Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

372 WORLD WAR II RESEARCH (1941-45)
well as cellulose derivatives, was also investigated, for their use as protective
coverings of aluminum and magnesium alloy aircraft parts.2°
Two decades of fundamental studies in electrodeposition were avail-
able to the Bureau in 1941 when it started adapting its knowledge of plating
to production difficulties brought on by metal shortages. At the urgent
request of OPM and industry, tableware, guns, cartridge cases, proj ectiles,
surgical instruments, aircraft parts, reflectors, plumbing fixtures, hardware,
and other materials with their new plated surfaces or finishes came to the
Bureau for study and advice on improving serviceability. The vital impor-
tance of plating was amply demonstrated in one instance where iron
were satisfactorily substi:tuted for all the nickel and part of the copper nor-
mally used in the making of printing plates.2'
Although the Bureau was conducting little work besides testing for
the War Department in the early months of 1940, by July the number of
confidential projec9ts for the services, assigned through NACA and NDRC,
had so increased that Dr. Briggs felt it necessary to obtain permission to
close the laboratories to all but official visitors.22 The next year, with a
special appropriation of $21,000, work started on fencing in the Bureau
grounds, guards began their rounds, and plans were made to close off the
public thoroughfare, Van Ness Street, that ran through the Bureau site.23
By December 1941 fully 90 percent of the Bureau staff was
in war research. Not long after, the grounds were declared a "prohibited
zone," under patrol by the Military Police.24 Thus the Bureau was already
on a war footing when the attack on Pearl Harbor made the United States
a full.fledged belligerent.
Under the first shock of war, apprehension arose that enemy air
fleets might attack either of our coasts without warning. Calmer heads
doubted the likelihood of 3,000-mile air sorties but encouraged both black.
outs and brownouts, knowing that the brightly lit coastal cities provided
illumination agains.t which ships well out to sea might be made visible to
prowling enemy submarines. The Bureau assisted in the joint Army-Navy
program to determine the characteristics of sky glow from artificial sources
and the extent to which sky glow and shore lights might aid hostile ships
offshore. It also worked with the War Department to establish requirements
in blackouts, particularly with respect to street lighting, buildings, and
highway movement. Even the blackout of the railroads, in force abroad,
was studied, though never resorted to here.
20NBS Annual Report 1941, pp. 77—78. See below, p. 422.
n NBS Annual Report 1941, p. 74; Annual Report 1942, p. 114.
22
Memo, LJB to Acting Secretary of Commerce, July 10, 1940 (NBS Box 442, AG).
22NBS Annual Report 1941, p. 63.
24
Hearings * * * 1943 (Jan. 12, 1942), p. 208; MS NBS Annual Report 1943, n.p.