At the outbreak of World War II, Happ attempted to enlist in the British Army, however the draft board told him to remain in school.
Two days before he would take his final exams, the British government arrested and imprisoned him, believing his connections to Germany and Italy suspicious.
After Shockley subsequently established his lab under the umbrella of Beckman Instruments, he recruited Happ from Raytheon[3] where he had previously worked on semiconductor devices.
[4] In addition to Happ, Shockley's other three initial recruits were George Smoot Horsley and Leopoldo B. Valdes from Bell Labs, and Richard Victor Jones who had just graduated from Berkeley.
After leaving Shockley Labs in 1958, Happ worked for Lockheed's missile and space division where he led a team developing solar power sources for satellites, until he moved on to NASA in 1966.