138 ORGANIZING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FOR WAR 



flame throwers and mortars; work on radar countermeasures; demonstra- 

 tions to introduce weapons developed for jungle warfare by NDRC; and a 

 prolonged study of rockets for the support of operations. 



A continual stream of information covering a wide variety of topics 

 flowed back to the United States through the Research Section, including 

 the field use of insecticides and DDT; tropical deterioration; fungus corro- 

 sion of optical instruments; Japanese fire control equipment; Japanese radar, 

 rockets, land mines and booby traps; nonmetallic Japanese land mines; and 

 many others. 



Whereas the ORS in Hawaii was in daily touch with the staff officers to 

 whom it had to report, the Research Section in the Southwest Pacific was 

 often separated by 2000 miles of water from the high command, water 

 dotted with Japanese-held islands over which scientists were not permitted 

 to fly. Personnel sent to Marshall's team could discuss their problems regu- 

 larly with each other, could get immediate action on the travel and fiscal 

 details that might plague them, could get forward to operational areas 

 readily and return frequently to their field base at Fort Shafter. Men sent 

 t to the Research Section, on the other hand, had to go out into the jungles, 

 depend on local resources in a poorly supplied region, send their communi- 

 cations through devious and unreliable channels, fight their way back to 

 headquarters with the most meager transportation. Headquarters moved 

 repeatedly and the office personnel were constantly changing. In view of 

 all these difficulties the substantial accomplishments of the Field Service 

 Consultants who went to SWPA are a tribute to their persistence, imagina- 

 tion, patience and courage. 



By late April 1945, the tempo of the war in the Pacific had greatly accel- 

 erated. Waterman went out, therefore, to confer with the commanders 

 about a broad program for increasing OSRD aid in the whole Pacific area, 

 for bringing about a more effective set-up of the civilian missions and for 

 improving the co-ordination of all OSRD efforts through OFS and its 

 military liaison agencies. He obtained the approval of General Mac Arthur 

 for an all-out scientific effort through the establishment of a Pacific Branch 

 of OSRD with headquarters at Manila. 



Liaison with the Armed Services in Washington 



The Office of the Co-ordinator of Research and Development was desig- 

 nated by the Secretary of the Navy as the single channel through which 

 arrangements with the Office of Field Service were to be made. Except 

 for the expansion of the Antisubmarine Warfare Operations Research 

 Group there were so few field service projects undertaken at the formal 

 request of the Navy that liaison relations were comparatively simple. 



