Dr. Lee Losee Davenport and the Development of Radar in World War II

CELEBRATING FIFTY YEARS OF THE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

In November 1940 Lee Losee Davenport, a twenty-five-year-old PhD student in physics at the University of Pittsburgh, received a call from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology “about a secret project…he couldn’t tell me what it was, but he wanted me up there immediately.”

Dr. Lee Losee Davenport with
World War II identification and memorabilia.
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project.

The group at MIT consisted of thirty college professors, “heads of physics departments of important colleges here, as far west as Chicago.” They called themselves the “Radiation Lab,” a cover name to hide the real purpose of their study, to develop anti-aircraft radar. Davenport came to the conclusion that he was included in this elite group because he had worked with one of the professors from the University of Pittsburgh who knew that “I was responsible at Pitt for making some of the most complex equipment for my thesis.” Davenport continued, “My role in this project was to get this thing built…the think tank was the idea men, the Einstein-type people… How to reduce that thought into a piece of machinery, or a piece of radio equipment, was up to other people, and I think that is one of the reasons I was chosen…I built x-ray tubes and so on. And I think he viewed me as a scientist who knows how to build things.”

 

Dr. Davenport was interviewed by Oral History Project volunteer Janet T. Klion in 2008 at the age of 93. He described his experiences as a member of the Radiation Lab, and their invaluable contributions to the development of anti-aircraft radar, instrumental in the Allied victory in World War II.

 

As Davenport described it, the secret tasks of the Radiation Lab were twofold. Firstly, “to take a magnetron…and see if you could make a radar device small enough to fit in the nose of an airplane. In that way they hoped to be able to find the German fighter planes or bombers at night, that had been bombing London with serious damage.”

 

Davenport was assigned to Project Two, “to see if you could make a radar system that could operate in all weather, pick out airplanes – a single airplane – and follow it automatically so that it would be accurately possible to aim an anti-aircraft gun at the plane and shoot it down.”

 

RADAR, the acronym which stands for Radio Direction-finding and Range, “travels at the speed of light…and you have to measure time to that accuracy to be able to find out how far it is. You have about a hundred-millionths of a second to measure the time.” After three months of work on the project with radar, it was possible to find an airplane. “In May of 1941, seven months before Pearl Harbor, “we had a system that worked on the roof of MIT, which we could follow an airplane with, track it automatically, follow that plane without human help.”

 

The Signal Corps was impressed with this equipment and gave instructions for it to be transported to the Fort Hancock Proving Grounds in New Jersey. To do so, it was necessary to fit the apparatus into the body of a truck. “I drove it down myself, on the Merritt Parkway” with “an armed guard sitting alongside me.” It was tested on December 7, 1941 and “we had a working machine.” After a few changes, it was sent to the headquarters for the anti-aircraft command in Virginia. After additional tests, the military decided to buy it “right then and there.” The project was now named SCR 584 (Signal Corps Radio 584) and General Electric and Westinghouse were instructed to each build 1700 of them. The instructions to these companies were, “Don’t change a thing. You’re to reproduce exactly what the Radiation Lab people are showing to you, and we want them right away.”

 

Exterior view of SCR 584
(Signal Corps Radio 584).
Contributed photo.

The first practical use of this anti-aircraft device “occurred in England. One of them was shipped over. I was over there with it, and a German aircraft came over Scotland, and we knocked him out of the sky, right away.” Its first use in combat occurred “at the Anzio beachhead (in Italy in early 1944) when “the two 584-directed gun batteries shot down nine out of the twelve planes that the Germans had tried to use.”

