A hundred years ago today, October 5, 1914, the Klamath Falls (Ore.) Evening Herald carried this illustration of an early British armored vehicle. According to the caption, the vehicle saw service in France and Belgium against regiments of German Uhlans, cavalry that operated as raiders ahead of the main line. According to the report, the armored vehicle carried twenty men armed with rifles, and was used “to considerable effect.”
During the centennial of World War 1, this page periodically remembers American servicemen who gave their lives in that war.
Chester A. “Chesty” Tongen of Zumbrota, Minnesota, was a 1916 graduate of the University of Minnesota, with a degree in pharmacy. At the University, he was a member of the Scandinavian Literary Society and the Hope Lutheran Society.
He started at the University’s College of Pharmacy in 1912, and his campus address that year is listed in a University Directory as 1609 SE 4th Street, Minneapolis, which currently houses a University parking ramp. He was the son of Andrew H. and Anna M. Tongen and had previously studied at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. He was a member of Holden Lutheran Church of Kenyon, Minnesota.
Despite his education, the Great War saw him as a Private. He is listed as having died of disease. I was unable to find any grave for Private Tongen at any of the American cemeteries in Europe, which I suspect means that he died of disease after induction but while still stateside.
His college yearbook bears the quote, “I shall soon have a Norske Apotek all my own.” It was not to be.
The photo here is from Soldiers of the Great War, Volume 2, Page 113.
As we announced in an earlier post, we have prepared a message (the URL of our parent site, w0is.com) that will be sent from Lunar orbit as part of the LuxSpace Manfred Memorial Moon Mission (4M).
LuxSpace has announced that all messages, including ours, have now been uploaded to the spacecraft and that each uploaded message will be sent from Lunar orbit at least twice. LuxSpace will be conducting a contest during the mission for earthbound participants to receive as many messages as possible. It is hoped that many of the participants will post their received copy after the contest.
The message will be transmitted from the Moon on 145.98 MHz using JT65B mode. The Lunar orbit is scheduled for October 28. Full technical details are available at LuxSpace’s mission page.
In an advertisement which appeared a hundred years ago today in the New York Sun, October 3, 1914, the American Bankers Association does its best to put a positive spin on things. Instead of announcing the obvious proposition that its travelers’ cheques probably aren’t very useful in Europe, it instead begins by proudly announcing that their sale continues as usual “for use throughout the United States” and that they continue to afford travelers “in ‘the States’ their customary service of protection and convenience in respect to money matters.”
Only then does it go on to announce, in smaller print, that sale of the cheques for foreign use had been temporarily discontinued, given that tourists could not be assured that they would be uniformly honored under conditions which change from day to day. However, it assured that their sale for use abroad would be resumed as soon as conditions warrant.
The ad then seems to downlplay the plight of Americans in the first days of the war, when Americans in London found themselves destitute, despite having travelers’ cheques and letters of credit from American banks. Their plight was relieved only when Herbert Hoover set up shop and started dispensing his own cash “against personal checks signed by unknown but American-looking people on unknown banks in Walla Walla and Fresno and Grand Rapids and Dubuque and Emporia and New Bedford.”
The chaotic situation ameliorated by Hoover with his personal cash was described in much more pleasant terms by the bankers’ association:
Through the co-operation of the Officers of the United States Government, Committees of Bankers in New York, London and Paris were enabled in a very short time to perfect arrangements for protecting all forms of travelers’ credits issued by American institutions and firms, and holders of travelers’ cheques and letters of credit have been by this means relieved from the serious consequences of the sudden paralysis of customary banking facilities abroad.
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WCCO transmitter site near Anoka in 1930. From 1930 station brochure at radiotapes.com
Ninety years ago today (either October 1 or 2, 1924, depending on the source, the call letters WCCO were first heard over the airways. According to Wikipedia, the station came on the air on October 2. But according to this 1949 station brochure, the actual sign-on date was October 1.
The new call sign was reported in the radio section of the Milwaukee Journal on October 12. It reported that WLAG radio had recently been refinanced by the Twin Cities Chamber of Commerce and the Washburn-Crosby Milling Company, and now bore the new call letters WCCO. The article notes that the station carried the usual afternoon and evening features and concerts, but also noted the schedule of the station’s extensive market reports.
The station originally came on the air in 1922 as WLAG, but closed down in early 1924. Civic pride demanded that the Twin Cities have a radio station, and a group of investors, primarily the Washburn-Crosby Company (predecessor to General Mills) financed the station, which took the call letters WCCO in honor of its benefactor.
The station originally operated on 720 kilocycles, but in 1928 was granted clear-channel status and moved to 810 kilocycles. It’s familiar frequency of 8-3-0 is a result of the 1941 North American Radio Broadcasting Agreement, which moved the vast majority of U.S. broadcast stations up the dial slightly to accommodate Mexican clear-channel stations.
References
Historical materials at radiotapes.com
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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.”
Gertrude Belville is shown here in the November, 1924, issue of Radio Age tuning this giant radio set at the New York Radio World’s Fair. She reports that the volume of the set could be heard for miles around.
Seventy-five years ago, American radio listeners were frequently hearing the phrases, “we take you to London,” “we take you to Paris,” and “we take you to Berlin,” as Americans learned how close they were to Europe’s troubles. As this item from Radio Guide for the week ending September 29, 1939, points out, we were close enough to hear a man breathe in Paris or the rustle of a paper in Berlin.
The diagram shows the example of how NBC would connect to its correspondents in London, Fred Bate or John Gunther. From NBC’s New York studios, the cue would go via telephone to the RCA short wave transmitter at Rocky Point, Long Island. The signal would be picked up by an English receiving station and sent by telephone to Broadcasting House in London. The English broadcast would go by telephone to the English short wave transmitter and picked up by the RCA receiving station at Riverhead, Long Island. From there, the signal would go back to NBC’s Radio City studios for retransmission to the network.
The process concludes when the American listener picks up the broadcase and says to himself “fervently and with conviction,” and alas, in vain, “We must stay out. We must stay OUT.”
A hundred years ago, the September 1914 issue of Boys’ Life included these plans for constructing a box kite which would release a parachute. After the kite was aloft, a small runner was released and was blown up the string by the wind. When it got to the top, the parachute would release.
A hundred years ago today, German zeppelins bombed Paris, Warsaw, and other cities. The map above, from the September 28, 1914 issue of the New York Sun, shows the locations of the Paris bombs, near the Eiffel Tower. In Paris, three were killed by bombs, one of which landed at a spot the American ambassador had passed only minutes earlier.
In Calais, bombs were dropped but failed to explode. And the Poles managed to shoot down the zeppelin bombing Warsaw, taking the crew prisoners.
See also: Fall of Paris, 1940