![]() He returned to Australia by ship with a great number of reports and essential radio valves locked in a lead-weighted cabin trunk. He flew to London immediately and was given the entire details of Britain’s secret radar network. For a number of years Martyn had been doing research into the upper atmosphere and ionosphere for the CSIR Radio Research Board. Prime Minister Lyons called in CSIR and, on the advice of its Chairman Sir David Rivett, chose physicist David Forbes Martyn for the clandestine mission. Utmost secrecy is essential and the choice of a man of the greatest discretion important.’ The secret mission The High Commissioners have been informed that if their Governments send their best-qualified physicist to England all information will be placed at his disposal for secret report to Dominion Governments. They culminated today in the disclosure to the High Commissioners of a new development in defence applicable particularly to air but also probably capable of development for other services. It read: ‘ Conversations have been carried on from time to time with the Air Ministry on the subject of secret research. On 24 February 1939, the Australian High Commissioner in London sent a cable to the Prime Minister, Joseph Lyons, in Canberra. Other research programs were in cloud and rain physics and the development of Distance Measuring Equipment (DME), the transponder-based radio navigation technology found in all aircraft. The radar system was operating three days later and detected subsequent raids early enough for them to be intercepted before they reached the coast.įrom these covert beginnings was to come the Division of Radiophysics, which during the war initiated over 20 major radar projects and continued after the war with pioneering applications of the techniques to the newly created field of radio astronomy. Equipment was sent to Darwin in early 1942, but on 19 February 1942, only days from completion, the city was bombed by Japanese planes. By the end of 1941, the system was further developed to scan the skies for planes. ![]() This system would provide advance warning of approaching enemy ships to the Army and Navy. Upon his return in 1940, the Australian Government was concerned about the threat of an attack for the sea and immediately began building the first shore defence system. He returned to Australia with material to develop the technology in Australia. CSIR sent physicist David Martyn secretly by plane to London, where, he was given the entire details of a secret radar project by the British Government. In 1939 at the beginning of World War II, the Australian Government was asked to send its most qualified scientist to learn about a scientific breakthrough that the British were developing. In rallying behind the war effort, CSIR (as it was then known) became prominent in aeronautics and the development of radar.
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