Town Can Be Proud of Part Played in Victory
Taken
from:Southbridge Evening News –
Wednesday, August 22, 1945
Southbridge
people can be justifiably proud of the part they and the industries of
the town played in the war effort.Although
the American Optical Co. turned out the largest volume of goods, many other
plants came through with tremendous efforts.
Harvey-Wells
Electronics, Inc., founded in March, 1940, quickly became a leader in radio
and radar, showing the way for larger manufacturers.Many
other plants here did valuable work, according to a survey of six representative
industries.
Harvey-Wells
was a pioneer in radar development and manufacture all during the war.According
to Richard Mahler, vice-president and general manager, the company was
one of the first to develop and produce radar equipment for the radiation
laboratories at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Harvey-Wells
made the first 50 radar units sent to combat zones for testing and its
methods and designs were later used for mass production of this equipment.The
Philco Co. also used Harvey-Wells designs for long range navigation equipment.
“Our
LRN was the first used in the invasion of North Africa,” Mr. Mahler said.“It
enables ships to plot their position and course plus or minus a few feet.A
ship in a convoy could tell just where it was and where the other ships
were on the darkest night.”
He
added that the celestial navigation which has been in use since men started
to sail out of sight of land had a much larger margin of error and was
useless on foggy nights.
“We
also made the original airborne radar equipment for the United States and
England which started the pin-point bombing of Germany,” he said.
Harvey-Wells
was one of the first to initiate the mass production of quartz crystals,
which were vitally needed to set the frequency of sending and receiving
radio sets.The government needed
24 million crystals and the highest previous production was 50,000 a year.
“They
thought it was ridiculous when we planned to produce a thousand a day,”
Mr. Mahler said.“Within a month,
we were turning out more than that.
“When
the manufacturers first started mass production of crystals, there was
a very high rejection rate.Wright
field out in Dayton asked each manufacturer to send 25,000 crystals for
testing.The average rejection at
the other plants was 40 to 50 percent.At
Harvey-Wells, it was less than three percent.
“We
used an acid etching process which later became mandatory for all the manufacturers,
who took over our methods.After
a while, we stopped production of crystals when the process was so developed
that a handful of companies could supply the need.”
Harvey-Wells
also produced several thousand high-power transmitters for Great Britain
and America for use in landing barges and large trucks, and several thousand
radar units for PT boats.The equipment
was used in all war theaters.
The
company made complete units which were part of the SO radar equipment used
in cruisers and destroyers.
“It
gave the range of the target, told whether it was friend or foe, and gave
the azimuth hearing.Azimuth is
the degrees off the bow of a ship.This
was used in the Battle of the Coral Sea, where the Japs were beaten although
it was the middle of the night and the targets weren’t visible.”
Explaining
the functioning of the radar to tell whether a ship or plane was friend
or foe, Mr. Mahler said that the radar equipment in a ship or plane “acted
as a trigger” for radar equipment in the target.The
company has been and still is making this equipment for B-29 and B-32 bombers.
“We
made so many different kinds of equipment that it’s hard offhand to think
of them all,” Mr. Mahler said.“For
instance, we had a radio direction finder that was used in both Europe
and the Pacific and an anti-jamming device which could practically shut
out enemy interference.
“It
could also locate the stations which were jamming, making it possible to
put them out of business.”
Harvey-Wells
built the radar system which replaced the tail gunners in B-29s and B-32s,
who had had a high mortality rate.
Mr.
Mahler said that the radar equipment used in the big planes cost from $35,000
to $40,000 and that most of it wouldn’t be useful in peacetime.
“Some
of it will be good to prevent collisions by ships and planes,” he said.“Airports
will have radar screens and be able to tell where any plane is.They
can keep them out of each other’s way and land them when the ceiling is
right on the ground.”