The AM Forum

Tonight at 8 p.m. on PBS, Ken Burn's 7 part series "The War" starts.  This documentary is on World War II.

The parts are either 2 hours or 2 1/2 hours each.  Here, the Philadelphia station will immediately re-run the part until 12 or 1 a.m.

Airing on WHYY TV12:

-Sunday, Sept. 23, 8-10:30 pm
-Monday, Sept. 24, 8-10 pm
-Tuesday, Sept. 25, 8-10 pm
-Wednesday, Sept. 26, 8-10:30 pm
-Sunday, Sept. 30, 8-10:30 pm
-Monday, Oct. 1, 8-10 pm
-Tuesday, Oct. 2, 8-10:30 pm

73 and don't each too much junk food.

I'm going to wait until he gets to Vietnam. That is a story I want to see him do.

Bill W1AC

Operator, Nav/Marcorps MARS N0EFL Danang

He did one on the Civil War.  I missed that one.  Maybe they will do a re-run some day. 

It starts here at 7 pm, with an immediate re-run following the first showing.  I'll probably take in the later showing.  7pm is still daytime here because of that @%$# DST.

You can get the DVDs, Don.

Don,

 The Civil War aired in 1990. It was aired again through the 90's. I think it'll be some time before it airs complete again.

Dave Goncalves
W1EUJ

I watched it. My first impression is that he scattered his story line too much between personal stories and stuff like news reel footage. I hope it gets better.

Burns' civil war series was incredible.

Everything Ken Burns has done I found to be very enjoyable. I especially liked Baseball and......(http://www.foxtango.org/KT-135/images/Empire%20of%20the%20Air.JPG)

yes the civil war series is worth buying. Empire of the Air is good for hams. I didnt see Baseball or Jazz.

I recorded 'Empire of the Air' when it was first shown on PBS. Later that year my wife bought me the book for Christmas. The one thing I found amusing, (later on), was that when David Sarnoff was a little boy overseas, the Rabbi's there would (like the triodes his future business venture, RCA would make) make him "Sing for his supper!" ;)

I agree. It didn't seem as tight as the civil war series. But, I know much more about WWII than I do the civil war, so I may have missed some of this in the previous series.

The personal interviews and insights are the most interesting.

Yes, Empire of the Air is a classic, must-see/read for those truly interested in radio's rise.

If you watch through the end of the program credits, there's a little CW message referring to his baseball documentary.  ;)

The Civil War series just played here again and had been running for a while, ending right before the start of "The War" series.

On the first part of "The War" last night there were a couple shots of restored radios playing, one sporting it's 6E5 magic eye tube.

There was a very good series on Vietnam about 10 years ago or less. Wasn't it by Ken Burns?

Wasn't there also a brief shot of FDR, with a Hallicrafters communications receiver in the background?

Ken Burns is a local NH guy who has a gift that people believe in and support with big dollars..

Jazz was fantastic - I remember I was on the road glued to the set when I could have been out drinking free beer.
 
The Civil War was also excellent.

I thought last nights episode was good, bringing the hometown aspect in and the frankness and treatment of the attrocites was certainly an honest coverage I have not seen before. The message that I got in the first episode was that this was not a good war at all but it was a necessary war.

Mike WU2D

What the hell is a good war?

The Good War is a telling of the oral history of World War II written by Studs Terkel. The book, written in 1984, received a Pulitzer Prize. It is a firsthand account of people involved before, during and after the war, challenging the prevailing notion that World War II was a time of unblemished national solidarity, goodwill, and unified purpose in contrast to the Vietnam War era.

From Wikipedia

That idea is a myth. No such war ever existed or ever will. Wars are nasty and people die. There nothing good about that. Even our Revolutionary War had tons of nasty incidents and a lot of barbarity. And it was not universally supported (by some accounts, it wasn't even supported by a majority). However, one needs to look at the bigger picture. What good resulted from the war? In the case of WWII, lots! So in that sense, it was a good war.

