>the problem was solved in by means of strapping together alternate segments a process invented by Sayers in 1942
UK physicist James Sayers was part of the original team that developed the magnetron in the UK. He did join the Manhattan Project in 1943, so perhaps before that he came over to the US (to Bell Labs) as part of the radar effort: in that case strengthening Bell Labs contributions, weakening any claim to reverse engineering :) When Lee de Forest "invented" the triode tube amplifier, he had no idea how it worked. When Shockley "invented" the transistor, his team grumbled that he had stolen their work (similar to Steve Jobs, the boss, taking over the Macintosh project when his own Lisa project failed) but in any case, it was not actually understood yet how transistors worked. "How the First Transistor Worked: Even its inventors didn’t fully understand the point-contact transistor" https://spectrum.ieee.org/transistor-history
In these cases, the bleeding edge of R and the bleeding edge of D were the same thing. A certain amount of "reverse engineering" would have been mandatory, but it's really "reverse sciencing", "why did my experiment turn out so well", rather than "reverse engineering a competitor's product to understand how did they make it work so well."
In early 1940, Winston Churchill organized what became the Tizard Mission to introduce U.S. researchers to several new technologies the UK had been developing. Among these was the cavity magnetron, a leap forward in the creation of microwaves that made them practical for use in aircraft for the first time. GEC made 12 prototype cavity magnetrons at Wembley in August 1940, and No 12 was sent to America with Bowen via the Tizard Mission, where it was shown on 19 September 1940 in Alfred Loomis’ apartment. The American NDRC Microwave Committee was stunned at the power level produced. However Bell Labs director Mervin Kelly was upset when it was X-rayed and had eight holes rather than the six holes shown on the GEC plans. After contacting (via the transatlantic cable) Dr Eric Megaw, GEC’s vacuum tube expert, Megaw recalled that when he had asked for 12 prototypes he said make 10 with 6 holes, one with 7 and one with 8; and there was no time to amend the drawings. No 12 with 8 holes was chosen for the Tizard Mission. So Bell Labs chose to copy the sample; and while early British magnetrons had six cavities American ones had eight cavities... By 1943 the [Rad Lab] began to deliver a stream of ever-improved devices, which could be produced in huge numbers by the U.S.'s industrial base. At its peak, the Rad Lab employed 4,000 at MIT and several other labs around the world, and designed half of all the radar systems used during the war.
that seems to be the source of the reverse engineering idea, and I think Bell Labs' role (which is quite important) was more toward perfecting the devices for manufacture at scale, as it was an arm of a giant leading edge industrial company.
I'm not diminishing Bell Labs nor anybody there, it was a lot of smart people.
Something I've been curious about and thought I'd ask the room here since it was mentioned.
It seems to me that "the radar effort" was very significant, almost Manhattan Project levels itself. In every book about scientists in WW2 or the atomic bomb that I've read, it seemed everyone had a friend "working on radar" or various scientist weren't available to work on the bomb because they were, again, "working on radar."
Was this true or just something I'm overanalyzing?
Guess who pioneered the venerable Silicon Valley, it's HP (then Agilent, now Keysight). Their first killer product was the function (signal/waveform) generator. HP basically the Levi's of the radar era, making tools for the radar/transistor/circuit technology gold rush.
One of the best academic engineering research labs in the world for many decades now is MIT Lincoln Lab, and guess what it's a radar research lab [1].
Interesting you mention the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, just read the new ATC article on computer.rip on the homepage which also mentions it. Coincidence? Just curious, first time hearing of it ever and now twice in two days.
part of why "radar" does not have the mystique of other superweapons is that it was first of all not exclusive/unknown/secret technology, all of the combatants on both sides knew about it and were working on it before the war started, while paradoxically at the same time during the war it was ultra top secret, because small details of the technology were quite significant in deployment; and "good defense" is never as exciting as good offense. (modern radar today is more fully offensive)
My grandfather did a PhD in Germany in the early 30s, learned German well enough to defend his thesis. After working on radar through to the end of the war he was part of the control commission that went around German industry to find out what it had been doing, he discovered that he already knew all the senior radar scientists from when they had been students together.
UK physicist James Sayers was part of the original team that developed the magnetron in the UK. He did join the Manhattan Project in 1943, so perhaps before that he came over to the US (to Bell Labs) as part of the radar effort: in that case strengthening Bell Labs contributions, weakening any claim to reverse engineering :) When Lee de Forest "invented" the triode tube amplifier, he had no idea how it worked. When Shockley "invented" the transistor, his team grumbled that he had stolen their work (similar to Steve Jobs, the boss, taking over the Macintosh project when his own Lisa project failed) but in any case, it was not actually understood yet how transistors worked. "How the First Transistor Worked: Even its inventors didn’t fully understand the point-contact transistor" https://spectrum.ieee.org/transistor-history
In these cases, the bleeding edge of R and the bleeding edge of D were the same thing. A certain amount of "reverse engineering" would have been mandatory, but it's really "reverse sciencing", "why did my experiment turn out so well", rather than "reverse engineering a competitor's product to understand how did they make it work so well."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Radiation_Laboratory
In early 1940, Winston Churchill organized what became the Tizard Mission to introduce U.S. researchers to several new technologies the UK had been developing. Among these was the cavity magnetron, a leap forward in the creation of microwaves that made them practical for use in aircraft for the first time. GEC made 12 prototype cavity magnetrons at Wembley in August 1940, and No 12 was sent to America with Bowen via the Tizard Mission, where it was shown on 19 September 1940 in Alfred Loomis’ apartment. The American NDRC Microwave Committee was stunned at the power level produced. However Bell Labs director Mervin Kelly was upset when it was X-rayed and had eight holes rather than the six holes shown on the GEC plans. After contacting (via the transatlantic cable) Dr Eric Megaw, GEC’s vacuum tube expert, Megaw recalled that when he had asked for 12 prototypes he said make 10 with 6 holes, one with 7 and one with 8; and there was no time to amend the drawings. No 12 with 8 holes was chosen for the Tizard Mission. So Bell Labs chose to copy the sample; and while early British magnetrons had six cavities American ones had eight cavities... By 1943 the [Rad Lab] began to deliver a stream of ever-improved devices, which could be produced in huge numbers by the U.S.'s industrial base. At its peak, the Rad Lab employed 4,000 at MIT and several other labs around the world, and designed half of all the radar systems used during the war.
that seems to be the source of the reverse engineering idea, and I think Bell Labs' role (which is quite important) was more toward perfecting the devices for manufacture at scale, as it was an arm of a giant leading edge industrial company.
I'm not diminishing Bell Labs nor anybody there, it was a lot of smart people.