SIGNALING SEARCHLIGHT
By Morris Lapidus
When WWII was declared, Admiral Rickover decided that what was needed in any landing invasion was a Signaling Search Light (SSL) that would accompany the first men that would go ashore. The SSL was a large powerful lamp with a diameter of about 20 inches and a shutter device handled by triggers to flash semaphore messages to the ship which brought the landing party to their landing ships which brought them to the shores they were invading. Since there was no time to set up radio contact by setting up radio sending stations the signal man could instantly start sending messages to the ship that they had landed and what the conditions were. Admiral Rickover announced that he would entertain bids and designs for this signaling device.
The family firm of US Metal Products was the firm founded by Leon Lapidus. Leon born in Russia was conscripted to serve in the Russian Army. He was Jewish and rather short in stature and at first his life in the Army was rather a difficult time. All of this changed when the Colonel of his regiment asked if there were any coppersmiths in his company who could make a new bathtub for the colonel. Leon had been apprenticed to a coppersmith when he was 9 years old. He made a bathtub, which the Colonel declared was the finest tub he had ever had. Leon was soon making bathtubs for many of the officers in the army. The munitions factory that manufactured the field kitchen equipment was in a sad state and the Army brass decided to put Leon Lapidus in charge of that factory. Although he was in charge of the field kitchen factory he was still a private until French Army experts hired by the Russian Army to improve this sad state of affairs. The Russian military visited the field kitchen and asked to see the commanding officer in charge. The Russian General pointed to Leon. The French Army staff was aghast to see a buck-private in charge of this important piece of the Army equipment. Then they insisted that an Officer must be in charge. The commander said that a Jew could not become an officer, but that he was the best that they had. Of course a Jew in the Russian Army could not hold a rank higher than a Sergeant. So Leon Lapidus was made a full Sergeant and served out his period in the Russian Army.
Coming to America with his family in 1903, he began his life’s work in America in the metals industry making lamps for cars. He started the family firm with his two younger sons, Ben and Sol. The firm had been manufacturing searchlights and other devices for automobiles. And they were on the list of bidders for the signaling searchlight that Admiral Rickover needed. The principles of the firm, Leon and his two sons, asked Morris, the oldest son who was practicing architect and asked him if he would give up his practice to act as the engineer in the design of the lamp. They knew the approximate earnings from his architectural practice and they offered him a one-year contract to work with them on all of the engineering parts of the projects. For a sum of $10,000 dollars Morris Lapidus left his 14-year job as Chief Architect designer of Ross Frankel and founded the architectural firm of Morris Lapidus Associates. After Morris brushed up on his engineering (which he had studied in Columbia University, a 1929 Architectural graduate) he became involved inpreparing the prototype.
The Admiral had established certain rules for testing and the bidders had to make a prototype, which could withstand all the severe conditions of the landing and the gunfire. All of the submissions had to endure the rigors of testing. As fate would have it, only the US Metal Products prototypes withstood all of the tests and the Admiral for the navy awarded the contract to US Metal Products. Morris then had to prepare the usual manual that all Navy equipment required (of which there is not a family copy but may be in the Navy Archives). After completing every phase to get the manufacturing of the product started, Morris Lapidus finished his one-year contract and resumed his career as a store architect.
[button color=” size=” type=”outlined” target=” link=”]It is quite unknown that Morris Lapidus, infamous Florida Architect of the Fontainebleau, began his own architectural career after working for his father in the early 40’s at US Metal Products. There, he designed, and his father manufactured, the most significantly important ship to shore landing device for the US Military named the Signaling Search Light (SSL). The SSL received both the Army and Navy “E” for excellence seal after construction and use. A 1/8 scale model of this device, hand crafted by Lapidus’s father as a gift of appreciation to his son, was gifted to the Jewish Museum, MOSAIC, in Miami Beach in 2001 after Lapidus’s death. A copy of the SSL was made during Lapidus’s life time, by Village Light in New York. This copy was gifted to Syracuse University Special Collections in 2011 along with 100 years of records regarding Lapidus’s illustrious life.[/button]
Deborah Desilets