But a war not fought can be just as bad, since people die and nasty things happen in those cases too.

There was a Hallicrafters Sky Buddy (S-19?) being listened to by some troops.

I thought that was a Sky Buddy too. Shorter Chassis.

Mike WU2D

Dodo that I am, I missed the first night. This after discussing it with the wife over the phone Sunday. She mentioned she wanted to watch it, I assumed it was further in the future. Guess I don't watch enough TV?

I agree that this series (so far) seems less focused, or maybe more emotional and less focused on the historical facts behind it all?

One shot featured 3 GIs sitting on an embankment, the center guy leaning back holding a SCR-511 'Horsey-Talkie/Pogo Stick' transmitter across his chest while wearing the chest unit and headphones. Saw some other shots of gear too, just can't remember what.


That's it, precisely. The media, in its rush to be simplistic yet all-knowing, likes to talk about the 'anti-war' and 'pro-war' side of things. Of all the military folks I've spoken with through the years - veterans or active duty -  I've never met one who was pro-war. They detest it, yet understand fully the cost of not standing up against evil is far higher to those who love freedom. In fact, those who serve are far more anti-war than the protesters in the street, in my experiences. So much so that they are willing to do what is necessary to protect others from it and preserve freedom, to the point of giving their lives.

You'd think the world would've figured it out by now. I wonder if they'll show Ken's series in Europe or the Middle East?

There are indeed "Good Wars" when one considers the unimaginably horrific alternative to our victories over various & sundry evil bastards.

WW II is one such example.

To be a US soldier, marine or sailor is the highest & most noble of all callings, bar none. To stare death in the face for God, county & freedom takes the greatest courage a man can offer.

God Bless the men who fight for our great country.

Those who serve do not have the "luxury" (or time) to protest in the streets,--they have a job to do
and they do it.
Most of those who protest in the streets never served even 1 day in the service, but they like to
think they are doing the nation a big "service" waving thier signs and shouting in the streets.
                                                         73, K1MVP

P.S,--crazy part is, folks in (the military) are fighting for "freedom of speech"  for even those who
        "yell and shout" in the streets and yet THEY get demonized by those very same"anti war" protestors. 

Most of us are indeed fortunate to have happened not to be born at the right time to have had to fight in that hellish war.  I simply can't imagine the situation of every able-bodied male, from adolescents through middle-aged men, having to face the distinct likelihood that sooner or later, in the near future, they would die in excruciating agony in some god-forsaken hell hole.

I can't begin to comprehend how it might have felt to spend weeks or months in a muddy swamp or in freezing cold, with bullets, explosives, blood, body parts and the stench of rotting corpses all around you, watching people you know personally getting blown to bits every single day.

So far, the film has pieced together the sequence of events in the course of the war better for me than I have understood in the past.

But to have been a infantryman on the ground in continental Europe during WW1 would have been just as bad or worse. If I recall history correctly, during a battle in the vicinity of Verdun, as many as 30,000 soldiers died over one 24-hour period.

My grandpa served under (then a Colonel?) Douglas McArthur during WWI in the 42nd Rainbow Division. In addition to the trench warfare and diseases that came with it, was the terrifying poison gas that the Germans used. McArthur suffered lung ailments for the rest of his life because of it. My grandpa 'fortunately' only lost one ear because of an artillery blast.

Here's a couple bits of what I think is interesting WWII trivia.

The development of the atomic bomb was such a closely-held secret that even our senior military leaders knew nothing officially about it. When they were planning the invasion of Japan in 1945, they estimated that we would suffer between 500,000 and a million casulties, and they ordered that a half-million Purple Heart medals be manufactured.

The invasion of Japan never happened, and those same Purple Hearts are still being awarded today in Iraq and Afghanistan. In all of the years and wars since 1945, they have never used up that batch of medals.

http://hnn.us/articles/1801.html

Except for Soviet spies Ethel & Julius Rosenberg.

