Radio-Wave Propagation during World War II

Many publications have appeared which describe the very extensive wartime radio-wave propagation research. References to some of these summaries are given which cover some aspects of this research as carried out in the United States, England, the U.S.S.R., Japan and Germany. These summaries are most complete for the work done in the United States, England and Japan. A summary is then given of some of the wartime research in the United States on direction finders and the polarization of downcoming ionospheric radio waves. This is followed by some heretofore unpublished material on Japanese ionospheric research which, by way of example, clearly indicates that an April, 1942, paper by Maeda, Uyeda and Shinkawa contains the first definite identification and interpretation of the F2-layer longitude effect. Finally a brief summary is given of a few selected topics in propagation research which arose out of the wartime development of radar.