The Infoage Science-History Center Library Book on File   Archive/Library Overview

Back to InfoAge Homepage Created July 3, 1999   For further information contact Fred Carl, InfoAge Virtual Director, Fred-Carl@infoage.org Article excerpts from: "The Magicians of Monmouth" by Sidney Shalett Dr. Harold A. Zahl Dr. Zahl Stories from his book: Electrons Away The Signal Corps recognized the need to detect enemy aircraft during WWI and the importance of radio.  In fact during WWI the Navy siezed the Marconi Wireless stations.  As WWII approached one Marconi station would be siezed again to continue aircraft detection research and become Camp Evans. 1) Recognizing the New Military THREAT - The Fabulous Scientific Genie of World War Did Dr. Zahl cause the Hindenburg to explode?  What convinced the Army brass to give the radar group the funding they needed? 2)  The Birth of Radar  A captured German radar set is flown to Evans for repair and analysis.  Find out how Dumont Radio helped the Signal Corps reduced 8th Air Force causalities over Europe 3)  Wurzburgs, the German 600 megacycle antiaircraft radar. OK, Whose radar was best...British or the Signal Corps? Read the results of a set to set test on a New Jersey beach. 4)  Whose radar was better….British or American?    A the beginning of WWII the Signal Corps was offered help from MIT scientists.  The Signal Corps had a war to run, their equipment was ready and what did MIT know about miltary equipment requirements?  So to keep them busy, the Signal Corps gave MIT the microwave band to work with, this was the band that showed the most promise for radar but the Signal Corps was unsuccessful in developing a transmission tube powerfull enough to do the job. Little did MIT or the Signal Corps know the Bristish had developed a microwave transmitted more powerful than anything to date and it was on it's way across the Atlantic. The results are history.  Two of the MIT 'Long Hairs', Dr. Davenport and Dr. Getting provided Camp Evans and the IEEE History Center oral history interviews. 5)  The NDRC, “long-haired” scientists, are assigned microwaves to “keep them out of our hair for a while”    Mr. Marchetti (currently age 91) is a Camp Evans SUPER-HERO.  On Memorial Day 1999 he received an award from France for his part in the liberation of France. He adds this to his award from the British - 'Order of the British Empire'.  Mr. Marchetti and his radar equipment landed during the Normandy Invasion.  He came back to Camp Evans for an oral history interview which was featured in the Asbury Park Press.  He is one of the original developers of Signal Corps Radar, played a part in it's deployment and a constant improvement to meet changing combat needs.  Now read what happened when the guy took Christmas day off in 1943 and did not answer his phone... who could operate the experimental radar at Camp Evans to detect the German aircraft carrier attack? 6)  MARCHETTI - THE HUMAN DYNAMO. In 1999 James Broderick, Asbury Park Press correspondent and Peter Ackerman, staff photographer photographed Mr. Marchetti at Camp Evans in front of the building where this story took place.  General MacArthur got what he needed.  As a side note this request was turned down as impossible by all radar labs, until they got to Mr. Marchetti... 7)  Twenty Men and a Girl "Radar won the war and the A-bomb ended it" - It took a lot of electron tubes to win this war.  Every radio, radar set, proximity fuse in a shell had tubes.  And, of yes, the A-bomb was triggered with a radar fuse...the prototypes came from Camp Evans (AN/APS-13). 8)  What really WON the War? We just told you radar and tubes won the War...when they worked.  9)  A tube crisis in the Pacific When  radar and tubes won the War...when they worked. The Japanese Pay a Compliment (sort-of) to Dr. Zahl.  Or, flattery in electronic warfare 10)  The Japanese Pay a Compliment 11) The Space Age Starts at Camp Evans 12) Camp Evans radar tracks a comet: Giacobini-Zinner 13) Dr. Zahl takes part in the BIKINI A-Bomb tests. 14) Project Paperclip, V-2s and the Birth of the American Space Program. If the military had put a top-secret lock on the transistor, would our computer industry be where it is today? Read Dr. Zahl's views here. 15) The Transistor - Dr. Zahl is selected to the military unvailing of the famous Bell Laboratories invention. 16) The Signal Corps in space. 17) The Eighty-Eight Club and project SCORE		A Photo of Dr. Zahl at work at Camp Evans. From: The Magicians of Monmouth, N.J.   By SIDNEY SHALETT *** From Saturday evening post Aug. 23, 1952**** pg 34 Quotes from the article relating to Dr. Zahl  "In a certain closely guarded area an Army vehicle known as the weasel might be maneuvering without a driver, obeying impulses transmitted by remote radio rays, scooping up samples of earth and automatically sending back a television picture of what it was gathering."  " The scope of SCEL’s projects literally covers dozens of scientific fields.  American military radar was born at Monmouth, with Dr. Harold A. Zahl, now SCEL’s research director, personally devising certain types of necessary vacuum tubes which were unavailable from industry at that time because of lack of commercial interest.  Later, Monmouth scientists, for the first time in history, bounced radar waves off the moon.  Now they are using the magic electronic finger of radar for practically every conceivable purpose, from tracking hurricanes to taking wind velocity and temperature readings from the nose of a rocket soaring in the stratosphere."   In years of service, research director Zahl, through only forty-seven, is the veteran of SCEL’s top civilian scientists.  “I came here twenty-one years ago, just after earning my doctorate from the University of Iowa, because someone told me Monmouth would be a good place to spend a winter,” Zahl said.  “I’ve been here ever since.”  One of his first assignments was in connection with a joint Signal Corps-Coast Artillery experiment on antisubmarine defenses.  It involved placing four buoys, anchored by the toughest existing steel cable, existing steel cable, off the Jersey coast.  “Naturally, we couldn’t tell the newspapers what we were doing, so one of the tabloids conceived the idea, which it luridly chronicled, that we were launching scientific warfare against the rumrunners of that era,”  Zahl related.  “It was supposed to be a device that would enable us to listen to conversations on rum boats fifty miles out.  The morning after that story appeared, we found our buoys missing.  Such was science in the early ‘30’s.”  