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Research Enterprises Limited

July 06, 2023

Research Enterprises Limited (REL for short) was a short-lived Toronto-based Crown Corporation that built electronics and optical instruments during World War II. They existed only six years from late 1940 until 1946, and were active only from late 1941, but during that period they became Leaside's largest employer, producing C$220 million worth of radar systems and optical instruments ($3,314 million in 2023). After the war, the government rapidly closed the various wartime companies it had started. After REL was closed, their factories formed the basis of a Corning Glass plant, Philips Electronics, and a variety of other firms. Today only a few of the original buildings still stand, used primarily for light industrial and small commercial enterprises.

One of REL's more popular products was their 7 × 50 military binoculars.

History

NRC optics shop

 
REL owes its existence to the demands of General Andrew McNaughton, who was concerned about a lack of optical equipment after the Canadian experience in World War I.

In August 1939, General Andrew McNaughton, President of the National Research Council (NRC), asked the head of the NRC's Optics Section, Leslie E. Howlett, to prepare a report on how to set up an optics industry in Canada. McNaughton remembered the acute shortages of any sort of optical equipment in World War I and intended to address this.[1] Howlett returned a report on 11 September, stating that the first task should be to visit their US counterparts in the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) and ask their advice. McNaughton immediately approved his plan, and Howlett left for Washington, DC on the 13th.[2]

In Washington, Howlett found that his counterparts at the NBS had faced exactly the same problem in WWI, and were happy to provide complete details of their solutions. On his way back to Ottawa, Howlett visited Bausch and Lomb (B&L) in Rochester and Spencer Lens (of the American Optical Company) in Buffalo, both of whom were equally forthcoming with information. Howlett completed his report to McNaughton in October. McNaughton took the report to the Government, but found them unwilling to provide funds.[3]

The NRC had funds available in its budget, and the new director, Jack Mackenzie (who took over from McNaughton), was convinced to start initial work on the concept. On 16 November, Mackenzie asked Howlett to draw up floor plans for an optical shop for the NRC, and funding was provided on 20 November.[3] The shop was up and running by early 1940, and on 1 March it was put under the direction of J. N. Cairns. By the end of April, the shop was turning out samples of all sorts of optical equipment.[3]

Building the optics factory

 
An REL employee tests artillery gun sights in the summer of 1943.

By this time, McNaughton had moved to England where he commanded the Canadian Army. Early that year, a Lt.Col. Harrison of the Department of Munitions and Supply visited McNaughton in the UK, where McNaughton convinced him of the necessity of setting up a real optics factory. Harrison returned to Canada, and on 26 April 1940 called a meeting to discuss the idea. He was convinced the easiest solution was to simply get the Americans to do it, and they approached the Spencer Lens to set up shop in Canada, but they proved skeptical.[3]

The fall of France and the Dunkirk Evacuation convinced the authorities immediate action was needed, and the Optics Section received a request for the floor plan of a complete factory on 11 June 1940. After short consideration, the decision was made, apparently by C. D. Howe,[1] to build the factory as a Crown Corporation known as Research Enterprises Limited. The company was formally established on 16 July with George Sweny as the General Manager. Early consideration was given to building the factory in the Ottawa area, close to the NRC, but Sweny convinced them that Toronto's labor pool was more suitable.[4]

On 30 June, Howlett traveled to the US with professor R.J. Montgomery of the University of Toronto who had recently joined the Optics Section. Montgomery had previously worked at B&L in Rochester. They returned to Washington along with a draftsman to collect a list of the machinery they would need to equip a factory. In August, Sweny, Howlett and Henderson went to Toronto to scout locations, and picked the Leaside Business Park. This was formerly the home of the World War I-era Leaside Aerodrome, but by this time being used by a number of small industrial companies and was well served by a major line of the Canadian Pacific Railway,[4] and was the site of a major Canadian National Railway maintenance depot.[5]

With the location selected, the NCR issued orders for all of the equipment, including a furnace, stirrers and casting machines. Believing the US was going to enter the war and that machine supplies would dry up, the NCR placed additional orders for machine tools and other supplies, to the order of $600,000 ($9,038,298 in 2023). On 27 August, Howe appointed Lt.Col. W. E. Phillips to the board, and he replaced Sweny as GM on 30 November. Sod was turned on 16 September 1940, and the first glass poured on 5 June 1941.[4]

Tizard Mission

 
Another issue revealed during the Tizard Mission was the need for CRTs, a product that REL's glass plant was able to quickly provide. Here the glass bulbs are being coated with phosphorus paint to produce the display surface.

