Technical Reports and Standards

The Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) Collection

The materials from the Office of Scientific Research and Development represent original research done by the Allies during the World War II era. The tens of thousands of items in the Library's OSRD collection include technical reports, drawings, memos and other documents that were either originally in the open literature or have since been declassified. The National Archives contains OSRD / NDRC Records for the Office's administrative history.

   Development of the OSRD

In June of 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) "to coordinate, supervise, and conduct scientific research on the problems underlying the development, production, and use of mechanisms and devices of warfare" (a similar effort had occurred during World War I under the Council of National Defense; the CND Records are at the National Archives). Although much of the NDRC's work was done under the strictest secrecy, Roosevelt's decision gave the United States an 18-month head start for employing science in the war effort (see: Report of the National Defense Research Committee for the First Year of Operation, June 1940 - June 1941).

NDRC administered its work through five divisions:

Division A - Armor and Ordnance
Division B - Bombs, Fuels, Gases, & Chemical Problems
Division C - Communication and Transportation
Division D - Detection, Controls, and Instruments
Division E - Patents and Inventions.

 

The NDRC however had neither the authority nor the funds to carry research forward into development and production. Concerned that the NDRC needed additional support, Roosevelt on June 28, 1941 issued Executive Order 8807 establishing the Office of Scientific Research and Development as an independent entity within the Office for Emergency Management. Vannevar Bush, who had been Chairman of the NDRC, was appointed director of the OSRD and given the authority to enter into contracts and agreements for studies, experimental investigations, and reports (James B. Conant replaced Bush as chairman of the NDRC).

Vannevar Bush. Chief of Scientific Research and Development

Bush, formerly a dean of engineering and vice president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), immediately undertook a survey to identify scientists in government, universities, and industry that could be recruited for military-related research. Thousands of draft deferments were granted as experts were employed and contracts signed (primarily to a select group of established institutions) to further weapons research and development.

The OSRD had 23 units: 19 divisions, 2 panels, and 2 committees, as listed below:

Division 1 - Ballistic Research
Division 2 - Effects of Impact and Explosion
Division 3 - Rocket Ordnance
Division 4 - Ordnance Accessories
Division 5 - New Missiles
Division 6 - Sub-surface Warfare
Division 7 - Fire Control
Division 8 - Explosives
Division 9 - Chemistry
Division 10 - Absorbents and Aerosols
Division 11 - Chemical Engineering
Division 12 - Transportation
Division 13 - Electrical Communication
Division 14 - Radar
Division 15 - Radio Coordination
Division 16 - Optics and Camouflage
Division 17 - Physics
Division 18 - War Metallurgy
Division 19 - Miscellaneous

Applied Mathematics Panel
Applied Psychology Panel

Committee on Propagation
Tropical Deterioration Administrative Committee.

Radar in operation in the second World War / Signal Corps photo.

By the end of the war, the OSRD had spent $450 million to provide U.S. and Allied troops with more powerful and accurate weapons, more reliable detonators, safer and more effective medical treatments, and more versatile vehicles. Bush had expected that the relationship he forged between the military and civilian scientists - especially the dissemination of information - would change after the conflict (see his article "As We May Think" in the July 1945 issue of Atlantic Monthly). His wartime efforts though would actually transform forever the American research enterprise, and contribute to President Dwight D. Eisenhower's lament in his 1961 Farewell Address about a growing military-industrial complex. As Captain F. R. Furth, U.S.N, told scientists attending a June 1944 Symposium on Airborne Electronic Equipment at M.I.T.(part of the OSRD collection):

"To gain this electronic superiority [in radar] has taxed to the limits the combined best efforts of our scientists and of our manufacturing facilities. It has been a battle of wits between our scientists and the enemies' scientists and it is reasonable to expect that this battle will continue until the war's end - and should not stop even then as when the war ends we must continue this research and development so at to be prepared for the next 'sneak attack.'"

The OSRD was terminated on December 31, 1947 and its remaining functions were transferred to the National Military Establishment. But the tie between military and civilian scientific research became permanently entwined.

   Importance of the Collection:

The research reports contain some of the most prominent names in American science and technology, including Claude Shannon, John von Neumann, Richard Courant, Theodore von Karman, and Milton Friedman. Three major aspects of their significance are:

• Much of the technology developed during the war still has application today.
  
• The historical aspects of this literature are invaluable for tracing the progress of individual careers, technologies and the relationship of universities and non-profit institutions with the military.
  
• These materials may be of value as evidence in patent cases.

   The Library of Congress OSRD Holdings:

Some 35,000 to 40,000 hardcopy reports were acquired by the Library in 1960 from the Armed Services Technical Information Agency (ASTIA), when the OSRD collection was declassified. Also received at that time were thousands of catalog records, over 400 reels of OSRD microfilm containing 15,000 of the "most important" research reports found in the hardcopy collection, and 70 bound volumes of Summary Technical Reports.

Unfortunately, the OSRD card catalog and 200 or so finding aids available in the Technical Reports and Standards Unit do not completely describe the collection. Some reports have never been cataloged and the finding aids are limited to only some parts of the collection. Please consult with the staff in TRS to begin your research.

Other OSRD materials are also found in the Library's general collection by searching United States Office of Scientific Research and Development or United States Dept. of Commerce. Office of Technical Services.

   Further Reading:

Subjects:

United States. Office of Scientific Research and Development.
Science--United States--History.
Scientists--United States.
Military research--United States.

Sample Titles:

Baxter, James Phinney. Scientists against time. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1968.

Bush, Vannevar Index. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Correspondence and reports dated between 6/27/40 and 7/16/42; correspondents included FDR, Bush, Rudolph Forster, and others. Topics included: National Defense Research Committee, Physical Chemical Problems, Interchange with British and US scientists

Clark, Ronald W. The Birth of the Bomb. New York: Horizon Press, 1961.

Clark, Ronald W. Tizard. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, c1965.

Conant, Jennet. Tuxedo Park: a Wall Street tycoon and the secret palace of science that changed the course of World War II. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.

De Wolf Smyth, Henry. Atomic energy for military purposes (The Smyth report): the official report on the development of the atomic bomb under the auspices of the United States government.

Guerlac, Henry. Radar in World War II. Los Angeles: Tomash Publishers ; New York: American Institute of Physics, 1987.

Hall, Peter S., et al. Radar. London, Washington: Brassey’s, 1991.

Herken, Gregg. Brotherhood of the bomb: the tangled lives and loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002.

Jewett, Frank Baldwin. "The Academy in World War II." In: Rexmond C. Cochrane, The National Academy of Sciences: the first hundred years, 1863-1963. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1978, pp. 382-432.

Leslie, Stuart W. The Cold War and American Science. NY: Columbia University Press, 1993.

Stewart, Irvin. Organizing scientific research for war: the administrative history of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1948.

Summary technical report of NDRC. Master subject index. Washington, D.C.: Office of Scientific Research and Development, National Defense Research Committee, 1946. Also identified by report number: AD 221610.

Zachary, G. Pascal. Endless frontier: Vannevar Bush, engineer of the American century. New York: The Free Press, 1997.

Zimmerman, David. Top secret exchange: the Tizard Mission and the scientific war. Buffalo: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996.

United States Copyright restrictions prevent copying entire copyrighted documents. However, the fair use provision does permit reproduction of relevant portions (small parts) of these documents. Photocopiers, microform reader/printers and computer terminals are available for patron use in the Science Reading Room. TRS materials are non-circulating and are not to leave the Science Reading Room area.