Pawsey’s Role in Australian Radar Research in World War II, 1939–1945

Abstract

Joe Pawsey played a critically important role in the development of radar in Australia. His leadership contributed to the success of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Division of Radiophysics—RPL—in 1939–1945. More than anyone else at RPL, he exemplified, and cultivated in the scientific staff, the combination of practical, engineering expertise and know-how, with a thorough understanding of the physical principles of the radar equipment that underpinned the Australian achievements across the war years. His ability to navigate personalities and social systems constructively was equally critical to RPL’s successes.

There has been through the ages, always existed [sic] a vital interplay between war and contemporary scientific discovery. The more highly organised the world becomes, the more drastic the adjustment necessary to absorb the impact of new techniques… . the nature of radar embodied a battle of wits, not only between fighting men, but also between contending scientists, at an intensity not previously experienced. It involved a new level of sophisticated skills, and created its own new industry. All at once, physicists with electronic training found themselves involved in warfare in a new way, with an enhanced standing, in the nervous strain of conflict. Evans (1970, p. 232).

Joe Pawsey played a critically important role in the development of radar in Australia. His leadership contributed to the success of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Division of Radiophysics—RPL—in 1939–1945. More than anyone else at RPL, he exemplified, and cultivated in the scientific staff, the combination of practical, engineering expertise and know-how, with a thorough understanding of the physical principles of the radar equipment that underpinned the Australian achievements across the war years. His ability to navigate personalities and social systems constructively was equally critical to RPL’s successes.

There are several published accounts of Australia’s wartime radar research program. These histories identify that RPL’s success was founded on the decade of work undertaken by the CSIR Radio Research Board (RRB) (Chap. 4), under the leadership of Sir John Madsen, where Pawsey had begun his career. The successful research endeavours of the young RRB physicists such as David F. Martyn, F.W.G. White, A.l. Green, George Munro, Leonard Huxley, J.H. Piddington provided the scientific expertise needed for the radar research program. The instruments used in ionospheric research provided the basis for military radar after 1939. The most successful Australian defensive weapon of WWII was the Air Warning/Light Weight 200 MHz radar, planned and placed in operation in 1942. This system made major contributions to the Australian-US victory in the war against Japan in Papua New Guinea. Pawsey was a major informal contributor to this system.

In this chapter we provide a brief overview of wartime radar research in Australia and of Pawsey’s role at RPL. Radar research involved most of the scientists who would enter radio astronomy when the war ended, and these figures are introduced here. We discuss the emergence of Pawsey’s leadership, as someone who could respond constructively to difficult personalities—David Martyn’s among them—and effectively manage the challenging liaison between scientists, the military and other government agencies. We also outline the technical challenges that the radar scientists faced. Many of these were due to Australian isolation, the absence of expected British support, and difficulties in accessing equipment and supplies. These social, geographical and technical features of wartime radar research experience would influence post-war radio astronomy.

Interested readers can access 8 chapters that provide an in-depth extended analysis of these topics, including some technical details that indicate how different ionospheric research instruments and questions influenced early radar research, in the electronic supplementary material: ESM 9.1. Radar History; ESM 9.2, Radiophysics Laboratory 1940; ESM 9.3, Difficulties; ESM 9.4, Applied Science; ESM 9.5, Light-Weight ; ESM 9.6, Microwave Radar ; ESM 9.7, Golden Year; and ESM 9.8, Radar and Victory.

Radar History: An Australian Perspective, 1930s

The story of radar during World War II has been told by many people and at length.¹ It’s a gripping story: how such a swiftly developed technological innovation provided the slender margin by which the UK, and therefore the Allies, survived the Battle of Britain (Brown, 1999) and by which the Americans successfully waged the war in the Pacific. Radar is even sometimes exaggeratedly referred to as “the weapon that won the war”.

The dominant story is centred on the creation of successive impressive weapons such as the Chain Home Link system, which Britain had ready in 1939 in barely enough time to make the margin of difference needed for the Battle of Britain; John Randall and Harry Boot’s discovery of the cavity magnetron in 1940 in (Sir) Mark Oliphant’s laboratory at Birmingham; and E.G. “Eddie”² Bowen’s carrying it in secret to America to get it manufactured and to then help found the “Rad Lab” (ie, Radiation Laboratory) at MIT.³ This story is centred on the UK and the US (it is possible, but harder, to find accounts of radar in Japan, Russia, and other Allied and Axis nations).⁴ Arguably an equally important version of ‘the story of radar’ is this: radar was more successfully developed in settings where open communication fostered innovation and enabled rapid innovation.⁵ Australia was one such setting.

The story of radar in Australia, and the central role played by Joe Pawsey in its development, is different, and is one of adaptation and collaboration. This Australian perspective provides a form of “history from below”.⁶

Radar: British Secrecy and Australian Developments, 1930s

Who discovered or invented radar? In his comprehensive, well-narrated account, Louis Brown (1999) points out that this is the wrong question. Whether the question is “who first thought of using echoes of radio waves to find such things as ships and airplanes”, or “who first thought of how to create a usable device that could do this”, the answer is, dozens of people (Brown, 1999, p. 456). Martyn, Green and others of the Radio Research Board in Sydney (Chap. 4), who “became aware of increases in signal strengths at their Liverpool receivers, when planes flew overhead”, were among the many people around the world who observed radio signals being reflected from boats and aircraft in the 1920s and 1930s (Evans, 1973, p. 282). Naturally many of these observers realized that such echoes could be used for what would become “Radio Direction Finding” (RDF) or “RAdio Detection And Ranging” (RADAR—the acronym developed by the Americans in 1940).⁷

David Martyn and Jack Piddington were aware of early British radar research in the mid 1930s. But the British kept this work an official secret. Piddington, then working with Appleton in the UK, wrote Martyn on 22 July 1937: “There is another job looming, which is hard to write about. It concerns Watson-Watt’s present transmitter and our use of it as a blind for other users. This is strictly hush-hush, naturally.”

The Australians tried to get involved early, with Piddington explicitly pursuing some early trials once he had returned to Sydney later in 1937. But British secrecy, and Australian habits of dependence on British lead, retarded their efforts. In reporting on a trip to the Radio Research Board in 1936 (written in early 1937), Martyn suggested that H. Wimperis (1876–1960), be consulted about the probable defence applications of low-region ionospheric research during his (Wimperis’s) 1938 visit to Australia. Wimperis, Director of Scientific Research of the Air Ministry, had set up a committee of scientists under the chair of H.T. Tizard (1885–1959) to undertake new defence research, leading to early British efforts in radar. But Wimperis claimed to be surprised when Madsen raised Martyn and Piddington’s guess at the focus of British defence research during his visit, and he made no disclosures. Thus the Australians lost precious lost time due to British secrecy.

It was not until February 1939 that the well-known invitation was issued for Dominion governments (Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa) to come to the UK to receive details “of new developments in defence applicable particularly to air.” David Martyn, the pre-eminent ionospheric physicist with extensive scientific networks in Britain, was chosen as the logical leader of the Australian radar program. He made a flying boat trip to the UK in March 1939, visiting defence establishments.