On 16 August, Henry Tizard visited the NRC as part of what would become the Tizard Mission. He met Mackenzie and Fowler but found them preoccupied, testing a local invention that proceeded to fail. He spent the rest of the day meeting politicians and had dinner with Prime Minister Mackenzie King. Over the next three days he surveyed the Canadian research capabilities, and was told by Fowler that the NRC had little to do, which is why they were testing silly inventions.[6]

When he asked about radar, knowing they had been briefed on the topic by famous Canadian explorer Charles Wright in early 1939, Tizard was saddened to learn that only a small amount of money had been spent on studying the matter, and this only started in September 1939. Although several rounds of funding had followed, including $40,000 in May 1940, the NRC efforts had been somewhat bumbling, successful only in developing a Coast Defence radar that was state-of-the-art for 1938. Nevertheless, with this minor success, in July the government approved the building of a small radar factory employing 130 to 140 people.[7]

Having moved on to Washington on 9 September, Tizard was later joined by a small team from the NRC to coordinate the efforts of the three nations. Tizard told Fowler that they should immediately begin to work on starting production of the Air-to-Surface Vessel radar (ASV), used to search for ships and submarines. Of the variety of small radars developed by that time, ASV was technically the simplest. After the main work of the Mission was over, on 24 October the remaining Tizard Mission members returned to Ottawa and found that their meetings the previous month had a profound effect. Instead of the small radar factory originally envisioned, plans were now underway for a major electronics factory, employing hundreds. Just how large was the only matter of debate.[8]

Tizard had returned to the UK by this point, and his position with the coordinating group had been taken over by John Cockcroft. The NRC explained that plans had not been formalized because the UK government had not placed any firm orders, nor indicated when or how large those orders might be. Cockcroft took it upon himself to write an official memo outlining a development plan including the immediate construction of a factory to build ASV sets for both UK and US use, followed by a microwave-frequency gun-laying set for anti-aircraft guns, and another seven projects of lower priority. He also suggested building out the capacity to produce the required vacuum tubes and similar electronics to support the programs. He concluded that the factory should be large enough to support sales to both the UK and US.[9]

Electronics factory

 
The GL Mk. IIIc was one of REL's more notorious products, released without factory testing and considered largely unusable as delivered.
 
Much more successful was the Zone Position Indicator radar, or ZPI. A follow-on version, the MZPI, would go on to be the standard medium-range system in Canada, the UK and the US.

An office was opened in Toronto on 3 September 1940 to oversee the expansion, and the week of 14 to 20 October saw "much activity" by Howe, Sweny, Phillips and R.A. Hackbusch. Hackbusch had been hired away from Stromberg-Carlson by Phillips in order to run the electronics division.[10]

Phillips quickly produced the design for an electronics factory, initially to produce cathode ray tubes, whose lack of production was a serious problem for UK radar efforts at that time.[10] REL's existing optics side would be ideal for supporting this. A cost-plus contract for a 50,000 square feet (4,600 m2) shop employing 500 workers, along with a gatehouse and cafeteria, were approved by Cabinet on 16 November. $750,000 ($11,297,872 today) was provided on 28 December. A September contract for $124,000 in machine tools was raised to $700,000. The plant would be owned by REL, but managed by General Electric.[11]

To support the opening of the factory, Phillips arranged for a number of engineers to be hosted by the NRC's Radio Branch over the winter of 1940/41 while the factory was under construction. The buildings were completed in March and the equipment installed rapidly.[10] Canada Wire and Cable, already in Leaside, began expanding with the addition of a vulcanizing drop tower to produce the insulated wires needed to carry high-voltage radar signals. Northern Electric was placed in charge of starting production of the micropup tubes used in the ASV sets as well as the cavity magnetron used in more modern designs.[11]

By August, the electronics factory already had orders totalling $36,798,000 ($554,318,809 today), mostly radar systems of UK design that were being sold to the US. However, the company quickly fell behind on their deliveries, and put the blame on a number of engineering changes ordered by the Radio Branch of the NRC.[12] A round of fingerpointing soon broke out, which had to be smoothed over by McNaughton, who made notes in his diary about his correspondence with Phillips:

and said there was a general deterioration of the nerves these days, people were tired and there was a lot of loss of control. I told him we did not intend to do anything about it, but any time he wished to check up we had facts that would be satisfactory. It was a very interesting interview.[13]

