54 Daklgren 



airplanes. We set them up on the ground and detonated 5-inch projectiles at 

 different places around them. Then we had people come in and help us 

 evaluate the damage. We did an enormous amount of static fragmentation tests 

 against airplanes and came to the conclusion that a relatively small amount of 

 weight in the order of maybe 150 pounds of armor built into the pilot's seat 

 would give the airplane a much greater protection and wouldn't hamper the 

 airplane insofar as performance was concerned. Out of this thing came a big 

 business for light armor in airplanes. We received all kinds of requests like, 

 "What kind of armor i4-inch thick can be put on an airplane to keep out 

 30-caliber machine gun bullets?" The answer, of course, was "None," and they 

 didn't like this. This thing finally got into a big business of qualifying manufac- 

 turers for airplane armor production. 



Of course, during World War II, the Main Range was always going strong. 

 Now and then we would get interested in finding out how long after impact on 

 water a fuze functioned, and we used some sound techniques for doing that — 

 using hydrophones. I remember going downriver one time, when we wanted 

 to get fairly near the target, within 500 yards of the point of impact. We got our 

 boat in position, and one of these reserve officers (we used to call them "90-day 

 wonders") who had suddenly become a firing officer fired a program which 

 involved some illuminating projectiles that were notorious for coming apart. 

 They were impacting at a safe distance pretty well where they were supposed to, 

 and then one of them apparently came apart, didn't make the right range, and 

 landed so near the bow of our boat that the range men couldn't see a splash 

 anywhere. On the boat we knew something was near because the noise that 

 went through the boat sounded just like wood"shattering. In fact, I was in the 

 chart house at the time, and everybody came out there looking for the hole. 

 Then I started looking for holes, and the next thing I saw was two of the crew 

 who had been down in the front end of the boat getting a little shuteye. They 

 were real big guys, and there was a hatch about 2 feet wide that both of them 

 tried to hit three times and finally one backed off and let the other one get out 

 because they were sure they were sinking. I was thinking, "Well, to hell with this 

 camera gear I have here, I know I can swim to shore." It turned out that we 

 weren't hit, but I'd say the projectile surely didn't land more than about 6 feet 

 from the hull. 



Then one day. Captain Hedrick* went downrange on a boat just to see how 

 things were going when one of the young firing officers dropped a 6-inch 

 loaded and fuzed projectile awfully near the boat. Fortunately, it was a dud, but 

 that young man had a few words put on him by the CO. 



*Captain David I. Hedrick was Commanding Officer at Dahlgren from April 1941 until June 1946. 