During World War II it was necessary to sacrifice a great deal of long-range scientific research to the immediate job of producing needed hardware.  Today, the top military and civilian authorities say, that is not the case.  Even the demands of the Korean conflict have not crippled the program of research for the future.  “we try to keep at least five years ahead of the user, and in certain fields, our thinking is at least twenty-five years ahead .”  Doctor Zahl declared.  “At the same time, however, since funds are limited and demand for immediate items is great, the laboratories must maintain a delicate balance between the practical and the visionary.  We can’t throw away our dollars on the ridiculous.  I can predict a twenty-five-year goal, but I can’t tell you when will have a man-made satellite circling in the slipstream of gravity.” Dr. Harold Zahl Stories             AT THE SITE OF TIROS I The author, center,  with Major General Ralph Nelson, Chief Signal Officer, and Brig. General Harold McD, Brown, CG Monmouth Labs. This antenna dish survives today and is being restored by InfoAge volunteers. From ELECTRONS AWAY or Tales of a GOVERNMENT SCIENTIST Copyright 1968, by Harold A. Zahl Published by Vantage Press, Inc. NY, NY 1) Recognizing the New Military THREAT - The Fabulous Scientific Genie of World War II    Page 36  AIRPLANES.  Time was now starting to move more rapidly.  One day a national magazine published a cartoon showing the Europa and the Bremen passing each other in the mid-Atlantic with the Hindenburg flying overhead.  The cartoon’s caption was “Britannia Rules the Waves.”      There was also an enterprising German chap called Goering who was doing very interesting things with an early American invention called the airplane.  Some of his friends in the German Army were also playing around with semantics; they even invented a new word which they called “blitzkrieg.”  And the skies of Europe gradually blackened.       We forgot the battleship, left the submarine problem to the Navy, and shifted gears in the direction of air defense.  So it came about that a small group of us spent the larger part of the decade working under great secrecy, developing a military weapon destined to play a major role in winning a global war.  In complacent, peace-loving United States we worked in silence, desperately handicapped by lack of funds, facilities, and assisting personnel.  Here I must mention the combined and inspiring leadership of such people as Col. William R. Blair, and civilian Paul E. Watson.  Perhaps better than anyone, they saw the problem and we moved forward.       From the efforts of our small Army group, from a similar group in the U.S. Navy, in England and later, in the Office of Scientific Research and Development, rose the greatest of all electronic military weapons, a device that saluted the atomic bomb but did not bow to it…the fabulous scientific genie of World War II - - Radar! 2)  The Birth of Radar  Page 40  …detecting aerial targets by reflection of radio waves was given a supertop priority within the Signal Corps laboratories, and communications research had to take a holiday.  Soon we were tracking airplanes and direction-finding on them, measuring also range.  All this information was given to us by reflecting radio signals, the energy having been sent out in short pulses and returned in a millionth of a second later, the precise time being the measurement of range based on the velocity of light or 186,000 miles per second.  In addition to scheduled test aircraft flying for us out of nearby Mitchel Field, we also tracked random aircraft and dirigibles such as the Hindenburg, then flying regularly between the United States and Germany.  On May 6, 1937, as the Lab was closing that afternoon, overhead at very low altitude was the Hindenburg heading for nearby Lakehurst, N. J., where it would dock and discharge a load of passengers.  Just for fun, I hopped into my car and raced the big dirigible, expecting – when I arrived at Lakehurst – to also give Admiral Rosendahl’s ground crew a hand with a mooring line.  The race ended in a tie.  But since the weather was bad, mooring was delayed for a few hours, the forecast being that the winds would subside.  Because we had a radar test that evening scheduled with a plane from Mitchel Field, I had to return and prepare for the evening run, not being able to wait for the mooring.  As it turned out, the weather did not clear as soon as expected, our Mitchel Field flight was canceled, and we did not go on the air.  I returned home, casually turned on my radio, and a few minutes later heard the historic broadcast directly from Lakehurst, starting with what seemed to be a casual mooring and then developing into the most exciting broadcast of all time as the Hindenburg caught fire, and the big hydrogen-filled bag made a spectacular holocaust, killing 36 people and injuring many more.  What caused the fire was the critical question, and there were some who thought it might have been caused by our radar which, we knew, under some conditions, could produce sparks at considerable distances.  The next morning we were queried from Lakehurst on the possibility.  It was with great relief that I was able to say, “We were not on the air at the time of the tragedy.”  So history records that the gas was probably ignited by an electrical discharge of natural origin.  But had we been operating our equipment at the time of the explosion, there would always have been some suspicion pointing at us.  Our radar tests continued, but we were desperately in need of funds to buy a few things vital to expedited progress.  So far we hadn’t talked much about our new device, but to get money we had to put on a demonstration before the people in Washington who controlled the dollars.  Our dilemma was that we were not sure our current and very crude breadboard model would remain in satisfactory service for an hour’s demonstration before the people we just had to convince.  An unsuccessful demonstration could do more harm than good; it might even set our cause back, and then things would be even worse.  It was a great risk, but the decision made jointly by Colonel Blair and Colonel Colton was that we must take that chance.  We knew when the equipment was peaked for performance we could detect airplanes out to 12 miles, a demonstration carrying almost guaranteed additional appropriations – if successful.  Arrangements for the critical demonstration, for sometime in May, 1937, were made by Chief Signal Officer Major General James B. Allison.  General Allison had no trouble in obtaining topflight dignitaries for the demonstration; such was the importance of the problem.  