Hi Hue - (I can't read the Alaska newspaper linked) but I read Washtub ran from 1951-1959.  (CIA FOIA Reading Room).  So radios were not GRC-109's but could have been RS-1 or RS-6.  Or ???  Not much info out there regarding details except they recruited a lot of Hams for obvious reasons.
Tim
N6CC

On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 5:51 PM Hubert Miller <Kargo_cult@msn.com> wrote:
By David Ramseur
Updated: December 2, 2017
Published: June 9, 2017
Anchorage Daily News

This is a really interesting article. I lived through those years as did most of you, and i'm no stranger to the Gary Powers story, but this one was news to me.
https://www.adn.com/alaska-life/we-alaskans/2017/06/09/when-off-course-u-2-spy-plane-out-of-alaska-nearly-triggered-war/
300 miles off course. No, really, he was really was off course, no alibi !

Excerpts:

"Concerned with the whereabouts of the U-2, the Duck Butt pilot radioed that he would fire flares every five minutes for Maultsby to follow. Nothing but black sky for the captain as radio transmissions from Alaska grew weaker. Finally, Maultsby picked up the faint signal of a local radio station: balalaika music and chatter in Russian. The captain was dangerously miles off course."

and...

"Cold War paranoia ran so deep in Alaska that the FBI embarked on a top-secret mission to recruit and train average Alaskans - fishermen, trappers, bush pilots and other private citizens - to fight covertly against a feared Soviet invasion of its former fur colony. Dubbed by code names such as "Washtub" and "Corpuscle," the operation had two phases, according to newly released classified documents. The first called for Alaska citizen-agents to be trained to hide in key locations during a Soviet takeover. They would find survival caches of food, cold-weather gear and radios with guidance on how to send coded messages about Soviet troop movements."

The radio reception in the first paragraph no doubt deals with MW broadcast reception. This kind of reminds me of that post of mine a few months back about the B-29 lost
over Alaska and its radio communication problems.

The last paragraph quote has me wondering: Exactly what radio sets were cached? Would that be GRC-109 ? It would sure be interesting to see some of those instructions on sending coded
messages !!
-Hue Miller


______________________________________________________________
ARC5 mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/arc5
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:ARC5@mailman.qth.net

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: https://www.qsl.net/donate.html