Charlie Townes was a really great man. I remember how he used to somewhat regularly show up to the undergrad physics seminar 5 minutes late, grab a slice of pizza, and then leave 5 minutes later. At ~92 years old, nobody could do anything but smile! One time a seminar speaker, bemused by his sudden appearance then disappearance, decided to share with us a cool anecdote:

Back during WWII, Townes was working on Radar navigation tech for bombers. He and another scientist were sitting in the back of a military plane, doing experiments off the cost of Florida or someplace. They had finished their measurements and told the pilot to turn around and head home. They were continuing to play around with their toys when they realized that, according to their radar, they were heading _away_ from the coast.

The two scientists went up to the cockpit, claiming there had been a navigation error, insisting they must turn around. The pilot must have been crazy to listen to these two geeks, frantically trying to explain radar (which basically didn't exist yet!), but eventually agreed. If they hadn't turned around, that plane would have run out of fuel and crashed somewhere over the Atlantic. In that world, perhaps the laser still would not have been invented!