Radar to set off bombs theory is erroneous

I WAS surprised to read (Write Back, July 1) Dr Bernard J Mulholland’s theory that radar could “trigger bombs to explode”.

In support of this he states that early night raids by the RAF were accompanied by radar-equipped aircraft that guided the bombers to their targets.

A little basic research would have shown that, early in the war, radar couldn’t be fitted into aircraft. RAF bombers found, or, more frequently, failed to find, their targets by dead-reckoning navigation.

In one embarrassing case, bombers attacking the German port of Wilhelmshaven bombed a town in Denmark (which was still neutral).

Radar, initially known in the UK as RDF (for radio direction finding), was ground-based and needed large masts. It took time to devise a radar set that could be fitted into aircraft and even longer to devise one that was truly effective.

Had radar been able to trigger bombs, the Chain Home system that protected the UK should have exploded every bomb in every Luftwaffe bomber that crossed the Channel. It didn’t.

The RAF Pathfinder Force came along later in the war and used groundbased navigation systems to guide them to their targets, which they marked with flares and incendiaries. The first airborne radar-based navigation system, known as H2S, was a ground-mapping device, devised by a group of scientists, which included Co Antrim man James Sayers. H2S went into service in 1942.

Radio-control has been used to guide bombs and missiles and also to detonate bombs. Electronic counter-measures against bombs, including terrorist bombs in Northern Ireland, were/are also radio-based, but “fixed radar arrays” in police stations and mobile bomb-detonating radar arrays are fanciful, nor would they have been successful since many improvised explosive devices relied on more basic means of detonation, as did the bombs carried by the Luftwaffe, the RAF and the USAAF.

RICHARD DOHERTY Prehen, Co Londonderry