolling Field: a twin-engine Beech craft painted in Royal Air Force colors, with a US flight engineer. The RAF Group Captain in charge at the BAC enjoyed piloting us in this aircraft to and from many of our destinations.We were welcomed and entertained everywhere we visited. We were provided with all of the technical information we sought, without reservation and often with considerable pride. It was an episode of the war I shall always remember with pleasure and with gratitude. Harold W. Lord wrote about some of his work from 1943 to the end of WWII. He was 'loaned' out to the Naval Research Laboratory in Silver Spring, MD. His responsibility was to design and develop all of the transformers needed for a new 'friend or foe' system. It required him to develop small transformers to operate in the 25 HZ to 1000 HZ. In his capacity he worked 40 hours a week in Silver Spring, then returned home to Schenectady, NY for his weekend job. He also traveled to Fort Wayne and to Boston to the MIT lab. He kept records of all his travel, which amounted to 26,000 miles as well as working six days a week! C. Richard Ellis wrote that he worked at the Naval Research Lab in Silver Spring as a technician in the aircraft radio group. He was originally working with the British radar and IFF (Identity Friend or Foe) equipment. W.A. Dickinson wrote that he participated in research of radar designs and display tubes at the Naval Research Laboratory. Kenneth R. Jackson wrote that his career started at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in Washington D.C. His boss's boss was Dr. John Bardeen, who was later awarded two Nobel Peace prizes, one for his contribution to the development of the transistor. It is not clear whether Dr. Bardeen actually worked at the Ordnance Lab. Howard O. Lorenzen wrote that he joined the Naval Research Laboratory with experience in radio design. He worked on designing UHF receivers and worked on some of the first radar receivers. During WWII, he was involved in designing countermeasures for various German electronic controlled devices. After the war, he formed the electronic warfare branch, which developed countermeasures for the Korean and Vietnam wars. Not to be outdone with all this radar stuff, a "simple" item like the weather was important to Francis J. Heyden. He went from being a Jesuit priest to a weatherman via the Philippians to Georgetown College Observatory! After the war, he worked with the university's radio station, WTB. Over the next 26 years, he produced three outside broadcasts. The first was "the mass for shut-ins." The second was the "blue gray show." The third was the Georgetown University forum. Al Gross wrote that he built the first hand held-radio in 1938! On the eve of WWII, a magazine article on the radio caught the attention of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The OSS panel commissioned Mr. Gross with assembling a group of people to secretly design and build hand-held radios, which would operate on high frequencies. From there he went to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for licenses to create the citizens band radio, and the first voiceless pager (e.g., beeper) in a hospital. Harry D. Young worked at the Maryland Electronic Manufacturing Corp. (MEMCO) in College Park. MEMCO had a contract with Lockheed to do a radar signature analysis on a new fighter aircraft. In 1958, MEMCO was acquired by Litton Industries. |
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Send changes to Tim Weil at trweil@ieee.org or Elsie Grant at ncac-scanner@ieee.org. |
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