In fact never had Fort Monmouth played host to so much “brass.”  Included were Secretary of War Harry H. Woodring, Chief of staff Malin Craig, and the all-important Military Affairs Committee of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, Chiefs of the Air Corps, Coast Artillery, and a rather young Air Corps officer named “Hap” Arnold.  The critical night was the 26th of May.  A B-10 bomber all running lights extinguished, was to attempt “sneak raids” over Fort Monmouth;  a simulated battle situation of antiaircraft guns against a bomber.  Success for our equipment would be measured by whether we could illuminate the bomber with searchlights in time for early effective antiaircraft artillery action.  We would “lose,” and the Air Corps would “win” if the bomber had time for a successful bombing run before detection and illumination.  Even through the situation was tense, little did anyone connected with the tests dream that only a few years later the same situation would occur a thousand times a night, but with death-dealing bombs being dropped and with antiaircraft fire thundering over all of England, filling the skies with steel and setting London aflame!  The Secretary of War and his guests were asked to particularly watch one searchlight that was coupled to the radar equipment.  This searchlight, it was explained, was the pilot light, and when turned on would show where the radar thought the airplane was.  Three other supporting lights within a mile radius would go on when the pilot light did, aiding in the search; all lights would move on to the target whenever any one of the four lights made a pickup.  Darkness came slowly that night, and time appeared to drag, Mitchel Field finally flashed a message that the bomber was enroute, and would approach Fort Monmouth within the specified 90-degree sector; but, as per further understanding, the exact direction and altitude would be the pilot’s own choice, running lights off, of course.  The search was under way.  The distinguished guests stood close to various pieces of equipment which the signal Corps said could detect airplanes.  I operated the major control center.  Twenty long minutes passed, and then things began to happen.  We were on him.  At 12,000 yards, which was maximum searchlight range.  I nodded to Sergeant Harry Belot.  The stillness of the night was broken by his loud staccato voice shouting, “In action!”  The pilot light searched the low northerly sky.  In quick succession the three companion lights appeared, and their waving fingertips razzle-dazzled in that portion of the sky pointed out by the light following the radar data.  Seconds later, first one, and then several people were heard to cry, “There he is, in Number Two light!”  Flying at about 10,000 feet, slant range about 6 miles, was speck at the end of a pencil of light that looked like an iridescent fly.  One by one, the other lights swung over to aid in the track, and majestically the airplane was escorted over his “bombing area” – a perfect target for antiaircraft guns!  The visitors were impressed.  The Signal Corps was delighted.  But now for a few more runs.  After all a certain amount of luck might have been present on the first run with fate smiling on the groundmen.  All searchlights were extinguished.  The pilot was instructed to turn and fly north twenty or thirty miles, which was well beyond the range of detection.  He was then to turn and repeat the previous rules, and until he signaled readiness the radar gear was to be kept idle.  “About fifteen minutes later the pilot laconically messaged, “Am starting back.”  Again everyone on the ground became tense and alert.  Some watched the equipment, others watched the sky; but all listened, because if the muffled roar of airplane engines overhead could be heard it would signify failure for the radar, for in was it would have meant “Bombs away!”  Operating personnel suddenly pointed out a flickering vertical line on a cathode ray tube which they said was caused by an echo from the target.  From the motion and position of such indications on the several devices within the complex, it was explained that it could be determined that the airplane was approaching Fort Monmouth 30 degrees west of north at 140 miles an hour, 10,000 feet altitude, and that its present range was 20,000 yards.  When my range meter showed 12,000 yards, I again nodded to the Sergeant who ordered “In action,” and the target was seen in the beam of one of the lights, and again the bomber was escorted over the area where defending guns could have brought him down with ease.  History was being made!  The performance was repeated several times more, then the distinguished guests left.  They were more than satisfied that the laboratory had produced a highly important new weapon.  On June 2, 1937, the Secretary of War wrote to the Chief Signal Officer that the tests “gave tangible evidence of the amazing scientific advances made by the Signal Corps in the development of technical equipment.”  Army radar thus successfully passed its first big hurdle.  Congress would follow with a special appropriation; the amount was something like $40,000.  Research could now go into high gear.

   The noted American inventor of FM radio, the late Major H. Armstrong, had been working on a very high-powered radar which was set up in the Evans area of Fort Monmouth. Lt. Colonel Jack DeWitt and some of his associates played nights and weekends with this radar, making some modifications which extended its range potential from hundreds of miles to hundreds of thousands of miles-they hoped.
Playfully the colonel asked the Air Force for a target to test the radar at a few hundred thousand miles, and they grinned back at him. Even the German V-2 was just a small earthbound rocket. But Jack knew what he wanted. He planned to "shoot for the moon!"
Thus it came about that on January 10, 1946, a giant antenna was bore-sighted on the Queen of the Skies-Diana. An engineer pushed a button, and a powerful sure of energy moved out into space at 186,000 miles a second and aimed at caressing the moon with friendly radiation. Then ,came the longest two and one-half seconds in history while a few people waited to see whether any return radiation would be detectable. IT WAS!
On a cathode-ray tube, exactly two and one-half seconds later, up shot a "pip" indicating that some of the initial energy had made the round trip from the earth to
 the moon and back. Simultaneously a loudspeaker, also coupled in, went "Oomph."
The space age had just been opened,  though not yet "officially."
