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The Office of Scientific Research and Development and its predecessor, the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) were federal government organizations established in the lead-up to the Second World War to coordinate and support scientific and technical research related to warfare. Materials from the Office of Scientific Research and Development, or OSRD, thus represent original research conducted by the Allies during World War II. The tens of thousands of items in the Library's OSRD collection include technical reports, drawings, memos, medical research results, and other documents, which were either never subject to restricted access or which have since been declassified. While the Library houses and maintains the scientific and technical reports of the OSRD and NDRC, the administrative records of both are held by the National Archives.
In recent years the microfilm copies of a selection of OSRD reports have been digitized and placed in the Library’s Stacks system, where they can be viewed from dedicated terminals in the Library’s Reading Rooms. However, in order to improve access the Library has begun to migrate a selection of these reports to a digital collections page.
The OSRD Digital Collection includes declassified technical, laboratory and field reports as well as other reference material from three of the OSRD’s 25 administrative divisions, Division 12: Transportation, Division 16: Optics/Camouflage and Division 18: War Metallurgy. The material was digitized from microfilm copies and represents the “most important” research reports found in the hardcopy collection. Information on topics such as amphibious vehicles, DUKW designs, bridge, ponton and ferry designs and much more, can be found in reports from Division 12 (Transportation), while Division 16 (Optics/Camouflage) reports cover such topics as aerial photography, camouflage applications, periscopes and other optical instruments. Division 18 reports (War Metallurgy) discuss the metallurgy of aluminum, magnesium, steel and other materials and alloys used for aircraft production, armor plate, gun tubes, ammunition, and other purposes as well as developments in welding and foundry processes. Captured enemy matériel was also examined.
The OSRD research reports feature some of the most prominent names in American science and technology, including Claude Shannon, John von Neumann, Richard Courant, Theodore von Karman, and Milton Friedman. These materials remain significant because:
Development of the OSRD
On June 27, 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved an order External issued by the Council of National Defense, a First World War era group of six Cabinet Secretaries, revived to coordinate support for the upcoming war effort. This order established the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), directing that the committee to “correlate and support scientific research on the mechanisms and devices of warfare…”.
Much of the NDRC's work was completed under strict secrecy, but Roosevelt's decision gave the United States an 18-month head start for employing science in the war effort. Members of the NDRC included:
The NDRC administered its work through five divisions:
The NDRC, however, had neither the authority nor the funds to carry research forward into development and production. Concerned that the NDRC needed additional support, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8807 on June 28, 1941 establishing the Office of Scientific Research and Development as an independent entity within the Office for Emergency Management. Vannevar Bush was appointed director of the OSRD and given the authority to enter into contracts (PDF, 2.95MB) and agreements for studies, experimental investigations and reports. James B. Conant replaced Bush as chairman of the NDRC.
Bush immediately undertook a survey to identify scientists in government, universities and industry that could be recruited for military-related research. Thousands of draft deferments were granted as experts were employed and contracts signed, primarily to a select group of established institutions, to further weapons research and development.
Administratively, the agency was divided on a subject basis into a Sensory Devices Committee, a Insect Control Committee, an Office of Field Services, a reorganized NDRC and a Committee on Medical Research.
The NDRC was now composed of the following divisions, panels and committees:
The Committee on Medical Research (CMR) was subdivided as follows:
In addition, in early 1944, the Army and Navy, with the assistance of the OSRD, established an Army-Navy-OSRD Vision Committee to investigate vision problems related to military activity. The Committee's headquarters were located at the National Academy of Sciences office building, and after the war, the Committee was reorganized as the Army-Navy-National Research Council Vision Committee.
