On September 27, 1944, four drones, each armed with a 2,000-pound bomb, flew 55 miles to Bougainville to attack an anti-aircraft battery the Japanese had established on a beached merchant vessel. Film of the assault was shown to Navy brass in Pearl Harbor, who granted permission to mount combat operations. Three of them slammed into the target two detonated as planned. On July 30-called “D-day” in STAG One’s official war diary-four TDR-1s flew a demonstration mission against a derelict Japanese freighter beached near Guadalcanal. Hall wrote in his memoir, American Kamikaze. “The tropical climate could, and did, wreak havoc with electronic equipment,” drone pilot James J. There, the unit encountered primitive conditions. Nevertheless, drones faced resistance from Navy critics, and STAG One wasn’t shipped to the Solomon Islands until June 1944. Although the green, high-contrast display was too crude for watching baseball or a movie, it was good enough for spotting ships on the horizon, which made it valuable for the naval war being fought in the Pacific. A camera mounted in the drone’s nose transmitted images back to a five-inch screen mounted in the Avenger’s rear cockpit. The secret of the TDR-1 was a new form of top-secret technology: an RCA television.

But it was designed to be flown via radio-control by a pilot in a TBM Avenger torpedo bomber accompanying the drone. Each one had a removable cockpit, so it could be ferried by a human pilot.

Drones were a low-priority proposition, built by Interstate Aircraft out of pressed wood (created by piano-maker Wurlitzer) over tubular metal frames (erected by bike-maker Schwinn). The program, started in 1942, used cheap-to-make and easy-to-fly twin-engine drones, designated TDR-1s. Fahrney was instrumental in creating three Special Task Air Groups (STAGs) to deploy drones in the Pacific Theater. Navy officer Delmar Fahrney was among the first visionaries to realize that remotely piloted aircraft could be used to deliver ordnance without putting soldiers at risk. This story is a selection from the October/November issue of Air & Space magazine Buy

Tdr phoenix drone