A radar history of World War II: technical and military imperatives

Abstract

Preliminaries: Radio vision for war. Electromagnetic waves. Perceptions of air power, 1919-1939. Navigation in 1939. Antiaircraft artillery, 1914-1939. Origins: Electronic component development. Beginnings, 1902-1934. Britain builds an air defense system. American and Germans build prototypes. Five other nations. First clashes: War in Europe. The Battle of Britain and the Blitz. The Atlantic, 1941. Friend, foe or home? The Japanese realize they are behind. New ideas: Microwaves. The Tizard mission. The radiation laboratory. The proximity fuze - the smallest radar. Greater and lesser microwave sets. Years of Allied despair and hope: The Mediterranean, 1940-1942. War in the Pacific. The Channel, 1942. Carrier warfare defined. The South Pacific, 1942. The Eastern front. The great radar war: The destruction of German cities initiated. Countermeasures. An air war of attrition. Arbeitsgemeinschaft-Rotterdam. The destruction of German cities completed. Allied victory in sight: The battle of the Atlantic, 1939-1945. Radar in arctic waters. The Mediterranean, 1943-1945. Japanese shipping destroyed. The wide Pacific. The end in Europe: Invasion. Flying bombs. The battlefield transformed. Post mortem. The end in Asia: The Philippines and Okinawa. The destruction of Japanese cities. The measure of radar: Navigation transformed. Science and the electronic age. Secrecy and the technical imperative. An evaluation. Appendix: A few radar essentials.