[ARC5] [Army-Radios] [VMARS] War Surplus

[Hubert Miller]

As I understand it, at war end the categories of permissible souvenirs were opened up.
Practically nothing was needed to be reserved for study. There was some approval form 
to be filled out by an officer. "Shipping rates", the bane of us today, seemed to be zero
for service people, so some quite heavy things got shipped back, like equipment trunks. 
It seems still to have been a little hit and miss, maybe moreso in the Pacific area. I was
told by one guy a ranking told him to disassemble a Japanese radio, but on the other hand,
we see complete Japanese radios in shipping trunks here. So likely the hardnose rules were
relaxed shortly into the occupation period. Officers of course had more relaxed rules, of 
course ! So I suppose that's how Japanese machine guns etc. were brought into the 
country. My father was in from North Africa through Germany and said among other 
things, he brought back a couple Luger pistols. I think he said he sold them each for $90.
I don't know if that sounds right figure. Re the MPs seizing the Oscar fighter propeller,
I do not understand at all ! This was, I think winter 1946. He with help of GIs near Pusan
Korea stripped the Oscar. It had been ripped in half by strafing attack. He said the GIs 
provided a Jeep and a couple helpers. It was winter, about 0 degrees. BTW, the radio 
from the Oscar illustrates one thing hard to nail down about Japanese aircraft radio. 
There seems to be great variability in the installations. For example, the Monogram book
( 1980s ) for the Oscar shows only the receiver part of this equipment in the cockpit, 
while this Pusan Oscar had the full over-under receiver and transmitter mounted at
bottom of instrument panel. I have also seen photo and radio of crash landed Betty
bomber where the only radio was a 40-44 MHz VHF model, but I also have photos 
showing a different plane with HF longrange. Perhaps the installations were much more
defined by the mission - and availability of equipment, maybe - than our standard
installations.
-Hue Miller