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Aviation History
1941
1941 - 1408.PDF
43« JUNE 26TH, 1941. BATTLE PICTURE : Information received from the Radiolocators is passed to " Operations Rooms." RADIOLOCATION Secret Device for Aircraft Detection THE first official intimation of aradio echo device for the loca-tion of enemy aircraft was a mention by Mr. Attlee in the House of Commons last week. Later this was amplified at a Press conference by Air Chief Marshal Sir Philip Joubert, who recently took over Coastal Com- mand. Previous to this new appoint- ment he was A.C.S.R. (Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Radio), and had devoted the majority of his time to the problems of Radiolocation. In the light of this new announcement it is interesting to recall a paragraph from Flight of January 18, 1940, when the war was still in the sitz-krieg stage. Discussing air interception, we said: "From the time of take-off, instruc- tions reach the fighter pilots by way of radio-telephony. How it comes about that that information is so ac- curate, and how the whereabouts of our own machines are.also known ex- actly, must not be divulged; suffice it that it is so. The. last figure pub- lished for the efficiency oi this scheme was in connection v. ith the air exer- cises held shortly before the outbreak of hostilities. Eighty-five per cent, of the raids were intercepted despite the confusion or fog of war caused by the use of approximately 1,300 aircraft. This last number is a figure hardly likely to be exceeded, however Blitz the Germans may try to make the war." This proved to be an accurate forecast of the Battle of Britain, and was, in fact, surpassed on September 27, 1940, when twenty-one formations out of twenty-one from No. IT Group were able to report "enemy sighted." Electronic Watchmen There is, of course, no secret about the radio phenomenon which is em- ployed ; it is merely the property of reflection, or echo, of radio waves by any solid object. The secrets lie in the operational uses of devices- em- ploying the phenomenon, and these, we are most definitely informed, will remain shrouded in the deepest mystery. Sir Philip Joubert, in his address to the Press, would not com- mit himself beyond the follo statement on what he called "an en- tirely new military art":—"Ether waves, which of course are unaffected by darkness or fog, are constantly sent out to act as scouts far beyond the limits of our shores. Day and night distant outposts of the ether are per- petually ' manned '—so to speak—by wireless electronic watchmen ever ready to flash us tiding? of the enemy's approach with the speed of light itself. '' Radiolocation makes it largely unnecessary to maintain standing patrols, and so it has saved the country an immense expenditure on petrol, engines and wear and tear of aircraft. It has also obviated the tremendous strain on personnel which ' otherwise would have been unavoid- able. "In the Battle of Britain the ad-
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