January-February - Air Defense Artillery

"\'lindow" off the Secret List
Narro\\" strips of metal foil cut in lengths corresponding
the frequencies of enemy radar and released from
bers o\'er Gemlanv are estimated to have reduced Alplane
losses by 7) per cent. the \Var Department has
d.
Known as chaff ("window." to AA men). this metal foil
oonsidered to ha\'e been one of the most effective devices
the Radar Countermeasures Program, according to the
n) Signal Corps. Ten million pounds of chaff were
roped in the air over Germany during the bombardment
the Reich. Chaff was used by American and British
lbers to paralyze the enemy's antiaircraft fire control by
uttering" the scopes of the German radar. Packages of
foil. released from planes, gave the same resp0l1se on
mlan radar that would be caused by bombers.
Chaff was only one of many kinds of equipment emved
bv the Allies as radar countermeasures. "Jammers,"
~isting of high-powcred radio transmitters, were effec-
\'C in blacking out German radar sets used by the enemy
locatc Allied planes and ships, to direct German fighters,
to point their deadly flak-firing artillery.
From the time the first radar sets for detecting enemy
raft were first devised, it was evident that radar, like
dio communications, would be susceptible to enemy inrference.
An early directive stipulated that the first longnge
radar detector should not be subject to interference,
t the Signal Corps reports that up to the present it has
cn impossible to design any radio or radar that is free
om jamming. In the battle for supremacy in the radar
eld, the Allies emerged victorious because they were able
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to keep ahead of the enen1\' with countermeasure equipment.
The British used some jamming devices before the United
States entered the war. \ Vith these thev were able to black
out German coastal early-warning and 'gun-laying radar installations
on the French coast. They hit upon the idea of
dropping strips of metal foil as a radar shield for their
planes, a device they called "window." The foil was pasted
on paper to givc it rigidity. but had limited production.
The U. S. Army Signal Corps took up the idea, and with
the aid of the National Defense Research Committee, experimented
with different sizes of foil. By crimpling the
thin metal strips, it was possible to reduce the weight to
one-fourth with no loss of effectiveness. Thereafter, both
Britain and the U. S. depended upon the American suppl~',
l' l' l'
Biological W'arfare
It is important to note that. unlike the development .of
the atomic bomb and other secret weapons during the war,
the development of agents for biological warfare is possible
in many countries, large and small, without vast expenditures
of money or the construction of huge production
facilities. It is clear that the development of biological warfare
could very well proceed in many countries, perhaps
under the guise of legitimate medical or bacteriological research.
In whatever deliberations that take place concerning the
implementation of a lasting peace in the world, the potentialities
of biological warfare cannot safely be ignored.-
From tIle report to the Secretar)' of 'Var by Mr. George W.
l''lerck .
~.,',\ ~~ ,~
, -
. British Official
II," the British Navy's experimental anti-V-l rocket battery. "Tonsil" was a rush job---ordered on 11 July 1944, the
ers were mounted on trucks in two days. ready for action in four days. and by 31 July had accounted for eight V-Is.