Because of the importance of the event, and by the rules of the day, the results of the experiment had to be kept
hi hl classified until officially cleared by the Pentagon for public release.
Major General George Van Deusen, down in Washington, blinked his eyes several times when he saw the Monmouth request to publicly claim such a sensational advance in electronics. He understandably mused, "Suppose the boys at Monmouth are wrong. A spurious signal generated locally might have been mistaken for a moon echo, and that would be terrible publicity for the  conservative and sedate Army Signal Corps."
So he made a decision to move slowly, and in so doing asked two eminent scientists, Dr. George Valley and Dr. Donald Fink, to join him, on checking the validity of the Monmouth claims.
Several weeks later the experiment was repeated before this august jury, and the results were conclusive. All were completely convinced. (Some said that the loudspeaker "Oomph" sounded more like "Boomph" that evening. )
Don Fink stepped up to the general and shook his hands in congratulations. He said, "General, this is so important that it should not have an ordinary news release. As you know, the Institute of Radio Engineers is having an Annual Banquet very soon. With your permission, I'll arrange for you to personally make the announcement at the banquet, as the last and the most important thing on the program.
"I'll be happy to, Don," said the general, and we all went home elated.
In the meantime, now with the go-ahead, our public relations people drew up an official press release for 11:00 P.M. on the night of the banquet, reasoning that surely by then the general would have finished his presentation.
  The banquet, held at a New York hotel, had the usual two thousand members in attendance, routinely going through award ceremonies, short speeches, to be climaxed by a longer prominent-person, after-dinner talk of thirty minutes, then the general to top it off.
Overlooked, however, was the principal speaker, who did not watch-the clock, apparently preferring a calendar. His allotted. thirty- minutes stretched into one hour and twenty minutes, with at least half of the audience gradually disappearing as he talked on and on. Because the press release time of 11:00 p.m. had passed I went out on the street, and sure enough, newsboys were. screaming "ARMY RADAR HITS MOON." Those four words filled the entire front page of one paper. _
I hurriedly bought a paper and returned to the banquet scene; the general, had just been introduced.  He made his announcement, and those remaining at their tables gave him a tremendous ovation, as they also did to Col. DeWitt and his engineering associates. He bowed, and sat down, applause still ringing throughout the hall.
I stepped over to the general and showed him my newspaper. He grinned, got up, and raised his hand to silence the crowd and get their attention. Holding up the newspaper so most of those present could see the front page, he chuckled, "This; gentlemen, sets a new world record in reporting Speed!" And it must have, because the paper had reported the announcement before it was made.
Only a few months later, in an entirely different situation, this same radar again attracted widespread public attention, this time not with a cooperating moon, but with a noncooperating comet.
On the night of October 9, 1946, the Giacobini-Zinner comet was scheduled to pass close to the Earth, and from its tail the Earth's atmosphere would be showered by countless small meteorites, making a gorgeous visible display for those fortunate to have a clear sky overhead  The Jersey
sky that night, unfortunately, was overcast.  But to our  Diana radar, clouds meant nothing. And it wasn't just the small meteors (called the Draconids) in which we were interested; the big game was the comet itself.
With world interest in what the radar could tell us, the National Broadcasting Company, with their biggest network linkage, requested permission to make a live broadcast on their "News of the World" program with Morgan Beatty.  NBC's Robert Denton was at the Diana radar site, together  with Princeton University's famed astronomer John Q.  Stewart, myself, and technicians.
Morgan Beatty in New York, spoke first: "You might think that hunting for peace in Paris is like hunting for a needle in a haystack, or a comet by radar.  But the radar quest for a comet is actually going on tonight. For that, we  switch to the radar station at Belmar, New Jersey."
  After a few introductory remarks by Robert Denton about Diana, I was given the microphone to describe our experiment. I pointed out that not only was the Diana radar in operation, but elsewhere in the U.S. we had 20 more radars simultaneously searching the skies - more in New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas, and Idaho.
Then, with tens of millions of people listening, we triggered the famed and powerful moon radar and waited anxious seconds for a return signal. There was none. Again and again we queried outer space and hoped the comet would signal back.  It didn't!
Wrapping up the program with some chagrin, I said, "This doesn't seem to be a very good night, but we may have more information when I get the reports from our other sites."
Unfortunately, by the time Professor Stewart and I released the live microphone to a grasping Robert Denton, we had run twenty seconds over our allotted time - a very serious thing of that day. It seems Tokyo was talking to itself on the "News of the World," while we and a few million should have been listening. Rumor had it that Robert Denton, unable adequately to explain why he didn't retrieve the microphone sooner, was given considerably more time than twenty seconds to make explanation.
But my story doesn't end here.
Report by report, we studied what our other radar stations had to say about their observations of the Draconids. All was negative, negative, negative . . . until White Sands, New Mexico, came in with a sensational collection of radar echo pictures they had obtained on one of our early warning radars, an SCR-270.
Amazingl
Surely, reasoned my colleagues John Q. Stewart, J. J. Slattery (now with the Martin Company), and Dr. Michael Ference (now vice-president of the Ford Motor Company), we had something terrifically important, suggesting the discovery of a new layer of gas surrounding the Earth at a distance greater than anything known in the ionosphere. The radar echoes from the meteorites were clear, sharp, and showed apparent ranges well beyond the so-called F-layer -- a sure Nobel prize, we thought.
So we four worked day and night for a month getting blurry-eyed as we studied hundreds of photographs and building up a new theory for the upper atmosphere. Yes, these small meteors seemed to have hit something well above the Earth which, in a puff of entry fire, produced a cloud of ions giving a strong return. We knew nothing then about the Van Allen belt, but thought we had found something along the lines of the much more recent Van Allen discovery. But, no!
