One career officer recalled, “It really pained me … to think how much two years of fleet experience with radar before 1941 could have saved us in lives, planes, ships and battles lost during the initial phases of the Pacific war.” A radar early warning system was still being field-tested in Hawaii on the morning of Dec. Eight years later, the same engineers discovered their radio technology, later called radar, could detect enemy planes from miles away. They submitted a proposal to develop the idea.
When a ship sailing down the Potomac disrupted their signal, they quickly realized their system could be used to detect enemy ships through fog or darkness. They were testing new ways for ships to communicate at sea. set up a radio transmitter and receiver on opposite sides of the Potomac. Navy’s research lab just outside Washington, D.C.
