Physicist. He received world-wide recognition in the 20th century as the Scottish physicist that developed radar in time for the breakout of World War II. At the Bawdsey Research Station located in Bawdsey Manor near Felixstowe in Suffolk, his research resulted in the design and installation of aircraft detection and tracking stations called Chain Home, positioned like a chain along the Eastern and Southern coastline of England. He was an excellent student winning the Carnelley Prize for Chemistry and the class medal for Ordinary Natural Philosophy in 1910. He attended the University of St. Andrews graduating with a degree in Bachelor's in Science of Engineering in 1912, did post graduate studies the wireless telegraphy or radio with Professor William Peddie, and later taught at the University College in Dundee. Beginning as a meteorologist in 1915, he held numerous government positions until he retired in 1952. In 1934 the British Air Ministry was recruiting for the f easibility of developing a "death ray" to be used in pending war. In February of 1935, while heading the radio department of the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, England, he wrote a memorandum to the British government explaining how radio waves could be used to detect aircraft, thus giving time for the Royal Air Force to respond to the situation. His solution to the problem was not a “death ray,” but was accep ted. He was given only a shoestring budget but hand-picked his own team of researchers, including Edward “Taffy” Bowen, Arnold 'Skip' Wilkins and Sir Henry Tizard. Not only did he do hands-on work but managed the team reporting results to British Air Ministry. In the short time of four months, working long hours, and after many trial and errors, he was able to demonstrate an experiment to prove his device was able to locate an aircraft consistently at the distance of ninety miles. In order to monitor the entire coastline, his system grew into a series of devices along the coastline called the Chain Home, which typically operated at frequencies of 20-50 megahertz. In September of 1938 the first of the Chain Home radars began as a 24-hour duty. By the time World War II started in 1939, there were 18 radars defending the English coastline and by the end of the war 53 were operating. Chain Home radars were given credit for the small Royal Air Force turning back the German Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain in 1940. He was elected to a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1941 and was knighted in 1942 for his work on this project. Although he was not the only person who was researching the development of radar, to quote a professor, "He was the first man to apply it successfully to an urgent and important problem at the right time." He traveled to the United States at the end of 1941 as a consultant to improve air defenses in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack and awarded the United States Medal for Merit in 1946. In 1952 he was awarded £50,000 by the British government for his work on radar. After his retirement in 1952, he traveled back to the United States along with a visit to Canada as a consultant on each country's radar. Besides radar, in 1919 he patented an early version of echolocation and in 1923 developed a system using oscilloscopes to show lightning strike by plotting the strikes' electrical inference against rotating directional antennas. Other contributions by him include a cathode-ray-tube direction finder used to study atmospheric phenomena, research in electromagnetic radiation, and other inventions used for flight safety. Originally, his surname was Watt but after 1942, he started using a hyphen between his middle and last name, hence his surname became Watson-Watt. James Watt, the inventor the unit for measuring electricity or the “watt,” was his distant ancestor. He married three times: first ended in divorce after a 36-year marriage, the second ended in death in 1964 and the third was at the age of 74 to Dame Kathryn Jane Trefusis-Forbes, a veteran of World War II serving as the founding Director of the Women’s Air Auxiliary Force. Known for his sense of humor, in his 1957 autobiography “Three Steps to Victory: A Personal Account by Radar's Greatest Pioneer ,” he described himself as “a sixth rate mathematician and a second rate physicist.” In the autobiography, he wrote a humorous poem about the time he was issued a speeding ticket after his miles per hour was recorded by a radar gun. On September 3, 2014 a statue of him was unveiled in his hometown of Brechin, Scotland. A small plaque honoring him and Wilkins at the location of the first test on February 26, 1935, near Daventry in Northamptonshire reads: ...”showed for the first time in Britain that an aircraft could be detected by bouncing waves off them. Later known as radar, it was this invention more than any other that saved the RAF from defeat in the 1940 Battle of Britain.” In 2014 the BBC released the film, “Castles in the Sky,” which told the story of his early and challenging work with radar before World War II.