AI radar

[PMN1]

I have read a number of times that the movement of radar research from Bawdsey to Dundee University severely delayed the development of effective British AI, how true is this suggestion?

[curmudgeon]

I have read a number of times that the movement of radar research from Bawdsey to Dundee University severely delayed the development of effective British AI, how true is this suggestion?
R.V. Jones was very keen to move the TRE from Bawdsey as he feared the British experimental transmissions would be available to the Germans ... who could then develop countermeasures before the systems became operational. According to Jones TRE were loath to move from the comfort of Bawdsey - see 'Most secret war'
The complaints about the temporary accommodation may have included the usual human resentment at being shifted around. Certainly there were drawbacks - but the cited difficulty of getting to London for meetings seems weak compared with the danger of informing the Germans of advances in British technology.
The rate of production doesn't seem unduly affected as the technical problems were the real reason for delay ... and there were needs for conceptual advances.

Corrections: Jones was keen to move TRE from Swanage to (it turned out) Malvern ... book was 'Reflections on Intelligence'

And of course Bawdsey (nr Felixstowe) and Swanage were equally inappropriate places to be conducting radio trials with the Germans in occupation of France

[Red Admiral]

The concerns outlined in Bowen's book were more to do with Bawdsey being bombed.

Better training of pilots and artificers is the only way to get significantly better performance from the AI radar.

[curmudgeon]

The concerns outlined in Bowen's book were more to do with Bawdsey being bombed.

Better training of pilots and artificers is the only way to get significantly better performance from the AI radar.

The early apparatus was unstable (cf comments on 'squint' and other effects in Rawnsley & Wright's book) and it really was a case of laboratory equipment being used in service. Later designs (Mk IV on) became more stable and serviceable through design changes.

Does anyone know the author and title of a book written by an early radar operator, published in the late 1950s. The man was clearly an early 'operator' with accounts of kneeling on blankets in the back of a Blenheim and he also took part in the mission to evaluate German radar at Schlesswig-Holstein in 1945. There is a parallel account to Rory Chisholm's of various interrogations ... The book featured a photo of the Me163 from the Imperial War Museum collection ...