LIAISON WITH THE ARMED SERVICES I57 



Liaison OfiEcers to the NDRC divisions concerned, from the using arms 

 in addition to those from the technical services. 



Three cases of lack of information will be cited as illustrations of the 

 problem. The campaign in North Africa began in November 1942, and 

 electronic antiaircraft directors developed under an NDRC division were in 

 use during that campaign; but in August of 1943 that division was in- 

 formed by Ordnance Department representatives that no data on operation 

 in the field of this new and important instrument had yet been received. 

 Another division delivered a device to Wright Field for test in April of 

 1943; in August, no report had been received and attempts to secure a 

 report through the War Department Liaison Officer had been fruitless. In 

 a third instance, tests of countermeasures equipment developed by NDRC 

 were conducted at the Naval Research Laboratory. An NDRC observer was 

 present, but was excluded on the ground of secrecy from the most important 

 part of the tests and therefore he learned little for the developing agency. 

 Yet this observer was actually the man who had done the laboratory work 

 on the instrument under test. 



The work of OSRD as a research and development agency was facilitated 

 as this lack of a rapid flow of accurate information was overcome. As 

 progress was made toward swifter and more detailed reporting, users and 

 suppliers were brought together more efficiently on matters that were in 

 embryo. The ideal, of course, in assuring a satisfactory flow of data from 

 the theater of operations is to have persons there whose first interest lies in 

 research and development and who take part in operations for the purpose 

 of making observations pertinent to those subjects. Intimate back-and-forth 

 discussions on the spot are the best way of keeping up with the require- 

 ments of the troops and of quickly adapting new equipment to the problem 

 at hand. Such an ideal, under the conditions of war, can never be fully 

 accomplished. In the later stages of the war an approach was made toward 

 it through the establishment of the Office of Field Service. 



Group A of Liaison Office 



Liaison with the Army and Navy during the first two years of OSRD 

 operations worked to overcome the practical impossibility of obtaining the 

 views of the combat forces on particular weapons and to surmount the lack 

 of reports on conditions in the theaters of operations, which was handicap- 

 ping investigation and development of new weapons. Urgent need existed, 

 however, as late as 1943 in nearly every division for information as to what 

 the using Services needed and how it should be developed. The Services, by 

 that time, were willing to entrust to OSRD military information of the 

 highest classification where it was available and might have a bearing on 



