Signal Corps Radar protect Panama Canel on M.S. Nordic
Back to the InfoAge HomepageBack to the Press Index

---

Signal Corps RADAR Protecting Panama Canal 1941 - 1944

Thanks to Mr. Harold Fulton we have these unpublished photos to suplement Dr. Zalh's story.
Mr. Fulton found a photo album filled with excellent photos.

SCR-268 radar at sea on the M.S. Nordic protecting the panama canal.

Radar equipment below deck on the M.S. Nordic

     From Dr. Zahl's "Electrons Away"  Page73-74

     But back to Marchetti.  In this bristling environment our problem was to extend the early warning radar system, then guarding the Panama Canal; German and Japanese battleships and aircraft carriers were ranging in both oceans.  We knew that our existing radar was almost useless against low-flying aircraft; a fact, we suspected, of which the enemy was also well aware.  We needed radars operating at higher frequencies which could detect low-flying aircraft.  And to make them even more effective, the plan was to mount these radars on picket ships riding 100 miles off of each canal entrance.
      With our boss, Colonel Colton, driving hard, success came our way.  Our little set was ready for an oceangoing test; we could get ranges of 100 miles on bombers, and good coverage at very low altitudes.  Our first picket ship arrived, the M.S. Nordic, a trim 125-foot vessel, complete with crew.  This test will never be forgotten.
 Escorted by a Navy blimp and a destroyer, the Nordic put to sea.  About 40 miles off shore a German submarine surfaced and its periscope settled on the view of our top secret radar; but not for long, for the view of the radar developed a background now including the blimp and the destroyer closing in with depth charges, just waiting to be dropped on something like a hostile submarine.
      The sub crash-dived, and may have saved its own life because so close was it to the Nordic that dropping of the bombs had to be delayed until the Nordic could lumber out to where the bombs wouldn’t get her too…   Hitler would have liked that prize.

Also see....
June 12, 2003  Radar experts worked at Camp Evans to protect canal.  By Fred Carl, The Coast Star, Page 7

Page updated January 1, 2004   page created July 2, 2002
<>

---

Back to the InfoAge HomepageBack to the Press Index
 
 
 
 

Home | Calendar | Exhibits | Camp History | Our Partners |