the life of Philo T Farnsworth - Early Television Foundation

256 THE STORY OF TELEVISION
all the transceivers for tanks were produced here. Other lines
were given over to radar and radio equipment for planes,
and still
others were set up for production of transmitters and receivers
for different types of naval craft, particularly
PT boats. Night
and day, month in and month out, through the war years there
constantly flowed beautifully engineered radio and radar sets
from these well-organized mass-production lines.
There was such a demand for the products Farnsworth was
putting out that in order to find additional personnel and facilities
for expanding production, a former furniture plant in Bluffton,
Indiana, was leased and lines were set
up there to build the
smaller electronic units. Before long, this thriving community
added five hundred employees for work on the Farnsworth
production lines. Along with this the research laboratory at Fort
the War
Wayne was working on new developments needed by
and Navy Departments. These activities were carried on under
strict wartime secrecy. Even today some of them are still under
wraps. In this work there was the closest co-operation between
the Farnsworth company, Radio Corporation, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, and the laboratories at Wright Field
and other important development centers. In this effort, the
results of Phil Farnsworth's genius were being utilized fully
in
the prosecution of the war.
Early in the war, I visited Phil in Fryeburg and found him in
a bad state of mind and health. He was fretting under the
doctor's ban on concentrated work at a time when he felt the
of new
country needed all that he could give in the way
inventions and developments. His doctor was adamant in
ordering him not to work too much. In spite of repeated
warnings, Phil, in his laboratory in Maine, did overtax his
strength by working long, irregular hours. Although
he was
losing weight and growing weaker, he persisted in spending