THE FIRST PHONOGRAPH
Sir,-The history of the phonograph has been written, and Edison’s name will never be expunged from the record. As you say, the contributions of many minds gave us the gramophone, for which we are thankful, but perhaps we overlook the national rivalry of 50 years ago when every invention was claimed by the Americans just as the Russians do today. (Salute Popov, the undoubted inventor of radio communication.) But we have a responsibility to see that the history of our day is written honestly. A recent broadcast dramatisation of the Battle of Britain completely ignored radar, without which the fight would certainly have been lost. In Reach for the Sky, Douglas Bader’s biographer shows his ignorance of this vital factor in the battle by a casual mention of "R.D.F. . soon to be developed into radar." It was the far-sighted development of R.D.F. by Britain alone, well before the war, that turned the scales, and the word "radar" was the sole American contribution. The secrets of R.D.F. were handed to the U.S. Government, who gave them to R.C.A. This firm, before Pearl Harbour, filed the specifications in Tokio to secure the Japanese patents. There was nothing sinister in this normal business procedure, but a Japanese historian could be excused for overlooking the true inventor of radar.
VARIAN J.
WILSON
(Christchurch).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19541105.2.12.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 798, 5 November 1954, Page 5
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222THE FIRST PHONOGRAPH New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 798, 5 November 1954, Page 5
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