Martyn arrived back in Sydney on 7 August 1939. Within a short period the CSIR Division of Radiophysics (the name was intended to be non-descriptive, a camouflage term invented by Martyn) was founded on the University of Sydney campus. The building was to be completed in April 1940 as an extension of the CSIR National Standards Laboratory. Martyn was appointed as chief of the new division in September. The work of the proposed laboratory would fall into three categories: (1) Research, Development and Instructional (CSIR), (2) Construction, Installation and Maintenance of equipment and buildings (mainly the Postmaster General (PMG)) and (3) Operational, the three Australian Armed Forces: Army, Navy and Air Force (Civil Aviation and Meteorology would also be involved).

Pawsey’s Recruitment to RPL

Pawsey was recruited to RPL in mid-April, 1939. His expertise on antennas at 40 MHz (from the EMI television research) was invaluable. Martyn had met Pawsey during his trip to the UK in March, as he reported to Madsen back in Sydney in a letter from 16 April 1939:

I saw Pawsey yesterday. His work is on ultra-short waves with EMI and especially on aerials and feeders. He would be a key man on our scheme. He is keen to come to Australia—a salary of about £530 would get him if prospects for good research were seen—as they are. He has a contract [with EMI] for about another 18 months, but thinks it only applies to taking up a job with another company—not the Government. I suggest he be approached immediately, and have suggested he compile a list of such special testing apparatus, etc., as would be required if he came to Australia on ultra-short wave work. It would be wise not to stress Defence work in approaching him, as he is a Methodist with pacifist leanings. He would make a good man in charge of a group—he is thoroughly sound and now experienced in production, etc.

It is interesting to speculate on what the moderate, pragmatic, and not especially political Pawsey might have said to Martyn, to produce this assessment of his politics! Pawsey was hardly a “Methodist with pacifist leanings.” Pawsey later made his willingness to take an active part in defence activities explicit, in correspondence with Martyn and Madsen.

Pawsey was more anxious to find work away from the UK once war had been declared. The Pawseys’ home was only about 25 km from the centre of London, and the likely target of German bombs. Lenore, Margaret (called “Mar” by her parents in 1939) and the baby Stuart went to the farm of Eric and Frances Ward, “Elm Tree Farm”, Settrington, Malton, Yorkshire (30 km to the NE of York); Frances Ward, nee Lade, was Pawsey’s cousin. Eric and Frances had been living there since the early 1930s.

So it was a relief when formal offer was made to Pawsey, by Martyn, on 22 September 1939, three weeks after the start of WWII. Pawsey resigned from EMI on 31 October. He was to spend a few months visiting Watson-Watt’s group in the UK and also to purchase some electronics. Pawsey departed with his wife and two young children via ship on 22 December 1939 for the dangerous trip through the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean on the way to Australia.

The day before departure, Pawsey provided Martyn⁸ with a complete report of his activities prior to departure, including a carefully worded report on the problems of finding all the items on the “special apparatus” list.⁹ “I have been traveling all over Great Britain as the work in which we are interested has been considerably decentralised since you were here [due to the war] but I have been able to see a little of most of it.”¹⁰ He had ordered a signal generator that worked from 150 to 300 MHz.

With the balance of the measuring gear money—about £200—I have bought various components with the idea partly to build definite bits of measuring gear in Sydney and partly to get a small stock of short-wave components for general experiment which may be hard to get in Sydney. Unfortunately, I am ignorant of facilities for purchasing such things so that I may be bringing “a few coals to Newcastle”.

A major reason for the letter to Martyn was then apparent:

Now to the principal point, to me, of this letter. My parents and various relations live in the vicinity of Melbourne and have not seen me for about nine years. Also I am bringing my wife and two children whom they have never seen. Consequently, I am very keen on having a week or two at home soon after my arrival. There are two possible ways of doing this. Firstly, that I could stop at Melbourne on my way to Sydney with the boat and then after seeing you and discussing things return to Melbourne to see my people … I look forward to seeing you … It seems a future full of interest.

Martyn replied that regretfully, the exigencies of wartime precluded a stay in Melbourne. “What I suggest you do therefore if you feel so inclined and do not mind the extra expense which you may incur is to leave the ship at Melbourne, stay a day or two there and arrive down at Sydney approximately at the same time as the ship does. I think we might turn a blind eye if you happen to be day or so late.”

We do not know which option Pawsey chose. Likely the family did get off the boat in Melbourne and stayed a few days with the family before moving on to Sydney. In any case the family was back in Sydney in late January 1940¹¹; Pawsey started work on Thursday 2 February 1940, a career with CSIR and CSIRO that was to last 22 years. He joined a research staff of 10, mostly former colleagues from the RRB.

An extended discussion of the development of radar in Britain and elsewhere, of the difficult relations between Britain and Australia that resulted from unwarranted British secrecy, and of Pawsey’s reflections on leaving Britain, can be found in ESM 9.1, Radar History.

Radiophysics Laboratory, 1940–1941: Shore Defence, the T/R Switch and the Buggery Bar

Pawsey started work in early 1940 on a Shore Defence radar, in collaboration with the Australian army. At this time, the expectation was that the UK would develop and supply parts and designs, to be adopted and adapted by the Australians at the Radiophysics Laboratory. In this early stage of WWII, before Japan attacked in the Pacific in December 1941, the expectation by the Australian military planners was that any attacks would be conventional naval attacks by ships. The idea was to defend the main ports and population centres. A carrier borne attack was considered unlikely. Of course, the fallacy of this mind-set would be exposed in the Pearl Harbour attacks of 7 December 1941 and the Darwin attacks (by almost the same Japanese aircraft carriers) on 19 February 1942.

The first RPL shore defence radar was completed in March and installed in July 1940; tests were carried out at Dover Heights in Sydney in May 1940 at ranges of 3 to 8 miles. A major factor contributing to the success of Shore Defence radar (a “scanning” radar in contrast to the “floodlighting” system used in the Chain Home in the UK) was the collaborations established with Col. (later Major General) J.S. Whitelaw, the commander of coastal defence in the Army’s Eastern Command. Whitelaw would remain a RPL supporter throughout the war.

This support was important because the biggest challenges at RPL were not scientific. Rather, they arose from the difficulties of liaison with the various branches of the military and with other government agencies. For example, manufacture of any parts or prototypes was designated the responsibility of the Postmaster-General’s (PMG) department. An endless series of misunderstandings between Radiophysics and PMG resulted in lengthy delays in equipment production, hampering scientific work. One of the complicating factors was secrecy, preventing better collaboration across two good working groups. (Minnett in MacLeod, 1999, p. 424) : “There were severe delays as the PMG and the RPL struggled within their individual areas … to resolve the problems of production under conditions of rigorous secrecy.” Pawsey made a frank remark to Marjorie Barnard in 1945: “[With the PMG contract], there were delays and mutual recriminations” (Barnard, 1946).

