[Milsurplus] "An unusual QSO"

[Hubert Miller]

Noticed the following letter in 'Practical Wireless'  ( U.K. ) Dec. 2017 :

"An Unusual QSO
Dear Don, Further to the interesting QSO Harry Leeming G3LLL had with the Russian station ( In the Shop, October ) and your request for anyone to share an unusual QSO
with PW readers, I thought I would describe an experience I had many years ago.
I used to have a sked with my dear friend Bruce VK2YU ( now SK ), which ran for many years on 15 and 20m, depending on propagation. We had been working short-path
on 15m one morning back in the early 1970s and as we signed I heard a weak station calling me. I gave a 'QRZ ?'  and asked for a location so I could turn my beam to peak
his signal. He said he just wanted to know if he was being received in the U.K. and went on to tell me he was in Vietnam in a trench using a Collins KWM-2 and the antenna
was a long coil of barbed wire lying on the ground.
He mentioned that he wasn't supposed to be on the air but had been listening to our QSO and wondered if he could load up the wire and be heard over here. He said that
he had a U.S. callsign but couldn't tell me what it was. Just then he said, 'We are coming under fire, will have to go QRT'.  I went back and wished him good luck and hoped
he would soon be home safely and asked if he would send me a card or something to let me know he had returned safe and sound. About two years later I received his
QSL among a pile from the bureau, telling me he was back in the U.S.A. unharmed and thanking me for the contact.

You may remember that it was not uncommon in those days to hear aeronautical mobiles operating from B-52s flying over North Vietnam during bombing missions using
the aircraft radio on the amateur bands to pass the time during the flight.
Howard Jone  GW3TMP,  N. Wales"

End quote.
I am thinking the first incident above, some G.I. rather overdramatized his hamming diversion, I mean the on ground antenna and the coming under fire,
which I suspect was his way saying the equivalent of "Well, it's dinner time, and I have to sign off now."
As to the second example above, I have never heard of anything like that, but I wasn't radio active during those years. Still, I suppose I'm skeptical about that too,
at least during bombing missions. Maybe that too was dramatized by the military guys.
-Hue
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