Was he really the first to come up with the idea of chaff?
I think that the pace of change during those times was so fast that different people came up with alternative ideas so quickly, and it was by necessity that the one that worked best was adopted ASAP.
Watson Watt was not daft enough to realise that he was not the only one to be thinking along the same lines and he certainly knew that what he was perfecting at Bawdsey could be countered, as indeed it was to an extent.
The high density magnetron at the heart of 1940’s radar was perfected (in the UK) by Randall & Boot in 1938/9.
A closely guarded secret until “given” to the US by Henry Tizard, the UK govenments chief scientific advisor, on the instruction of HM Government as a sweetener to the US to enter the war in Europe.
A little like all of Whittle’s research and Miles Aircraft’s supersonic designs post war.
Who invented the jet engine ? Discovered the principal of the all moving tailplane that allowed a straight winged design to penetrate the sound barrier ? ( just take a look at those Miles designs for goodness sake ) Made radar work ?
If you ever caught the BBC 2 series “Jeremy Clarkson meets the neighbours” when he ‘did’ America you will understand what I mean, it was one of the funniest programmes I have seen in years.
Depends on which side of the pond your reference book or ‘inventor of x’ website originates from.
There is no element of ‘yank bashing’ intended here, just telling it how it is/was/may have been.
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