Pawsey’s main engineering success of 1940 was the planning and execution of a Transmit/Receive Switch. Thus a single antenna (in place of two) could be used for a radar system; the T/R switch turned off the high power transmitter during the small time interval when the radar echo returned from the target. Pawsey and Harry Minnett had a successful version working on a single antenna at Dover Heights. In 1999, Minnett wrote: “[Pawsey] had a brilliant intuitive feeling for physics and a profound grasp of radiation and transmission techniques at ultra-short wavelengths. For the younger members of RPL, his knowledge more than made up for the lack of textbooks on the subject.”

However, Pawsey had to learn to confront the gap between scientific development and end-user needs in relation to the equipment he helped invent and produce. The fate of one particular invention provides insight into the tensions and difficulties between Radiophysics and the Military.

In 1941, in order to carry out the experimental work on the Shore Defence system and, at the end of the year, the Air Warning (AW) radar then in hasty development, Pawsey developed an accurate impedance measuring device. This coaxial unit was devised and later manufactured for Army use by the PMG. The 200 MHz battery oscillator which energized the unit could be used to determine the aerial directional patterns and the approximate power gain.¹²

The RPL Impedance Measuring Set served an important function in 1940, 1941 and 1942 as it was used by RPL personnel to match and optimise the Shore Defence and Air Warning radio direction finding systems. But radar mechanics in operational areas would need to match the AW and Shore Defence aerials. This required positioning the 36 dipoles and cutting the connecting cables to the correct length to match the system for maximum gain. Radar mechanics were provided with instructions in the form of a document prepared by Pawsey on 10 June 1941. “Concentric Feeder Measuring Equipment (200 Mc)”¹³ was complex: 18 pages of text filled with equations, with a liberal use of hyperbolic sins and cosines, followed by the two figures above. The intended audience was clearly physicists and electrical engineers, rather than hastily trained radar operators. Pawsey was perhaps naïve to think they could master it.

As a result, many of the RAAF had major problems using the IMS, and using the instrument often baffled the radar mechanics. According to one memoir, “[t]he Impedance Measuring Set was colloquially and universally called the ‘buggery bar’, allegedly because Wing Commander Pither (ESM 9.4, Applied science), the irascible RAAF Officer then in charge of radar development as Head of the Directorate of Signals, exploded at a meeting with RPL scientists and said ‘It is useless, you can’t get within buggery of the required result.’” (MacKinnon et al., 2009). At some stations, a buggery bar was not even supplied.

In many cases, problems with using the “Buggery bar” were resolved by radar mechanics who had been radio “Hams”, who resorted to their experience in maximising performance in short wave transmission (MacKinnon et al., 2009, p. 7). Pawsey was eventually able to confront the problem as the LW/AW system (ESM 9.5, Light-Weight) became prevalent after late 1942, with a new design: aerials with open wire transmission lines that required no adjustment of cable lengths for matching of the aerials, leading to an optimisation of the power transfer from the transmitter to the aerial.

The rapid need for Air Warning instead of Shore Defence that occurred in 1942 used the expertise developed in 1940, to produce the aircraft detection radars. Schedvin (1987, p. 251): “[T]he building of the ShD system yielded many of the skills necessary for the development of light-weight air warning (LW/AW) sets which played such a vital part in the later stages of the war.”

Australian Isolation: Other Developments in Radar

Unfortunately, the Australian group was destined to invest heavily in technology that was already outdated before they could adapt it for the local conditions. Radio direction finding equipment was needed in aircraft, usable as pilots engaged the enemy directly. A Shore Defence transmitter antenna was tall and heavy; how could such a device be adapted to the dimensions needed for aircraft?

As is well known, John Randall (1905–1984) and Harry Boot (1917–1983), physicists in Australian expatriate Mark Oliphant’s (1901–2000) research group at Birmingham University,¹⁴ provided the answer in February 1940 with the invention of the cavity magnetron. This was a high-powered vacuum tube that generates microwaves from the interactions of streams of electrons with a magnetic field while moving past open metal cavities that produce a resonate frequency.

Although the cavity magnetron opened the possibility of building equipment in the dimensions needed for installation in aircraft along with higher resolution detection of smaller objects, this information was useless as the British did not have the capacity to manufacture a new weapon at scale. These circumstances brought into being the famous “Tizard Mission” in September 1940 (during the Battle of Britain), a trip to the then-neutral USA to offer a whole series of British military secrets in return for the US undertaking their manufacture and production. The delegation included UK military leadership along with Tizard and Edward (at that time, “Eddie”) Bowen (see ESM 9.2, Radiophysics Laboratory 1940; ESM 9.3, Difficulties; ESM 9.6, Microwave Radar). Bowen travelled with the cavity magnetron—later termed by one US historian as “the most valuable cargo to reach our shores” (Baxter, 1946)—in a lead-filled box, designed to sink should their boat be torpedoed in the crossing. The Tizard Mission also brought with them designs for rockets, superchargers, Frank Whittle’s jet engine, and the VT proximity fuze. They also carried the famous Frisch-Peierls memorandum (written by two German Jewish physicists likewise working in Mark Oliphant’s laboratory), describing the feasibility of building an atomic bomb, which was given to Enrico Fermi in the US. As is known, the USA accepted the agreement. Further: within a month, millionaire physicist Alfred Loomis had brought the “Rad Lab” into existence at MIT, with the collaboration of Bowen.

Evans (1970, pp. 52–56) comments:

All this rapid new development [in radar overseas] was by no means an unmixed blessing to the isolated Australian [radar] team. Although the potentialities of microwaves were immensely exciting, almost over-night Australia found itself way behind in the design situation … The hunt had to be started all over again with the magnetron.

In 1941, this situation stimulated RPL to send Pawsey to the US to gain information about the magnetron (below). In addition, the agreements to obtain the latest radar equipment from Britain, made by Martyn in the UK in 1939 and Madsen in 1940, were now irrelevant—under siege itself, Britain had neither the materials nor the human resources to supply the Australians. As Evans (1970, p. 52) summarised: “The original channels of communication arranged by Madsen on his previous visit to Europe were now largely outmoded.” Scientific liaison in both the US and the UK became critical to the success of the Australian research program, but required stationing physicists with a strong background in electronics overseas, to learn from and transmit back major new aspects of radar research, such as the use of the magnetron, and cm wavelength radars.

Extended discussion of the development of the Shore Defence system, the excitement of the first local radar successes and the challenges of liaison and of the Buggery Bar (illustrating Harry Minnett’s engineering skills) , can be found in ESM 9.2, Radiophysics Laboratory 1940.