By the end of the war, the OSRD had spent $450 million to provide U.S. and Allied troops with more powerful and accurate weapons, more reliable detonators, safer and more effective medical treatments and more versatile vehicles. Bush had expected that the relationship he forged between the military and civilian scientists - especially the dissemination of information - would change after the conflict (see his article "As We May Think" in the July 1945 issue of Atlantic Monthly). His wartime efforts, however, actually transformed the American research enterprise, and contributed to the "immense military establishment" and "large arms industry", lamented by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his 1961 Farewell Address. As Captain F. R. Furth, U.S.N, told scientists attending a June 1944 Symposium on Airborne Electronic Equipment (Symposium, June 15, 16 and 17, 1944, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on confidential airborne electronic equipment. OSRD collection):
"To gain this electronic superiority [in radar] has taxed to the limits the combined best efforts of our scientists and of our manufacturing facilities. It has been a battle of wits between our scientists and the enemies' scientists and it is reasonable to expect that this battle will continue until the war's end - and should not stop even then as when the war ends we must continue this research and development so as to be prepared for the next 'sneak attack."
Although disbanded on December 31, 1947 and its remaining functions transferred to the National Military Establishment, now, the Department of Defense, the OSRD had proven the advantages of having a central agency organize and disseminate technical information in an easily recognizable format. At the same time, the tie between military and civilian scientific researchers, to "continue [this] research and development," became permanently entwined.
The Library of Congress and the OSRD
In 1946, in connection with the termination of its war-time contractual research program, the OSRD recalled hundreds of thousands of copies of technical reports which had been prepared and issued by its contracting laboratories. Recognizing the importance of this body of technical literature to postwar research, the OSRD asked the Library of Congress to serve as the official receiving point for these reports and to undertake redistribution of the materials - in sets - to a number of centers throughout the world. Classified reports were sent to selected military installations, while unclassified sets of reports went to some 90 research libraries. Because the number of copies of particular titles varied from one to over a hundred, the sets differed greatly in their degree of completeness. Set No. 1, constituting the most nearly complete single record of World War II OSRD research, was retained by the Library of Congress and became the principal source of material for the OSRD Cataloging Project. This project got under way in 1949, but due to changing budget priorities, was discontinued in 1952 before all the material was described.
In 1960, all of the 35,000 to 40,000 hardcopy reports in the OSRD collection were declassified and made available to the public. Completed catalog records on index cards - covering thru Division 14, the Panels and the CMR reports - were filed in a card catalog that is housed in the TRS Unit. These cards contain contractor numbers, OSRD numbers, issuing group, and author and title information.
In addition to the card catalog records, the collection also includes over 400 reels of OSRD microfilm containing 15,000 of the "most important" research reports found in the hardcopy collection, a bound index volume to the microfilm, and 70 bound volumes of Summary Technical Reports. The Master Subject Index of the NDRC has been digitized and is available online.
As indicated, the OSRD card catalog and other finding aids in the Technical Reports and Standards Unit do not completely describe the collection. Some reports have never been cataloged and the finding aids are limited to only some parts of the collection. Please consult with Science Section staff to begin your research for these. Other OSRD reports have been fully cataloged and records for them can be found in the Library's online catalog by searching for "United States Office of Scientific Research and Development" or "United States Dept. of Commerce. Office of Technical Services." OSRD reports were also issued by the Publication Board, and some can be found in the Publication Board (PB) historical collection of technical reports held by the Library.
The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.
Science in World War II Series:
New Weapons for Air Warfare: Fire-control Equipment, Proximity Fuzes, and Guided Missiles by Advances in Military Medicine: Made by American Investigators Working Under the Sponsorship of the Committee on Medical Research by Rockets, Guns and Targets; Rockets, Target Information, Erosion Information, and Hypervelocity Guns Developed During World War II by the Office of Scientific Research and Development by Chemistry: A History of the Chemistry Components of the National Defense Research Committee, 1940-1946 by Applied PhysicsOrganizing Scientific Research for War: The Administrative History of the Office of Scientific Research and Development by General Titles:
Microfilm Index: Summary Technical Report of NDRC
Reports of the Committee on Vision, 1947-1990 by Scientists Against Time by Science -- The Endless Frontier by 
Tuxedo Park by Radar in World War II by 
Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller by 
The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford by 
Science and the Pacific War by Atomic Energy for Military Purposes by 
Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century by 
Top Secret Exchange: The Tizard Mission and the Scientific War by Subject Headings:
Additional Resources:
