Where did the "Asdic" name come from?

[Gorduz]

wikipedia and u-boat.net seems to disagree on the origin of the british name for sonar: ASDIC
uboat.net:
http://uboat.net/allies/technical/asdic.htm
"ASDIC, developed through the work of the Anti-submarine Detection Investigation Committee , from which its name is derived..."
wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asdic
" 1916, under the British Board of Invention and Research, Canadian physicist Robert Boyle took on the active sonar project with A B Wood, producing a prototype for testing in mid-1917. This work, for the Anti-Submarine Division, was undertaken in utmost secrecy, and used quartz piezoelectric crystals to produce the world's first practical underwater active sound detection apparatus. To maintain secrecy no mention of sound experimentation or quartz was made - the word used to describe the early work ('supersonics') was changed to 'ASD'ics, and the quartz material 'ASD'ivite. From this came the British acronym ASDIC. In 1939, in response to a question from the Oxford English Dictionary, the Admiralty made up the story that the letters stood for 'Anti-Submarine Detection Investigation Committee', and this is still widely believed, though no committee bearing this name has ever been found in the Admiralty archives.[1]"

wikis source is: Willem Hackmann from 'Seek and Strike'

Who's right? Anyone read 'Seek and Strike'?

[Penelope_Grey]

I think its fair to say the latter is could be right, but... it comes from wiki. So... I think I'd believe the former before the latter.

[geetrue]

I think that question was on my first class sonarman test, butI I flunked it. :oops:

[bookworm_020]

I belive that it's the first option, Anti-submarine Detection Investigation Committee.

If you want to hear what it sounds like, click on the link.

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/audio/asidic.mp3

[Sailor Steve]

Wiki's source seems good, but I've heard the former too many times to dismiss it on a single say-so.

What's worse is the source for 'Blimp'. The only references I've ever seen are

1) The sound the bag makes if you thump it: "blimp".

and

2) There are two types of lighter than air craft:
Type A: Rigid
Type B: Limp

I don't believe either one of those, but I don't have an answer, either.

[Chock]

no committee bearing this name has ever been found in the Admiralty archives


I think this might be a case of 'wikipedia b*ll****' actually. Here is a quote from Deborah Lake's book 'Smoke and Mirrors: Q-ships Against the U-Boats in the First World War':

'In Britain, the Admiralty wondered how to counter the threat. The committee that studied anti-submarine warfare was disbanded when the war began, a decision that is hard to grasp. The navy itself was totally unprepared. No depth charges to destroy an underwater enemy, no hydrophones to hear submerged U-boats were in service. Anti-submarine detection simply did not exist.
Fantastic proposals flowed into the admiralty throughout the war. One suggested that seaguls could be trained to hunt U-boats. All this required was a British submarine to cruise back and forth with its periscope smeared with fish oil. at regular intervals, the crew would release titbits. The gulls would quickly associate periscopes with food. when a U-boat appeared, the birds would congregate around it. The navy could do the rest.
A similar plan suggested using seals and sea lions. This scheme's proposer felt that they could be trained to bark when the sound of U-boat diesels reached them. Admiralty desperation accordingly led to the expensive hire of several sea lions from an astute trainer. Like their feathered comrades, they failed to understand the problem. The U-boats remained safe from detection by British fauna.
Jellicoe recorded that he received a letter that earnestly suggested the Royal Navy fill the North sea with effervescent salts. The resulting bubbles would lift lurking U-boats to the surface, where they could be picked off at leisure.
The navy pinned hopes on its anti-submarine picket boats, a motley collection of yachts, trawlers and motor-launches that patrolled the coastal waters. Their equipment to fight U-boats consisted of a canvas bag and a heavy hammer. When a periscope appeared, the crew would simply slip the bag over it, then smash the glass with the heavy hammer.'

This is just a short quote from the section in the book which deals with the Admiralty's plans, and as ludicrous as all these ideas were, the fact that they are documented, and some were tried, tends to suggest that there was indeed some sort of committee to co-ordinate these efforts, or it seems unilikely that they'd ever have been attempted. so I'd go with the Committee acronym theory, and even if the committee wasn't actually called A.S.D.I.C. we all know how much the military loves its acronyms, so it's hardly a stretch to imagine them concocting a committee name just to get the acronym.

And I'd take U-Boat.net's opinion over wikipedia every time, there are so many errors and half-truths on wikipedia, it's hardly worth the effort to attempt correcting them, which for a while I used to do until I realised the futility of it!

:D Chock

[yankee-V]

I remember finding a book in a college library quite a while ago that was titled something like:

The Proceedings of the Anti Submarine Detection Investigative Committee. It was full of the history and names of the developers of Asdic from the prewar years. Had diagrams of the quartz crystals and circuits etc.

I think it even mentioned other names for the group like The Allied Sonic Detection Investigative Committee. So there. :p We are no closer than before.

"and even if the committee wasn't actually called A.S.D.I.C. we all know how much the military loves its acronyms"

True, True