From Monmouth County to the Moon: How Walter McAfee Helped Shape the Space Race

2391
Walter S. McAfee was an American scientist and astronomer, notable for participating in the world’s first lunar radar echo experiments with Project Diana. Courtesy Monmouth University

By Melissa Ziobro

WEST LONG BRANCH – Pioneering African American Army civilian scientist Walter S. McAfee is perhaps most famous for his participation in Project Diana, which allowed man’s first “contact” with the moon in 1946. However, McAfee was initially excluded from coverage of the event. Though that was later rectified, few people in the Garden State know his name today, despite the fact that he served the Army for 42 years, mostly stationed at Fort Monmouth in Eatontown or its sub-post, Camp Evans in Wall.

McAfee also made time to teach and mentor a new generation of innovators and leaders as a professor at then Monmouth College in West Long Branch. He was a trustee at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, a scholarship fundraiser, and an organizer of enrichment programs for high school students. His story is one of raw talent, perseverance, generosity and success, and deserves wider exploration and recognition.  

McAfee was born Sept. 2, 1914 in Texas. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Wiley College in 1934, graduating magna cum laude. Still, it was the Great Depression and he struggled to find work. He did some substitute teaching, but was not above odd jobs: farm laborer, carpenter’s assistant, door-to-door salesman. Finally frustrated by a lack of options, McAfee returned to school and earned a master’s degree in physics from Ohio State University in June 1937. 

After graduation, McAfee taught in Columbus, Ohio from the fall of 1937 to the spring of 1942. During this time, he applied for civil service positions. The widespread racism of the day complicated this process despite McAfee’s stellar credentials. Applications required photographs, and it was commonly understood that African Americans were likely to be rejected. And McAfee was, many times – until a job came up with the Army Signal Corps at Fort Monmouth. The post opened during World War I and was the home of the Signal Corps, site of the Army Signal School and Signal Corps Laboratories.

McAfee recalled in his 1994 oral history interview with Professor Robert Johnson Jr. that Fort Monmouth’s application did not ask for a picture. He received a job offer shortly after applying, with instructions to report almost immediately after submitting his paperwork. He resigned from his steady teaching job in order to do so, despite fears that he might be fired when he arrived in New Jersey and fort officials discovered his race. 

McAfee’s fears dissipated when he arrived and found a number of African Americans already at work on Fort Monmouth. The Signal Corps was offering unique opportunities for people of color in the 1940s and 1950s and has been called “the Black Brain Center of the U.S.”

These employment opportunities did not inoculate the fort’s African American employees from the culture of discrimination and segregation that marked this period in United States history, however. Upon arriving in New Jersey in spring 1942, McAfee noted that off-post segregation and discrimination made it difficult to get housing and meals. Still, he got to work. His World War II-era assignments in the Signal Corps Laboratories included research into locating mines, counter mortar equipment, and identification of friend or foe technology – or, as McAfee described it in lay terms, “let’s find out who they are before we shoot them.”

The Diana Radar antenna. In 1946 the project allowed man’s first contact with the moon. Courtesy Monmouth University

The project for which McAfee is perhaps most famous occurred just after WWII – the Project Diana moon bounce, a 1946 radar experiment at a Fort Monmouth outpost then known as Camp Evans in nearby Wall Township, and now operating as the InfoAge Science and History Museums. 

Military brass wanted to determine whether the ionosphere could be penetrated by radar in order to detect and track enemy ballistic missiles. Because there were no incoming missiles to track, the team decided that they would try to bounce a radar signal off the moon.

Early calculations on how exactly to do this were not working, until McAfee was brought in to puzzle them out. On Jan. 10, 1946 at 11:58 a.m., using McAfee’s calculations, the team detected the first signals reflected back from the moon. The radio waves took 2.5 seconds to travel to the moon and back. Press reports lauded the event as a precursor to man eventually traveling to the moon. 

While team leaders involved in Project Diana were happy to boast about their momentous accomplishments, credit was not shared properly, at least at first. As McAfee recalled, “The press release was sent out but I was not mentioned.” Several months went by before this oversight was corrected and McAfee was given credit for his work. 

Despite this negative experience, McAfee stuck with the Army and earned a doctoral degree in nuclear physics from Cornell University in 1949. He continued working at Fort Monmouth, on projects including those related to nuclear technology and satellites. In 1956 he was awarded one of the first Secretary of the Army Research and Study Fellowships, which was presented to him at the White House by President Dwight Eisenhower. Under the fellowship, McAfee studied radio astronomy and ionospheric theory at Harvard University.

In the 1960s, McAfee developed sensors which were used to detect and track enemy movements during the Vietnam War. In 1971, he was one of the first African American employees of Army Materiel Command to be promoted to GS-16, a “super-grade” civilian position and predecessor of today’s federal Senior Executive Service. At that time, McAfee became the first scientific advisor to the Deputy for Laboratories at Fort Monmouth. 

McAfee retired from civilian service with the Army in 1985, having spent his entire career based in Monmouth County. 

Though he left his fulltime teaching career behind to join the civil service back in 1942, McAfee remained involved in education throughout his years at the fort. As early as 1946, just a few years into his Army civilian career, he was organizing college scholarships for students from underprivileged backgrounds. He was a founder and an active participant in a Monmouth County group that mentored and tutored local high school students. He also served as a trustee of Brookdale Community College in Lincroft starting in 1970. When his candidacy was announced in 1969, the Red Bank Register reported, “Dr. McAfee would be the only black person on the board.” McAfee eventually became chairman, serving in that capacity for five years beginning in 1975. 

McAfee was also a professor at Monmouth College (now Monmouth University) from 1958 to 1975. Courtesy Monmouth University

McAfee also lectured in atomic and nuclear physics and solid state electronics at what is now Monmouth University from 1958-1975. His classes were the stuff of legend among students, with one course being referred to cheekily as the “Mystery Hour.” Many of the students McAfee helped educate at Monmouth College would head over to nearby Fort Monmouth and have long, productive and important careers with the Army themselves. 

Walter McAfee died Feb. 18, 1995. He was survived by his wife, Viola Winston McAfee, and their two daughters, along with many other beloved family members. His awards and commendations are too many to list comprehensively here. He has been memorialized in some distinctive ways by the communities he contributed so much to. In 1997, Fort Monmouth named a $14 million laboratory building in his honor, a unique designation as most Army bases honor uniformed military personnel only. When the Army closed Fort Monmouth in 2011 it promptly named another building for McAfee at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

In 2015, McAfee became the first African American inducted into the Army Materiel Command’s Hall of Fame. And in 2019, the U.S. Postal Office at 1300 Main St. in Belmar was renamed in his honor. U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-4), who introduced the legislation to dedicate the post office building to McAfee, said at the time, “As an African-American, Dr. McAfee overcame adversity and prejudice with courage, tenacity and faith… His amazing life inspires. He challenges us to strive for excellence. He is truly a role model.”

Recently, Monmouth University established a scholarship fund in McAfee’s name to “support economically disadvantaged students to attend Monmouth University in pursuit of an education in any of the sciences, while celebrating a distinguished faculty member who broke racial and scientific boundaries.” The university pointedly decided to establish a scholarship before naming anything on campus for him, believing that investing in the education of students would be the best way to honor his legacy.  

Melissa Ziobro is a specialist professor of public history at Monmouth University’s Department of History and Anthropology.

The article originally appeared in the February 24 – March 2, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.