Collection search - [Henderson, John T. - Interview]

Record information – Brief

1

[Henderson, John T. - Interview]

Item number (ISN):

444672

Series title:

National Research Council

Hierarchical level:

Item (Accession level)

Date:

1976-02-06

Item number (ISN):

444672

Type of material:

Sound recordings

Found in:

Archives / Film, Video and Sound

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Record information – Details

Fonds/collection:

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF CANADA / CONSEIL NATIONAL DE RECHERCHES DU CANADA

Accession:

1976-0042

Media:

Sound

Part:

2 of 2

Production date:

1976-02-06

Production company:

National Research Council

Production credit:

interviewer, Don Phillipson

Description:

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Interview of Dr. John T. Henderson by Don Phillipson. Subjects discussed include: radar beginnings in February 1939; Colonel W. Arthur Steel taught at McGill in the late 1920s; CRDF (Cathode-Ray Direction Finding) specifications written by Steel and McNaughton; U,K, Radio Research Board wanted to use CRDF to track storms via atmospherics; Henderson came to Canada in 1932 to verify theory of electrical effects of eclipse before and after optical effects - corpuscular eclipse; NRC formed a radio committee including B.G. Ballard, R.W. Boyle. D.C. Rose and W.A. Steel; Henderson and Heakes sought funding for NRC radar research; early NRC staff were forced to build own equipment for lack of funds; first task in the 1930s was to bring NRC labs up to standard of U.S Bureau of Standards; Canadian contributions to science mostly forgotten; CRDF saved many airmen's lives and sank many submarines; U.K. model built by Henderson for Forest, Manitoba to triangulate atmospheric work with Ottawa CRDF; army provided Staff Sergeant Padfield as field operator; Henderson proposed CRDF more useful for military intelligence than meteorology; CRBC contracted NRC to test radio receivers; CRDF installed on both Canadian coasts and in China where guarded by U.S. general and 60,000 men; HMCS Camperdown CRDF operated by Otto Messek; RCAF ordered burial of obsolete CRDF units; REL equipment bought just before U.S. export embargo, including turret lathes on which Northern Electric produced magnetrons at Montreal plant; Henderson returned to NRC 1946 but assigned to U.N. Atomic Energy Control Commission and did not return to NRC research until 1948; and REL staff that worked at NRC before Toronto facilities available, on airborne radar, GL early-warning transmitter, and high power Tx tube. <3h 12mn>

Language:

English

Notes:

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1. Subject description taken from partial trasncript in binder, National Research Council Oral History Project, Index H-L.~2. PAC tape 639 b and 640 a.~3. John Tasker Henderson (9 December 1905 - 2 January 1983), Canadian Physicist with the National Research Council. He is recognized for his role in radar technology during World War II. After laying the foundation for research and manufacturing of radar in Canada, in 1942 Henderson became a senior officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). After the war, he was a scientific advisor to the Canadian delegation of the United Nation's Commission on Atomic Energy. Near the end of 1947, Henderson returned to the NRC to head the Canadian part of SHORAN, an interdepartmental project to apply radar techniques to aerial surveying. In 1949, he was placed in charge of the Electricity Section in the Applied Physics Division; here, he set up new absolute electrical standards for Canada in conformity with international agreements. He led the development of several caesium-133 atomic clocks accepted as the international timekeeping standard. (wikipedia.org)

Detailed holdings information:

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Vault ISN:

260238

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

C00640

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

R/R

Technical description:

POLY

Duration:

266:00

Made from:

FROM LOANED MATERIAL

Status:

MASTER

Vault ISN:

674936

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

C00639

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

R/R

Technical description:

POLY

Made from:

FROM LOANED MATERIAL

Status:

MASTER
Ordering and viewing options

Conditions of access:

Open

GENCAT identity number:

GAD 0FD645

Restrictions on consultation:

open

Donor restrictions:

Reproduction with permission of National Research Council.

Copyright status:

under copyright.

Reproduction access:

With written permission of copyright owner : No donor restrictions. Copyright belongs to the Crown. Credit Library and Archives Canada.

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