[Milsurplus] Crystal history or folk myth ?

[Hubert Miller]

Was looking for schematic of Mallory Vibrapack VP-385, which I did not yet find, but I did see this in Radio-Craft magazine, March 1945.
True or folk myth ? 
-Hue

A LUCKY ACCIDENT
A sheer accident is said to have spurred
the development of modern -type, small -size
quartz crystals, resulting in great savings
in this critical war material, as well as in
cost of production and in man hours. Before
the start of the present war a radio
"ham" in South Africa- a minister with
a mechanical turn of mind -happened to
drop and break a crystal which he had
secured from a United States concern. The
precious crystal broke into three pieces, two
of them being small fragments no bigger
than his thumbnail. Anxious to keep his
set working if possible, he tried out the
larger piece-and found that it functioned
as well as the entire crystal had done.
Amazed, he tried out the smaller fragments
and found that they too worked successfully.
 - Hardly believing that his luck would
hold, he wrote to the concern in the States
ordering a new crystal, but reported, parenthetically,
that the pieces of his old one
worked "all right." At that time there was a
very ample supply of quartz crystal for current
peacetime needs, but with the coming of
war to Europe, and more particularly with
the coming of war to America, the demand
was stepped up prodigiously. From that
point on, the size of the crystals used' in
radios ceased to be merely of academic or
scientific interest. It was a matter of life
and death to our fighting men and to our
whole war effort.
Company experts remembered the old letter and ran tests, resulting in the design
of crystals many times smaller than the old.