Although delivery rates began to improve, quality became a serious problem. During 1942, Mackenzie of the NRC became increasingly suspicious that Hackebusch was the ultimate cause of the problems. On 11 November 1942, Col. Wallace visited REL with two of the NRC section heads and began interviewing people on the shop floor. One superintendent admitted that Hackebusch personally ordered him to concentrate on quantity rather than quality, and that in order to improve delivery times, units were being shipped untested. It also became clear that Hackebusch had kept this from Phillips.[13]

During a visit to Ottawa in March 1943, Phillips met with Mackenzie and Wallace and agreed the problem was real, admitting "all the weaknesses of Hackbusch and [said] they are going to make a fundamental change which we all know is overdue by at least two years."[13] But it was not until 2 September that Hackbusch was gone. A week later, Wallace was given the job, although he remained Director of the Radio Branch at NRC as well. When Mackenzie visited on 30 March 1944, he reported that the company was completely reorganized.[14] Nevertheless, the setbacks proved fatal to the efforts, and was never able to deliver sets that competed with the rapidly improving designs from the UK and especially the US.[15]

By the end of the war, REL had shipped thousands of radar sets of a variety of models. Among these were the Chain Home Low systems for the US that were rushed into service in the Canal Zone,[16] as well as being the primary supplier of the UK's GL Mk. III radar system used to automatically aim anti-aircraft artillery.[17] To support their construction, the company also ran a training facility in concert with the NRC, located near today's Bluffer's Park in Scarborough.[18] The Scarborough site was used to test the pioneering DATAR computer in the 1950s.[19]

Wind-down and closure

At its peak in 1944, the company plants covered the majority of the area between Eglinton Avenue on the north, Laird Drive on the west, and Research Road on the south, along with smaller shops and storage extending to Wicksteed Avenue further south. In total, the company estate covered 55 acres (22 ha), had 750,000 square feet (70,000 m2) of floor space, employed 7,500 men and women (in about equal numbers), and produced $220 million ($3,314 million in 2023) worth of radar systems and optical instruments.[20] They were the largest single employer to ever operate in the Leaside area.[21]

By the middle of 1944 the Canadian Army was in combat in Europe, and was well supplied and equipped. The US had brought their own massive production capacity to bear, and were no longer placing large orders with Canadian firms. Orders for military equipment were dwindling, and in December 1944 the company laid off 1,000 workers, including 600 local residents.[22] Some of the vacated factory area was later used by another Crown Corporation, Turbo Research, but like REL they found their funding was dwindling as the war effort wound down. Turbo Research was purchased by Avro Canada in 1946 and became Orenda Engines, moving to Malton on the west side of the city.[23]

With the ending of the war there was some political debate about keeping the larger Crown companies under government control, selling them whole, or simply closing them as rapidly as possible. The later came to pass, due to a policy of not competing with private companies during peacetime,[24] and REL was shut down entirely in September 1946.[21] This was part of a wider drop in employment in the Leaside area, which dwindled from 13,290 in 1943 to 5,712 in 1946.[22]

Re-use

Parts of the REL factories were soon purchased by other companies, large and small. The optical plant was taken over by Corning Glass, who produced Pyrex at the site for many years. Portions of the electronics factory were taken over by Honeywell Controls, others were used by Rogers-Majestic (the original Rogers Communications) until that was sold to Canadian Radio Manufacturing and then again to Philips.[24] Other buildings became Lincoln Electric Motors.[22]

Philips built a new three-story executive office building on the site known as "The White House", which was officially opened by Paul Hellyer and Ontario Premier William Davis in 1966. The building's illuminated sign was a local landmark. Philips moved their operations to Scarborough in 1976.[24] Honeywell followed to Scarborough as well,[25] before closing the new plant in December 2011.[26] The Canada Wire plant moved to Markham in 1996 and is today known as Nexans North America.[27] Lincoln remains as the only major manufacturing plant in Leaside as of 2014, having expanded several times.

