Professor RV Jones’ book “Most Secret War” and Alfred Price’s “Instruments of Darkness”, amongst others, have recounted the huge effort put into determining German ground and air radar capability in WW2. RV Jones indicated how difficult it was to find radar sites he was seeking, even using PR Spitfires.
“Last Train from Berlin” published London The Cresset Press 1942, by Howard Smith, a US reporter previously based in Berlin, until his timely exit before December 1941, describes pp116-117 the Tiergarten flak bunker.
He writes at p117: “On each of its corners is a long, powerful gun, pointed at the sky. They are fired by remote control from another, similar tower about a hundred yards further on in the wood, on which there is a big “ear” resembling a fishing net, big as a big bomb crater.”
The “ear” is a description of what is now known as a Giant Wurzberg radar. Jones at Photograph 13A in the 1998 Wordsworth edition of his book, apparently shows a US embassy secret photograph of this same radar taken in 1941.
Was this the first public reference, albeit somewhat veiled?
By: Arabella-Cox - 2nd March 2013 at 18:26
I wonder if he thought he was describing a system based on sound location, hence “big ear”?.
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March 2, 2013 at 5:16 pm