Window on Spools

[Buster11]

I remember in about 1944-45 of occasionally finding what I assume was Window, plain aluminium, but un-cut and on a spool about the size of a Sellotape roll, rather than in short lengths. I lived then near RAF Hartford Bridge. I also remember finding some short lengths that were matt black. The spool stuff made good Christmas decorations.

Might there have been an airborne system that cut Window to lengths appropriate for disrupting the detected radar?

Any comments, apart from on my scrambled memory?

[tonytales]

In mid-fifties working at Lockheed at KIDL in New York, I remember seeing chaff dispensers on some special Radar Constellations, don't remember if they were Navy WV-2 or Air Force RC121, may have been some of the "Q" ships used for ECM work. They had a mechanism with large reels of foil (like film in a movie projector) and a mechanism to chop it to specific lengths dependent on the radar frequency to be jammed and then dispense it overboard. It was, if memory serves me, located aft of the pressure bulkhead.
That's a lot later than your report but no reason why it wouldn't have been developed during the war.

[docbob]

Whilst at Royal Air Force Gaydon in Warwickshire in 1958, I worked on the testing of WINDOW dispensers for the Valiant aircraft. They were about the size of computer printer. The WINDOW was supplied from a magazine, the WINDOW whether in strips or 3 coils, were laid in a cardboard box about 8 inches by 2 and a half inches by half an inch high. These boxes were connected to two long straps like a ladder. The boxes were fed into the dispenser, where the straps were ripped from the boxes and the boxes being opened,ejected into the air. The strips would just float down slowly, the coils would unravel and being heavier would fall faster. I never thought to collect any of it as I was living on the camp. I do remember that the crates that the WINDOW was in were like coffins and screwed down as though they were never meant to be unscrewed.