Products

One of REL's best known products were their binoculars. A common 6x30 set was produced to the extent of about 50,000 examples, while a 7x50 set added another 25,000 examples. A very small number, about six, of an experimental 20x72 were also built.[28]

Another well known REL product was a series of telescopic sights for the Lee–Enfield No. 4 MK. I* (T) sniper rifle. These were initially copies of the British model and were delivered as the C No. 32 Mk. I, but deliveries were slowed due to demands for glass and production facilities for the wide variety of instruments then under construction, everything from gunsights for tanks and artillery to observer's telescopes to the binoculars. By the end of the war, 326 C No. 32 Mk. I's had been delivered, along with 113 C No. 32 Mk. IA and 255 C No. 32 Mk. II. A quantity of C No. 32 MK. 3 telescopes were also made. Unhappy with the C No. 32, REL experimented with a number of commercial designs, and eventually delivered the C No. 67 MK. I, which was initially labelled by the British as C No. 32 MK. IV against Canadian wishes and was 10 ounces (280 g) lighter than the British models.[29]

Among many electronics products were the CHL and GL radars, ASV Mk. II radar for the US, IFF transponders, height finder radar and microwave-frequency early warning radar of Canadian design.

References

Citations

  1. ^ a b Middleton 1981, p. 41.
  2. ^ Middleton 1979, p. 110.
  3. ^ a b c d Middleton 1979, p. 111.
  4. ^ a b c Middleton 1979, p. 112.
  5. ^ "Canadian Northern Railway". Toronto's Historical Plaques.
  6. ^ Zimmerman 1996, p. 159.
  7. ^ Zimmerman 1996, pp. 159–160.
  8. ^ Zimmerman 1996, p. 164.
  9. ^ Zimmerman 1996, pp. 164–165.
  10. ^ a b c Middleton 1981, p. 42.
  11. ^ a b Zimmerman 1996, p. 165.
  12. ^ Middleton 1981, p. 43.
  13. ^ a b c Middleton 1981, p. 44.
  14. ^ Middleton 1981, p. 45.
  15. ^ Zimmerman 1996, pp. 202.
  16. ^ Thompson et al. 1957, pp. 93–102.
  17. ^ Middleton 1981, p. 70.
  18. ^ Fairburn 2013, p. 96.
  19. ^ Ball & Vardalas 1994, p. 227.
  20. ^ Pitfield 2008, pp. 84–85.
  21. ^ a b Pitfield 2008, p. 84.
  22. ^ a b c Gad 2008, p. 169.
  23. ^ Dow 1997, p. 63.
  24. ^ a b c Pitfield 2008, p. 86.
  25. ^ Pitfield 2008, p. 79.
  26. ^ Shah, Maryam (15 November 2011). "Honeywell plant shuts down, leaves workers worried about future". The Toronto Observer. Retrieved 14 December 2014.
  27. ^ "Canada Wire and Cable". Lost Rivers. Retrieved 14 December 2014.
  28. ^ "Canadian binoculars". Archives of an email list on the history of binoculars. 2000. Retrieved 14 December 2014.
  29. ^ Pegler 2012, p. 177.

Bibliography

  • Ball, Norman R.; Vardalas, John N. (1994). Ferranti-Packard: Pioneers in Canadian Electrical Manufacturing. McGill-Queen's Press. ISBN 978-0-7735-0983-2.
  • Fairburn, M. Jane (2013). Along the Shore: Rediscovering Toronto's Waterfront Heritage. ECW Press. ISBN 978-1-77041-099-2.
  • Gad, Gunter (2008). "The Suburbanization of Manufacturing in Toronto, 1881–1951". In Lewis, Robert (ed.). Manufacturing Suburbs: Building Work and Home on the Metropolitan Fringe. Temple University Press. ISBN 978-1-59213-794-7.
  • Middleton, William Edgar Knowles (1979). Physics at the National Research Council of Canada, 1929–1952. Wilfrid Laurier Press. ISBN 978-0-88920-072-2.
  • Middleton, William Edgar Knowles (1981). Radar Development in Canada: The Radio Branch of the National Research Council of Canada 1939–46. Wilfrid Laurier Press. ISBN 978-0-88920-106-4.
  • Pegler, Martin (2012). Out of Nowhere: A history of the military sniper. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84908-875-6.
  • Thompson, George Raynor; Harris, Dixie R.; Oakes, Pauline M.; Terrett, Dulany (1957). "The Call for Equipment". The Signal Corps: the Test (December 1941 to July 1943). United States Army in World War II. Vol. The Technical Services.
  • Zimmerman, David (1996). Top Secret Exchange: The Tizard Mission and the Scientific War. McGill-Queen's Press. ISBN 978-0-7735-6597-5.

