Speaking of WW II Richard.
An old friend, the late John "Lem" Wiegreffe retired (in New Mexico) from Westinghouse as patent counsel, was a military intelligence officer during the war. Even in his late eighties he was a reserve officer.
He talked some about Radar in Alaska/Aleutians (resonant cavity) and the balloons carrying explosives launched from Japan.
Us kids were warned about them in 1943.
Lem fought (and lost) the Laser patent fight between Westinghouse and Hughes.
According to him, Maiman and Weider "were discussing the laser while playing tennis and the race was on".
"Maiman's rigorous investigation paid off when, on 16 May 1960, he fired up his equipment and the laser made the historic leap from theory to reality. After nine months of effort, working with a very small budget and under the scorn of nearly the entire science community, he had beaten Lincoln Labs, IBM, Westinghouse, Siemens, RCA Labs, GE, Bell Labs, TRG, and every other large and small player in the race to build the world's first laser. "
Lem was with us when the "Cold Fusion" news arrived. He had high hopes for it.
A walk and a game of golf every morning kept him active.
Fred
