Albert Percival Rowe, CBE (23 March 1898 – 25 May 1976), often known as Jimmy Rowe or A. P. Rowe, was a radar pioneer and university vice-chancellor. A British physicist and senior research administrator, he played a major role in the development of radar before and during World War II. [1]
Rowe was born in Launceston, Cornwall, and after attending the Portsmouth Naval Dockyard School, he studied physics at the Royal College of Science, University of London, graduating with a first-class honours in 1921, and postgraduate diploma in air navigation in 1922. On 18 June 1932 at Beckenham, Kent, he married Mary Gordon Mathews, a solicitor. [1]
In the Air Ministry he read up everything he could find on the art of air defence, and became alarmed. Working at that time for Harry Wimperis, he wrote a memo to him that concluded that "we were likely to lose the war if it starts within the next ten years".[ citation needed ] Wimperis took the report seriously, and in 1934 started the formation of what later became known as the Tizard Committee, which supported the early development of radio-based detection.
It was Robert Watson Watt who coined the acronym RDF, "a code name intended to have no identification", as he put it in his nemirandom AIR 2/4487). Soon the American term radar was adopted . In 1937 Rowe had succeeded Robert Watson-Watt as Superintendent of the Bawdsey Research Station where the Chain Home RDF system was developed, and in 1938–1945 was the Chief Superintendent of the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE), which carried out pioneering research on microwave radar. He was appointed a CBE in 1942. [1]
E. H. Putley describes Rowe as a complex character with a strong sense of mission, so, difficult to live with. [2] However, Putley supports Rowe's decisions in giving priority, and most of TRE's resources, to the completion of the Chain Home and Chain Home Low systems in 1938–39, and also continuing research in 1940 on developing airborne interception radar (AI) and centimetric radar with the cavity magnetron. Despite some opposition from RAF Bomber Command who felt that the project would not produce large-scale results, Rowe, assisted by Alec Reeves, also led in the development of the Oboe navigation system and the ground scanning H2S radar. [3]
In 1946 Rowe moved to Australia as chief scientific officer for the British rocket programme. The following year he was appointed scientific adviser to the Australian Department of Defence, and on 1 May 1948 he became, by invitation, the first full-time vice-chancellor of the University of Adelaide, a position he held until his retirement in 1958. [1]
He returned to England, living in Malvern, Worcestershire until his death on 25 May 1976. He was survived by his wife; they had no children. [1]
Sir Robert Alexander Watson Watt was a Scottish pioneer of radio direction finding and radar technology.
The Royal Radar Establishment was a research centre in Malvern, Worcestershire in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1953 as the Radar Research Establishment by the merger of the Air Ministry's Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) and the British Army's Radar Research and Development Establishment (RRDE). It was given its new name after a visit by Queen Elizabeth II in 1957. Both names were abbreviated to RRE. In 1976 the Signals Research and Development Establishment (SRDE), involved in communications research, joined the RRE to form the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE).
Chain Home, or CH for short, was the codename for the ring of coastal early warning radar stations built by the Royal Air Force (RAF) before and during the Second World War to detect and track aircraft. Initially known as RDF, and given the official name Air Ministry Experimental Station Type 1 in 1940, the radar units were also known as Chain Home for most of their life. Chain Home was the first early warning radar network in the world and the first military radar system to reach operational status. Its effect on the war made it one of the most powerful systems of what became known as the "Wizard War".
Boffin is a British slang term for a scientist, engineer, or other person engaged in technical or scientific research and development. A "boffin" was viewed by some in the regular military or government services as odd, quirky or peculiar, though quite bright and essential to helping in the war effort through having and developing the key ideas leading to transformative military capabilities.
H2S was the first airborne, ground scanning radar system. It was developed for the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command during World War II to identify targets on the ground for night and all-weather bombing. This allowed attacks outside the range of the various radio navigation aids like Gee or Oboe, which were limited to about 350 kilometres (220 mi) of range from various base stations. It was also widely used as a general navigation system, allowing landmarks to be identified at long range.
The history of radar started with experiments by Heinrich Hertz in the late 19th century that showed that radio waves were reflected by metallic objects. This possibility was suggested in James Clerk Maxwell's seminal work on electromagnetism. However, it was not until the early 20th century that systems able to use these principles were becoming widely available, and it was German inventor Christian Hülsmeyer who first used them to build a simple ship detection device intended to help avoid collisions in fog. True radar, such as the British Chain Home early warning system provided directional information to objects over short ranges, were developed over the next two decades.
The Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) was the main United Kingdom research and development organisation for radio navigation, radar, infra-red detection for heat seeking missiles, and related work for the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II and the years that followed. It was regarded as "the most brilliant and successful of the English wartime research establishments" under "Rowe, who saw more of the English scientific choices between 1935 and 1945 than any single man."
Edward George "Taffy" Bowen, CBE, FRS was a Welsh physicist who made a major contribution to the development of radar. He was also an early radio astronomer, playing a key role in the establishment of radioastronomy in Australia and the United States.
Arnold Frederic Wilkins OBE was a pioneer in developing the use of radar. It was Arnold Wilkins who suggested to his boss, Robert Watson-Watt, that reflected radio waves might be used to detect aircraft, and his idea led to the initial steps in developing ground-to-air radar in the UK. Wilkins also provided all the theoretical calculations to back-up his idea of aircraft detection, and it was his lashed-up system that he used in the Daventry Experiment to demonstrate that his idea would work. With the Daventry experiment, Wilkins successfully detected an aircraft by reflection of radio waves for the first time in history.
Royal Air Force Bawdsey or more simply RAF Bawdsey is a former Royal Air Force station situated on the eastern coast in Suffolk, England. Also known as Bawdsey Research Station (BRS), the first Chain Home radar station was built there, characterized by eight tall masts, four for transmitting and four for receiving. When the research group moved to Dundee in September 1939, the radar station was left active under the name RAF Bawdsey. The site later hosted a Bristol Bloodhound surface-to-air missile station until 1990, with the station closing in 1991.
The Radiation Laboratory, commonly called the Rad Lab, was a microwave and radar research laboratory located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was first created in October 1940 and operated until 31 December 1945 when its functions were dispersed to industry, other departments within MIT, and in 1951, the newly formed MIT Lincoln Laboratory.
William Alan Stewart Butement was a New Zealand-born British-Australian defence scientist and public servant. A native of New Zealand, he made extensive contributions to radar development in Great Britain during World War II, served as the first chief scientist for the Australian Defence Scientific Service, then ended his professional career with a research position in private business.
Harry Egerton WimperisWh.Sch was a British aeronautical engineer who acted as the Director of Scientific Research at the UK's Air Ministry prior to World War II. He is best known for his role in setting up the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defence under Henry Tizard, which led directly to the development and introduction of radar in the UK. He is also known for the development of the Drift Sight and Course Setting Bomb Sight during World War I, devices that revolutionised the art of bombing.
John George Trump was an American electrical engineer, inventor and physicist. A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1936 to 1973, he was a recipient of the National Medal of Science and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Trump was noted for developing rotational radiation therapy. Together with Robert J. Van de Graaff, he developed one of the first million-volt X-ray generators. He is the uncle of Donald Trump.
Sir Edward Fennessy CBE was an English electronics engineer who helped lead several developments of early radar systems under Robert Watson-Watt and went on to lead development of a variety of radio navigation systems. In the post-war era he led the development of the Decca Navigator System and the company's subsequent expansion to become a leader in maritime radar systems. He later worked for Plessey before becoming a managing director of British Telecommunications Research and then becoming deputy chairman of the General Post Office. He is also known as the recruiter of Arthur C Clarke as a radar technician during the war.
Ernest Henry Putley was a British scientist and prolific author. He is best known for his work on radar, the Hall Effect, and infra-red spectroscopy.
Robert Allan Smith CBE FRS PRSE was a British mathematician and physicist.
Castles in the Sky is a British fact-based television drama first broadcast on BBC Two on 4 September 2014. The movie shows Robert Watson-Watt and other British scientists' struggle to invent radar in the years leading to World War II.
Radar, Airborne Interception, Mark IV, produced by USA as SCR-540, was the world's first operational air-to-air radar system. Early Mk. III units appeared in July 1940 on converted Bristol Blenheim light bombers, while the definitive Mk. IV reached widespread availability on the Bristol Beaufighter heavy fighter by early 1941. On the Beaufighter, the Mk. IV arguably played a role in ending the Blitz, the Luftwaffe's night bombing campaign of late 1940 and early 1941.
Radar, Air-to-Surface Vessel, Mark II, or ASV Mk. II for short, was an airborne sea-surface search radar developed by the UK's Air Ministry immediately prior to the start of World War II. It was the first aircraft mounted radar of any sort to be used operationally. It was widely used by aircraft of the RAF Coastal Command, Fleet Air Arm and similar groups in the United States and Canada. A version was also developed for small ships, the Royal Navy's Type 286.
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