Further reading

  • Moorcroft, Don (2006). "The Origins of Radar-based Research in Canada". Western University. Retrieved 14 December 2014.

43°42′46″N 79°21′18″W / 43.712821°N 79.354868°W / 43.712821; -79.354868

July 06, 2023
research, enterprises, limited, short, short, lived, toronto, based, crown, corporation, that, built, electronics, optical, instruments, during, world, they, existed, only, years, from, late, 1940, until, 1946, were, active, only, from, late, 1941, during, tha. Research Enterprises Limited REL for short was a short lived Toronto based Crown Corporation that built electronics and optical instruments during World War II They existed only six years from late 1940 until 1946 and were active only from late 1941 but during that period they became Leaside s largest employer producing C 220 million worth of radar systems and optical instruments 3 314 million in 2023 After the war the government rapidly closed the various wartime companies it had started After REL was closed their factories formed the basis of a Corning Glass plant Philips Electronics and a variety of other firms Today only a few of the original buildings still stand used primarily for light industrial and small commercial enterprises One of REL s more popular products was their 7 50 military binoculars Contents 1 History 1 1 NRC optics shop 1 2 Building the optics factory 1 3 Tizard Mission 1 4 Electronics factory 1 5 Wind down and closure 1 6 Re use 2 Products 3 References 4 Further readingHistory EditNRC optics shop Edit REL owes its existence to the demands of General Andrew McNaughton who was concerned about a lack of optical equipment after the Canadian experience in World War I In August 1939 General Andrew McNaughton President of the National Research Council NRC asked the head of the NRC s Optics Section Leslie E Howlett to prepare a report on how to set up an optics industry in Canada McNaughton remembered the acute shortages of any sort of optical equipment in World War I and intended to address this 1 Howlett returned a report on 11 September stating that the first task should be to visit their US counterparts in the National Bureau of Standards NBS and ask their advice McNaughton immediately approved his plan and Howlett left for Washington DC on the 13th 2 In Washington Howlett found that his counterparts at the NBS had faced exactly the same problem in WWI and were happy to provide complete details of their solutions On his way back to Ottawa Howlett visited Bausch and Lomb B amp L in Rochester and Spencer Lens of the American Optical Company in Buffalo both of whom were equally forthcoming with information Howlett completed his report to McNaughton in October McNaughton took the report to the Government but found them unwilling to provide funds 3 The NRC had funds available in its budget and the new director Jack Mackenzie who took over from McNaughton was convinced to start initial work on the concept On 16 November Mackenzie asked Howlett to draw up floor plans for an optical shop for the NRC and funding was provided on 20 November 3 The shop was up and running by early 1940 and on 1 March it was put under the direction of J N Cairns By the end of April the shop was turning out samples of all sorts of optical equipment 3 Building the optics factory Edit An REL employee tests artillery gun sights in the summer of 1943 By this time McNaughton had moved to England where he commanded the Canadian Army Early that year a Lt Col Harrison of the Department of Munitions and Supply visited McNaughton in the UK where McNaughton convinced him of the necessity of setting up a real optics factory Harrison returned to Canada and on 26 April 1940 called a meeting to discuss the idea He was convinced the easiest solution was to simply get the Americans to do it and they approached the Spencer Lens to set up shop in Canada but they proved skeptical 3 The fall of France and the Dunkirk Evacuation convinced the authorities immediate action was needed and the Optics Section received a request for the floor plan of a complete factory on 11 June 1940 After short consideration the decision was made apparently by C D Howe 1 to build the factory as a Crown Corporation known as Research Enterprises Limited The company was formally established on 16 July with George Sweny as the General Manager Early consideration was given to building the factory in the Ottawa area close to the NRC but Sweny convinced them that Toronto s labor pool was more suitable 4 On 30 June Howlett traveled to the US with professor R J Montgomery of the University of Toronto who had recently joined the Optics Section Montgomery had previously worked at B amp L in Rochester They returned to Washington along with a draftsman to collect a list of the machinery they would need to equip a factory In August Sweny Howlett and Henderson went to Toronto to scout locations and picked the Leaside Business Park This was formerly