In episode 2, I think saw a woman on the Ford assembly line testing a BC-375 in a B-24 using a microphone. They said that there were something like 1.25 M parts in the plane and that they were coming off the line at the rate of 1 every 59 minutes.

The pics below are from the Canadian RCA operations producing WS-19 sets.

Mike WU2D

I had three uncles who served in WW2,--My Dad`s youngest brother was a crew chief on B-24`s
in the Burma campaign,(Iwas just a little guy) but do remember him in uniform.
After the war,--he became very serious,(suffered from depression) and committed suicide a couple
of years after his discharge. He was a war "casualty" that was not even documented as such.

                                                      73, K1MVP
                                                     
                                                                                       
 

I have also been watching this fantastic series in completely rapt attention each evening on PBS. This series, unlike any other film or documentary I have ever seen about the Second World War, powerfully conveys the sheer brutality this war exacted upon the Allies as well as the Axis powers.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly this country ramped up production of military hardware and the logistics/support structure for the war effort so quickly. We plainly had the raw materials, manufacturing prowess, and probably most importantly, the national will at that time to make this happen. Unfortunately, I doubt if this country is capable currently of ever duplicating such an incredible feat as we had achieved during the 1942 thru 1945 war years.

Even though I was born nine years after the war ended, I am still intensely proud to be an American, based upon how we helped to save the free world during that time.

On another note, my Dad had served and fought in Okinawa, as part of the U.S. Army infantry. On his way to the battlefield of Okinawa, he was aboard one of the series of troop carriers that were devastated by the Kamikaze pilot attacks. Although he rarely discusses (or discussed) his time in the Pacific theatre, I can very clearly recall one time when he did reminisce about the Kamikaze attacks to his troop carrier. To use his words, "you do not know the meaning of the word fear until you are in a situation like that".

My Dad has historically been anti-war, and he always resented the actor John Wayne, who never served in the military, let alone ever saw any combat, yet was very pro-war during the Viet Nam era. The only military uniform John Wayne ever wore, my Dad would say, was a costume, and the only combat he ever saw was on a movie set. Put him in a real combat situation, and he possibly would have sung a very different tune about war.

After Okinawa, my Dad would have been part of the massive wave of infantry men who would have mounted the attack on mainland Japan. Such an attack would have had devastating consequences for both the U.S. military as well as the Japanese. When asked if he thought the atomic bomb was rightfully used against the Japanese, he immediately and unhesitatingly answered absolutely yes. His feeling was that it saved an untold number of both American as well as Japanese lives.

Best 73,

Bruce

And the rest of the Soviet spies, Theodore Hall, Morton Sobell, Harry Gold, David Greenglass, Klaus Fuchs among others.

My father served in WWII in the Pacific, he received two bronze battle stars.   He told me that they were being outfitted with winter clothing while in the South Pacific for the invasion of Japan.  One thing he always said was that the U.S. ought to do everything possible to avoid another war in Asia.

Yup, but remember, the Ruskies were our allies during the war.
 ;D

The Rosenbergs, along with Hall, Sobell, et al, did not merely aid an ally with their theft of US atomic secrets. They had a far more sinister objective for their treason.

They were largely responsible for the Soviet's acquisition of The Bomb and the subsequent arms race (not to say that the USSR would never have obtained the technology).

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_and_Julius_Rosenberg

My father always seemed to be anti-war and anti-military.  He was just barely too young to fight in WW1 and was never called to fight in WW2 (at age 42).  But he had a brother who was in the Navy and saw action in the Pacific, and I think my father's seeing how both world wars affected people he had known personally made him regard, with utter contempt, the whole notion of joining the military and fighting in war, as pure insanity.

Regarding the atomic bombs, weren't those two bombs all we had in our arsenal?  If the Japanese had known that and not surrendered after the 2nd deployment, they might have been able to call our bluff, resulting in the necessity for a land invasion anyway.

