The Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defence (CSSAD), also known as the Tizard Committee after its chairman,

Henry Tizard Sir Henry Thomas Tizard (23 August 1885 – 9 October 1959) was an English chemist, inventor and Rector of Imperial College, who developed the modern "octane rating" used to classify petrol, helped develop radar in World War II, and led the fir ...

, was a pre-World War II scientific mission to study the needs of

anti-aircraft warfare Anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) is the counter to aerial warfare and includes "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It encompasses surface-based, subsurface (Submarine#Armament, submarine-lau ...

in the United Kingdom. The Committee is best known for its role in shepherding the development of

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

, and the building of the

Chain Home Chain Home, or CH for short, was the codename for the ring of coastal early warning radar stations built by the Royal Air Force (RAF) before and during the Second World War to detect and track aircraft. Initially known as RDF, and given the off ...

radar array and its associated control centres.

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

credited the success of the

Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain () was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force ...

to this work. CSSAD was formed in 1934. In September 1939, it was merged with the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Offence, which had been formed in 1937, and was also chaired by Tizard, to form the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Warfare (CSSAW). Tizard helped convince Churchill to hand over Britain's most important secret weapons technology – the

magnetron The cavity magnetron is a high-power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and subsequently in microwave oven, microwave ovens and in linear particle accelerators. A cavity magnetron generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of ...

– to the Americans with no strings attached. The

Tizard Mission The Tizard Mission, officially the British Technical and Scientific Mission, was a delegation from the United Kingdom that visited the United States during World War II to share secret research and development (R&D) work that had military applicat ...

(officially the British Technical and Scientific Mission) delivered the technology to the Americans in a simple black metal box at the height of the Battle of Britain. CSSAW was discontinued in June 1940.

References

External links

Anglo-American technological collaboration in World War II
20th-century military history of the United Kingdom {{UK-hist-stub