Difficulties at Radiophysics, 1941

At RPL, Martyn was the leader of a research team that consisted of a number of radio-engineers and physicists from the Radio Research Board. This included Prof Leslie Martin (1900–1983), Pybus and G. Brown in Melbourne. By March, 1940, the research staff included J. Piddington, J. L. Pawsey, H.J. Brown (also from EMI UK), O.O. Pulley and L.G. Dobbie from Australasian Wireless Amalgamated (AWA), George Munro (from the Radio Research Board), and electrical engineering graduates Victor Burgmann, G. Tangie, J. Warner, Ron Bracewell (1921–2007), L. Hibbard and Harry Minnett (1917–2003). Martyn and other members of the Radio Advisory Board kept an eye out for talented and qualified students. Frank Kerr, born 1918, completed his MSc in Physics at the University of Melbourne in 1940 and was immediately recruited to join the Radiophysics Laboratory, where he found a mentor in Pawsey. Among the new recruits were two talented female physicists, Joan Freeman (1918–1988) and Ruby Payne-Scott (1912–1981), then working for AWA (Goss, 2013). Both women would go on to have stellar careers in physics, Payne-Scott in radio astronomy and Freeman in nuclear physics. For both of them, wartime research provided an unprecedented opportunity at a time when their careers were severely limited by sexism (see ESM 9.1, Radar History). Pawsey’s support for both was extensive.

By December 1940, the staff consisted of 65 individuals, including 27 research staff (all levels), 18 workshop personnel, 5 clerical staff and 4 “Commonwealth Peace Officers” (security staff). By June 1941, the staff had expanded to 41, and now included several new engineering and a few physics graduates, including Brian Cooper (1941 graduate). RPL lacked a hierarchical culture and physicists and engineers worked collaboratively. In Britain, physicists dominated; Watson-Watt did not want electrical engineers involved too early because he considered them more likely to be conventional. Given that the American and German radar devices were largely engineer-led, the evidence of history does not seem to support this concern. Indeed, later the British radio astronomer Hanbury Brown remembered being impressed by the better techniques of the EMI engineers (Pawsey’s former colleagues) whom he encountered in radar work In the UK in 1939 (Brown, 1999, p. 461).

But despite the excellence of the personnel and the consuming, urgent work, RPL management was plagued by chaos and uncertainty. Martyn, who had generated often severe conflicts in many of his collaborations through the 1930s, had no interpersonal skills for management and exacerbated and inflamed many of the daily conflicts with other agencies such as PMG. Perhaps partly to smooth these troubled waters, Madsen decided to send Martyn to the UK in early 1941. Instead, tragic events ensued.

In late 1940, David Martyn began an unfortunate liaison with Mrs. Ella Horne, a German divorcee.¹⁵ The Commonwealth Investigation Branch and Military Intelligence became aware of these events and concerned about potential security implications. Although their (markedly discriminatory) investigation cleared Horne of being a Nazi spy, military intelligence did become aware that Martyn had boasted about his position at CSIR and was clearly indiscrete.

When the indiscretion was made known at RPL, it was feared that the Defence Forces would no longer wish to participate in radar research if they considered the research conditions to be insecure. The Radiophysics Board discussed the matter at their meeting on 17 April 1941, having been informed by Military Intelligence one or two weeks previously and it was decided to send Madsen overseas for scientific liaison in place of Martyn. As Schedvin (1987, p. 258) put it: “Madsen must have judged that there was no one else with sufficient seniority to lead the team.”¹⁶ Madsen departed for New Zealand immediately on 25 April 1941. He stayed for 2 months in North America, later five months in the UK.

Martyn was humiliated, furious and bitter, and became implacably resistant to attempts to patch up relations. His reactions served only to convince others of his instability. As a result, throughout 1941 work at RPL had to proceed without clear leadership, working around Martyn amid increased distrust from the Military. We presume that Pawsey’s quiet leadership—he maintained constructive relations with Martyn throughout the war years—was increasingly developed, and felt, at this time.

It was F.W. “Fred” White who found the path forward. Born in New Zealand, White had moved to the UK in the same year as Pawsey and began work as a Demonstrator in Physics with Sir Edward Appleton. There he became acquainted with Edward Bowen, before commencing a PhD with Ratcliffe at the Cavendish in 1934, the year Pawsey was completing his PhD¹⁷; the two men met there. White returned to New Zealand in 1937 as Professor of Physics at Canterbury College, University of New Zealand, Christchurch. Interestingly, he became friends there with another new Professor who arrived in the same year: the celebrated philosopher of science Karl Popper, whose Jewish ancestry and connections had led him to flee his native Austria three years after publishing his famous treatise The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), which set out the radical theory of scientific progress through falsification (Gattei, 2008 and Jarvie et al., 2006). In Christchurch, while Popper published the passionate and influential work The Open Society and Its Enemies, White developed gunnery radar for the New Zealand navy with the outbreak of war.

In 1940 White had been invited to come to Australia to fill in for Martyn as Chief of Division during the planned trip to the UK. He arrived in March—now filling in for Madsen—and was “thrown blind into a maelstrom within a few weeks.” But, as Schedvin put it (197, p. 239): “The unmaking of one man is often the making of another.” White turned out to have to have all the social and emotional abilities for leadership that Martyn so lacked. He had an imperturbable temperament, a capacity for considerable attention to day-to-day operational details, and excellent communication skills. He engineered a major reorganisation of Radiophysics, in which Martyn’s role, Chief of the Division, would be abolished and Martyn placed in a research-only role.

Conflicts between Martyn and colleagues at CSIR (later CSIRO) would continue for three decades—placing a significant constraint on the early radio astronomers, who badly needed a brilliant theoretician such as Martyn. Despite working at some physical distance from the rest of the scientific community, Martyn continued to carry out cutting edge and highly cited research in ionospheric physics through the rest of his often admirable career,¹⁸ which also featured extensive efforts in support of scientific internationalism. But the traumatic events of WWII cast a long shadow. He would experience psychosis in the 1950s (Chap. 26) and tragically died from suicide in 1970. We provide the first complete analysis of these events in ESM 9.3, 1941: Difficulties.¹⁹

Scientific Liaison Overseas

Madsen’s 1941 trip (end April to early December) to North America and the UK was successful as he organised the Australian Scientific Liaison Groups and met a number of key collaborators. The advent of the magnetron had led to increased complexity in overseas liaison. In Washington, he organised to bring George Munro from London to be the Australian representative in the US and Canada. Madsen met with colleagues at the Naval Research Laboratory and at the Radiation Laboratory at MIT in Boston. He cleared the way for Pawsey a few months later to visit research groups in the US and Canada for centimetre radar discussions.

In the UK, Madsen met Oliphant as plans were initiated for a visit by the Australian-British scientist to Australia in 1942 (see ESM 9.6, Microwave Radar). Madsen wrote: “I found him quite interesting and full of enthusiasm and his lab [Birmingham physics] is turning out some excellent work, restricting itself to fundamental issues and passing over applications completely to other bodies.” This visit let Madsen know that “[h]e now has well in sight the production of a megawatt magnetron … [The magnetron] has brought about a completely new form of technique as compared with radiation at lower frequencies.”

