Dissertation Research: The Origins and Development of Combat Information Centers During World War II

本论文研究项目是对美国海军在第二次世界大战之前和期间开发复杂“指挥和控制”技术的努力的历史研究。具体来说，它探讨了作战信息中心（CICs）的发展，重点是在战争紧急情况下集成复杂的人机系统。随着战争期间的发展和利用，CIC主要是一个信息站，用来收集、评估和传播战术信息给特遣部队指挥官和舰艇指挥官。如何最好地组织设备和受过专门训练的人员共同组成一个综合情报中心，是一个极其复杂的问题。通过研究海军解决这一问题的努力，该项目试图解释人类和机器之间不断发展的关系如何改变海上战争。该项目的主要研究方法包括前往官方档案馆，以查看在调查期间产生的与调查主题相关的官方和非官方文件（例如，信件，备忘录，报告等）。这个过程非常耗时，并且需要在相关的档案中实际出现，通常一次需要几个星期。对于这个项目，大部分档案文件都位于大华盛顿特区地区。

This dissertation research project is an historical study of the United States Navy's efforts to develop sophisticated "command and control" technologies prior to and during the Second World War. Specifically, it explores the development of Combat Information Centers (CICs), focusing on efforts to integrate complex human-machine systems under the exigencies of war. As developed and utilized during the war, the CIC was primarily an information station, established to collect, evaluate, and disseminate tactical information to task force commanders and ships' commanding officers. How best to organize the equipment and specially-trained personnel that together made up a CIC was a problem of enormous complexity. By studying the Navy's efforts to solve this problem, the project seeks to explain how the evolving relationship between humans and machines altered warfare at sea. The principal research method for the project involves traveling to official archives in order to view official and unofficial documents (e.g., letters, memoranda, reports, etc.) produced during the time period under investigation and related to the topic under investigation. This process is time consuming and requires a physical presence at relevant archives, frequently for several weeks at a time. For this project, the majority of archival documents are located within the greater Washington DC area.