The word finally arrived from White Sands that they had misinterpreted my instructions. I had asked that they point their antennas so they would look to the vertical, not to the horizontal, as would be their normal way of pointing for early warning of aircraft. The message said that instead of looking up, they were pointed toward the horizon. And so, the distances measured by the radar had no altitude significance, ranges being along the surface of the Earth and.. not from the surface UP!
   Our dreams of meeting with the King of Sweden at a Nobel prize ceremony were dashed away. One thing of import, however, the echoes from these little meteors were of themselves quite interesting regardless of where from, how high, and so on. So it came about that the Harvard College Observatory saw fit to give us the front cover page of their magazine SKY and TELESCOPE -- a picture of a pea-sized meteor, viewed by radar, as it entered the Earth's atmosphere and burned up.  So we were openly proud and inwardly chagrined.

    Bikini offered the first opportunity in providing a the mammoth test tube in which the materials of war could be exposed to the crucible of an atomic blast under controlled conditions. I was chosen to join Vice-Admiral Blandy's staff representing the Chief Signal Officer, and be in charge of some tests we would make during the two explosions,
We had a task force of about 40 men, and planned to make every conceivable test on Signal Corps equipment placed under the duress of atomic bomb environment. We even went to the extreme of taking the recently "liberated" pride of the German fleet, the "pocket battleship" Prinz Eugen, on which we installed the now famous SCR-584 radar.

 Riding high, on the foredeck, they even used this antiaircraft equipment as a guidance means to cruise from Philadelphia, through the Panama Canal, to its lethal rendezvous with an atomic bomb blast at Bikini. It wasn't going to be alone, however; for there it joined a vast armada of Japanese, American, and other German ships destined to a watery grave as we sought more information on the bomb's potential.
As a VIP, I left Washington shortly before midnight on June 8, 1946. They had set up a special train that carried us directly to the dock in Oakland, California, where we boarded our ship, the Blue Ridge, destination Hawaii first, Eniwetok then Bikini and perhaps beyond, for screaming editorials had been saying that we were probably on a one-way trip because with the shock of an atomic underwater bomb, the atoll of Bikini would collapse, with a tidal wave enveloping all 40,000 of the test group including the many target vessels.
Regardless of this threat, several hundred of us joyously moved across the continent on the biggest adventure of our lives. The special train was loaded with congressional representatives, military, press, and foreign guests. It was a gala trip.
Arriving at Hawaii we were enthusiastically received, because our flotilla of three large 28,000-ton ships carried not only the 60 military representatives (of which I was one) on the Blue Ridge, but also foreign visitors, including the USSR on a second ship, and finally the all-important press on a third ship. Congressional representatives sailed with the press. Making a big play for statehood, Governor Ingram M. Steinback of the Territory of Hawaii literally turned the islands over to us.
Never will be forgotten that night when the Royal Hawaiian Hotel first opened its doors after being closed for the war. It was quite a party, and in lush tropical surroundings we enjoyed the favorite local beverage served in half coconuts. Native dancers carried on all around  us; everyone was in favor of atomic energy,  the tests we were looking forward to. The World was finally at peace, and we liked it! _ _
Suddenly, however, the scene changed. Sixteen street urchins carrying newspapers burst in on us crying, "EXTRA! EXTRA! ATOMIC BOMB TESTS CALLED OFF. WASHINGTON GETS SECRET REPORTS OF DANGER LURKING AT BIKINI ATOLL."
There it was, a full front page of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Quickly we bought copies, and sadly lamented that,
it seemed that we were about to turn around, our holiday  stopped, and go back to San Francisco. After about fifteen minutes of despair, our half coconuts having been refilled, one character with very sharp eyes piercing the dim light, saw fine print between the 4-inch headlines . . . very small print indeed.
We gathered around the few lights we could find and read the entire text. The large type we could see easily; the small print only by straining: "ATOMIC BOMB TESTS . . . attracting world attention. Top newsmen and scientists with many official observers are now in Honolulu en route to the scene. Reports that the tests would be CALLED OFF . . . as needless waste of taxpayer's money are without foundation. Preparations are moving ahead smoothly for this historic experiment with gigantic physical forces . . . . WASHINGTON GETS hour by hour reports from Bikini of the plans to carry out this scientific test of a new factor in military power and international relations. In addition to the news that will be flashed all over the world there will be SECRET REPORTS made to the U.S. Army and Navy on certain phases of the tests which will not be immediately revealed even though unprecedented publicity attends this demonstration. Various scientific analyses will be made OF DANGER LURKING in the skies, on the surface or under the water as a result of the unloosing of the A-Bomb. Meanwhile Hawaii welcomes this notable group of newsmen, scientists, and official observers, and the Honolulu Star

 Bulletin says `Aloha' as you go on to Operation Crossroads AT BIKINI ATOLL"
The above happened on June 18, 1946, but never on any April First, of any year, had such a good joke been played on anyone; and the nuclear age stumbled forward as steel guitars played, and native dancers moved softly in the moonlight . . . .