 

The most significant use of SCR 584 occurred on D-Day, June 6, 1944 “when we invaded the Normandy coast.” The challenge was to get the equipment there to protect our troops. “Now that was a major effort. This is a semi-trailer loaded with equipment and they had to get them ashore at, or a day after, D-day.” Nineteen of them were waterproofed in Wales to be floated ashore. “I was there to design and work that out and they did get ashore very promptly, and helped to defend our troops. We knocked down a lot of planes.” By the time the war ended, “we were tracking our own airplanes...and I was working on beacons and other systems which we used to steer them, with maps inside the 584s.” Overall, Davenport concluded “that about a thousand German aircraft were knocked down by anti-aircraft fire, all of which was directed by SCR 584 radars…After that, they became used widely everywhere in the Pacific.”

 

Interior view of the SCR 584 radar tracker
that guided pilots to their targets.
Contributed photo.

Before joining the Radiation Lab at MIT in 1940, Lee Losee Davenport had completed his course requirements for his doctorate at the University of Pittsburgh but had not written his thesis. In 1946, The University of Pittsburgh granted Davenport a PhD based on his classified work at MIT. “So, I got a PhD on a secret project, and it was a secret for twenty-five years after World War II ended.” Davenport mused: “I have been the luckiest guy in the world. It was luck that I got singled out to go to the Radiation Lab.”

 The interview “Radar Development in World War II” may be read in its entirety at the main library. It is also available for purchase by contacting the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by the Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

Riding in Greenwich

CELEBRATING FIFTY YEARS OF THE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

These days, often-heard complaints among Greenwich residents center on the town’s ever-increasing traffic congestion. Whether attempting to traverse the Boston Post Road or North Street or the Merritt Parkway, drivers are frequently beset with frustration over the amount of time it can take to get from one end of town to the other. 

Theodore F. Wahl
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

Theodore F. Wahl, born in 1898, was interviewed by Oral History Project volunteer Marcia Coyle in 1974. His memories are of Greenwich one hundred years ago and will allow the reader to pivot from thoughts of cars and traffic to horses, hounds, and the hunt in Greenwich.

Ted Wahl was at the center of horses and riding in Greenwich throughout his life. His family moved here from Florida in 1902, when Ted was four years old. His uncle, John Wahl, had opened a stable in Greenwich “down on Bridge Street. He finished that in 1902 and that’s when my father brought us up from Florida…he taught riding there, and Dad was with him.” Ted dropped out of school at age fourteen and worked for his uncle. 

John Wahl's horse stable
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

In time, people desired “a little bit more riding. They had the Field Club down there, and they wanted riding connected with the Field Club.” According to Wahl, the Field Club stable, “built by the Greenwich Riding Association, had held twenty-two horses.” The stable was enlarged to accommodate up to forty horses. “Then they got a few hounds and started a little drag hunting,” a form of equestrian sport in which mounted riders hunted the trail of an artificially laid scent with hounds. This pre-determined route would be laid to take advantage of the best jumping opportunities. The hounds purchased “were English hounds bought from different places. They even got some from Detroit to drag with.”

Ted Wahl moved from the Field Club to the management of Round Hill Stables in 1924, at that time part of the Round Hill Club, with fifty-five horses. Eventually, Wahl bought the stables, land, and buildings from the Round Hill Club in 1965. Wahl was proud to say that he was involved in teaching the third generation of riders. “I was talking to a lady the other day downtown and she said, ‘You know what year you taught me to ride?’ I said, ‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’ She said, ‘1912.’”

The “country” was wide open in the early days of the sport. “There was a lot of field and there was plenty of room to hunt. We weren’t tied in ’cause where the Round Hill Club is now, that was all Wilson’s meadow. That was all open and we could go out and jump straight on up to Round Hill.” Riders could hunt in both Fairfield and Westchester counties and were known as the Fairfield and Westchester Hounds. Their hunting grounds stretched “as far as the other side of Rye…north up almost to the other side of Bedford… Then we’d cut the other way, over to Stamford… We had a big country to hunt.” 

