Radar Research - New Zealand Pioneers

[Dave Homewood]

RADAR RESEARCH

DOMINION PIONEERS

STATIONS ROUND COAST

Details of the part played by New Zealanders in the development of radar have now been released. Dr M. A. F. Barnett, who later became director of meteorological services in New Zealand, and now holds the rank of wing commander in the R.N.Z.A.F. weather service, was carrying out experiments with Sir Edward Appleton in Britain in 1924.

Using a broadcasting station for investigations into the upper layers of the atmosphere, the two men discovered that waves sent out were being reflected and picked up again. By accident an aircraft crossed the path, the waves were deflected from it, and in this way radar was born.

Mr I. D. Stevenson, director of the Radio Development Laboratory, Wellington, who has recently referred to Dr Barnett's work in this connection, mentioned that the member of the Air Ministry in Britain who had been responsible for the decision to develop the new discovery was the present Governor-General of New Zealand, Sir Cyril Newall.

When war appeared inevitable in 1939, the Dominions were given the secrets of radar. New Zealand at once sent Dr E. Marsden, of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, to England to collect the secret information and key parts for the sets. War broke out while he was there, but he brought the plans back safely and in a short time New Zealand had radar stations in action and was even supplying surplus equipment to the British Eastern Fleet.

Whenever these parts were sent in ships or planes they were carried in perforated bags weighted so as to sink rapidly if necessary. In New Zealand, Government laboratories perfected the parts and these were then made in quantities in factories under close supervision. One Auckland firm set up a small laboratory and participated in the work.

When war broke out Britain had radar stations erected all round her coasts and regularly plotted aircraft. The Germans became curious about mysterious signals emanating from these stations and sent Zeppelins to investigate. They flew very high and did not, of course, understand the nature of the signals. The Zeppelins were never seen, but the British knew they were there.

One of the first problems encountered with radar was the excessive heating-up of insulating substances, which made them useless for this work. Ordinary electrical wiring was replaced in Britain by co-axial cable. New Zealand was unable to obtain this cable, but the ingenuity of her engineers led to the improvisation of domestic copper tubing for the purpose. Quarter-inch tubes were placed inside inch tubing, and stations all round the coasts were "wired" in this way, civilian supplies being made short on that account.

New Zealand also led the world, according to Mr Stevenson, in the use of radar for weather forecasting. Meteorological balloons were followed for up to 40 miles by radar and valuable data for foretelling the weather were obtained in this way.


NEW ZEALAND HERALD, 19 DECEMBER 1945

[davidd]

Amused by the statement above (para. 6) In fact the Germans in the Zeppelin knew exactly what type of radiation was being transmitted by the mysterious stations. Germany had used that wavelength already in their early radars but soon rejected it as unsatisfactory for their purposes. The British knew this wavelength was second best too, but it would take time to develop more powerful equipment and the pragmatic decision had been made to equip their coastal stations with what they already had until superior types could be developed and put into production. Think I read this in Robert Watson-Watt's book, but could have been somewhere else, such as the RAF Narratives of the history of Signals in the RAF (Air Raid Warning).
David D

[Dave Homewood]

The things that surprised me was I always thought it was Robert Watson-Watt who discovered/invented radar, and I had no idea there was a kiwi scientist involved. I had never heard of Barnett and Appleton.

And I was also surprised that the Germans were still using Zeppelins in WWII. That is not something we hear about.

[Bruce]

Its not entirely accurate...
Radar was being developed in the 1930s, when there were still Zeppelins hanging around. The Graf Zeppelin II did the recon flight in 1939 and picked up the transmissions but the significance was missed during the interpretation of the results. Chain home used a frequency of 50hz - the same as British AC domestic electrical supply, so the signal was simply considered to be interference from the mains. As it was, Chain Home was using the standardised frequency specifically to synchronise the different stations, the National Grid having particularly good nationwide frequency control at the time. The frequency shift off that standard of each return from several stations was used to triangulate the aircraft position - the original Chain Home High being non-directional.

A great book on the subject is "Under the Radar" by Sandra Coney, which is the story of the Piha Radar station. According to the book, the DSIR was responsible for a number of significant improvements to radar technology (including the single transmitter / receiver antenna), which were passed to the UK. In many respects the NZ made sets were considered superior to the British ones. It is also worth noting that as an offshoot of the NZ Radar work, a number of significant discoveries in the science of radio astronomy came about. Elizabeth Alexander, a Physicist working for the Wellington Radio development Laboratory, using observations from the Piha and Norfolk Island radar stations, first noted that the sun (and indeed other stars) was a source of radio waves. The Piha Site was also used for pioneering research by Australian radio Astronomers in 1948, which identified the first pulsars.

We were surprisingly advanced in that field for a number of years.

[pjw4118]

I think that this and other war work resulted in some quite advanced companies being set up , Pye radio may have been one and post war produced normal radios and in the 1960s built Tvs . Prices foundry at Thames may have been another , and pioneered light weight castings in alloys , for what use I dont know. For CAC and GM producing munitions the other major new thing was the employment of many women.
I wonder how many well known companies of the 50s and 60s got their start as wartime enterprises ?