I seem to recall that we did do one test explosion before deploying the bombs.  I remember the story of physicist Enrico Fermi holding up the famous sheet of paper at his vantage point several miles away, observing how the shock waves of the explosion affected its behaviour, and using that to make a quick guesstimation of  how powerful the explosion was.  I have often wondered if a Japanese delegation could have somehow been arranged to witness the explosion, in no uncertain terms that if they didn't surrender immediately this would be the fate awaiting their cities, if we could have avoided one of both of the attacks.  But maybe in the larger scheme of things it worked out for the best that nuclear weapons were deployed against a real live target at a very early stage in their development, rather than during a later conflict, after their capabilities had become far more devastating.

Interestingly, it had been estimated that the planned land invasion of Japan would have generated 500,000 to 1,000,000 US military casualties, and an order had been placed for 500,000 Purple Heart medals.  Those unused medals have remained on inventory, and are still being issued to-day to soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. With an abundant supply still on hand, there haven't been any new Purple Heart medals manufactured since WW2.

I don't know how my dad stayed stateside, but he taught the M1 rifle in basic for the entire war. He had many storys about tough city kids who had never seen a weapon other than a knife and country boys who were amazed by the M1.  My mom who was 21, was "moved" to New Haven CT from northern NY when she got her two year degree in nutrition. She worked in the hospital as a dietician and reportedly "had a great time" with submariners. My dad's brother Wilson was killed on Saipan (bronze star). The 6 other brothers were in service and survived.

More WS-19 set pics. These radios were developed by Pye in the UK and were built in great qty by Norther Electric, RCA both US and Canada, Zenith in the US and in Australia. Many were destined for the brand new Russian T-34 but few actually made it over - hence the surplus of the beasts. All of the Allies but the USA used these. The US doctrine of channelized operation in armor and FM precluded using a tunable AM set.

Mike WU2D

It seems that most families that happened to have several military age male kids lost at least one in the war.  It was not a casual time in history, even though very little of the actual fighting took place on US soil.

Don, the first a-bomb was tested near Alamogordo, New Mexico in July, 1945.

It worked as they had hoped.

To this day, you can find bits of greenish glass in the area that's the fused and irradiated desert sand blown out from the test site. The locals call it Trinitite, after the Trinity Site name.

IIRC, once a year, the military escorts visitors in a convoy to ground zero to check out the explosion site.

Truman did in fact consider allowing Japanese officials under a flag of truce to see that first nuke go off, in the hopes of not having to actually use it, but there was a concern that if it was a dud and didn't work, we'd be worse off than before. They just didn't know.

Years back while travelling to Carlsbad Caverns, I stopped in at an old timey western bar and restaurant out in the middle of nowhere, maybe a hundred miles from where they set the nuke off near Socorro, NM.
They had a number of local newspaper clippings framed and posted on the walls about the event. No one in the area was forewarned about what was about to happen (Although there weren't all that many folks around there, anyway). Locals were stunned by the second sunrise that they saw that day, with no explanation. I must have spent a half hour reading all of the clippings.

But didn't just about as many civilians burn to death in the fire-bombing of Dresden as did in Hiroshima or Nagasaki?

More died from the conventional bombing of Tokyo too.

Well, here is my take on WWII.

My dad served as an artilleryman (sergeant on 90mm hi-velocity gun crew) in Africa, Italy and Germany.  He died when I was only 12, and he never told me much about his war experience.  As a kid I was interested in the war, and read a lot about it, including how these guns were used against airplanes and tanks.  My dad never really had much to say about it, always changing the subject.  My mom told me once of finding him in tears watching TV war memorials (very strange for him).  Also, I remember references to friends lost, combat against tanks, etc.  He never really related any of this to us kids though.  He would only talk about learning french while he was an MP in Morocco.  I only know that it was a horrible event in his life, and definitely something that effected him permanently, making him the strong unflappable father that I remember, and perhaps haunting him in a way that I never knew as a child.

What really made me think about this though was when I visited my mother's and father's families in Germany.  So many young men lost in these families, my relatives...