Fairfield-Westchester Hunt
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

According to Wahl, the hunt was recognized by the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association in 1915. Wahl recounts the day “we were dragging up near the North Village Church and a deer jumped up…of course, the hounds followed him and the field went with them. And then they kind of thought, ‘Well, if we can hunt a deer around here, why can’t we hunt fox…? And that’s how they come to start the fox hunting in Greenwich, after the drag [in 1921]”

Wahl recounted the story of John McEntee Bowman, president of the Biltmore [now the Westchester Country Club], elected Joint Master in 1921. “He built a beautiful kennel [at the bottom of Pecksland Road]. The old kennel building is still standing there [at the time of the interview in 1974]… We hunted one day from there all the way down to the Westchester Biltmore. We laid a drag and hunted all the way down there… They put peat moss on the hard roads then, so the horses wouldn’t slip and could jump the fences.”

Theodore F. Wahl with his horses and buggy
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

 

At other times a hunt might start at the Bedford Village green with as many as fifty to seventy-five people. A favorite meeting place, particularly on Thanksgiving Day, was the Round Hill Store. Another meeting spot was located on Clapboard Ridge Road, “There’s a red gate there. Goes in back of the Boys’ Club property.” The red gate was eventually replaced by an iron sign simply stating “The Red Gate.”  Beyond Riversville Road, “we used to meet at Riversville ford. That’s where we crossed the river…the ford’s right where Mayfair Lane comes down.” Other meeting places included Middle Patent Church, East Middle Patent Church, the reservoir on North Street, and a kennel above the Merritt Parkway on Stanwich Road.

Construction of the Merritt Parkway “made a tremendous difference. We lost several hounds on the Merritt Parkway when that got there. It made us hunt further north… It cut the country right in half.” As Wahl described it, “For a long time it was dirt and that was good because we could gallop right up alongside the road when the hounds were there.”

Greenwich map drawn
by Betty Fletcher
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

In 1948, fox hunting stopped. “Our last Master of the Hunt was Mr. John Howland… The country began to get built up by that time. But he went and got these drag hounds, and he hunted the drag hounds for four years…until 1952. And that’s when the hunt stopped altogether.”

According to Wahl, in its day, “The hunt here was a big addition to Greenwich. It was a big drawing card with the people coming in here to live. But they got in here and they built us up, so we couldn’t hunt anymore.” The end of an era.

The interview “Riding in Greenwich” may be read in its entirety in the main library location. It is also available to purchase by contacting the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by the Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.

By Mary Jacobson, OHP Blog Editor

Firehouse Recollections

CELEBRATING FIFTY YEARS OF THE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Chester West (or “Westchester” backwards as he liked to say) served in the Greenwich Fire Department from 1970 to 1986. On six occasions in the years 1987 and 1988, he described many situations he encountered over those years to Oral History Project volunteer Penny Bott-Haughwout. Chet loved his job and had already compiled his experiences over the years into books totaling 2400 pages (“unedited”). “I enjoyed doing it. It was something I could look back at with pleasure.”

 

Chet West
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

Until 1978, Chet was assigned firefighting duty in Byram. “At the time there was a residency requirement that the town police and fire departments live in Greenwich.”  Although Byram had “high potential” for fires because “we had lumberyards and gasoline and oil storage…they had the smallest area to cover.” In addition, “Byram is the only place that is very well hydrated. If you notice, you’ll see hydrants just about every place. You don’t have to lay too much hose in Byram.”  Of course, with its proximity to I-95, the fire house handled many situations from car fires to motorists asking directions. “One guy had his car burning up, the back seat on fire. He pulls it right into the ambulance bay. He thought that this was a drive-in fire department… Well, the ambulance bay is right next to the gasoline pump!”

 

Chet remembered well the horrific fire at Gulliver’s discotheque in 1974, and the shocking Mianus River Bridge collapse in 1983. He was on duty at the dispatch desk the night the bridge fell into the Mianus River. However, most of his recollections for the OHP interview were of the everyday experiences he encountered in the department. Chet described Byram as “the friendly neighborhood fire department. We knew everybody… We did have the relationship, the compassion, and the respect from the public. It was a very good, secure feeling… I lived right next door, so it was easy… You’d have a lot of the neighborhood people stop in and say hello… Some referred to Byram as “going to the country club.”

