[Milsurplus] Re: [ARC5] Re: ARC-5 production data

[David Stinson]

Gordon White wrote:

 >    Unfortunately, I learned when I tried to go back into the Signal
 > Corps' and Navy archives that after I looked at a lot of the files they
 > had been shredded. The federal Archives may (probably does) still have
 > some of the Army stuff. I don't know if any Navy files survived....

Almost nothing that was in the Navy archives from the very beginnings
of Naval radio work up to the mid 1950s was saved.  They were bulk
pulped in the mid 1990s because some little beaurocratic pinhead
decided they weren't of any value and the National Archives
wouldn't take them.  We have only what we can scrape together
and the testimony of foggy and fast-disappearing memory.
I have first-hand testimony of some fascinating "black project"
work done with early A.R.C. sets pre-WWII, but now will probably
never have any way to solidly prove the story, since such
documentation could only have been in those archives.
It's a pitiful disgrace.
D.S.