In the meeting, Oliphant expressed considerable interest in Pawsey, whom he had known earlier at Cambridge.²⁰ Madsen wrote:

I cabled immediately to Munro [in Washington] to make arrangements for Pawsey to meet him upon [Oliphant’s] arrival in America. Oliphant has promised not only to give Pawsey all the information he possibly can upon micro-waves, but is anxious to keep in touch with him during his visits [in the US] to some of the important laboratories. This helps to make good … the disadvantage of Pawsey not being able to come across to England.²¹

In December, Madsen had a remarkable trip from Hawaii back to Sydney by flying boat, departing only a few hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941 .

In July 1941, Pawsey was sent to the USA for scientific liaison, returning in the first days of October. He spent six-seven weeks in Boston and three-four in Ottawa. He also visited Bell Labs in New Jersey, meeting microwave engineering pioneers Harald Friis and George Southworth. In addition, he met Karl Jansky, who discovered radio waves from the Milky Way a few years earlier. Finally, on the way to the west coast, Pawsey visited his wife’s family in Battleford, Saskatchewan (Canada) on 27 and 28 September 1941.

The leadership crisis in 1941 delayed the development of a successful air warning system. War with Japan was only a month in the future by the time Martyn’s situation was resolved. Attacks on Darwin would begin in mid-February 1942.

Air Warning, 1941–1942: Applied Science and Wartime Bureaucracy

A major problem at the end of 1941 was the lack of interest in the Australian military to initiate action of radar for warning of sustained air raids. White had pushed for installation of three radar sets for air warning earlier in 1941. But even Madsen was doubtful of “concerning ourselves … with mass aircraft attack.” RPL persisted that this neglect be addressed, playing a role in bringing about a change in outlook.

RPL was able to rapidly respond in the week after Pearl Harbour (8 December 1941 in Australia), providing makeshift air warning protection for the Sydney area in only five days. “There is nothing in radar history to compare with this feat for speed linking development to full production and then into action,” Brown commented (1999, p. 221). Jack Piddington and colleagues (including Brian Cooper and Len Dobie) were able to modify the existing Shore Defence radar at Dover Heights, an Australian Army site. They sacrificed the range resolution and accuracy needed for gun laying for defence against ships to gain enough range and accuracy for air warning. They lengthened the pulse by a factor of 13. By Saturday night (13 December) they could detect aircraft out to about 65 miles. If they had used the original ShD system, this range would have required a power output of 100 kw, compared to the available 10 kw. This experimental radar was operated by army personnel and maintained by CSIR RPL staff, providing around the clock protection against air attack for many months. White and Madsen had been at the CSIR administrative offices in Melbourne and only were informed of the events on their return to Sydney.

After the December success at Dover Heights, efforts were quickly begun to manufacture 3 sets of the new system called AW Mark I, air defence mark I, for delivery in early 1942. See Fig. 9.1 One of these was to be shipped to Darwin. This shipping was badly mishandled -a major problem was that the AW aerial of 6 tons was not intended to be transported by air. An example of the confusion was that the dipole elements were loaded on the final flight. The result was the disaster of the air raids on Darwin on 19 February 1942, launched by aircraft carriers (four of the six Japanese carriers that had been at Pearl Harbour in early December). It was not until March that Brian Cooper and Jack Piddington arrived at the site and had the AW radar working within four days. On 22 March, a large raid was detected with 31RS at a distance of miles, the first Australian radar to detect the enemy. Soon the Kittyhawk aircraft of the US Army were successively intercepting the Japanese attackers.

Fig. 9.1

The Air Warning (AW) radar of 1941–1942. The modified 6 by 6 broadside array at the NSWGR circa 1941–1942. Located at the New South Wales Government Railways (NSWGR) annex in Wilson Street, Redfern near the Eveleigh Railway Workshops. Negative is no 6D from RP 201 by White 1943. Credit: CSIRO Radio Astronomy Image Archive JP09–1

Readers interested in the challenges of technological innovation in wartime can read the details at ESM 9.4, Applied science. We particularly explore the role of Wing Commander A. George Pither of the RAAF, in 1942 in charge of the Radar Section of the Directorate of Signals of the RAAF. Pither was an obstacle rather than a supporter for RPL—he considered that giving the scientists freedom to pursue their projects as they thought fit, had produced an indulgence of curiosity and no actual reliable outcomes—but was also committed to accelerating military use of radar. Minnett et al. (1998a) later wrote: “the relationship between [Pither and RPL] would prove a troubled one for years to come.”²²

RPL stepped up with rapid innovation when it turned out that military strategy was devastatingly incorrect. This rapid innovation was a collective achievement—the whole team at RPL played crucial roles. This likely influenced Pawsey’s approach to scientific development in the future.

These events also mark a significant shift away from Australia’s orientation to, and dependency on, Britain. RPL was already as much interested in American scientific developments as those in Britain. Australian science was in any case now focused on the very different Pacific war needs, and developing its own solutions to these challenges. We concur with Minnett’s analysis of the significance of the development of Air Warning radar (in MacLeod, 1999, p. 425):

Within two weeks of Pearl Harbour, RPL had an experimental air warning system of unique design operating successfully at Dover Heights … Such a swift response was only possible because of the availability of appropriate parts of the ShD technology and the experience gained in developing them. [Our emphasis, identifying Pawsey’s contribution.]

… One final innovation was crucial to the success of the air warning venture. A radiated power of ten times that of the ShD transmitter had seemed the only way to achieve the needed detection range of 100 miles … An inspired adaptation of the ShD technology by Piddington, born of a basic understanding of system design, enabled the desired range to be achieved without increasing transmitter power. The new AW Mk I equipment was to be the first of a series of uniquely Australian long-range, air warning radars.

Light-Weight/Air Warning (LW/AW) Radar, 1942

The most successful defensive weapon in Australia during WWII was planned, prototyped and placed into service within a few months after mid-1942. The main participants were Worledge, Bert Israel, Pawsey and Bullock. The success of the LW/AW radar arose from its developmental sequence: Shore Defence, AW and then AW/LW. The AW system was a 6-ton structure, very awkward to transport and move in the tropics, components hardly fitting in a DC-3 or a Catalina flying boat. Pither consulted J.G.Q. Worledge,²³ leader of the NSW Government Railways (NSWGR) radar structures group, about a new light weight structure (Minnett et al., 1998a, p. 458). Pither wrote:

The problem confronting us at the moment and in the future is to make available an aerial system which, when used with the AW equipment, can be packed into an aircraft, flown to a new aerodrome and erected in the minimum of time, in order to give warning of enemy attack. The deciding factor in this problem is the aerial system. In order to get an adequate range, a large aerial system is necessary, but this is naturally very heavy, and we must balance the problems of range against weight.

