"During one of the many breaks in operations caused by weather, Lieut. Col. Cowart of the 555th Signal Aircraft Warning Battalion introduced to pilots of the [404th FB] Group a radar set known as the SCR-584 (Signal Corps Radio). It had the ability to follow, continuously and automatically, the flight of an aircraft on which it had been directed or "locked"; used with a large-scale map on a table-type glass screen on which the position of the aircraft was shown by a spot of light, it could permit a controller to guide planes to a target under visibility conditions which would normally make bombing impossible. Led by Capt. John Ashby Marshall of Group operations, a special six-ship flight July 16 performed the first radar-controlled "blind" dive-bombing mission in combat in the history of the Army Air Forces. Directed by Lieut. Col. Cowart himself in the ground control station assisted by the homing station crew of the 508th Squadron, the flight was "talked in" on the target, a bridge chosen for its inconspicuousness. The planes dove when told to into a mass of clouds, and broke out of the overcast with the target dead ahead, with nothing to do but line up sights and release the bombs."