Following the end of World War II, Col. John H. DeWitt Jr., Director of the Evans Signal Laboratory at Camp Evans (part of Fort Monmouth), in Wall Township, New Jersey, was directed by the Pentagon to determine whether the ionosphere could be penetrated by radar, in order to detect and track enemy ballistic missiles that might enter the ionosphere. He decided to address this charge by attempting to bounce radar waves off the moon. For this task he assembled a team of engineers that included Chief Scientist E. King Stodola, Herbert Kauffman, Jacob Mofenson, and Harold Webb. Input from other Camp Evans units was sought on various issues, including most notably the mathematician Walter McAfee, who made the required mathematical calculations.