l66 ORGANIZING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FOR WAR 



contributed greatly to overcoming by devoting untiring effort to furthering 

 co-operation between the Armament Laboratory and the scientists. The 

 large amount of work which OSRD performed for Navy aviation was done 

 without the handicap of this contradictory double responsibility; the Army 

 Air Forces were the beneficiaries of some of the work, undertaken at Navy 

 request. 



In the development of radar, as previously related, the Air Forces main- 

 tained a liaison office with a staff of officers at the Radiation Laboratory. 

 Relations between this Laboratory of Division 14 and the Air Forces were 

 truly co-operative. Division 14 had a group in England (later on the Con- 

 tinent also) and this British branch was closely in touch with air operations. 

 Thus, in June 1943, the Eighth Air Force cabled Washington asking for 

 equipment to permit bombing through overcast. Within six weeks sets were 

 developed by the Radiation Laboratory to meet this need and within eight 

 weeks bombers were practicing in New England, each step taken being a 

 co-operative effort of the scientists and the Air Forces personnel. In Septem- 

 ber, sets were installed in England and on November 3, 1943, Wilhelms- 

 haven was bombed through overcast. 



There was also real teamwork between OSRD and the Flying Training 

 Command. The Central Instructors' School of that command, located for 

 a time at Fort Myers, Florida, and later at Laredo, Texas, engaged in many 

 joint activities with the Airborne Fire Control section of NDRC's Divi- 

 sion 7. By way of illustration, a need was recognized by the middle of 1942 

 for means of measuring, on the ground, the performance of various gun- 

 sights and computers. Out of that need and with the interested support of 

 the Central Instructors' School as well as of the Navy, the University of 

 Texas testing machine for aerial gunnery systems was developed, the sup- 

 port including sending groups of enlisted men to work with the Fire Con- 

 trol Section at Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, and at the University of 

 Texas. 



Whatever conclusions may be drawn from the record of Service relations 

 with OSRD during the somewhat more than five years of war and prepara- 

 tion for war are of interest only as they point lessons for the future. Since 

 it appears probable that the most effective organization in a future emer- 

 gency will be one in which the country's scientists are assembled and 

 directed by scientists and since most research in Service laboratories is of an 

 applied nature, liaison must be geared to this conception. If in a future 

 national crisis, new weapons of warfare (such as in this war were micro- 

 wave radar, rockets, the electronic director, proximity fuzes and the atomic 

 bomb) are to be produced rather than old weapons improved, an organiza- 

 tion is needed that will know its way in the complex ramifications of the 

 scientific world. It is very important for the future that responsible ofl&cers of 



