Bing Crosby entertains troops in London, 1944. US Archives photo.

Seventy years ago today, the radio section of the Milwaukee Journal (October 17, 1944) reported on Bing Crosby’s four weeks in France, where he performed for the troops “under any and all conditions, during bombings and artillery barrages, and in any kind of weather.”

The singer reported that the handiest things for stages were often captured German trucks and trailers, and that some of the performances took advantage of captured German mikes and sound equipment.

The paper notes that the Vichy radio station was now in Allied hands and was being used for Allied broadcasts. There were, however, still some Germans holding out in the basement. “Rather than destroy the equipment by bombing, the Allies went right on broadcasting and were trying to starve the Germans into surrender.”

Radio Vichy’s leading voice wasn’t in the basement.  Philippe Henriot, the “French Goebels,” was the leading propaganda voice coming from the Vichy station.  He had been assassinated by the French resistance on 28 June 1944.

In the early days of the Great War, the U.S. Government was struggling with how to deal with wireless stations in relation to U.S. neutrality. We’ve seen other examples of how they were dealing with communications in the Atlantic.

But the Pacific was also a theater of war, with Japan at war with Germany. In this news clipping from a hundred years ago today in the Bryan (Texas) Daily Eagle and Pilot (October 16, 1914), the U.S. Government had ordered the closing of the Marconi Company station in the Hawaiian Islands.

In violation of U.S. neutrality, the station had sent a message reporting the presence in Honolulu of the German gunship Geier. The U.S. had ordered the station closed unless the company could come up with a satisfactory explanation. Japanese warships were reportedly speeding toward Hawaii.  The next day’s issue of the paper reported that the order to close the station was rescinded, the company having apologized for the breach of neutrality.

The ship was subsequently interned by the neutral United States.  When the U.S. entered the war, the ship was seized by the U.S. Navy and became the USS Schurz.  In 1918, the ship was rammed by a freighter, killing one crewman and injuring twelve.  The ship was then abandoned and sank three hours later.

SMS Geier in 1894. German Federal Archive photo, via Wikipedia.

A hundred years ago today, October 15, 1914, the United Fruit Company passenger steamer Metapan, bound for New York from Colon, and the  American-Hawaiian line steamer Iowan, crashed near the entrance of New York Harbor. The Iowan suffered only slight damage, but The Metapan, with 76 passengers aboard, sank rapidly after the crash. Thanks largely to the ship being equipped with wireless, everyone got safely ashore. The Metapan was raised six days later and taken to Brooklyn for repairs.

The Metapan. Popular Mechanics, January 1915.

Until a few weeks prior to the crash, the Metapan had flown the British flag.  With the war, she was hastily registered as an American ship and flew the neutral U.S. flag.

The first ship to respond to the SOS was the British cruiser Lancaster. The dredge Atlantic quickly sent two steam launches, and a number of other small boats gathered quickly. According to press reports, a group of English passengers were singing “It’s a long way to Tipperary” as they boarded the lifeboats.

According to the report in the New York Evening World, the Metapan’s wireless operator, realizing the ship’s predicament, switched over to a storage battery to send the SOS.

The Iowan. US Navy photo, Wikipedia.

The Iowan had entered service only months earlier, and resumed inter-coastal service via the Panama Canal after repairs.  In 1916, the Iowan came under Navy control and served as a troop carrier.   The ship resumed civilian service after the war and in 1942, was transferred to the Soviet Union under lend lease, and was renamed the SS Tashkent.  After World War 2, the ship remained a Soviet merchant vessel until 1966, when she was transferred to North Korea for use as a fish processing ship.  She was finally scrapped in 1969.

References

SS Iowan at Wikipedia

Popular Mechanics, January 1915

Master, Mate & Pilot, Nov. 1914

New York Evening World, Oct. 15, 1914.

Seventy-five years ago, Europe was once again at war, but America was for the time being neutral. But the shortwave bands were alive with the sounds of war, and Radio Guide, the predecessor to TV Guide magazine, was covering shortwave radio. The issue of the week ending October 6, 1939, gave some pointers for tuning in, as well as reviews of what could be heard from the European capitals. One article notes that “many listeners have given up tuning short waves in disgust after one or two feeble attempts, mainly because they did not know exactly where and when to tune for foreign programs intended for their consumption.” The article assures that by following the given instructions carefully, many stations could be heard.

Another article reviews the programs, and notes that the BBC attempted to appeal directly to the German people, and continued in its musical program to include German composers. It notes that French broadcasts were typically quite terse.

And as for the Germans, the article notes that while the output is typically crude, “the German stations have come up with the up-to-now cleversest device of combining propaganda with entertainment.” The station would play German waltzes and “only after the listener has settled down to a stretch of pure entertainment that the announcer quietly intersperses” propaganda.

For more information on the shortwave bands during the War, please visit my earlier post.

French or Belgian army wireless car, 1914.

A hundred years ago today, the October 1, 1914, issue of the Burlington (Vt.) Weekly Free Press carried a feature explaining how the automobile and aeroplane were revolutionizing warfare in the European war. And the article explains how the wireless telegraph was being used in connection with both. It notes that the most advanced practice was found in the use of automobile wireless outfits, which are in wide use by both the Begian and French armies. Those powerful stations had a transmitting radius of 225-250 miles, and were of infinitely more value than pack sets and cart sets, since the conflicting armies were clashing along such far-flung battle lines.

The article notes that the electricity was generated by the motor of the car, and these portable stations “with all the paraphenalia of electrical communication without wires may be speedily whisked from place to place, and as soon as the telescopic mast which is part of the outfit can be extended and erected the operators can go to work sending and receiving messages.”