the home of the World War I era Leaside Aerodrome but by this time being used by a number of small industrial companies and was well served by a major line of the Canadian Pacific Railway 4 and was the site of a major Canadian National Railway maintenance depot 5 With the location selected the NCR issued orders for all of the equipment including a furnace stirrers and casting machines Believing the US was going to enter the war and that machine supplies would dry up the NCR placed additional orders for machine tools and other supplies to the order of 600 000 9 038 298 in 2023 On 27 August Howe appointed Lt Col W E Phillips to the board and he replaced Sweny as GM on 30 November Sod was turned on 16 September 1940 and the first glass poured on 5 June 1941 4 Tizard Mission Edit Another issue revealed during the Tizard Mission was the need for CRTs a product that REL s glass plant was able to quickly provide Here the glass bulbs are being coated with phosphorus paint to produce the display surface On 16 August Henry Tizard visited the NRC as part of what would become the Tizard Mission He met Mackenzie and Fowler but found them preoccupied testing a local invention that proceeded to fail He spent the rest of the day meeting politicians and had dinner with Prime Minister Mackenzie King Over the next three days he surveyed the Canadian research capabilities and was told by Fowler that the NRC had little to do which is why they were testing silly inventions 6 When he asked about radar knowing they had been briefed on the topic by famous Canadian explorer Charles Wright in early 1939 Tizard was saddened to learn that only a small amount of money had been spent on studying the matter and this only started in September 1939 Although several rounds of funding had followed including 40 000 in May 1940 the NRC efforts had been somewhat bumbling successful only in developing a Coast Defence radar that was state of the art for 1938 Nevertheless with this minor success in July the government approved the building of a small radar factory employing 130 to 140 people 7 Having moved on to Washington on 9 September Tizard was later joined by a small team from the NRC to coordinate the efforts of the three nations Tizard told Fowler that they should immediately begin to work on starting production of the Air to Surface Vessel radar ASV used to search for ships and submarines Of the variety of small radars developed by that time ASV was technically the simplest After the main work of the Mission was over on 24 October the remaining Tizard Mission members returned to Ottawa and found that their meetings the previous month had a profound effect Instead of the small radar factory originally envisioned plans were now underway for a major electronics factory employing hundreds Just how large was the only matter of debate 8 Tizard had returned to the UK by this point and his position with the coordinating group had been taken over by John Cockcroft The NRC explained that plans had not been formalized because the UK government had not placed any firm orders nor indicated when or how large those orders might be Cockcroft took it upon himself to write an official memo outlining a development plan including the immediate construction of a factory to build ASV sets for both UK and US use followed by a microwave frequency gun laying set for anti aircraft guns and another seven projects of lower priority He also suggested building out the capacity to produce the required vacuum tubes and similar electronics to support the programs He concluded that the factory should be large enough to support sales to both the UK and US 9 Electronics factory Edit The GL Mk IIIc was one of REL s more notorious products released without factory testing and considered largely unusable as delivered Much more successful was the Zone Position Indicator radar or ZPI A follow on version the MZPI would go on to be the standard medium range system in Canada the UK and the US An office was opened in Toronto on 3 September 1940 to oversee the expansion and the week of 14 to 20 October saw much activity by Howe Sweny Phillips and R A Hackbusch Hackbusch had been hired away from Stromberg Carlson by Phillips in order to run the electronics division 10 Phillips quickly produced the design for an electronics factory initially to produce cathode ray tubes whose lack of production was a serious problem for UK radar efforts at that time 10 REL s existing optics side would be ideal for supporting this A cost plus contract for a 50 000 square feet 4 600 m2 shop employing 500 workers along with a gatehouse and cafeteria were approved by Cabinet on 16 November 750 000 11 297 872 today was provided on 28 December A September contract for 124 000 in machine tools was raised to 700 000 The plant would be owned by REL but managed by General Electric 11 To support the opening of the factory Phillips arranged for a number of engineers to be