Maurice Deloraine (1898–1991) was a French engineer, executive and technical director of International Telephone and Telegraph. Deloraine was strongly involved in the development of the so-called

Huff-Duff High-frequency direction finding, usually known by its abbreviation HF/DF or nickname huff-duff, is a type of radio direction finder (RDF) introduced in World War II. High frequency (HF) refers to a radio band that can effectively communicate ove ...

. Deloraine and others made an initial patent for

delta modulation Delta modulation (DM, ΔM, or Δ-modulation) is an analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog signal conversion technique used for transmission of voice information where quality is not of primary importance. DM is the simplest form of differential ...

called "Communication system utilizing constant amplitude pulses of opposite polarities" (French patent issued 1946, US patent filed 1947).

Biography

Maurice Deloraine grew up in a Protestant environment (Augsburg Lutheranism), his mother from Clairegoutte, his father from Frédéric-Fontaine. He then studied at the

ESPCI Paris ESPCI Paris (officially the École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris, , ''The City of Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution'') is a grande école founded in 1882 by the city of ...

(35th class). From 1918 to 1921, he did his military service in Gustave-Auguste Ferrié telecommunications department and, on Ferrié's advice, was hired by

Western Electric Western Electric Co., Inc. was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company that operated from 1869 to 1996. A subsidiary of the AT&T Corporation for most of its lifespan, Western Electric was the primary manufacturer, supplier, ...

.Deloraine discovered the American company's French subsidiary, Le Matériel Téléphonique (LMT), as well as Western Electric's American plants and parent company

AT&T Corporation AT&T Corporation, an abbreviation for its former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, was an American telecommunications company that provided voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to busi ...

. Western Electric was taken over by the American holding company

ITT Inc. ITT Inc., formerly ITT Corporation, is an American worldwide manufacturing company based in Stamford, Connecticut. The company produces specialty components for the aerospace, transportation, energy and industrial markets. ITT's three businesses ...

in 1925, and in 1928 Deloraine founded a research laboratory alongside LMT, Laboratoires LMT (LLMT). LLMT employed 700 people in 1938, when Deloraine set up a direction-finding division within which, in 1940, he developed the process known as "HF/DF" or

High-frequency direction finding High-frequency direction finding, usually known by its abbreviation HF/DF or nickname huff-duff, is a type of radio direction finder (RDF) introduced in World War II. High frequency (HF) refers to a radio band that can effectively communicate ove ...

, revolutionary in that it made it possible to detect the very short radio signals emitted by German navy submarines without the need for a mobile antenna frame.The name of Deloraine's collaborator, Henri G. Busignies, a specialist in high-frequency radio procedures, is also associated with this process for locating enemy submarines. In October 1940, Deloraine fled to the United States with Busignies and two other LLMT engineers.Philippe Wodka-Gallien, ''Applications de la Radiogoniomètrie en France entre les deux guerres'', dans actes du colloque ''La guerre électronique en France'', 20 avril 2000
en ligne
/ref> The invention of the “Huff-Duff” enabled Allied ships to parry numerous attacks on North Atlantic convoys by enemy submarines, and earned its inventor

Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...

congratulations. Back in France, Deloraine got his laboratory up and running again, working on new inventions. Among the most remarkable were the transformation of manual telephone switchboards into automatic ones, and “telephone digitization” (voice encryption in binary). He held a number of positions of responsibility, including president of telephone equipment at LMT, then president of Compagnie générale de constructions téléphoniques. Maurice Deloraine was mayor of Clairegoutte from 1953 to 1959. Throughout his life, he remained very attached to the “country” of his childhood, and frequently stayed in Clairegoutte.

References

1898 births 1991 deaths ESPCI Paris alumni History of air traffic control 20th-century French inventors {{France-engineer-stub