[nuuumannn]

I always thought it was Robert Watson-Watt who discovered/invented radar

It's a common misconception; thing is, he wasn't even the first to put reflecting radio waves off objects to practical use. It was a German, Heinrich Hertz who was the first to discover that radio waves had reflective properties in the late 1880s and it was Guglielmo Marconi that carried out practical experiments on Salisbury Plain in 1899. Another German built a device called the telemobilescope that could detect barges cruising down the Rhine in fog. He did this in 1904. Watson-Watt used the oscilliscope to visually record the returns and his efforts were certainly ground breaking in Britain what he achieved through the Tizard committee, but he by no means invented radar. In fact, in the 30s, all the major industrial powers, from the United States, France, Germany, the Soviet Union and Japan were working on practical radio direction devices.

A note on LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin II; these experiments were conducted before WW2; its last flight was made in August 1939. Goering thought Zeppelins were a waste of money and LZ 130 was scrapped in 1940, along with LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin as the aluminium, it was theorised should be used for the war effort. The US Navy was the only branch of the armed forces of the major powers that used airships in WW2.

I visited the Pillar Point remains of the rader station at Cape Farewell a number of years ago, which was interesting. There's not much left except foundations; I suspect Piha is the same? One thing I have an interest in was that there was a listening station in Blenheim off Rapaura Road on the Wairau River and I've not been able to ascertain its exact location. Any clues?

[davidd]

Grant,
I presume the Blenheim listening station was the one often mentioned as "manned" by NZ "Wrens" (and perhaps a few WAAF's) from mid-point of war, recording much of the Japanese radio traffic (which was of course coded), and this information was passed on to the American experts. I guess there must have been quite a few of these stations operated by different governments around the Pacific, but only the Americans (and perhaps Australians, British) would have had the capability to get sense out of this raw material, and thus make it useful to the Allied war effort.
David D

[Dave Homewood]

There was an ex-Wren called Lenore Liocadia (Bunty) Longuet who was interviewed for a couple of different TVNZ documentaries in the 1990's about her time at that top secret radar and listening post at Blenheim. I am sure she was in the epic six-part series New Zealand At War in 1995,  and also in a one-hour programme about the Home Front in NZ during WWII the name of which escapes me. I wish I could recall the name of that doco because from memory I am almost sure she visited the two-storey farm house where the listening station had been when they interviewed her. I believe she was also interviewed for Jim Sullivan's book Doing Their Bit. Maybe that has some details in it?

Here is Bunty's obituary www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/obituaries/4367538/Small-frame-contained-a-full-and-colourful-life

This article mentions here work www.stuff.co.nz/marlborough-express/your-marlborough/9969149/Women-at-war

Here's a piece on the wartime radio stuff and there's a photo of the house in question 
maritimeradio.org/awarua-radio-zlb/1940-1949/working-with-wrens/

[Dave Homewood]

Aha, got it. It was called In Fear of Invasion

www.ngataonga.org.nz/collections/catalogue/catalogue-item?record_id=105400

[Dave Homewood]

If you click here and scroll to 8 mins 20 seconds you can hear Bunty talking about the radar work:

www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2444199

Jim Sullivan talks with Bunty Longuet, [who died in November 2010], about her experience at a Japanese submarine listening post in Marlborough in the Second World War.

After her fiancés death, she became a sergeant and joined Home Guard as a signaller using Morse code. She later joined the VADs and the Navy before being interviewed to work with a group of telegraphists who worked to decode wireless Japanese messages. She talks about working with agents from MI5 in a farm house and code recalls Merlin Minshall who worked with Ian Fleming and was apparently an inspiration for James Bond. She talks about maintaining secrecy in their work and living and working with other telegraphists.

[Dave Homewood]

In that interview she says the house was at the end of a dead end road. Rapaura Road is not a dead end, although I do not know if it maybe was in wartime.

[Dave Homewood]

Mark Maguire just sent this in an email:

Hi Dave

Some thoughts

researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/9340 chapter 6 of this thesis may provide some information on the listening post off Rapaura Road, Blenheim. There's also a chapter in Invaluable Service by Desmond Ball, Cliff Lord and Meredith Thatcher about the listening post.

books.scoop.co.nz/2019/06/30/woman-rocks-science/ May be of general interest about radar development in New Zealand.

Regards

Mark

[phil]

One of the buildings that formed part of the radar station at Piha is still in RNZAF service, it is the domestic building at Kaipara Air Weapons Range.

[phasselgren]

Jul 31, 2019 9:13:05 GMT 12 davidd said:

Grant,
I presume the Blenheim listening station was the one often mentioned as "manned" by NZ "Wrens" (and perhaps a few WAAF's) from mid-point of war, recording much of the Japanese radio traffic (which was of course coded), and this information was passed on to the American experts. I guess there must have been quite a few of these stations operated by different governments around the Pacific, but only the Americans (and perhaps Australians, British) would have had the capability to get sense out of this raw material, and thus make it useful to the Allied war effort.
David D

Even small countries could be succesful code breakers. The Dutch were pioneers in the work to break the japanese codes. The Swedish professor Arne Beurling was succesful in breaking the codes of the German Geheimfernschreiber (compare with Enigma but this was for traffic on telephone lines). He did this in two weeks just using papers and a pencil with messages from a 24h-period. Compare with the resources of Bletchley Park.