It was quite an experience to sit with my mom's cousin looking through picture albums full of young men in military uniforms, all 'gefallen'...  Such a waste...  So many lost in uniform in Poland and Russia, and others killed as civilians in bombing and other war calamities.

My dad's family in Germany didn't fair any better.  My only picture of them, taken in Berlin during my grandfather's visit in 1936, shows relatives that were all taken by the war.  One of my dad's uncles(my grandfather's brother) was a Berlin postoffice employee in 1945, and was therefore drafted with the rest of the postmen into an SS unit to fight the Russians.  He was captured by the Russians, and was lucky enough(unlike hundreds of thousands of other POWs) to survive and return home in 1950.  He then got to meet his 5 yr old baby daughter (my dad's cousin) for the first time.  He died of alcoholism long before my visit to Germany, but the family was still proud of him, and his wife(my great aunt) was so glad that I (a visiting american relative) was interested in learning about him.  She wouldn't say much about what it was like when the russians invaded Berlin, only that she was 'spared' because she had her baby...

Well, that's my personal history on WWII.  Now my real concern is for my 18 year old son, and his 21 year old brother in the Navy.  Those picture albums in Germany really made me understand what war is.

Karl, KD3CN

THE war was absolutely necessary.
Most of us can not even begin to understand the debt of gratitute we owe those who liberated, yes, liberated most of the world from what was clearly the beginning of a technologically aided new dark age.
-Certainly not my original thoughts.

But on the brighter side, just like the space race, development of early microprocessors, etc. (4004), WWII also generated or developed tons of fantastic inventions, radar, sonar, microwave comm., code breaking by early 'computers' and of course the biggie...  nuclear weapons, propulsion and power generation. It's up to us to use these wisely.
 
    As for the darker side of technology, mega-wars and our race's fascination with concentration camps and genocide, I can't remember the number of science fiction and alternative history scenarios that resulted in a United States "divided up" between two much more aggressive and motivated adversaries.  In WWII the very real fear was that east of the Rockies we would be German occupied, west by the Japanese.  We'll probably never know how close we came to that actuality.  How many of todays tolerated minorities of any stripe would survive that?
  Later in cold war fiction and the possiblility of fact, it became fashionable to have us divided by the Russians and Chinese.  .. .then Japanese during the biz boom of the 80's when Japan, Inc. seemed to do everything right.

 Now, of course, the Taliban will have us in the east and the Chinese (for real this time) in the west.  Since we have no manufacturing capability of ordinary items these days, we'll be absorbed economically with out a shot fired.  Remember the definition of a colony is a territory which supplies raw materials to the occupiers who distribute essential or even shoddy manufactured goods in return.  The trick of producing better products in today's world market makes the "takeover" all the easier.  Mixed message here, but the point is who suppies the lumber, ore, etc. and who makes the final product.

Makes me want to buy American and throw away the rice boxes almost immediately.  I know, what better way to celebrate WWII then by working on the ol' BC610.  Now there's a radio that "went to war."
  Well we can't look back excessively other than learning history, so take every opportunity to play up our country now and buy American, all other things being somewhat equal. So what if the instrument face is utilitarian rather than pseudo mil., ergonomic plastic.

  And if we do not remain as motivated and united as our adversaries, regardless of whether the motivation is "right" or "wrong" we will surely become the vassals of others.  -Simple logic, given the nature and history of the species.  Same as some of you've already said, we will not have the time or resources to ramp up to an external threat this time. We're already decomposing from within.  We're our own internal threat. ... the balkanization of our bands illustrates this point, a minor sympton, just a microcosm of the greater rot.

 We should band together rather than ban everything apart.  : )

Interesting,--I have been "recapping" and restoring a couple of BC-348`s recently,-- my main motivation
has been to keep a "piece" of history from the "heavies" back in WW2, i.e. the (B-17, B-24, 25 and 29)
While they may not be an R390,--they are not too bad a receiver for what they are(and a lot easier to
work on than a 390)
Also have a couple of ARC 5`s(BC-453 and 455) which are nice little "fun receivers".
 