hosted by the NRC s Radio Branch over the winter of 1940 41 while the factory was under construction The buildings were completed in March and the equipment installed rapidly 10 Canada Wire and Cable already in Leaside began expanding with the addition of a vulcanizing drop tower to produce the insulated wires needed to carry high voltage radar signals Northern Electric was placed in charge of starting production of the micropup tubes used in the ASV sets as well as the cavity magnetron used in more modern designs 11 By August the electronics factory already had orders totalling 36 798 000 554 318 809 today mostly radar systems of UK design that were being sold to the US However the company quickly fell behind on their deliveries and put the blame on a number of engineering changes ordered by the Radio Branch of the NRC 12 A round of fingerpointing soon broke out which had to be smoothed over by McNaughton who made notes in his diary about his correspondence with Phillips and said there was a general deterioration of the nerves these days people were tired and there was a lot of loss of control I told him we did not intend to do anything about it but any time he wished to check up we had facts that would be satisfactory It was a very interesting interview 13 Although delivery rates began to improve quality became a serious problem During 1942 Mackenzie of the NRC became increasingly suspicious that Hackebusch was the ultimate cause of the problems On 11 November 1942 Col Wallace visited REL with two of the NRC section heads and began interviewing people on the shop floor One superintendent admitted that Hackebusch personally ordered him to concentrate on quantity rather than quality and that in order to improve delivery times units were being shipped untested It also became clear that Hackebusch had kept this from Phillips 13 During a visit to Ottawa in March 1943 Phillips met with Mackenzie and Wallace and agreed the problem was real admitting all the weaknesses of Hackbusch and said they are going to make a fundamental change which we all know is overdue by at least two years 13 But it was not until 2 September that Hackbusch was gone A week later Wallace was given the job although he remained Director of the Radio Branch at NRC as well When Mackenzie visited on 30 March 1944 he reported that the company was completely reorganized 14 Nevertheless the setbacks proved fatal to the efforts and was never able to deliver sets that competed with the rapidly improving designs from the UK and especially the US 15 By the end of the war REL had shipped thousands of radar sets of a variety of models Among these were the Chain Home Low systems for the US that were rushed into service in the Canal Zone 16 as well as being the primary supplier of the UK s GL Mk III radar system used to automatically aim anti aircraft artillery 17 To support their construction the company also ran a training facility in concert with the NRC located near today s Bluffer s Park in Scarborough 18 The Scarborough site was used to test the pioneering DATAR computer in the 1950s 19 Wind down and closure Edit At its peak in 1944 the company plants covered the majority of the area between Eglinton Avenue on the north Laird Drive on the west and Research Road on the south along with smaller shops and storage extending to Wicksteed Avenue further south In total the company estate covered 55 acres 22 ha had 750 000 square feet 70 000 m2 of floor space employed 7 500 men and women in about equal numbers and produced 220 million 3 314 million in 2023 worth of radar systems and optical instruments 20 They were the largest single employer to ever operate in the Leaside area 21 By the middle of 1944 the Canadian Army was in combat in Europe and was well supplied and equipped The US had brought their own massive production capacity to bear and were no longer placing large orders with Canadian firms Orders for military equipment were dwindling and in December 1944 the company laid off 1 000 workers including 600 local residents 22 Some of the vacated factory area was later used by another Crown Corporation Turbo Research but like REL they found their funding was dwindling as the war effort wound down Turbo Research was purchased by Avro Canada in 1946 and became Orenda Engines moving to Malton on the west side of the city 23 With the ending of the war there was some political debate about keeping the larger Crown companies under government control selling them whole or simply closing them as rapidly as possible The later came to pass due to a policy of not competing with private companies during peacetime 24 and REL was shut down entirely in September 1946 21 This was part of a wider drop in employment in the Leaside area which dwindled from 13 290 in 1943 to 5 712 in 1946 22 Re use Edit Parts of the REL factories were soon purchased by other companies large and small The optical plant was taken over by Corning