But Pither did not consult with RPL, considering the ‘boffins’ both impractical and intractable. This might have cost the Australians an important defensive weapon, since Pither likely did not understand the consequences of his suggestion to truncate the vital aerial array (MacLeod , 1999, p. 458). The range on aircraft would have been reduced by about 20%. “The members of Worledge’s group were not radio engineers and depended upon RPL [Pawsey’s group] to carry out electromagnetic design of a new aerial.” The day was saved however by Flying Officer Bert Israel of the RAAF, a “Mr Fix-it” man who acted as a very successful interface between Pither, Worledge and Pawsey. Israel had been associated with the radio industry. “He established a good rapport with RPL, and in particular, with J.L. Pawsey, who was widely known for his mastery of the theory and practice of aerials and transmission lines … Pither committed the RAAF to a risky technical venture without the benefit of expert advice.” (Minnett et al., 1998a, p. 458).

Israel later told Minnett that he would “… not have dared to proceed without his [Pawsey’s] advice.” The new design (4 × 8 dipoles as the CHL) had only a range loss of 6% of the British CHL device he had seen in Singapore. Thus in the end, Pither’s key role in initiating the project, Israel’s persistent liaison, Worledge and Bullock’s design (below) and Pawsey’s technical advice, produced a lighter weight, simpler antenna that was this new aerial combined with the existing AW radar.

Worledge and E.M. (“Ernie”) Bullock, a 1942 engineering graduate of Sydney University, discussed the design. Bullock started work on 20 July 1942; the prototype was erected on time on 13 September 1942. The final weight of the aerial was about a ton.²⁴ The new aerial was later named the Worledge aerial system by the Air Board as an appreciation of the designer’s work. See Figs. 9.2 and 9.3.

Fig. 9.2

Dover Heights, September 1942. The third stage of assembly for the first prototype LW/AW Radar. The mast and aerial had been raised into position and the fourth leg of the “A” frame had been placed into position. The roof and frame were to be secured at this stage. An additional half of the flange was to be added later as it would surround the mast. RP 201 19 March 1943. F.W.G. White. Credit: CSIRO Radio Astronomy Image Archive JP09–2

Fig. 9.3

The initial aerial (LW/AW) in late 1942.The aerial was a 32-element array of half-wave end-fed dipoles. The feeder system used 330 ohm twin transmission lines (developed by Pawsey). The modest canvas tent contained the transmitter and receiver, with cramped quarters for the operators. The tent was made at Chullora Railways Workshops, near Lidcombe, a Sydney suburb. Credit: CSIRO Radio Astronomy Image Archive JP09–3

By mid-October the first equipments were being shipped to Papua New Guinea where they were an immediate success. It was possible to move them within a day or so to new locations by air, as the military situation changed. In 1942–1943, the LW/AW was used effectively as a defensive weapon in Papua New Guinea. Hal Porter summed up the situation (1988, p. 113) at a later era: “During the latter half of 1942 and the whole of 1943, an immense chain of stations was constructed in the Australasian area … By the end of 1943 radar had passed from the defensive stage to the offensive, both on the ground and in the air.” Interested readers will find a fuller account of the technical aspects of these developments in ESM 9.5, Light-Weight (including Additional Note 2, with an account of the exciting successes of these early endeavours in the Pacific war in Additional Note 3).

Emerging Leadership and Microwave Radar in Australia

Aside from providing informal advice to Israel—and to nearly all projects within the laboratory—Pawsey’s main role in 1942 was to lead the microwave research at RPL. After his trip to Canada and the US in 1941, he had a valuable collection of information on the new magnetron and microwave radar.

The crisis surrounding David Martyn during 1941, led to new leadership at RPL, from 1942. White’s major overhaul of the organisation created three divisions. The first division provided a role for Martyn; he was then seconded to the Army to investigate problems associated with radar (and made many practical contributions working in “operation research”). The second division was Liaison with PMG and Services. The third division was for the research and development of S band equipment at 10 cm, and, after Melbourne Prof Leslie Martin declined to move to Sydney, J.L. Pawsey was appointed its director.

The major project was the first S band (10 cm) Army Shore Defence set (CD No.1 series). The set consisted of two 1.2 m aerials with an imported magnetron. The tests at Dover Heights were successful as a 6000-ton ship was detected at a distance of 70 km. The bearing accuracy was 2 degrees and the accuracy in range 450 metres. The set was to be used at coastal stations and minesweepers.

Freeman’s autobiography (1991), A Passion for Physics, the Story of a Woman Physicist, provides many delightful anecdotes that illustrate Pawsey’s talents in his leadership role. As noted, she had joined RPL in June 1941, working initially with Frank Kerr. Of that period, she wrote:

Another event… particularly important to me, was the appearance of Dr. J.L. Pawsey (whom everyone affectionately called Joe) … [H]e greeted me with a warm, ingenuous smile. I sensed a quickening spirit throughout the Lab. Although he had a quiet, gentle presence, Pawsey’s personality and influence seemed to reach out to everyone; his natural enthusiasm and drive were unbounded and infectious. I soon fell under his spell and found myself learning steadily from his example and thriving on his encouragement … Pawsey was very helpful, stimulating me in his inimitable style to think for myself, and encouraging me to build up my self-confidence.

These features became the core of Pawsey’s leadership style.

Freeman later moved to Pawsey’s microwave group. She later recalled how staff were selected to work on the various components of the system: the magnetron transmitter, the modulator, the aerial, the klystron local oscillator and frequency mixer, the intermediate frequency amplifier and the display system. “Pawsey gave us a superb introductory course of lectures: on aerial, electromagnetic wave transmission, and the properties of wave guides and cavity resonators, providing us in clear and simple terms with all the background knowledge we needed to pursue our developmental work,” Freeman wrote (Freeman, 1991, p. 79). She described her role with the microwave radar 10 cm system thus (p. 83):

Meantime [in 1942], our microwave group was pressing ahead as fast as ·possible with the components for a 10 cm radar set. My klystron oscillator was ·performing. Satisfactorily, but it became evident that great stability was necessary in its high voltage supply. A special variable, voltage-stabilized power supply was required. Pawsey said that I should design and build this. “But I knew practically nothing about circuitry of this sort”, I protested. “This will give you a good opportunity to learn”, he replied with a smile.

I think Pawsey could have done the whole job himself in the time he gave to guiding me, but carried on with characteristic patience, feeding me with suggestions at the appropriate moments, and then leaving me to develop them. He insisted on my doing the job logically and thoroughly, working out all the necessary theory. I did indeed learn a great deal from that exercise, and gained much satisfaction when the completed power supply worked exactly as it should. Then, at Pawsey’s request, I wrote a full report on it. This was typical of the way in which Joe Pawsey operated. His own publication list is not very long; but there must be many papers written by people who have had the benefit of ideas, bearing the Pawsey stamp.

Many from the radio astronomy years would echo these sentiments.

In 1942, Pawsey had his own reflections about what kind of leadership, and what kind of institutional structure, would best suit radar development. They were not centred on himself. Some were prompted by the five month (30 May to 26 October) visit to Australia by ex-pat scientist Mark Oliphant, in whose laboratory the magnetron had been developed. Oliphant’s visit had been organised by Madsen during his trip in 1941 (ESM 9.3, 1941: Difficulties). Oliphant had offered his services to the defence work in Australia.

