The Opana Point blunder

Have you ever even heard of Opana Point? Ever heard of the SCR-270 radar set? Probably not in both cases, and very few people knew of either one in 1941. The SCR-170 radar set had been in the experimental stage from 1920 on. Its final version, the SRC-270, was manufactured by Westinghouse Electric and distribution to the Army began in the summer of 1940. There was one on Opana Point. Opana Point could have been one of the most historic places in history but it became only a sad footnote to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The radar units began arriving in Hawaii in July of 1941. For that time, they were a marvel of technology and fairly simple to operate. Mostly privates and corporals were trained on the units. The first units were very cumbersome and the first one installed by the Army in the Panama Canal Zone was housed in a building. The equipment was so large it was not mobile at all. However, by the time the units were delivered to Oahu, they were somewhat mobile consisting of four trailers. The trailers consisted of one flat-bed for transporting the radar mast and tower, a generator van for the motor and rotation equipment for the mast, and a van for the generator and the fourth van housed the oscilloscope, a plotting board, and the communication equipment. The general staff on the island did not take the equipment too seriously as they would have preferred long range bomber scout planes such as the B-17 to patrol the seas around the islands. However, there were extremely scarce and those that were available were needed elsewhere.

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