The idea of using chaff developed independently in the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States and Japan. In 1937, British researcher Gerald Touch, while working with Robert Watson-Watt on radar, suggested that lengths of wire suspended from balloons or parachutes might overwhelm a radar system with false echoes[2] and R. V. Jones had suggested that pieces of metal foil falling through the air might do the same.[3] In early 1942, a Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) researcher named Joan Curran investigated the idea and came up with a scheme for dumping packets of aluminium strips from aircraft to generate a cloud of false echoes.[4] An early idea was to use sheets the size of a notebook page; these would be printed so they would also serve as propaganda leaflets.[5] It was found that the most effective version was strips of black paper backed with aluminium foil, exactly 27 cm × 2 cm (10.63 in × 0.79 in) and packed into bundles each weighing 1 pound (0.45 kg).