Perhaps unfortunately, a number of factors limited Oliphant’s impact. Firstly, his voyage in both directions was unexpectedly long. He departed from Birmingham on a very tedious sea trip from the UK (from Glasgow on 20 March, arriving in Western Australia on 27 May). Later in 1943, the sea trip back to the UK (with his family) was even longer, 26 October 1942 to 1 March 1943. For Oliphant, the loss of time due to six months at sea was frustrating given that he enjoyed only five months in Australia.

Secondly, despite their invitation, Madsen and the RPL management had not defined a clear role for Oliphant. In the end he took no active role in the microwave work underway at RPL, though his visit was a morale boaster for the radar researchers in Sydney.

Oliphant’s visit also provoked fresh responses to the perennially vexing question of how best to manage radar research and production. As is evident in Pither’s account, relations between the military and RPL could be mistrustful and strained. Madsen had lost some of the support of the military, and in fact over the next year the Radiophysics Advisory Board (RAB) would become less active, and Madsen would resign (extensive details are provided in ESM 9.6, Microwave Radar).²⁵ As the nature of the problems of the complex management of radar design, prototyping, manufacturing, testing, full scale operations and then improvements became more acute, the coordination of the various players—CSIR RPL, PMG, Department of Munitions, external firms such as AWA and HMV, Navy, Army and Air Force—became more severe, with frequent conflict and inefficiency.

Oliphant raised some controversy by suggesting that a “dictator of radar” be created—and that he himself could take on this role. Pawsey strongly supported this—so much so that he wrote a letter outside of official channels (from home, located in the Joe and Lenore Pawsey Family Collection) to Rivett, 5 September 1942:

I am writing you on the subject of endeavouring to retain the services of Prof Oliphant in the hope that [my own] opinion, from one of the research staff of RPL added to those you have already heard from—those in control—may help you in reaching a best decision. I understand that it is now accepted that the Lab should act as a research establishment as opposed to functioning primarily as a prototype production centre … I believe that the maintenance of a strong research section in Australia is most desirable. To mention only one aspect, a proper research section can [create major] reductions in the work of production by simplification of design … [At present], the RPL, because of the diversion of effort to production, is not a fully efficient research organisation. [However, it is one] which could be transformed into a [efficient research lab].

In order to make it fully efficient it requires two things: (1) effective coordination with the whole of the RDF effort in Australia and (2) inspiring leadership. The former seems to me to be best realisable through the appointment of a sort of dictator of RDF in all aspects for Australia, a project which scarcely appears realisable because of the difficulty of arranging such an appointment. But the latter could be achieved if Oliphant could be induced to still further extend his stay in Australia.²⁶

Oliphant is one of the leading physicists in the world engaged in this type of work. His power lies in his well-balanced appreciation of the operational problems involved in the application of scientific equipment to war, his very brilliant qualities as an experimental physicist, and his ability to inspire his subordinates. Further, I think he would have the courage to persist with ideas he considered valuable for simplification or improvement despite strenuous opposition from official quarters. In all these respects, I think he is outstanding among the men available in Australia today.

No answer from Rivett has been located. Although White told Rivett on 23 July 1942 that he would ask Oliphant to collaborate with RPL in organising the centimetre research work, no action was taken and Oliphant spent the last 3 months of his visit working on the plan to move the group of Leslie Martin and E.H. Burhop (the valve production laboratory) from Sydney University to the University of Melbourne (Laby’s laboratory). The move was a success with the creation of prototype klystron and especially magnetrons that were given to industry for manufacture.

So to Pawsey and Oliphant and doubtless others, Oliphant’s the visit was a disappointment.²⁷ Interested readers will find a greatly extended account in ESM 9.6, Microwave Radar. But it did stimulate microwave radar development. As MacLeod as analysed: “Oliphant argued that the Allies would need radars for the coming counteroffensive, and particularly in amphibious landings. Such radars would have to be easily transported, quick to put into operation, self-contained, and built so as to survive humid tropical conditions.” (1999, p. 413): And his departure left leadership more to Pawsey himself.

1943- a “Golden Year” in Australian Radar: Changes in Outlook

“The year 1943 was a decisive year for the Australians in the Pacific war. During the latter half of 1942 and the whole of 1943, an immense chain of radar stations was constructed in the Australasian area … By the end of 1943, radar had passed from the defensive stage to the offensive, both on the ground and in the air.” (Porter, 1988, p. 113). Simmonds and Smith (1995, p. 64) have described this period as the “Golden Year”, with the number of personnel trained the highest at any time in WWII. The early operations in New Guinea served as a proving ground for the lightweight “air transportable” radar, with experience against the Japanese in 1942 leading to refinements in design and packaging that increased the flexibility of the LW/AW Mk I set. See Fig. 9.4, a high frequency system working at 10 cm (S band) used by the Army for coastal defence.

Fig. 9.4

Coastal Defence Number 1 (A 272 MkI), a coast watching radar set (Army). Two antennas used in order to improve bearing determination. This radar could function as a coast artillery directing set providing precise azimuth and range determinations of ships up to 45 miles. Location likely Northern Territory. Pawsey is the tall man fourth from the right. Credit: Joe and Lenore Pawsey Family Collection

This radar system had robbed the Japanese of the advantage of air surprise as air interceptions by fighter aircraft became more certain. Radar enabled the Allies to choose the time and place for major engagements such as Coral and Bismarck Seas and Midway. As airborne radar located targets, the air-sea battles took place by remote control.

Pither²⁸ (1946, p. 51) was proud of the RAAF achievements of this period:

The end of 1943 had marked the completion of an era of development in radar. The advent of the LW/AW and the successful program of the ASV programme brought to a conclusion a period of frantic development, the outcome of which was a system of radar which was adequate to cope with the threat of the Japanese at the time. In point of fact, this system was really adequate for the rest of the war. With the defeat of the Japanese in the Solomon Islands and at Milne Bay (Papua New Guinea), the war looked like taking a turn for the better, and it began to appear we were entering a new stage.

In this new stage, the increasing shift in outlook from Australian scientists was more evident. In late 1943 (July–December) Fred White and Lt Col S.O. Jones (Directorate of Radio and Signal Supplies, Ministry of Munitions) paid a long visit to the USA and UK, to seek advice from the two main Allies on production problems. Clearly White was also looking for assistance as he considered a reorientation of RPL research and policy, with victory in both Europe and the Pacific now forecast in the not too distant future.

A major goal was to ask the US and British radar colleagues for assistance as the Australians were focussed on “special problems of the South West Pacific Area—SWPA”). The Australians needed advice on radar warfare in the tropics. The US response was favourable. White likely contacted Vannevar Bush, the head of the US Office of Scientific Research and Development, who put him in contact with Karl Compton, the head of the Office of Field Service of OSRD and President of MIT.

