[ARC5] Green Books (now radios in POW camps)

[Leslie Smith]

I have a friend (Rod Linklater) who refers to a radio that was built [IIRC] inside a broom handle in the Singapore POW camp.  He told me the radio was built by a friend of his (now dead) and has other detail.  This incident may be documented in the Australian War Memorial Records, but if anyone is interested in this I could get detail one person removed (Rod) from the person who built the set.

There ARE cases of radios of this type being built in other POW camps (probably Indonesia or Borneo).  The cost of doing this was, at times, severe or capital.

Nor were radios the only items of contraband hidden in POW camps.  My father in law (Geoff Rogerson) told me that there was a Thompson smg nailed under his bunk in Changi until he left (or more accurately was transported to Japan) in April 1943.  I am absolutely certain about the reliability of his account for several reasons.  

I asked him what happened to the Thompson.  He left it under the bunk, he said, having reminded the platoon Sergeant it was there.   Here in Australia there is a book of photos taking by a contraband camera inside Changi POW camp.  My father-in-law spoke about some of the photos in the book and the circumstances in Changi at that time.  

OK.  If anyone has an interest in the broomstick radio, please speak.

73s

Les Smith
ex VK2BCU.


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ken Kinderman <scr274 at gmail.com>
> To: arc5 at mailman.qth.net, milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: Re: [ARC5] Green Books
> Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 11:25:40 -0400
> 
> 
> I agree with Gordon and others about the lack of real technical meat in the
> "Green Books". And some of the organizational details can be pretty dry at
> times.
> 
> Nonetheless there is some great reading and equally revealing pictures.
> Concentrating on radio as we do, we sometimes forget the efforts that went
> into wireline comm... elephants in India pulling wires,  ... [etc] ...


> Some of the photos are staged. Most are real: a BC-779 being aligned in
> Stilwell's HQ, 2 GI's working a pogo stick radio in Sicily, a "supply depot"
> on the beach in the Pacific, SCR-625's sweeping a beach in Italy. The
> original radar plot of station OPANA on Oahu, dated 7 Dec 41, drawings of a
> one-tube prison camp 
> ------------->> regen camouflaged inside a canteen (real? apocryphal?). <---- note
> 
              [... excision...]
> 
> 73 and happy reading,
> 
> Ken
> W2EWL
> 
> 
> Message: 4
> > Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2010 08:54:56 -0400
> > From: gordon white <gewhite at crosslink.net>
> > Subject: Re: [ARC5] [Milsurplus] The Green Books
> > To: "Discussion of AN/ARC-5 military radio equipment."
> >        <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
> > Message-ID: <4C3327A0.6040509 at crosslink.net>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> >
> > Obviously, there is a very large set of WW II Army history volumes.
> > Generally pretty academic and nowhere as interesting as Samuel Eliot
> > Morison's Navy WW II histories, all 17 volumes of which I have.
> > Morison, however, has virtually no technical details.  (Morison was a
> > great student of Columbus and the early explorers. I am just reading his
> > book on the southern explorers such as Magellan.)
> >
> >
> >
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