Seventy-five years ago, American shortwave broadcasters were clearly gearing up for war, as shown by an article in the January 1941 issue of Popular Science.

The article reports that in 1930, there were only three short-wave stations in Europe, but by 1941, there were at least 40, with more being built all of the time. In particular, the German radio, financed by the government, was pumping out Hitler’s speeches on as many as six transmitters at a time. They were targeting South America in particular, and the Americans wanted to keep up. Two million dollars was being spent on new transmitters, and according to the article, the investment was paying off. America had previously had only two transmitters running 50,000 watts or more, WLWO of Crosely Corporation in Mason, Ohio, and WGEO, owned by GE in Schenectady, N.Y.

New stations coming online included WNBI and WRCA, owned by NBC in Bound Brook, N.J., WCBX in Wayne, N.J., owned by CBS, WCAB and WCAU in Newtown Square, Pa., Westinghouse stations WBOS in Millis, Mass. and WPIT in Saxonburg, Pa., WRUL and WRUW in Scituate, Mass., and GE stations KGEI San Francisco and WGEA South Schenectady, NY.

There were 2.1 million shortwave receivers in South America, and they were a major target for the U.S. signals. NBC reported that in 1936, it reeceived fewer than fifty letters a month from South America, but was then receiving 2500 a month. Most of them were reportedly full of praise and reported their disgust with the propaganda fed by European stations.

For more information on the shortwave broadcast bands during World War II, see some of my previous posts:

• The Shortwave Broadcast Bands During WW2
• World War 2 Short Wave Listening
• WW2 Prisoner of War Broadcasts
• WW2 Shortwave Broadcasting
• 75 Years of HCJB Shortwave
• KGEI, GE’s Shortwave Station
• Sackville and Dixon Transmitters, 1945
• Allied Psy Ops, 1945
• Japanese Short Wave “Negro Propaganda Operations” of WW2

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CIA image via Wikipedia.

Shown here at the key of a clandestine transmitter somewhere in German-occupied France is American spy Virginia Hall.

Born in Baltimore in 1908, she had her sights set on a career in the foreign service, and landed a job as a clerk at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw in 1931. Unfortunately, while hunting in Turkey in 1932, she accidentally shot herself in the left leg, which later had to be amputated. She found herself in Paris at the start of the war and joined a French ambulance corps. After the fall of France, she made her way to London where she volunteered for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE).  Her cover story was as a correspondent for the New York Post, and she spent 15 months in both Vichy and occupied France, helping to coordinate the activities of the French Underground.

Forged identification certificate for “Marcelle Montagne.” Wikipedia image.

In 1942, Hall escaped to Spain and then back to London. In 1944, she joined the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and was returned to France. Since her artificial leg prevented her from parachuting in, she was landed at the Brittany coast by a British boat. Using a forged identification for Marcelle Montagne, she contacted the Resistance in central France and mapped drop zones for supplies and commandos.

She died in Maryland in 1982 at the age of 76.

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Eugène Aisberg, 1946.

After a wartime absence, the January 1946 issue of Radio Craft carried an article by writer Eugène Aisberg.  While that name might not be familiar to American readers, Aisberg was a prolific author in the early days of radio, and wrote some of the best treatises on radio for the popular audience.  He was fluent in French, Esperanto, German, Russian, and English.

Aisberg was born in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1905, and lived most of his life in France. He was the director of the French magazine Toute la Radio and a prolific author of a number of books. His most popular book, which is still in print, is La Radio? Mais c’est très simple (Radio? But It’s So Simple!)  The book, currently in its 29th edition, an extremely solid background covering all aspects of electronics, and is written in a popular, easy-to-read style. While the book was ultimately translated into several languages, it was apparently never published in English.

The book consists mostly of a dialog between Ignotus and his uncle Curiosus, along with explanations by Professor Radiol, in which the characters explain in an interesting fashion all aspects of electronic theory.

Aisberg’s first radio book was actually published in Esperanto. Jen… mi komprenas la radion (“Now I understand the radio”).

1942 edition of Amélioration et modernisation des recepteurs.

During the war, under the noses of the occupying Germans, Aisberg published a book explaining how to pull in Radio London and other foreign stations. The technical title of the book, Amélioration et modernisation des recepteurs (“Improvement and Modernization of Radio Receivers”) was undoubtedly helpful in getting the book past the German censors.

While his most famous book was never translated into English, his later TV – It’s a Cinch was published in English in 1957. While analog TV is now an obsolete technology, the book is still an extremely interesting read, and the reader walks away knowing how the technology works.

The 1946 article, which marked his return to an American audience after the war, described a radio with automatic selectivity control.  The article also contains the following sidebar, which is a fascinating reminder of conditions prevailing in France immediately after the war:

Because of the conditions prevailing in Paris, instead of a check, Aisberg preferred payment for the article to be in the form of “chocolate, cocoa, toilet soap, shaving cream, corned pork, coffee, needles and thread, canned ham, and high-speed razor blades.”

Aisberg died in Paris in 1980.

