RADAR book Signed to first Navy Research Chief Admiral

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On offer: an early book on the history of Radar, signed to the first Chief of Naval Research, Rear Admiral Harold G. Bowen (Senior):RADAR WHAT RADAR IS AND HOW IT WORKS HARPER & BROTHERS * NEW YORK AND LONDON New York. 1946. Harper & Brothers. Second edition. Small octavo, approx 8 1/4" x 5 1/2". Hardcover in dust jacket. 208 pages. Illustrated with photographs. The book is from the estate of Vice Admiral Harold G. Bowen, Jr. The book is signed to his father, Rear Admiral Howard G. Bowen Senior, who is mentioned several times in the text. Vice Admiral Harold G. Bowen, Sr. (1883-1965), was the former chief of the Naval Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research. The USS Bowen (DE-1079/FF-1079), a Knox-class frigate was named for Vice Admiral Harold G. Bowen, Sr (the father). Admiral Bowen's son and namesake, Harold G. Bowen, Jr., also retired as a Vice Admiral and presided over the U.S. Navy's 1969 inquiry into the Pueblo incident. The book came from the estate of the son. The book is signed on the front endpaper, inscribed by the author as follows: To Rear Admiral Harold G. Bowen with admiration of his leadership in the advance of radar! Orin E. Dunlap, Jr. April 3, 1946 From the NavSource Naval History website (), some biographical material for Vice Admiral Harold G. Bowen Sr (the father ... to whom the book is signed) : Harold G. Bowen was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on 6 November 1883. Graduating from the Naval Academy in 1905, he was commissioned in 1907, and in 1914 received a master s degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University. This set him into a lifelong naval career with the mission to improve the Navy s machinery. Throughout the 1930s he served as Assistant Chief of the Bureau of Engineering (1931-1935) and then as Chief of the Bureau (1935-1939). In that position he modernized the Navy with such changes as high-pressure, high-temperature steam for propulsion, high-speed turbines, and alternating current. Appointed Director of the Naval Research Laboratory in 1939, Bowen was also Technical Aide to the Secretary of the Navy. As such Bowen proposed, on 11 October 1940, a program for development of radio ranging equipment (radar) which formed the basis for the Navy s pre-war development program. In addition to identification equipment and ship-based radar, this program included an airborne radar for surface search. When his assignment to the NRL came to an end, Bowen became Special Assistant to James V. Forrestal, Undersecretary of the Navy (1942-1944) and then Secretary of the Navy (1944-1947). Sec. Forrestal established the Office of Research and Inventions (ORI, soon renamed Office of Naval Research [ONR]) on 19 May 1945 and appointed Radm. Bowen as its first Chief. On 26 January 1946 Bowen sent a six-point policy proposal to the Secretary of the Navy and the CNO, on the subject "Nuclear Energy for the Navy." Although Admiral Bowen did not succeed in making the NRL a center of nuclear research, he secured for the Laboratory the right to do the kind of basic research that would earn it respect in the scientific community at large. Bowen relinquished his post in 1947 and retired with the rank of Vice Admiral. Vadm. Harold G. Bowen died on 1 August 1965 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The Admiral Bowen Award, named after him, annually honors one patent which is determined to have had a significant impact upon the operation of the Navy. From the Arlington Cemetary website, is the entry for Vice Admiral Harold G. Bowen Jr (the son, who's estate the book came from): Harold G. Bowen Jr., 87, a retired Navy Vice Admiral who had served as Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Research and Development and commanded the anti-submarine warfare force of the Pacific Fleet, died of cancer August 17, 2000 at home in Alexandria, Virginia. Vice Admiral Bowen served in 1969 as president of the Naval Court of Inquiry that investigated the 1968 surrender of the U.S. spy ship Pueblo to North Korea with... read more

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