Signal
Corps Radar protect Panama Canel on M.S. Nordic
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Signal Corps RADAR
Protecting Panama Canal
1941 - 1944
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Thanks to Mr. Harold Fulton we have these unpublished
photos to suplement Dr. Zalh's story.
Mr. Fulton found a photo album filled with
excellent photos.
SCR-268 radar at sea on the M.S. Nordic protecting the panama canal.
Radar equipment below deck on the M.S. Nordic
From Dr. Zahl's "Electrons
Away" Page73-74
But back to Marchetti. In
this bristling environment our problem was to extend the early warning
radar system, then guarding the Panama Canal; German and Japanese battleships
and aircraft carriers were ranging in both oceans. We knew that our
existing radar was almost useless against low-flying aircraft; a fact,
we suspected, of which the enemy was also well aware. We needed radars
operating at higher frequencies which could detect low-flying aircraft.
And to make them even more effective, the plan was to mount these radars
on picket ships riding 100 miles off of each canal entrance.
With our boss, Colonel
Colton, driving hard, success came our way. Our little set was ready
for an oceangoing test; we could get ranges of 100 miles on bombers, and
good coverage at very low altitudes. Our first picket ship arrived,
the M.S. Nordic, a trim 125-foot vessel, complete with crew. This
test will never be forgotten.
Escorted by a Navy blimp and a destroyer, the Nordic
put to sea. About 40 miles off shore a German submarine surfaced
and its periscope settled on the view of our top secret radar; but not
for long, for the view of the radar developed a background now including
the blimp and the destroyer closing in with depth charges, just waiting
to be dropped on something like a hostile submarine.
The sub crash-dived, and
may have saved its own life because so close was it to the Nordic that
dropping of the bombs had to be delayed until the Nordic could lumber out
to where the bombs wouldn’t get her too… Hitler would have
liked that prize.
Also see....
June 12, 2003 Radar
experts worked at Camp Evans to protect canal. By Fred Carl,
The Coast Star, Page 7
Page updated January 1, 2004
page created July 2, 2002
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