He invented WWII radar

The radar helped to counter the German air force and aided troops who shot down planes during German air attacks on Italy's Anzio beachhead in 1944.

Davenport went to England to waterproof radar semi-trailers that were to be floated ashore at Normandy in the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944. After the landing, he was sent to France to continue developing applications for the radar.

"They issued papers for me to be known as a captain in the Signal Corps," Davenport said in a 2010 interview with the Greenwich Citizen, a weekly newspaper. "I had all the dog tags and identification. When you are a civilian and are overseas in a war zone, that civilian would need protection, for if he was caught by the enemy for any reason he would be shot as a spy."

A targeting system developed for the SCR-584 would later help Allied pilots target enemy vehicles in snowy conditions at the Battle of the Bulge in Europe.

Carol Davenport recalled simpler technological lessons from her father, an avid collector of antique cars.

"He was insistent that my sister and I learn to change a tire," she said.

Davenport was born on Dec. 31, 1915, in Schenectady, N.Y., where his father worked as a schoolteacher. He graduated from Union College in Schenectady in 1937 and earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Pittsburgh based on the work he did at the MIT Radiation Lab.