Review of undersea acoustics to 1950

For much of the first four decades of the twentieth century (with the exception of an impulse effort during World War I), undersea acoustics had limited financial support and a small number of practitioners. During 1940–1950 this situation changed. A massive effort funded by the U. S. Navy enabled a large multidisciplined group of civilian scientists to transform a previously relatively simple pragmatic ’’art’’ into an increasingly complex emerging science.