But we went to Bikini, leaving Hawaii behind, and we shot off the two atomic bombs, one in the air and one under water. I cannot think of a better way to close this tale than with a quote published in SIGNAL, Sept.-October, 1946:

" . . At Mike hour an awesome spectacle occurred when the waters of the lagoon arose like a giant asparagus tip. The central column of water expanded until it covered more than 2,200 feet at the base, with violent turbulence visible at the upper portion. The top of the column of water spread out in mushroom fashion, and for a short time had the incredible appearance of hanging suspended in air. Then the million or more tons of water started falling like a great white curtain. As the descending cataract struck the remaining water of the lagoon, a great frothiness appeared, rising high above and engulfing the target vessels. ?l curtain of mist arose from the lagoon to meet the white wall cascading downward. The entire target array became enshrouded in the white, highly radioactive dangerous fog. When the mist lifted, some of the ships were missing and others were listing. Everyone who viewed this spectacle was forcefully aware that he had just witnessed the grandest, but yet the most horrible thing ever conceived by man ....
    When I wrote the above, more than twenty years ago, I was speaking of the devastating effect of a bomb in the 20-kiloton class. Today we speak of 100 times greater violence and the word is megatons! '''
 
 

   With the cessation of hostilities in the European Theater, substituting for bullets came political actions, economic actions, and many things destined to have a long-range effect on this country's research and development program. .On the latter point, there was the "Alsace Mission," .a major program ;to investigate German technology, looking for things which` might be useful if "liberated" and brought to this country. One thing was obvious: the Germans were far ahead of us in certain areas.
From a civilian point of view, I can think of no better example than the tape recorder. Here the German chemists had learned to make a tape that had a much higher quality than available over here. American industry was quick to capitalize on this point, and today almost everyone owns a recorder.
From a military point of view, the V-2 stands out as a shining example of leadership in a field in which we were relative amateurs. Complete missiles, and many bits and pieces were brought over and stored at White Sands, New Mexico, enough to make 50 operational missiles for our people to experiment with and learn from; and our Ordnance Corps studied as ex-rival Werner von Braun taught.
On most of these missiles, as they learned -how to fire them, the Ordnance Corps allowed basic research projects to use the 1,000-pound space which, when fired in anger, would hold the warhead. Thus there quickly came into being an informal group of men whose interests were outer space and who planned these experiments. It was my privilege to help start and be a part of this group.
During the firing of these 50 V-2's, America's space program was born. The "Panel on the Upper Atmosphere," as we called ourselves, turned out to be the incubator for many of the men whose names are now household words in connection with our space program. It was also largely through the effort of these men, in their discussions with people at very high level in government, that NASA came into being. .
On "Project Paperclip" it was not pieces of equipment or missiles which were brought over from. Germany, it was people -- scientists, engineers, and families. In the cruel years immediately following the war there were many very able scientists and engineers who wished to leave Western Europe and make a new. home in the United States.
  "Screening" offices were accordingly set up in Europe, and applications studied very carefully as to ability and previous political interests. Simultaneously military laboratories in this country were asked whether they wished any of these people, and their dossiers were made available for decision purposes.
   As most elsewhere, at Monmouth we had two problems:
First, the war still remained very fresh in the memories of our people; and second, we were still, releasing relatively
unskilled American citizens. But the superb talent, available
through "Paperclip" suggested once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, and much of the top American talent was straining to get out of the military environment back to their teaching jobs or to industry.
Demonstrative of the type of talent we were dealing with, on each request the requester had to sign a statement to the effect that the equivalent to the person he was asking for was not available in the U.S.  The problem of asking for this type of talent, or rather the decision as to whether we should, was put squarely up to me as director of research.  I recommended "Yes, let's try it with 25 people," and we were in business. This was probably one of the most important decisions I have ever made.
The men and .their families then started coming over, most of them with all their worldly possessions and hardly any money. The title of "Doctor" soon grew common place at Monmouth.  In coming over; they were signed  two-year contract, with our option to returning them in six months
if we for any reason found them unsatisfactory After the contract expired, Civil Service regulations allowed them to change to what was called Schedule-A, a  form of Civil Service which would be finalized once citizenship had been achieved.
I have in my office a photo of the first 16 which came over, hands up, swearing allegiance to the United States, as they move into Schedule-A.  Of these 16; now twenty years later, 11 still remain at the Monmouth laboratory, all in very high positions, and one in the very highest.  It was a wonderful experience to see the old "Melting Pot" in action.
In retrospect, throughout the country we see thousands of our best citizens, able engineers, scientists, and administrators, with a byproduct of tens of thousands of brilliant children in our schools . . . the results of "Paperclip." Surely this country is better and stronger because of that decision, made by a few men more than two decades ago.

It was the, annual banquet of the Armed Forces- Communication and Electronics Association, Washington,. D.C. The year was about 1949. Radio comedian Arthur Godfrey was the after-dinner speaker. Knowing he was. talking to an electronics-oriented audience, Godfrey decided to have a little fun. It went something like this:
"Gentlemen, you know I was a radio ham years ago and spent 'many .long nights  jiggling that cat's whisker 'around on my crystal looking for that most sensitive spot. Now I hear -tell that. after years of research costing millions of dollars, you fellows have come up with the idea of putting a second cat's whisker on the crystal-a transistor, I think you call it. That, gentlemen, I call progress!"
It was my privilege to be present for the first showing (Godfrey's "progress") among the people where it all happened. On June 23, 1948, Dr. E. O. Buckley, President of the Bell Telephone Laboratories, had invited six persons - two from each Service - to witness a new invention. I was one of the two selected from the Army.
The six of us were asked to raise our right hand and solemnly swear not to reveal to anyone what we were about to see until the Bell Laboratories had made an official unclassified press announcement of their as yet commercially "top secret" and unrevealed invention.
The invention was the transistor, the device which everyone now knows has completely revolutionized elec-tronics, and even changed many people's way of life, includ-ing ways of warfare. The demonstration was quite dramatic. A complete radio set, very miniaturized, taking almost no power but yet playing just as well as a commercial version of that day which used electron tubes.
