By Christopher Miskimon
As France fell in May 1940, scientist Vannevar Bush delivered a note to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. About fifteen minutes later Bush got the page back with “okay” written on it. He immediately set up the Office of Scientific Research and Development, which set about developing the tools to enable Allied victory in the war. One of these inventions, microwave radar, allowed the Allies to prepare for and conduct the D-Day landings, though few have heard of it or its story. A small device, the size of a hockey puck, enabled Allied forces both to better predict the weather and combat the Nazi U-Boats prowling the Atlantic.
The author presents this scientific history of a groundbreaking, war-winning device quite effectively. Despite the technical nature of the subject, the work stays at the layman’s level, allowing a broad understanding of how this radar improvement allowed aircraft to get to their targets and prevented marauding submarines from escaping detection. The book reveals how microwave radar proved as important a weapon as any bomb, ship, tank or aircraft.
Blind Bombing: How Microwave Radar Brought the Allies to D-Day and Victory in World War II (Norman Fine, Potomac Books, Lincoln NE, 2024, 230pp., photographs, notes, bibliography, index, $29.95, HC)
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