Compton was quite receptive to providing assistance. After all, the US was also heavily involved in the war in the Pacific, as both the Australian and US military branches were fighting the common foe Japan. Out of this initiative, the American Group Radiation Laboratory at RPL would develop in mid 1944 (ESM 9.8, Radar and Victory). Compton himself would visit Australia in early 1944 to organise the visit of the US group later in 1944.

But the major achievement of this visit was that on his own initiative, White approached Bowen at the Radiation Laboratory (Rad Lab), suggesting that Bowen join RPL in January 1944. Bowen, who became known as “Taffy” in Australia, would be appointed Chief of Division in 1946. ESM 9.7, Golden Year, contains Hanbury Brown et al’s account of Bowen’s recruitment.

In the UK White received no more help than a suggestion that a prominent radar scientist from TRE (Telecommunications Research Establishment) might be sent to Australia (for the details see ESM 9.7, Golden Year). This suggestion was soon after withdrawn, and an invitation to the Australians send a scientist to TRE instead. This was typical of British relations over all the war years. The expectation that Australian scientists would travel to meet their overseas counterparts, but not the reverse, would colour the first decades of radio astronomy also.

However, in 1944, Henry G Booker (1910–1988), a theoretician at TRE who had completed a PhD with Ratcliffe in 1936, and hence known Pawsey at Cambridge, visited Australia. He provided input into research that Pawsey was now working on. Earlier in 1944, CSIR had taken over the field of super-refraction or anomalous propagation (Evans, 1970, p. 169).²⁹ Under the leadership of Pawsey and John Jaeger, this group aimed to measure radio transmission conditions over known paths, (2) make precise determinations of the meteorological conditions over these paths and (3) correlate and interpret the results (Evans, 1970, p. 169). Further details are provided in ESM 9.8, Radar and Victory. Booker would remain an important professional connection throughout the remainder of Pawsey’s life.

Entirely separately to White’s endeavours, Henry Tizard, the Chair of the scientific committee that first instigated radar research in the 1930s, was in Sydney from 28 August to about 1 October 1943. He did not meet White who was in the UK at this time.³⁰ Chiefly he observed the frustrating environment hampering CSIR’s relations with the services. Tizard was frank: “I am very much afraid that the good work of the RPL will fail to have its full effect on the Australian Services unless the human problems are solved.”

The bottom line was presented by Rivett to White on 8 December just as White had returned from the US and the UK:

Of the correctness of your view that the CSIR Laboratories can contribute a very great deal indeed to the success of the Pacific War, there can be no doubt at all. When Tizard was here, we had several discussions about the best way in which we could develop our usefulness. Much … depends on our power to convince the Services that we really can contribute something; they seem just a trifle slow in appreciating this possibility.

But amid these negative assessments there were in fact several initiatives to improve communication across agencies, which were felt to have some effect. This, and further technical details about radar development at this stage of the war, are provided in ESM 9.7, Golden Year.

Radar and Victory in the Pacific, 1945

At the Radiophysics Laboratory, the new level of sophisticated skills developed through 1942 and 1943 had created its own new industry by the end of the war. The pathway to the rapid growth of radio astronomy in 1945 had been laid.

Pawsey’s radar program was mature and flourishing by 1944. At this time he expanded his research program to include the development of a 25 cm advanced air warning height radar (location Georges Heights—Middle Harbour—near Mossman). This was built around the Australian magnetron (developed in Melbourne) and was “essentially Australian in design and engineering” (Evans, 1970, p. 228). Pawsey’s colleagues B. Mills and R. Payne-Scott—soon to be early radio astronomers—had worked on the issues of calibration and signal visibility of Plan Position Indicator detection with radars. In 1999, Mills wrote³¹: “Finally, looking back, I see the rapid and successful development to have depended on the foresight of Joe Pawsey in setting up a program to study the basics of signal visibility.”

Orders for this “outstanding technical wartime achievement” (Evans 1970, p. 228) were cancelled, with the advent of peace in August, 1945. See Fig. 9.5.

Fig. 9.5

The prototype LW/AWH Mk II. Goss and McGee,2009, page 60. Both the figure in the Goss and McGee volume and the CRAIA image are reversed left to right. Here the orientation has been corrected. Credit: CSIRO Radio Astronomy Image Archive B1362

As peace approached, White and others made further trips overseas to discuss new approaches in both science and policy. Details are provided in summary in ESM 9.8, Radar and Victory. Within the first month of 1945, White left Sydney and RPL to become a member of the CSIR Executive. His task was to assist David Rivett as the Assistant CEO of CSIR, with responsibility for the physical sciences.

Pither (1946, p. 94) provided his assessment of the evolution of radar since 1939:

[R]adar, which started from zero in 1939, became the greatest scientific development of the war. In conjunction with fighters, it stopped the Japanese raids on Darwin, and the tremendous Japanese losses at bases without radar cover in the islands are an indication of what would have happened to Allied bases in Northern Australia and New Guinea in the absence of radar warning.

What were the ingredients that provided the foundation for radio astronomy’s remarkable growth in 1945–1950? (1) A thorough knowledge base in metre-wave and microwave physics, (2) the existence of networks between Australian, US and UK radio scientists, (3) the distinguished careers in academia, government science and industry that occurred after 1945,³² (4) Numerous personnel trained in electronics, (5) the pioneering research by the Radio Research Board from 1927 that continued at the Division of Radiophysics in 1939–1945 and (6) individual scientific careers developed as “programmes of research came to be moulded on individuals, rather than the reverse.”³³ We provide an extended analysis of each of these points in ESM 9.8, Radar and Victory.

Pawsey’s rapid post-1945 success is a special case. What did Pawsey’s wartime experience bring to this unexpected new line of research? We cannot doubt that the experience of war profoundly shaped J.L. Pawsey and his colleagues at Radiophysics. Intellectually speaking, wartime research had raised several interesting issues and lines of inquiry in radio research, much of which could not be pursued until the arrival of peace. One of these was investigating extraterrestrial sources of radio emission.

The social impacts of war were also substantial and shaped the working culture, attitudes and views of those at RPL into the future. Pawsey’s son Hastings has remarked that his father developed a lifelong dislike of secrecy after his wartime experiences. It is well recognised that many people, scientists certainly included, were deeply affected by the war and gave considerable thought to how society could change to avoid such wars again. Sociologist Robert Merton wrote a famous article in 1942, “A Note on Science and Technology in a Democratic Order” that argued that science was structured by a system of moral values organised around impersonal, unbiased and impartial commitments to factual knowledge. This scientific “ethos” stood in contrast to the partisan and prejudiced beliefs that had led nations into war. While we do not know if Pawsey read this article, we will see in subsequent chapters that such values resonated at RPL.

Pawsey had honed his capacities as an applied scientist by drawing on his extensive understanding of physical theory and concepts to solve the various technical challenges that arose in the rapid development of new radio direction finding technology. And even more, he had honed his capacity to develop the skills of his team.