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Show ROBERT THAYER operations in the air. We also had to brief them on what radio direction finding tation were available to them, and just general communications. Plus the fact they had to maintain radio silence as much as possible because they didn't want the Germans to home in on them, because a radio compass became quite a valuable tool during the war, not only for the aircraft to find it's way to the target or find it's way home, but also for the enemy to find out where you were if you were broadcasting, they could tune in on you. So the radio compass was a tremendous asset. And it was strictly radio, and went on that way for quite a while, and then radar came into the picture. And this was strictly a British invention. And the Germans had a little of it, but the British were the ones that really had the radar. And they established it along the coast, and for some reason or another the Germans never did particularly try to knock that radar out. And radar stations were permanent-type installations, and could have been attacked, but the Germans were more intent on sending their planes and their buzz bombs and everything else against populated areas. And they made a big mistake that way. But it wasn't long before we had a complete radar section join our communications. And I had worked up to about three officers in that plus several, about twenty enlisted men, and it was strictly radar that they did; they did both the training and the maintenance of the radar sets. At first the radar came from British planes, and then we only had a few of them, and they had what we called G-sets or G-planes, PFF planes, and they actually would lead the formation. If our group was going to lead the combat wing, they would send us one of these PFF planes over. And our crews would fly them, but it still led the formation because it had the radar equipment. But later on it just blossomed, and we put radar in every aircraft. And it became THE thing. Well, it changed our whole operation. At first the weather was so bad 23 |
