"The War that Change the World" Science and Technology in World War II

World War II transformed the relationship between war and the military on the one hand and science and technology on the other. What had been a fitful and uncomfortable relationship before the war became continuous and consistent thereafter. Important ties existed before 1941, but they were nothing like the intimate conjunction of these two fields in the last half of the twentieth century.

 For all the role of science, mathematics, and new inventions in earlier wars, no war had as profound an effect on the technologies of our current lives than World War II (1939-45). And no war was as profoundly affected by science, math, and technology than WWII.

SEEING THROUGH THE CLOUDS AND BEYOND

The entire technology of radar, which is the ability to use radio waves to detect objects at a distance, was barely invented at the start of the war but became highly developed in just a few years at sites like the “Radiation Laboratory” at MIT. By allowing people to “see” remotely, at very long distances, radar made the idea of “surprise attack” virtually obsolete and vastly enlarged the arena of modern warfare (today’s radars can see potential attackers from thousands of miles away). Radar allowed nations to track incoming air attacks, guided bombers to their targets, and directed anti-aircraft guns toward airplanes flying high above. Researchers not only constructed the radars, but also devised countermeasures: during their bombing raids, Allied bombers dropped thousands of tiny strips of tinfoil, code-named “window” and “chaff” to jam enemy radar.

A REAL SHOT IN THE ARM

World War II also saw advances in medical technology. Penicillin was not invented during the war, but it was first mass produced during the war, the key to making it available to millions of people (during World War II it was mostly used to treat the venereal diseases gonorrhea and syphilis, which had been the scourge of armies for thousands of years).  A soldier is doused  with DDT during WWIIWhile penicillin itself is still used today, it was also the precursor to the antibiotics that we take today to keep simple infections from becoming life-threatening illnesses. Medicines against tropical diseases like malaria also became critical for the United States to fight in tropical climates like the South Pacific. Pesticides like DDT played a critical role in killing mosquitoes (although the environmental impacts of DDT would last a long time; a famous book about DDT, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), would help found the modern environmental movement). The science and technology of blood transfusions were also perfected during World War II, as was aviation medicine, which allowed people (including us) to fly safely at high altitudes for long periods. Studies of night vision, supplemental oxygen, even crash helmets and safety belts emerged from aviation medicine.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

The science of nutrition expanded greatly during WWII. In the United States, scientists worked to identify which vitamins and minerals were most essential to a healthy body and in what amounts. Studies were conducted to determine how many calories were burned doing various activities. Proper food preparation, storage and handling, and preservation became a top priority for the military. Soldiers’ rations were carefully formulated to supply the maximum amount of nutrition and energy, while providing for variety and taste. Meeting these challenges meant working first in the laboratory before working in the kitchen. The development of the D-ration provides a great example. The “D” ration was a high-calorie emergency ration that came in the form of a fortified chocolate bar. A three-portion package of these bars would provide a soldier with 1,800 calories of energy. Once the military settled on a chocolate bar for their emergency ration, scientists set about creating it, with the following requirements: it had to weigh 4 ounces, it had to be high in calories, it had to be able to withstand high temperatures, and it had to taste “a little better than a boiled potato.” This last requirement was imposed to keep soldiers from snacking on their emergency rations in non-emergency situations. By the end of the war, millions of these rations had been produced in the United States and delivered around the world, along with billions of other rations for the military.

NEW IDEAS FOR A NEW AGE OF WARFARE

Again, as in earlier eras, perhaps the most profound impacts of World War II were as much great ideas as they were pieces of hardware. Before the war, scientists were professors who ran small laboratories with students, with small amounts of money. Before the war scientists were looking into fundamental principles of the natural world, without much regard for practical applications, and they rarely attracted the attention of national governments. During World War II, science became mobilized on a grand scale; many of these professors and their students dropped everything to work on war-related challenges and initiative. The massive “research and development” (R&D) laboratory emerged in its modern form. The paradigm of these efforts was the “Manhattan Project” which put thousands of physicists together with Army-scaled logistics and designed, built, and manufactured the first atomic bombs. Other laboratories included the so-called “Radiation Laboratory” at MIT which developed radar. Numerous other laboratories focused on everything from electronics to medical research to psychological testing. By the end of the war, the atomic bomb made it clear that science had, in the words of one scientist, “lost its innocence” – that is it was now a critical tool of military power, and was given government money for research at many thousands of times the pre-war levels. Scientists became advisors