LIAISON WITH THE ARMED SERVICES 163 



The project was an outgrowth of direct liaison with the Coast Artillery 

 Board, representing the using troops. 



In June 1940, before the creation of NDRC, Bell Telephone Laboratories 

 presented to the Ordnance Department the idea of developing an electrical 

 director if the War Department were interested. They were not encouraged 

 and no action was taken. 



On October 3, 1940, the Fire Control Section first visited the Coast Artil- 

 lery Board and were told that the most urgent need was for a satisfactory 

 antiaircraft director. Rapid action was taken. The highly competent group 

 at Bell Laboratories were told that NDRC would support the project and 

 they began work at once. This director, in combination with radar and the 

 proximity fuze, formed by far the most effective antiaircraft fire control 

 system of the Allied or enemy forces, and contributed largely to defeat of 

 the V-i attacks on London. 



Radar 



Relationship with the Services took a different form in the case of the 

 large divisions of NDRC, such as Division 14. In 1941 the Navy established 

 a liaison office at the Radiation Laboratory at M.I.T. which grew to have 

 a permanent staff of about thirty officers, with additional Project Liaison 

 Officers temporarily attached. Soon afterward the Army Signal Corps 

 established a similar liaison office and later, when the Air Corps was given 

 responsibility for procurement of its own radio and radar, it also set up an 

 office. These liaison offices were a tremendous help to both organizations. 

 They handled all the more formal relations and aided in arranging for visits 

 and for tests. Close collaboration existed. Division 14 did not await formal 

 Service requests for undertaking projects and never hesitated to propose 

 new ideas for projects to Army and Navy representatives. On the other 

 hand, the Service representatives discussed their problems informally with 

 division and Laboratory personnel. General agreements usually were reached 

 before formal requests for projects were processed. An indication of the 

 extensive contacts with the Army and Navy is the fact that in early 1945 

 an average of fifty officers came to the Radiation Laboratory each day for 

 discussions and conferences. 



A point which was stressed in Division 14 relations with the Services was 

 that the Army and Navy should not come to the Laboratory with technical 

 problems for the design of a piece of equipment of specified dimensions 

 and power requirements, but rather they should bring full information of 

 the conditions of employment in which radar might aid, and provide full 

 access by Laboratory personnel to information on the success or failure of 

 various methods which had been tried. After acquiring an understanding 

 of the military problem it was then the job of the technical people in the 