See also:  Fall of Paris, 1940

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It’s unclear exactly when and where these grainy old photographs were taken, but they depict something rather remarkable.  The top photograph is a radio receiver used by Allied prisoners of war from 1940 until the end of the war in 1945.

This set belonged to the crew of a Canadian merchant ship which was captured early in 1940. They managed to conceal the set in their belongings and smuggle it in to the POW camp near Bremen. The set’s hiding place is the hollowed out butcher’s block shown in the bottom photo.

The photos appear on page 14 of the January, 1946, issue of Manitoba Calling, the monthly magazine and program guide put out by CKY in Winnipeg. The article contains other tales of Allied POW’s managing to listen to the radio during their confinement. The article contains other such stories of how prisoners managed to keep clandestine radio receivers concealed.

In one case, prisoners at a camp in occupied Poland managed to steal a transmitter from a German armored car. When the camp was threatened with an exhaustive search for the stolen set, it was returned, since the men didn’t want to risk losing the twenty clandestine receivers in their possession.

Unfortunately, the article is lacking details on the receivers in use, their power supplies, and other details. Nonetheless, it’s an interesting read, and confirms that Allied prisoners were often able to keep in touch with news from home.

The author of the article was Calvin Peppler, who was employed by CKY before and after the war. During the war, he was a Spitfire pilot in various squadrons for several years. In the last few months of the war, he was shot down and served for several months as a prisoner of war himself, attempting several unsuccessful escapes. Peppler died in Toronto in 2015 at the age of 96.

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SS Persia. The Wireless Age, Feb. 1916.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Persia, with the loss of 343 lives among the 519 aboard.  Without warning on December 30, 1915, off the coast of Crete, the ship was torpedoed by Captain Max Valentiner commanding the U-boat SM U-38.

The passenger ship carried no troops or war materiel of any kind. The 499 foot ship went down in about five minutes in 10,000 feet of water.

The captain’s wife was en route to Malta to spend the winter with her husband, and was advised by wireless of his death.

Among the dead was Marconi wireless operator George Henry Dewey, shown here. After finishing his education, he had initially entered the post office as a telegrapher and clerk, and then studied at the British School of Telegraphy and entered the service of the Marconi company. In his short career, he had served aboard five other ships before his appointment to his position aboard the Persia.

The ship carried a large quantity of gold and jewels belonging to the Maharaja Jagatjit Singh,  who had previously disembarked at Marseilles. Despite the ship being located in 2003 and some artifacts being recovered, that treasure still lies at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

“Spirit of Ecstasy.” Wikipedia image.

Also among the dead was actress and model Eleanor Thornton. While her name might be unfamiliar, she is widely recognized, since she served as the model for the “Spirit of Ecstasy” hood ornament that adorns every Rolls Royce.

U-boat Captain Valentiner was labeled a war criminal for sinking the civilian ship without warning, and between the wars, he lay low under an assumed name. He returned to the Kriegsmarine during World War 2, where he was the group commander of the U-Boots-Abnahmekommision (UAK) in Kiel-Danzig. He died in 1949 of lung disease, probably caused by the inhalation of toxic vapors aboard the U-boats.

References

• The Persia’s Fateful Voyage at BBC
• Bryan Daily Eagle, Jan. 1, 1916.
• The Wireless Age, Feb. 1916, pages 32 and 47.

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70 years ago, the December 1945 issue of Radio Craft carried this previously secret image of the radio car of FDR’s wartime train.

It noted that the car, known as “No. 1401” was a converted passenger-baggage coach, and from this car, e ran a large part of the country’s war activities. It was equipped with wire and radio equipment that made it possible to telephone anywhere in the United States, carry on a radio teletype conversation “in virtually unbreakable code” at 100 words per minute, send and receive messages to ships at sea, or send and receive telegraph messages.

The article noted that the teletype machine was routed through a scrambler “which puts it into a code difficult to break because of its lack of uniformity.” When the train passed through a tunnel, the sending was automatically halted until the train re-emerged.

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USS Shaw at Pearl Harbor. Defense Department Photo.

Today marks the 74th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.  A total of 2403 Americans were killed and 1178 were wounded.  Eighteen ships, including five battleships, were sunk or run aground.  Most Americans learned of the attack by radio.  The first announcement was made by CBS’s John Charles Daly, at about 2:35 PM Eastern Time.  That first announcement was never recorded.

The following recording, from Minneapolis station WCCO, apparently starts at about 2:30 Central Time, 3:30 Eastern Time with an announcement of the attack at the conclusion of the New York Philharmonic concert. The concert had started at 3:00 Eastern Time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmxrx8ZDEhs

You’ve probably heard an announcement breaking into a symphony mid-note, with the words: “We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin. The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by air.” This was actually from a record produced by CBS in 1948. The first sentence of the announcement was apparently recorded in 1948. The second sentence came from an actual broadcast later in the day. You can hear the original at this link.  You can hear the 1948 recording at 26:50 of this video:

References

• Pearl Harbor at AuthenticHistory.com
• Additional Audio Clips