                                                    73, K1MVP

P.S., If they are good enough for W8VJZ(Ashtabula Bill) they are good enough for me.

Tonight they drop the big one on Japan and I'm glad because my Dad's job was to drive a landing craft when Japan was invaded.
It took 2 nukes to get Japan's attention. After what they did to other people they should have got a few more.
XYL mentioned if I saw my Uncle's picture during the iwo part and asked if I would know his face. My response I sure would know his face because my Dad put his picture in the WW2 memorial and in on line. Iwo messed him up a lot.
My Dad was almost 70 before he started telling stories of WW2 and Korea. He didn't have it too bad compared to his brother who visited every crap hole to Japan.   

There were atrocities on both sides. 

Japanese and Germans often "took no prisoners".  They simply lined them up and shot them dead.  But there was one scene in the film where Americans did the same thing with German prisoners.  The soldiers who were ordered to shoot them hesitated, but followed the order, since to disobey would have probably meant getting shot along with the prisoners.

There was the story of the marine who wanted to salvage the gold crowns from the teeth of the wounded Jap soldier, and used a hammer and some kind of tool to remove them while the soldier was still alive.  When he couldn't get at them, he cut the guy's cheeks open with a knife.  Finally another marine shot the Jap dead to put him out of his misery.

And there was the fire-bombing of Dresden, a  strategically unimportant city.  The objective was to destroy the German civilians' morale.  About 600,000 civilians burnt to death in the firestorm, mostly women and children.

It was amazing how little value was placed on human life.  Commanders on both sides were more than willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands of soldiers in  battles over a small island in the Pacific or village in Europe even if it had no significant strategic value.

It is a wonder that anyone returned from the front lines with an ounce of sanity remaining.  Only 14% of the Americans who served ended up in the infantry, but the infantry suffered 70% of the casualties.  They were basically on a suicide mission.

Many of us here would have right in the middle of it had we been unfortunate enough to have been born 20 years earlier.  And just an accident of birth that we would have been American and not German or Japanese.

Many, if not most, of the hams we see in the station photographs in 1930's issues of QST and RADIO ended up those battlefields.

More than likely this station (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUE04hpwQ1Q&mode=related&search=) got destroyed during the war and Nazi occupation.

WW2 was actually a continuation of the First World War.  The armistice of 1918 was more like the beginning a 20year cease-fire before hostilities in Europe reignited.  In the meantime Europe went through the Great Depression and the Spanish Civil War.  This entire period from 1914-1945 could be considered one 30-year war.

It is still being debated to this day what WW1 was fought over.  The  causes of that war were extremely complex. To get an idea, check out this interactive website that will give a basic notion of the long and short term  causes of the "Great War".

http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk/lessons/wwi/wwicauses.htm

I heard Ken Burns talk about this series when he was still making it.  Among the most striking things about WWII is almost everyone in the US was connected to it, most in a very real way, but even the kids were collecting scrap.  Like many of the previous posters that's true for me too.  My dad, all my uncles, my wife's dad and all her uncles served.    No war has been like that since although Viet Nam with the draft sure had everybody thinking about it.   Iraq is remote in contrast.

O.k. my couch-potato stint is over.  My parents and the BAR man across the road from me could not bear to watch other than parts here and there. 

My mom's home town in Ohio had their whole unit in the Bataan fight/death march.  I remember as a litttle kid being at the Port Clinton city museum and looking at a photo of the unit standing in uniform; red X's on most fellows.  The school behind my grandmother's last home is called the Bataan Memorial School.

The people who lived through WW II especially the veterans provided America with a solid group of supervisors and managers for the next 30+ years.  They retired from about 1975 to 1990.  Since then things have gone downhill, in my opinion.

That is why there are so few surviving Model T's and other vintage cars.  Before the war they were abundant and seen on the  roads every day. But after Pearl Harbor you couldn't get tires, spare parts were in short supply, and gas was rationed, so many people sold or gave away their ageing cars that were sitting idle, even though they still capable of running OK, as scrap metal to help the war effort.