The inventors, Drs. Shockley, Brattain, and Bardeen (all later given Nobel prizes) had a rather critical question to put to me. They knew that the Signal Corps was support-ing some solid state research under Professor Lark-Horowitz at Purdue. Research so forward-looking that the Purdue laboratory was publishing about thirty high class papers a year, all unclassified.
However, with this record, the Bell scientists thought, it was not entirely out of the question that Lark-Horowitz had also made the invention with a good possibility (if so) that the Army might have locked it up under a high mili-tary classification.
When questioned on this point, I could sense their relief when I answered in the negative. But I did say, "I believe in the `Principle of Simultaneity of Invention.' Purdue would have had it in six months." And I think they would have.
I mention this little story about Lark-Horowitz because after I published an article called "The Birth of the Tran-sistor," in the July 1966 issue of the Microwave Journal, I received a letter from Dr. Fred Llewellyn. He was with the Bell Laboratories at the time of the transistor disclosure and, as a key scientist, was well aware of what was going  on, and also knew the exact date when Bell would-make the press release.
In writing to me, Fred said that this date coincided with, a trip he was making around the Swedish archipelago in a small boat provided by the Swedish government as a courtesy to members of a conference going on in Stockholm. As it happened, Professor Lark-Horowitz was also on the boat, and Fred knew that on that day he could openly dis-cuss the invention of the transistor. Fred wrote, "I believe that I was the first one to inform him that the Bell Labora-tories had arrived at this important milestone."
Professor Lark-Horowitz (now deceased) often ex-pressed his regrets to me for overlooking the practicality of some of the research results he saw unfolding in his lab-oratory. But he was a teacher and not an inventor, drinking deeply, however, from the cup of pleasure which came from knowing that his contributions were in helping the young and providing the world with new knowledge, certainly some of which helped to hurry the date of the transistor arrival.
With the news of the transistor now public, we in the military Services moved quickly to capitalize on its poten-tial. Its first apparent promise was to relieve the GI of one of his biggest headaches-carrying weight; with a smaller radio he could carry more food and bullets. So the new invention was considered red-hot, and we went all-out to expedite its application.
But a cloud appeared on the horizon. Because of its importance, there were some with the military Services who thought that we should ask Bell to classify this new device as "secret," and thus deny the use of it to unfriendly coun-tries. Proponents for classification gave the analogy to the discovery of fission, suggesting that we should make another big Manhattan Project and go "underground." Personally, I was much opposed, and at every chance urged against such a course. In the end the cloud disappeared, and the unclassified status remained. And, in the solid state, this country remains ahead of the world because of competitive accomplishments symbolizing the strength of our free-enter-prise system.
Not content, however, with causing one revolution in electronics, the transistor today surges on to even greater glories, for it is the heart of the new technology of the integrated circuit, postage-stamp radios and the like. This further compression of electronic potential bids fair to again reach into everyone's life and make changes, be it for making machines which can think better than man, extend-ing automation orders of magnitude beyond that now in existence, changing the tactics of war or, to be more pleasant, making radical changes in the things Santa Claus will leave little boys and girls at Christmas.

We at the Monmouth laboratories take a lot of pride in our early contributions to the space age. To name a few: The moon radar, January 1946; radar observations of the Draconids (meteorites), October 9, 1946; assistance provided during the days when communications were being established over an area now known as the Atlantic Missile Range off Cape Kennedy; installation of the solar cells which for years provided power for the little IGY "grapefruit" satellite, launched on May 17, 1958; the first voice message from outer space on December 19, 1958, when President Eisenhower made his historic Christmas message from Satellite SCORE; the first weather satellite, TIROS, launched on April 1, 1960; the first active communications satellite, Project COURIER,.. launched on October 4, 1960; and assistance given to the  U.S. Army Satellite Communications Agency on Project SYNCOM,
But let me push the "big history" aside to peek behind the scenes and tell the story of an historic event unknown to most people.

This is a vignette in which I definitely do not appear as the hero. In fact, I could easily have been the villain. It is a story from behind the scenes when the U.S. was smarting under the spectacular success of the Russians in their bid for supremacy in space. It is also a story of our first major attempt to show the people. of our country that we also were starting in this space business.
  The time frame was late in 1958, and the, Sputniks were buzzing all around us. Our plan was for the Air Force to place an Atlas missile into orbit (with a dummy warhead, of course), while riding piggyback was to be a radio transponder capable of accepting messages from the earth and relaying them back far beyond the usual line-of-sight.  It was dubbed Project SCORE.
If we could do these two things, we would have passed the Soviet record in tonnage orbited and, even more important, we would have, demonstrated the practicality of using satellites for communications.
 Although this project was classified "secret," information still leaked out because many hundreds of people were involved. Not daring to risk the publicity of possible failure, drastic steps were ordered to improve security. Roy John-son, then director of the Advanced Research Agency, DoD, even went to the, extreme of "ordering the project cancelled."  _ .
Behind the scenes, however, a major acceleration of effort was also ordered, while security was upped to the equivalent of "top secret."  Only those who absolutely had to know, were declared "in." This small group identified themselves as the "88 Club," because this number represented the total number of personnel who really knew what was going on.
Everything possible was camouflaged; even tales were invented to explain inconsistencies when probing questions were asked by those who wondered "why all the rush on a project officially declared `dormant'."
Ceorge Senn, and his deputy Samuel Brown, both of Monmouth, , had the responsibility for communications ground stations and for the space transponder radio. The plan was to carry a routine voice recording on a tape and on the first orbit, as the satellite Passed over Fort MacArthur in California, give the "bird' a command to unload its tape and transmit the message to the ground station. After that, the tape could be used again and again to both receive and transmit. If successful, it would mean the start of space-age global communications.
