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Guide to the Robert B. King Fuze Collection Documents, 1943-1945
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Title: Robert B. King Fuze Collection Documents,
Date (inclusive): 1943-1945
Creator:
King, Robert Burnett, 1908-1995
Extent: .5 linear feet
Repository:
California Institute of Technology. Archives.
Pasadena, California 91125
Abstract: The Robert B. King Fuze Collection Documents, 1943-1945, donated with the fuzes, include a set of the Confidential Bulletins
of Section L (OSRD Contract OEMsr-418), as well as several technical manuals published by the U.S.Navy. All materials have
been declassified.
Language:
English.
Collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to the California Institute of Technology Archives. All requests for permission to publish
or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of the Archives. Permission for publication is given on
behalf of the California Institute of Technology Archives as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include
or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.
[Identification of item, Box and file number], Robert B. King Fuze Collection Documents, Archives, California Institute of
Technology.
A native of Pasadena, Robert Burnett King (1908-1995) was the son of Arthur S. King, an eminent spectroscopist, who served
as director of the physical laboratory of the Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena under George Ellery Hale. Robert King graduated
from Pomona College in 1930 and received his PhD in astronomy from Princeton in 1933. During the 1930s he taught at MIT and
then returned to Pasadena to the Mount Wilson Observatory as a research fellow, beginning what would be his principal research
work for the rest of his life-the measurement of so-called f-values for spectral lines of astronomical importance. After the
reorganization of the Observatory following World War II and its association with Caltech, King was named professor of physics
at Caltech in 1948, a position he held until his retirement in 1968.
During the war King was head of the Fuze Group within the Caltech rocket project, headed by Charles Lauritsen and funded by
the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) under contract OEMsr-418. The project was also known as Section L
(for Lauritsen). The Fuze Group designed more than fifty fuzes, including the successful "Mousetrap" antisubmarine rocket
fuze, so-called for its shipboard launching mechanism, which was used in combat as early as 1942. King and his group received
several awards for their work, including the Presidential Certificate of Merit.
The Robert B. King Fuze Collection, donated by King's daughters, contains thirty-four rocket fuzes and parts, designed and
manufactured by Caltech for the U.S. armed services, mostly the navy, during World War II. The entire fuze collection has
been photographed and may be viewed online through the Caltech Archives' web page (
http://www.caltech.edu/~archives ) on PhotoNet.