Biographical Memoirs: Volume 62 (1993)
Chapter: WARTIME
WARTIME
In AB, Dick states that the idea for a proximity fuze came from England by way of the Tizard mission in the summer of 1940. After development by a group Dick led (that grew to 1,000 people), the fuze was very effective against German V1 bomb attacks on London, as well as for many other uses. One afternoon in 1940, Merle Tuve had asked Dick to find out whether a glass radio tube could be designed to stand 22,000 g and that evening Dick ran an 8,000 g test on an old 38 tube which survived. In the morning, a 954 acorn tube survived a 20,000 g test attached to a lead sphere dropped from the top of the cyclotron building, and "Section T" was off to a quick start. Merle Tuve was boss and put Dick in charge of the radio fuze, while others got projects such as photoelectric and acoustic. In two years, production was going and tests of improvements were being run, a remarkable record. Just one quote for atmosphere from AB: "The next problem was to get some action out of Crosley. They told us that two weeks were required to put a change into effect. New blue prints (of resistors) were required and seven approvals plus signatures. On the assembly line I found that all that was needed was a different basket of components to introduce the change."
Dick with Section T under Merle's direction (which became a part of the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University) developed many things such as radar jammers and fire control. Later he went on to guided missiles and to ramjets. This period was very important to Dick's life, and his contributions were first rate but will not be described in detail since they involve military engineering and not science. He kept in touch, and his commitment deepened during the Korean War. In review, it is
