In 1936, he pioneered the early use of Radio Direction Finding (RDF), the predecessor of radar. Tizard was one of Britain’s scientific visionaries.
When Bowen reached the British embassy, he was met by Sir Henry Tizard, the Director of the prestigious Imperial College of Science and Technology and chairman of the Committee on Air Defense. They resembled clay pigeons but held the future of Great Britain’s struggle against Nazi tyranny in Europe. Inside the box were 12 objects, each small enough to fit in the palm of a hand.
Bowen was named as the newest envoy of a Technical and Scientific Mission to the United States. Even then, Bowen and his superiors in the government had no illusions regarding the threat of Hitler and the powerful modern air force he was building.Īs hordes of German bombers began swarming over England as a prelude to invasion, the Chain Home Network was proving its worth by detecting the enemy planes over the Channel in time for RAF Fighter Command to intercept them. Next to him in his stateroom, never out of his sight, a small sealed black box held a great secret.Īlready considered one of Britain’s most promising physicists, Bowen had been on the cutting edge of radar research since 1935, developing the first crude aircraft radar sets and the invaluable Chain Home Network. In the summer of 1940, a 29-year-old Welsh engineer named Eddie Bowen was traveling across the Atlantic to the British embassy in Washington, D.C. The story of how radar came to be, and the huge effort made to develop it in Great Britain and the United States is hardly known outside of the exclusive fraternity of brilliant scientists and engineers who pulled off one of the most crucial accomplishments of the conflict. There is no disputing that radar played a major role in the Allied victory in World War II.