World War II
Briggs was always finding ways to get new business for the Bureau. In 1939 he sent Secretary of Commerce Daniel C. Roper a list of services the Bureau could provide in the event of armed conflict in Europe. By 1942 90% of the Bureau's activities were classified efforts for the war effort. Some of the Bureau's activities were the non-rotating proximity fuze, guided missile developments (see the Bat), establishment of a Radio Propagation Laboratory, critical materials research on optical glass which Germany had previously supplied, on quartz and synthetic rubber and measurement and calibration services. Briggs changed the Bureau's culture from one of open access to one of secrecy.
Briggs retired from the Bureau in 1945, at the age of seventy-two. He was appointed director emeritus of NBS after working for forty-nine years in federal government. Bureau employees erected a bronze sundial in his honor through their Employees Welfare Association. At his request the names of the first three directors of Bureau are cast onto the rim of the instrument: Samuel Wesley Stratton, George Kimball Burgess, and Lyman James Briggs.
In 1948 Briggs received the Medal of Merit from US President Harry Truman for his distinguished work in connection with World War II.
At the request of Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace, he wrote a 180-page account on NBS war research that was published in 1949.
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