Launching was scheduled for December 18, 1958. Most people on the Cape, including the launching crews, thought little about the package riding high on the missile. But something unscheduled happened. On December 17, Brigadier Ceneral Earle Cook, Deputy Chief Signal Officer, flew in from Washington with a very small "top secret" package in his pocket. At Canaveral he told Mr. Brown that the message on the tape had to be changed for the contents of the new tape he was carrying.
To Sammy Brown and his team of four this was no small problem, for the big rocket was in its final hours before lift-off. What to do? Climb up that load of liquid dynamite and change the message? Hardly! Suppose someone accidentally triggered the ignition button? An astronaut in orbit without a space suit - fame yes, but that would be all. And more seriously, any attempt now to physically change the two rolls of tape would not be possible without changing the launching schedule. And that was out.
But necessity is the mother of invention, and Sammy came up with a possible solution. It was a gamble, and involved great risk in compromising the security of the entire venture. So, while most people on the Cape slept, at 3 A.M. on December 18, stealthily a radio beam at 158 megacycles was directed at the ghostly silhouette of the Atlas three miles away and almost ready for its mission into the unknown.
Using the planned interrogation sequency, boldly, the transponder was directed to erase the first message and accept the new one then put on the radio beam. For a short minute, if anyone would have intercepted that radio beam they would have heard the message: It was from President Eisenhower, extending Christmas greetings to the whole world Maximum publicity if successful, zero publicity if it didn't come out well!
Fortunately no one intercepted the radio transmission while the tape was being reloaded. Sammy had apparently won on his gamble, but he still didn't know whether the new message was on, or if he had just washed out the tape. He didn't dare a test playback.
A few hours later, in a burst of flame, the Atlas zoomed upward and was successfully maneuvered into the desired orbit. At Fort MacArthur a radio receiver awaited the rocket as it came over the Pacific Ocean. A transcontinental telephone line was kept open for instant relaying of the message to a special number in the Pentagon equipped with a tape recorder. At the correct instant, the California station sent out the command for the satellite to start transmitting. Nothing happened. Something was wrong. The big bird silentl went winging its way across the continent, and then circle the earth a number of times out of range of U.S. ground stations equipped with the special receiver and the command interrogator.
The next day, December 19, the satellite made a pass close to Canaveral. Brown and his team tried an interrogation. To their great delight the satellites voice came to life and the message came in loud and clear and was recorded.
 But this Signal Corps team was not cued in on what to do with the "hot tape" because this part of the operation had been assigned exclusively to the California station!
Almost 1,000 miles away, I was at the Fort Monmouth Astro-Electronics Center when Sammy called me in desperation. "Doc, I've got this red-hot tape and don't know where to send it. And people here are trying to take it away from me, including an Air Force colonel. What shall I do?"
 Even though director of research of our laboratories, I was unable to advise him because details of the previously
 established Communications net were known only to MacArthur and the Pentagon terminal people.  I asked  Sammy to hold the wire and, above all, to hold that tape.  On another phone,   I quickly put in a priority call to the Pentagon. Playing a hunch, I asked for my, friend Bob Brady who I knew just had to be a member of the 88-Club.
My guess was correct.  He gave me the crucial number, and asked to please hurry before someone else "gets lucky and makes an intercept, or hits Sammy on the head with a club." After passing the number to Canaveral, I put my associate Lloyd Manamon on the phone.  Lloyd gave Sammy some good "illegal"  advice on how to match the output of a tape recorder to a telephone line without going, through an audio phase which would tend to deteriorate the quality of the signal. ..  :
  Sammy then placed a "collect" call to the number I had given him.  In Washington the secretary answering the phone almost refused to accept the call, not knowing that it was for Sammy Brown's call.  She was supposed to keep the line clear. But Bob Brady moved in and the call was accepted and recorded. Minutes later, Roy Johnson of ARPA was on his way to inform the President that his voice had come in well from outer space, a major accomplishment for 1958 technology. Plans, and they were kept as older people will remember, were for the President to personally inform the world of this success, for it meant much toward bolstering U. S. prestige against the dramatics of the Soviet Union.
However, my troubles were not over yet.  Sammy Brown, in Florida, was still harassed by people who wanted the tape or copies of it, now that the Pentagon was taken care of. Again his question to me was "what to do?" I contacted the Signal Corps Public Information Office in Washington.
The colonel in charge was out, but his secretary blithely told me her boss had said it was OK to lift the restrictions. This I told Brown, and the tape rush was on at Cape Canaveral.
Moments later a horrendous thought came to me and 1 started sweating feverishly. Suppose the girl didn't know what I was really asking, and had said OK to something else on her mind? Security had prevented me from stating the entire situation on the telephone and she could easily have been thinking of something else. But now it was too late, and I had visions of what might happen to me if someone beat the President to a planned national release, perhaps even a premature retirement or a cold winter in Leavenworth.
I was in torture for thirty minutes as I listened to the radio, waiting for something to break. About 5:00 P.m. it came. "We interrupt this program . . . the President of the United States has a very important message for the people of the world . . ."
I felt twenty years younger all at once!
History records Project SCORE as the world's first active communications satellite. Although the device that repeated Ike's historic Christmas message in 1958 eventually went to a fiery death on re-entry, today the Smithsonian Institution proudly displays its twin for all the world to see. But even as I write I have not checked with the Signal Corps Public Relations Office in Washington on whether that secretary really answered my question correctly. I shudder to think that she might have been thinking of something else.

Page updated May  27, 2005  page created July 3, 1999