Building Radar: Forging Britain's Early-warning Chain,1939-45 Hardcover – 25 Mar. 2010

This is a most remarkable book covering a highly complex subject, while at the same time remaining easy to read and to digest. The author has covered all of the major developments that occured during WWII,and most systems used by the RAF and the Army, with excellent historical context. The illustrations, particularly the drawings are out-standing and set a very high standard for anyone wishing to expand on this subject. Given the diversity of types of systems developed during the war this book doesn't quite cover everything, but it has a darned good stab at it.

Rather disappointing account of the building of the chain home and related radar sites. The book concentrates mainly on the actual sites themselves, the land, the wrangles with planning permission and residents objections, the committees and civil servants, ministers and experts. There's loads of statistics, details of upgrades, that sort of thing, but nothing much at all about the actual equipment or development of the technology. The two main contractors for uk radar in ww2, Metropolitan Vickers, who made the transmitters, and Cossor, who made the receivers, get mentioned only once in the whole book. Marconi and GEC also get mentioned maybe once each. No mention of how it worked, who built what exactly, how the equipment was operated or who was responsible for what. The word 'happidrome' is written once, without explanation of what one was or where the name came from. Most of the diagrams are line drawings, there are very few photos, and if I saw one map of the UK I must've seen 20! All in all a very vague account, most of which I'd already gleaned from Wikipedia and the radarpages.com. Very little incentive to pick it up and finish it.

Does what it says

I had been waiting for this book to be published and was not disappointed. It gives a clear picture of the development of radar during WW 2 in the UK. Recommended!

Very good comprehensive book with detailled information about the history of radar. A must for everybody who want to know more about radar!

This is not exactly the best book ever written about radar during the Second World War. It contains many errors, misinterpretation of the primary sources, inconsistencies in drawings and errors in maps. I've read many books on this subject and would recommend anyone interested in this important aspect of the history of the air defence of the UK not to read this one. If you want a more definitive account, go with 'RDF1' by Michael Bragg. It is vastly more accurate!

Useful reference.

I see one reviewer has given this a slating as it contains errors, and that reviewer appears to have read dozens of books on the subject and be in training for Mastermind, but what I think what we have here is a mismatch in the intended readership.The subject to the layman is daunting enough, and even considering buying a book that may be hard work is a bit off-putting, so it's encouraging to read elsewhere here that this book is accessible and can be easily understood by the 'general public', which is, I am sure, the intention. Accessibility for all is certainly the key as far as I'm concerned, and luckily for me, it fits the bill.Having recently become interested in WWII and the most extraordinary human achievements and creativity that it inspired, this book is right on the money. I can understand it. I would not have finished a text book, and I'm not doing Mastermind on the subject either. If there are errors, then that is unfortunate, but if those errors are about whether someone spent the night in a van or on the ground it really isn't that fundamental to the subject being discussed and it doesn't have to stand up in court.I'm just happy to have learned something that would otherwise have gone over my head. Job done.