Radar Man

Scottish-born Robert Watson-Watt was once a meteorologist in Britain's weather bureau. His interest at the time was thunderstorms, and he worked out a radio device to track their movements at great distances. Little by little, he learned how to track other things in the air besides thunderstorms.

As World War II approached, Watson-Watt's "radiolocation," now sponsored by the Air Ministry, became a top military secret. British firms were given orders to make peculiar parts for some mysterious device. When German bombers attacked Britain, the bombers found the island ringed with radar eyes that picked up the planes, tracked them accurately, and told the R.A.F.'s intercepters just where to find them. Without Watson-Watt's radar, the Air Battle of Britain might have been the start of an invasion and a quick German victory.

Last week Watson-Watt, now "Sir Robert," already knighted as one of the architects of victory in the Battle of Britain, got another reward: -L-50,000 ($140,000), tax free, from the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors. Other British contributors to the development of radar shared -L-37,950. British scientists agreed that the decision was a fair one. It had been reached after long deliberation by a seven-man commission of lawyers, scientists and businessmen, presided over by Lord Justice Cohen, Lord of Appeal.

The British government has the right in wartime to take over all inventions without payment. After the war, it pays off. Some of the ministries, on their own responsibilities, grant payments to inventors whose claims are clear. In this way Sir Frank Whittle got -L-100,000 for his jet engine work. He did not even apply for payment.

More complicated cases, such as the radar award, are submitted to a commission, which listens to pleas, calls witnesses and weighs evidence very much as if it were a regular court of law. There is nothing sudden about its deliberations. The commission formed after World War I sat for 17 years and passed out a total of -L-1,500,000. The present commission has been at work since 1946, and has thus far awarded -L-600,000.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.