172 Dahlgren 



really than we could spend wisely. So three or four of us in the Fire Control 

 Section were working 60, 70, or 80 hours a week, much of the time at home, 

 trying to do everything ourselves. We had no help from the large civilian 

 staff — only very slowly were a few reserve officers being called in. Lewis Strauss, 

 one of the first, later became a Rear Admiral in the Reserve and then the 

 Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. He is now deceased, but was one 

 of the most distinguished Americans I've known. The Head of the Fire Control 

 Section was Commander Finley France, now deceased. Since we were con- 

 cerned with fire control, our connection with Dahlgren was not, in any way, 

 direct. Of course, we knew about the strenuous activity going on there, proving 

 the guns that were being bought in larger and larger quantities, checking out 

 ammunition, and so forth. Dahlgren was heavily loaded and did very important 

 work throughout the war. 



After your harrowing duty in the Pacific during World War II, you came back to the 

 Bureau of Ordnance in November 1944, and in October 1945 you became the Officer in 

 Charge of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory. I believe the facility had been moved to White 

 Oak, Maryland, by then. What were your thoughts about the mission of the Laboratory at 

 that time? 



This was a very challenging detail for me. I had been at the Bureau of 

 Ordnance only a few months in the Fire Control Production Office when 

 Admiral Hussey detailed me to NOL as Officer in Charge. NOL was still a 

 "stepchild" in the Navy Yard with offices and buildings here and there. The 

 prime facility at White Oak was then under construction and unusable. Before I 

 left the Laboratory, the two houses, which were intended for the Commanding 

 Officer and the Executive Officer, were occupied by myself and Dr. Ralph 

 Bennett, the Technical Director. We commuted, during the rest of my stay as 

 the Officer in Charge of the Laboratory, from those houses to the Navy Yard 

 every day. This took about 45 minutes each way — not a very convenient system. 



During World War II, the Naval Ordnance Laboratory had a group of 

 distinguished scientists and engineers who came from the collegiate world, 

 from industry, from everywhere. Ralph Bennett himself was a distinguished 

 scientist from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At that time, he was in 

 uniform as aCaptainin the Naval Reserve. Incidentally, as a civilian appointee, 

 he was the first man to earn $10,000 a year in government service. I believe his 

 rating was GS-16. 



My problem, fundamentally, was to retain as many of these brilliant men in 

 the service as we could, and we were not successful with very many of them. In 

 this effort, we developed a mission for the Laboratory which has been copied 

 almost verbatim at the Naval Weapons Center, China Lake. We tried to spell 

 out in simple words what the relation should be between the military comman- 



