From: J. Forster (jfor@quik.com)
Date: Sat Dec 07 2002 - 01:31:19 PST
For all who like these radios, read this real life experience from John S.
MacKay who posted it to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wireless-Set-No19/
> AUTHOR'S COMMENT; POST IT TO ANYONE YOU LIKE. IT COULD BE AN OBJECT LESSON
> FOR THEM
> TO STAY HOME AND BUY UP REAL ESTATE AND LET SOMEONE ELSE DEFEND THE COUNTRY.
May 1944. Monte Cassino, Italy. The Germans occupied the
heights, we were in the plain below. My workshop truck was parked beside a
tree, camouflage net in place. It was a warm, sunny day and things were
pretty quiet at the moment. About 11:45 hr I put our special reception set
on the tailgate, so that I could copy the BBC news at dictation speed at
12:00 hr on the 19m band. The bulletin would then go to the orderly room
for typing and copies would go via the DRs to various outposts so that they
would have some idea of what was going on in the Big Picture.
About 11:55 hr a rather flustered driver / operator came to me
and reported that the GM Fox was required by the Intelligence Officer to go
on an immediate recce, and the d / o couldn't get the 19 set to work. ( We
pros never used "number" in our conversations concerning the 19 set... you
could always tell a new reinforcement because they did). This was going to
ruin my news service, but duty called, so I grabbed my " satchel, signals"
containing rudimentary tools and headed for the Fox which was parked amid a
bunch of trees about 100 yards away. I climbed in thru' the right-hand door
and pulled it shut. When I finished there I returned to my venerable
3-tonner and found that it had been hit right at 12:00hr probably by an 88mm
and that shrapnel had shredded the 6v 125 ah batteries inside, a lot of
other equipment, acid all over the place, my reception set was destroyed,
and your worthy correspondent would have been hamburger if he had not been
called away.
Now that is a remarkable coincidence, but now, like Paul Harvey,
"THE REST OF THE STORY".
When I had entered the Fox and shut the door, it was pitch dark
inside. When I turned on the power supply, nothing happened, no lamp, no
whine, no static, "no nothing". I groped around for the main battery
switch, which as I recall was around floor level just forward of the
right-hand door. I had a little curved handle like that found on one of
those Pyrene fire extinguishers; I pulled it straight up, rotated it 90
degrees, and pushed it down as far as it would go. The 19 set sprang to
life...I checked out everything, there wasn't a d*** thing wrong with it !!
( Nowadays they use a euphism: " no fault found"). So I guess I was
somewhat peeved as I walked back to my home away from home. I have known
cases where people lost 3 days pay for less. I have described above the
scene that greeted me.
In the tumult and confusion somehow our officer never asked for
my report, and I certainly was not going to volunteer one. So I guess that
I am one lucky guy. Incidentally, at 16:30 hr the same day, a single shell
hit our field kitchen and after looking at the shrapnel holes in the big
dixies, our cook remarked that it it was the first time he had ever boiled
the potatoes and not had to strain off the water afterward. At 21:00 hr a
shell hit our telephone exchange truck, and I am sure that the resulting
bonfire warmed the hearts of the German gunners up above. As I said in a
previous post, life in the field is quite different to life in the lab.
Miki VE7AFN Dec. 4, 2002.
"John S. MacKay" <k35454@direct.ca>
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-John
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