From "CSIRO research for Australia" (1962) pdf page 30:
"In the late nineteen-thirties, when the threat of war in Europe loomed large, scientists in Great Britain were intensifying research into radar. On 24th February, 1939, the British Government secretly requested the Australian Government to send a scientist to England, in order that Australia might be brought up to date on the progress in radar research. Dr. D.F. Martyn, F.R.S. (now Officer-in-Charge of the Upper Atmosphere Section), went to London, and returned later in 1939 to set up a sub-centre for radar research in Australia.

With the outbreak of war, plans proceeded quickly. A new wing to house the radar team (styled, for the sake of anonymity, the Division of Radiophysics) was added to the National Standards Laboratory, then under construction, and work began in 1940. A year later Dr. Martyn became leader of an army operations research group, and was succeeded as Chief by Dr. F. W. G. White, the present Chairman of C.S.I.R.O., who had been loaned to Australia from Canterbury University College in New Zealand. When Dr. White joined the Executive in 1945 he was succeeded by Mr. J. N. Briton, an experienced engineer who had been seconded to C.S.I.R.O. from the radio industry. The wartime work of the Division was of great value to the Australian and American armed forces in the Pacific. The Laboratory developed coast defence radar equipment and fire control devices for anti-aircraft guns, but the most important achievement was, probably, the development of light, compact, transportable radar equipment which could be moved by air. Units of this kind gave sterling service in the island campaigns of the Pacific theatre.

Shortly after the end of the war, Dr. E.G. Bowen, who had been a member of the original team under Sir Robert Watson-Watt responsible for the development of radar in Great Britain, became Chief of the Division and, with Dr. J.L. Pawsey; F.R.S., as Assistant Chief, laid the foundation of the Laboratory's peacetime programme. An obvious application of the new techniques mastered in wartime was the use of radar as an aid to aircraft navigation, and the Division produced a device for aircraft known as "distance measuring equipment" or "D.M.E", which allows a pilot to read his distance in miles from a reference beacon on the ground. There are now about 180 ground beacons installed along the air routes, and Australian domestic airlines have used D.M.E. ever since."