[GreenKeys] End of World War II - Teletype and bulletins

Sat May 3 17:37:48 EDT 2025

Great story! My high school was on the Orinda/Moroga border.

Harold
https://w6iwi.org

On Sat, May 3, 2025 2:13 pm, georgeengeman--- via GreenKeys wrote:
> Greenkeyers--
> Several years ago, I became friends with and did some work for Reg
> Tibbetts, W6ITH (SK).Â  He related to me the following story regarding
> the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII.Â  I hope my feeble memory is
> correct on what follows so there may be some erroneous recollections.
> During WWII, Reg ran--among other things--an intercept receiving station
> out of his home on a huge piece of land with rhombic antennas in Moraga,
> CA for the United Press.Â  He had some folks working for him under UP
> contract to listen on several frquencies for news traffic coming out of
> the Far East and South America.Â  In the latter stages of the war, these
> intercepts became much more numerous as the Allies gained more conquests,
> especially when the Phillipines were liberated.Â  His employees were to
> listen for Morse (CW) messages as well as maintain listening for and
> copying RTTY signals that were becoming more prevalent as the War
> progressed. The message that the Japanese had surrendered came over a
> radio teletype channel during the middle of the night Pacific time.Â  One
> of Reg's listeners noted the message on the RTTY circuit but it came
> through with no bells which were needed to alert operators of the
> priority of the message.Â  Reg was asleep in bed and the operator woke
> him up to inform him that what he tore off the model 15 could be the very
> surrender message that everybody was anticipating.Â  The message copy was
> chock full of garbled information and had several erroneous line feeds,
> etc.Â  After looking over what the copy presented, Reg told the operator
> to cut a tape with 5 bells on it giving a moderate clean-up of the
> original copy as received and send it out on the UP wire. It turned out
> that the UP transmission from the Phillipines (not sure of that location
> of the source of the message) as received in Morage CA was, in fact, the
> UP's genuine article announcing the Japaneses surrender.Â  I had a chance
> to look at the Teletype copy that was received and saved by Reg when I
> was doing some work for him back in the 80s.Â  I can state that it was
> very rough copy and I probably would have been very reluctant to send
> it--never mind a cleaned up version of it--along to the UP wire service
> network.Â  But Reg did so and the UP "scooped" everybody else. Anyone that
> advertises that they have a copy of the surrender message or any
> announcement of the end of the War, should be viewed with skepticism.Â 
> The Teletypes used by UP were owned by UP and had their logo on the
> machine's cover.Â  So, I am dubious as to use of Bell System machines for
> wire service use especially during the War. Frank Barthalomew (president
> of UP) tore up Reg's contract and made him chief engineer for UP (later
> to become UPI) from which he retired several years later.Â  Reg had a lot
> of fascinating stories to tell about his career and I consider that I was
> fortunate enough to be friends with him and listen to the tales. I hope
> the foregoing is of some interest to the list. Regards,George W6BN
> On Friday, May 2, 2025 at 03:39:21 PM PDT, hwhall--- via GreenKeys
> <greenkeys at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
>
>
> PS - perhaps I misinterpreted the advertisement. It said "WWII" but not
> "military".
>
>
> Wayne
>
>
> On Friday, May 2, 2025 at 04:36:26 PM MDT, hwhall--- via GreenKeys
> <greenkeys at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
>
>
> It says Bell System Service on a couple of ID plates. Nothing to show it
> was a military machine that I can see. So, maybe the documents are
> repros. How can we know? I have paper rolls that look that old, too. LOL
>
> No cover, busted keyboard & sold for $6000+? What do you think; they took
> a much lower offer?
>
> Wayne
> WB4OGM
>
>
> On Friday, May 2, 2025 at 04:21:14 PM MDT, Jeff G <jeffg at junknet.net>
> wrote:
>
>
> Just did a quick search and couldn't (easily) find anything, but WOW,
> found this auction listing for a Model 15 with related WWII bulletins.
> Now I just need to print some up and pair it up with my Model 15s lol.
>
>
> https://www.rrauction.com/auctions/lot-detail/348277307074026-world-war-i
> i-teletype-archive-with-model-15-printer-covering-fdrs-death-japans-surre
> nder-and-the-atomic-bomb/
>
> Jeff
>
>
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>>>> Jordan Spencer Cunningham's GreenKeys Search Tool:
>>>> https://teletype.net/gksearch
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>>>> 1998-to-2001 greenkeys archive:
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>>>>
>
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>
>>>> Jordan Spencer Cunningham's GreenKeys Search Tool:
>>>> https://teletype.net/gksearch
>>>> 2002-to-present greenkeys archive:
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>>>> 1998-to-2001 greenkeys archive:
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>>>>
>
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