Alfred George Pither
During the Second World War he established a chain of long-range radar stations throughout Australia and the South West Pacific.
[4] Promoted to temporary wing commander on 1 January 1941, he returned to Australia by way of the United States and Canada, where he studied the latest developments.
While he was in Canada, he married a Sydney-born woman, Lillian Ruth Ball, at Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver on 13 April 1941.
[1] Returning to Australia in May 1941, Pither became the head of Section S7 of the RAAF Directorate of Signals, which was responsible for radar.
Later in the year, an RAF officer and three NCOs, with a Chain Home Low set made it possible to also give courses in ground-based radar.
On 7 November 1941, the War Cabinet ordered that a series of early warning radar installations be established across northern Australia.
[4] Pither, whose S7 Section became the RAAF Directorate of Radar in January 1942, found himself engaged in a desperate race against time after Japan entered the war, and Japanese aircraft soon began appearing over Australia.
He worked closely with the Radio Physics Laboratory (RPL) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which developed radar technology, with the New South Wales Government Railways Workshop, Postmaster-General's Department (PMG), Gramophone Company (HMV) and Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) (AWA) that built the radar sets, and with the University of Sydney and the Melbourne Technical College that helped train his radar officers and mechanics, respectively.
He was placed in command of a radio-jamming unit in southern England that was specifically established to jam the electronic guidance systems of German V-2 rockets.
This was concluded in February 1946, and he left for England, where he was the RAAF delegate at the Commonwealth Defence Science Conference in May 1946.
On 29 January 1963 he became staff officer for telecommunication engineering at Headquarters RAAF Support Command in Melbourne.
On 18 December 1964, he married Ethel Constance Jones née Wilton at the Methodist Church in Camberwell, Victoria.
[3] In retirement, Pither served as treasurer and councillor of the state branch of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
