Lee Davenport, radar physicist, 95
Lee L. Davenport, a pioneering radar physicist who has been credited for helping to bring an end to World War II, died on Sept. 30, of cancer in Greenwich, Conn. Davenport was born Dec. 31, 1915, in Schenectady, N.Y. He received a B.S. from Union College in 1937, an M.S. in 1940, and a Ph.D. in physics in 1946, both from the University of Pittsburgh. From 1940 to the end of World War II, Davenport was a research fellow at the MIT Radiation Laboratory, developing the revolutionary anti-aircraft system — known as microwave radar, or Signal Corp Radio #584 — that helped save England from the V1 buzz bombs. After the war Davenport received his doctorate for his design to remote control a missile over a radar beam. It was effectively the first guided missile, and mother of today’s drones. From 1946 to 1950 Davenport served as research fellow at Harvard and coordinated the...