Glass who produced Pyrex at the site for many years Portions of the electronics factory were taken over by Honeywell Controls others were used by Rogers Majestic the original Rogers Communications until that was sold to Canadian Radio Manufacturing and then again to Philips 24 Other buildings became Lincoln Electric Motors 22 Philips built a new three story executive office building on the site known as The White House which was officially opened by Paul Hellyer and Ontario Premier William Davis in 1966 The building s illuminated sign was a local landmark Philips moved their operations to Scarborough in 1976 24 Honeywell followed to Scarborough as well 25 before closing the new plant in December 2011 26 The Canada Wire plant moved to Markham in 1996 and is today known as Nexans North America 27 Lincoln remains as the only major manufacturing plant in Leaside as of 2014 update having expanded several times Products EditOne of REL s best known products were their binoculars A common 6x30 set was produced to the extent of about 50 000 examples while a 7x50 set added another 25 000 examples A very small number about six of an experimental 20x72 were also built 28 Another well known REL product was a series of telescopic sights for the Lee Enfield No 4 MK I T sniper rifle These were initially copies of the British model and were delivered as the C No 32 Mk I but deliveries were slowed due to demands for glass and production facilities for the wide variety of instruments then under construction everything from gunsights for tanks and artillery to observer s telescopes to the binoculars By the end of the war 326 C No 32 Mk I s had been delivered along with 113 C No 32 Mk IA and 255 C No 32 Mk II A quantity of C No 32 MK 3 telescopes were also made Unhappy with the C No 32 REL experimented with a number of commercial designs and eventually delivered the C No 67 MK I which was initially labelled by the British as C No 32 MK IV against Canadian wishes and was 10 ounces 280 g lighter than the British models 29 Among many electronics products were the CHL and GL radars ASV Mk II radar for the US IFF transponders height finder radar and microwave frequency early warning radar of Canadian design References EditCitations a b Middleton 1981 p 41 Middleton 1979 p 110 a b c d Middleton 1979 p 111 a b c Middleton 1979 p 112 Canadian Northern Railway Toronto s Historical Plaques Zimmerman 1996 p 159 Zimmerman 1996 pp 159 160 Zimmerman 1996 p 164 Zimmerman 1996 pp 164 165 a b c Middleton 1981 p 42 a b Zimmerman 1996 p 165 Middleton 1981 p 43 a b c Middleton 1981 p 44 Middleton 1981 p 45 Zimmerman 1996 pp 202 Thompson et al 1957 pp 93 102 Middleton 1981 p 70 Fairburn 2013 p 96 Ball amp Vardalas 1994 p 227 Pitfield 2008 pp 84 85 a b Pitfield 2008 p 84 a b c Gad 2008 p 169 Dow 1997 p 63 a b c Pitfield 2008 p 86 Pitfield 2008 p 79 Shah Maryam 15 November 2011 Honeywell plant shuts down leaves workers worried about future The Toronto Observer Retrieved 14 December 2014 Canada Wire and Cable Lost Rivers Retrieved 14 December 2014 Canadian binoculars Archives of an email list on the history of binoculars 2000 Retrieved 14 December 2014 Pegler 2012 p 177 Bibliography Ball Norman R Vardalas John N 1994 Ferranti Packard Pioneers in Canadian Electrical Manufacturing McGill Queen s Press ISBN 978 0 7735 0983 2 Dow James 1997 The Arrow James Lorimer ISBN 978 1 55028 554 3 Fairburn M Jane 2013 Along the Shore Rediscovering Toronto s Waterfront Heritage ECW Press ISBN 978 1 77041 099 2 Gad Gunter 2008 The Suburbanization of Manufacturing in Toronto 1881 1951 In Lewis Robert ed Manufacturing Suburbs Building Work and Home on the Metropolitan Fringe Temple University Press ISBN 978 1 59213 794 7 Middleton William Edgar Knowles 1979 Physics at the National Research Council of Canada 1929 1952 Wilfrid Laurier Press ISBN 978 0 88920 072 2 Middleton William Edgar Knowles 1981 Radar Development in Canada The Radio Branch of the National Research Council of Canada 1939 46 Wilfrid Laurier Press ISBN 978 0 88920 106 4 Pegler Martin 2012 Out of Nowhere A history of the military sniper Osprey Publishing ISBN 978 1 84908 875 6 Pitfield Jane 2008 Leaside Dundurn ISBN 978 1 77070 721 4 Thompson George Raynor Harris Dixie R Oakes Pauline M Terrett Dulany 1957 The Call for Equipment The Signal Corps the Test December 1941 to July 1943 United States Army in World War II Vol The Technical Services Zimmerman David 1996 Top Secret Exchange The Tizard Mission and the Scientific War McGill Queen s Press ISBN 978 0 7735 6597 5 Further reading EditMoorcroft Don 2006 The Origins of Radar based Research in Canada Western University Retrieved 14 December 2014 43 42 46 N 79 21 18 W 43 712821 N 79 354868 W 43 712821 79 354868 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Research Enterprises Limited amp oldid 1081124533, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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