[Milsurplus] Foxhole Radio

[Francesco Ledda]

My father was a POW, and some of prisoners were able to steal few vacuum tubes from somewhere and build a radio; this was powered with an homemade transformer. The radio was hidden inside a wood beam. The Brits running the camp were furious, and they looked for this radio for months; tired of the unfruitful search, the colonel running the camp proposed a deal to highest ranking POW; you show me where the radio is hidden, and I will let you keep it! The deal was made, and the POW kept their radio. I always thought that this was a very honorable story!

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On Aug 3, 2012, at 15:35, "J. Forster" <jfor at quikus.com> wrote:

> I think there were a lot more Foxhole radios built than tube radios
> because of the battery issue.
> 
> That said, I'd suspect the various battle fields were littered with
> almost-dead batteries of all sorts. Also, I can't imagine a US soldier
> going into a battle without a fresh battery in his radio, or carrying a
> partly used on along for ballast.
> 
> A GI with a knife and a bit of electrical knowlege, could probably cut
> open a BC-611 or some other radio battery and extract usable A or B
> battery subassemblies to power his 1 tuber.
> 
> OTOH, in a POW camp, I can think of no plausible reason why a prisoner
> would have any batteries what ever.
> 
> YMMV,
> 
> -John
> 
> =======================
> 
> 
> 
> 
>>> General Rule: It only took one Razor Blade Radio,
>>> one War Correspondent, and one radio magazine
>>> in the States, to produce thousands of these radios.
>>> Clete
>> 
>> Great, Clete! ha ha ha....
>> I suspect the number actually built was, uh, more like
>> you could count on ONE hand, with fingers left over,
>> than "hundreds".
>> There's  somewhat of an odd paucity of first-person accounts,
>> wouldn't you say, if hundreds were built?
>> On the other hand, there are at least several stories around,
>> describing one-tube radios built by WW2 soldiers. Even the prison
>> camp radios were one-tube jobs, using either a tube traded
>> from the guards - Europe, or stolen from the captors - Pacific.
>> 
>> I actually saw a Europe GI-built 5 - tube battery portable
>> superhet receiver, used standard U.S. tubes. I have no idea
>> of when it was built, before end of war or after, but I suppose
>> afterward, it would have been easier to swap cigarettes or
>> whatever for a European factory built radio.
>> 
>> But, it IS another great war story, a classic like the "U-boats
>> homing on radio receivers", altho there's hardly a grain of
>> truth to the latter.
>> -Hue
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> 
> 
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