 

Chet did quite a bit of cooking at the fire house and it was not unusual for the cop on the beat or people in the neighborhood to stop by and say, “’What’s that smell?’ … Well, you knew their motive. They wanted to stay for lunch… We always gave them something.’’ Chet and his cooking partner Hank were not above experimenting with rabbit, venison, or other game Hank had hunted. One dish he described was raccoon, “And it was very good. It had a white sauce on it… We all ate it.” Chet did have to admit to someone who asked for the recipe, that it really wasn’t turkey a la king.

 

Preparing firehouse food
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

An event that was popular in the community was the annual turkey roll with chances for prizes along with the ever-popular free chowder. “I think it was a seventy-quart pot… Everybody was willing to help… It was very nice.” After seven years on the job, Chet noticed himself getting weaker.  “…then my fingers were getting an atrophy situation, and I was just getting tired quicker… That was May, 1978.” Chet described his diagnosis as a “spinal muscular atrophy type.” However, as he wanted to continue to serve the fire department in a useful capacity, he was transferred to “Central” in Greenwich as a dispatcher, a position he held until his retirement in 1986.

 

Studying a Greenwich map in the Watch Room
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

Going to “Central” (the main headquarters on Havemeyer Place) was like “a rural country boy going to the big city for the first time… Being in the main business section of town, there was very little of the neighborhood atmosphere that I was so used to in Byram. I was assigned mainly to the watch room.”  The term “watchman” has a long history. “In the old days, firemen used to patrol the streets, watching out for fires, and the name just carried over.” While that role was normally rotated within the department, for Chet, “my assignment was permanent watch. It’s called the ‘hot seat.’ You have to make decisions. If you’re right, you’re praised. If you’re wrong, well, you’re really condemned.” Some of these crucial decisions included determining how to respond to a call -- two pumpers and a ladder truck? two ladder trucks? assistance from neighboring district stations? Chet became acutely aware of the size and complexity of Greenwich and its 265 miles of roads with approximately 1,034 names. 

 

From his viewpoint as a watchman, Chet developed a unique perspective on people from the many calls he had to field. “Sometimes people call us for the most menial things… We’ve become the main information service for the town when the Town Hall closes.” Some of these requests fell into the category of “full moon callers.”  As Chet described the phenomenon, “The full moon brings out a lot of callers… Whether it’s coincidence or fact, I really couldn’t tell you. But from my point of view, on a full moon, I’m usually ready for it… You get them (calls) both day and night, but the night is more frequent because people can’t sleep, or something’s been bothering them. They want to talk to somebody. Well, who can you talk to at midnight? … I don’t expect to get any sleep that night.”

 

Answering calls at "Central"
Courtesy of Greenwich Library
Oral History Project

Chet recounted calls ranging from complaints about landlords, to requests for child care on snow days, to inquiries about zip code numbers. Perhaps that is why Chet stated that “a lot of times, GFD is not only Greenwich Fire Department, it’s ‘Gifted For Diplomacy’… Unfortunately, our productivity is only measured in the number of fire calls. It’s not measured in the number of calls we answer.”

 

In this blog we must limit our reciting of the myriad memories that Chet West described in his one-hundred-and-twenty-seven-page interview with the Oral History Project. His reminisces are vivid and colorful, and full of fondness for his days in the Greenwich Fire Department. “I liked that job. As I say, I was a hometown boy… I looked forward to going to work.”

 

The interview “Firehouse Recollections” may be read in its entirety or checked out at Greenwich Library and is available for purchase at the OHP office. The OHP is sponsored by Friends of Greenwich Library. Visit the website at glohistory.org. Our narrator’s recollections are personal and have not been subjected to factual scrutiny. Mary Jacobson serves as blog editor.