[ARC5] ELINT in WWII

[Robert Eleazer]

According to the definitive work on the Battle of Britain, The Narrow Margin, the first military ELINT mission was conducted in late May 1939 by the airship Graf Zeppelin.

Concerned with the mysterious towers that were appearing along Britain's coast and fearing they might be radar, the Zepplin set out to detect radar signals. They found nothing in May and after modifying the electronics fit they tried again on 2 Aug 1939. They still found nothing, and radar as factor in attacking Great Britian fell off the German priority list.

The reason was simple. The Germans and the Americans and almost everybody else said "A bomber fuselage is about 2 meters wide. The radar wavelength has to be shorter than that to get a good return." The British alone said "A bomber wingspan is about 30 meters wide, so the radar wavelength has to be shorter than that to give a good return." 

So the Germans were tying to detect VHF radar like their own and the British were using HF. They watched the Zeppelin visits on their radar, figured out what the Germans were doing, and were tempted to call them up and provide corrected position reports.

Wayne WB5WSV