I wonder how much vintage radio stuff, particularly transformers, met similar fate?

My grandparents couldn't get metal screen wire for their screened-in porch during the war, so they had to settle for plastic screen instead.  Interestingly, that plastic screen lasted until the early 60's when real metal screen would have long since rusted away.

There is a wartime issue of QST that has pictures of panel meters all over the front cover.  The signal corps was begging amateurs to donate panel meters for the war effort.  I understand they took in some commercially built transmitters and even well-built homebrew ones early on as well, but I'm not sure what they used them for.

The entire world was a far different place after the War than it was pre-WW2.  Vintage radio gives some prime examples.

I have a vague recollection of attending a big night-time V-J Day celebration with my family, at age 3.  Probably my earliest real recollection of a past event.

BTW, if you missed an episode of The War, PBS is re-running it in weekly episodes.  It starts to-night on our local station.  They ran it twice a day, back to back every night.  I have never seen them offer such blanket coverage of a program in the past.  There is no reason for anyone in the country to miss a single episode.

Tom you hit the nail on the head. Latest batch of leaders were not around for nam so are clueless.

the country is being run by the military-industrial complex as Eisenhower warned it would be in 1961. To profit from war, one must always make sure there is a state of war.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJrnWND5mTo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJrnWND5mTo)

today's veto sends that one home Derb.

It's all a big conspiracy. If you don't agree, you are either naive or in on it.

Just ask Irb.

 ;D ;D Exactly!

I just researched the grave of Irb's younger brother Bob who was killed in The War:

AMERICAN BATTLE MONUMENTS COMMISSION
 
Robert E. Richardt
Private First Class, U.S. Army
Service # 42006450
104th Infantry Regiment, 26th Infantry Division 
Entered the Service from: New Jersey
Died: 12-Nov-44
Buried at: Plot A Row 29 Grave 52
Lorraine American Cemetery
St. Avold, France 
Awards: Purple Heart

I enjoyed it, but I still think the Civil War was better.

I like that flag. I've had time enough to wonder what I want on my tombstone when the day comes. I think I'd like my call letters and that I was a radio repairman who saved radio history so others could enjoy it.

   "  who saved radio history so others could enjoy it. "

Don't forget to add that you controlled the laws of physics....... klc

well iv'e watched most of it, and the personal interviews, in particular the "New York at War" segments hit pretty close to home. one of the women interviewed worked the USO gig at the Hotel Carlisle in Manhattan with my mother, who met/captured my father there at a USO dance. after that Dad was out landing men and equipment on an LSM in the Pacific at some of the same stops as Frank GFZ's father, who i beleive was on an LST. good TV for a change, and history that needs to be remembered. Tom- interesting finding Irb's brother, as it gives closure to all his rants about the war and his bitterness over the loss. Dad is out in the military cemetary at Calverton L.I. now, and i recently discovered his LSM went on to serve for the Australians in Viet Nam, and commercial service until sinking in the very waters it invaded in the Phillipines in 1984. 

The only WWII era military gear I have is a BC-779. The serial tag on the front panel says "L.S.D. Serial No. 171".  I know it wasn't used by Timothy Leary, and I often wondered if the LSD stood for a Navy Landing Ship, Dock (LSD) craft.  Or maybe LSD was some kind of rear-echelon deal.

Least Separation Distance
Large Scale Display
Logistic Support Detachment
Logistics Support. Directorate
Low Speed Data Channel

Anyone have any clues? It would be "neat" (as Wally and The Beave used to say) if my guy saw action in the Big One.

Hell, I do that every time I stand up without falling.  :D

Oceania is at war with Eurasia.  Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.

On the flip-side of Robert's memorial stone at Irb's farm is Irb himself.  I spotted this while at Irb's estate auction:

a novel way of recycling granite. I did not know Irb was so green.

its cheaper when you buy in bulk...............klc