Dahlgren's First Director of Research 



77 



Dr. Charles C. Bramble was Director of Research at 

 Dahlgren from 1951 until 1954. 



Scientist at Dahlgren. It was a very informal contact, but that was my way of 

 maintaining a live interest in current ordnance problems and the research that 

 was going on. I alsodid the same sort of thing with the Army Proving Ground at 

 Aberdeen. 



When the national emergency [World War II] came on and the decision was 

 made to move the ballistics work out of Washington from the Bureau of 

 Ordnance to Dahlgren, the Postgraduate School was requested to transfer me 

 to Dahlgren, but the Head of the Postgraduate School wouldn't agree, so they 

 compromised by sending me to Dahlgren 4 days a week. That was the begin- 

 ning of the ballistic work and the beginning of the Computation Laboratory 

 because, at that time, there were only two mathematicians employed at 

 Dahlgren. They were at about a GS-7 or GS-9 level. That was back about 1942, 

 and there were also a couple of women at the GS-5 level. 



That was a start. That work, organizationally, was under what they called the 

 Ordnance Officer, who was second in command. 



