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On January 10, 1946, the US Army successfully bounced radio waves off the moon--the first-ever extraterrestrial communication, the birth of radar astronomy, and the opening salvo in the Cold War. The author was just shy of three years old at the time, and her father, E. King Stodola, was Scientific Director of the team that carried out the experiment, code-named Project Diana.To mark the 75th anniversary of this historic event, Cindy Stodola Pomerleau has written a series of essays using Project Diana as a lens for examining the transformations and dislocations occurring in the US during World War II and its aftermath. Nearly half the book is devoted to World War II, with particular attention to the history of radar at Camp Evans, starting with its fumbling beginnings at Pearl Harbor and culminating in its stunning success in Project Diana. The second section is devoted to King Stodola himself and an examination of the confluence of internal and external factors that made him the right man for the moment. The last section provides a sampler of Jersey Shore life (e.g., the boardwalk, the Neptune Music Circus), contemporary American life (e.g., Sears, nylon stockings), and the author's little-girl activities (e.g., her parakeet Archie, her Islander ukulele).Steeped in good humor and nostalgia, these wide-ranging narratives explore Project Diana's historical, sociological, political, and scientific context, as seen from the perspective of the tiny coastal New Jersey community where fate in the form of Camp Evans deposited the author's parents and their neighbors. The book is a unique eye-witness account of an event and an era that marked a turning point in American history.
Cynthia Stodola Pomerleau’s father, King Stodola, was among the team of scientists that first bounced a radar beam off the moon, giving her an intimate insider’s perspective on the evolution of American military radar from its harrowing failure at Pearl Harbor to the postwar triumph of penetrating earth’s atmosphere for the first time. She has the gift of refining extensive research in oral and written history into a lively and enlightening narrative that places her father’s achievement in the context of wartime America and the postwar boom years of her childhood. The precise scientific teamwork and camaraderie of the inventors is balanced and echoed by the spirited home life of her own family and friends as they participate in every forties and fifties fad from Dr Spock to Toni dolls, Tom Thumb weddings and Arthur Godfrey with his Ukelele Craze. To the Moon and Back is written in an intelligent and gracious style that can accommodate both technical precision and the enthusiasms of growing up. I can’t imagine a truer image of the Cold War years than these closely remembered, lovingly detailed moments of midcentury family life, reflected in the paintings of Norman Rockwell and sheltered from fear by the overarching perimeter of America’s radar shield. It was also the story of my own generation and its vivid images brought some long-buried memories back to life.
