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

本论文的研究项目是美国海军的努力，以发展先进的“指挥和控制”技术之前和第二次世界大战期间的历史研究。具体来说，它探讨了作战信息中心（CIC）的发展，重点是在战争的紧急情况下整合复杂的人机系统的努力。随着战争期间的发展和使用，CIC主要是一个信息站，旨在收集、评估和向特遣部队指挥官和舰艇指挥官传播战术信息。如何最好地组织共同组成作战信息中心的设备和受过专门训练的人员是一个极其复杂的问题。通过研究海军为解决这一问题所做的努力，该项目试图解释人类与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，以查看官方和非官方文件（例如，信件、备忘录、报告等）在调查期间产生并与调查主题相关的信息。这一过程很耗时，需要有人亲自到相关档案馆，往往一次要几个星期。对于本项目，大部分档案文件位于大华盛顿地区。

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.