[Milsurplus] TBX Notes and....

[Hubert Miller]

Noticed something odd about the TBX-8 prelim manuals i have. Mar 1945 included the "Item 10480 rain shield", a clear plastic visor that clips to the front. The Apr 45 manual
does not list this item. Both manuals of course are from the same manufacturer, Garod.

Now here's an interesting quote from "Earned in Blood", Thurman Miller, 2013, verbatim:

"Finally, World War II occurred just at the front edge of a technological revolution, and technology played an underappreciated role at Guadalcanal. Asked what lessons he
would take from Guadalcanal, a Colonel Sims advised to 'concentrate on communications. It is tough work but it can be done. I have had to loan the Communications
Regimental Section men to help carry wire through tough places but i want communications. Your information has to be timely and properly evaluated'  [ Footnoted ].
While for the most part we stretched hundreds of yards of wire in a complex web, wire that could be cut by heavy transport or the Japanese at any time, the Japanese had
early handheld radios. In the report Colonel Puller bemoaned this advantage. 'The walky-talky the Japs have operates. Why can't we have a similar one? To HELL with the
telephone wire with advancing troops. We can't carry enough wire. We received an order. 'The advance will stop until the wire gets in'. THIS IS BACKWARDS!'  [ Footnoted ].
Our commanders did have the TBX radios, but they were in short supply and were 'portable' only in a broad sense, as they required three men to carry their transmitter,
batteries, and hand-cranked generator. They were also inadequately waterproofed, a definite problem in the jungle, where a downpour could commence without warning."
End quote.

Perhaps this is why the "rain shield" was developed with the last issue of TBX.   G.E.'s boasting about the TBX's waterproof construction, expressed in the book "Men and
Volts at War", is belied by the comment above. The TBX could possibly be floated to shore, but once the case lid removed, not so much waterproof. It occurred to me
maybe the lessons of the TBX were applied by the Navy when the specs for the GRC-13 were defined, because that radio is more weatherproofed.

Here's another interesting quote:
"I never interacted with them, but the 1st Marine Division also went ashore with some of the first Navajo code talkers [ Footnoted ]. Their language was incomprehensible
to the Japanese, and they were invaluable in coding radio communications throughout this and later battles. Some green marines who had never heard Navajo or Japanese
and had no knowledge of the deployment of their language reportedly panicked when they first heard it on the radio, thinking it was the Japanese transmitting with our
radios on our frequencies."

I paid all of $1 for this book at the Dollar Store. I say it's one hell of a fine story and definitely one of the most affecting WWII stories I have read. Author doesn't really
talk about 'then I shot him' or 'then he shot my partner' but describes the temperature, illness, craziness, bombardment by Japanese aircraft and ships, drinking out of
polluted puddles, malaria, attrition of his buddies: the actual day by day experience. After the war he returned to coal mining country, an area where he wanted to be, but the
only job he could find was dirty and dangerous work in a coal mine. That combined with his recurring  malaria and undiagnosed jungle illnesses and war memories almost
killed him, but his love for his wife and family pulled him out. He eventually learned the electrician's trade and escaped the mines. I had thought WWII veterans were always
welcomed back and well treated, compared to later veterans, but the mining companies treated their employees with callous disregard and some V.A. doctors told him to his
face that he was a despicable deadbeat just looking to get on the dole.  That was a pretty sad conclusion to his WWII combat experiences, but after some years of wandering
in his own wilderness he finally recovered to have a comfortable, secure life. The author doesn't dramatize his WWII accounts; he's a reflective and honest reporter, and
this is his work to make sense of it all. Well worth more than I paid for the book.
-H
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