University of California Division of War Research

The University of California Division of War Research (UCDWR) was created at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego campus during World War II to aid the U.S. Navy in war-related research.

Following the outbreak of World War II, German U-boats began targeting merchant and passenger vessels in 1939, prompting the U.S. Navy to review its readiness to counter this threat. At the behest of the Navy, the National Academy of Sciences established a subcommittee on submarine detection which ultimately concluded that the Navy's "methods had hardly progressed since 1918" and recommended that the Navy create programs tasked development of instruments capable of detecting and measuring underwater occurrences. In 1940, the National Defense Research Committee, by request of the Navy, established two laboratories, with one on the Atlantic coast of the U.S. and the other on the Pacific coast. The latter was established at the U.S. Naval Radio and Sound Laboratory (NRSL), located at Naval Base Point Loma, San Diego. There, the University of California Division of War Research (UCWDR) was established with the University of California (UC) as the contract agency. The creation of UCDWR marked the first collaboration between the Navy and UC on wartime research. The Navy also informally referred to UCDWR as the San Diego Laboratory.

“Some $12 million in research funds were granted to Scripps during the war to undertake research in submarine acoustics.” ... “The Navy also provided funding for a series of important Scripps expeditions to the Pacific, including several linked to Pacific atomic tests.” (Benson 530)

Dr. Vern Knudsen, an acoustical physicist, came from UCLA to become the first leader of UCDWR.

UCDWR recruited most of its staff from universities and colleges, as well as industrial and technical groups. Because of the initial general lack of knowledge of the context in which the staff would be applying their skills to, a large portion of the beginning was spent training them.

Additionally, several people involved with the film industry were recruited from Hollywood, given that they were among the few who were familiar with electrical recording and projecting of sound; some of these people would be involved in the development of sonar.

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