ABSTRACT
The Royal Air Force was successful in the Battle of Britain, not merely because of the heroism of the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots, but because of the elaborate and sophisticated air defence system of Fighter Command. This system had its foundations in the early warnings which radar and, to a lesser extent, radio intelligence provided. The discovery of radar in Britain in 1935 is a story often told. 1 Yet radar only provided raw data which was useful only if it could be distilled into a useful form of information which could be disseminated to the proper operational units quickly and accurately. The importance of technique, rather than hardware, is often lost in histories of the development of radar. Radar is, however, simply a tool that provides information which is useful only if procedures are developed to allow for a successful interception of an approaching aircraft.
