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

[mikea]

On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 11:30:01AM -0500, David Stinson wrote:

> 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.

Yes, it is. 

I, for one, would love to have as much of the tale as you think can be
told, and I don't doubt that others would be at least as interested as
I am.

In the US, "historic" means "over 100 years old", and in Europe, "far"
means "over 100 miles away". Except that here, we appear not to care 
very much about history, or are systematically engaged in erasing it.

-- 
Mike Andrews
mikea at mikea.ath.cx
Tired old sysadmin