University of California Division of War Research (UCDWR)

The University of California, on 26 April 1941, formally established a Division of War Research (UCDWR) to administer the new laboratory in San Diego. UCDWR was sited on the grounds of NRSL. The combined establishment was known as "UCDWR at the U.S. Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory." Informally, the Navy knew it as the "San Diego Laboratory." (Further references to the San Diego Laboratory in this history will mean the combined establishment of NRSL/UCDWR.)

In California, OSRD contracted with the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to manage the San Diego Laboratory while the Navy paid for most of the R&D costs. OSRD also contracted with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena to conduct research in rocket propulsion and underwater ordnance. From these wartime beginnings grew the Navy laboratories that today form NRaD.

Although most of the facilities on Point Loma were Navy, most of the workers at the San Diego Laboratory were employed by the University of California, not by the Navy. At its wartime peak, NRSL had a staff of about 150 civilians, while UCDWR's staff numbered approximately 575.

Dr. Roger Revelle was a Lieutenant, USNR, at NRSL. He later became a Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, a founding father of the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), and the person for whom Revelle College at UCSD was named.