[Milsurplus] FW: Titanic Wireless

[Hubert Miller]

For your possible interest.

From: Hubert Miller
Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2020 6:13 PM
To: Geoff
Subject: RE: Titanic Wireless

Somewhere around 1995 I bought from private party a couple antenna insulators from a Japanese ship sunk at IIRC, Yap. I gave them to a Portland insulator collector. Among the offerings was a handheld microphone.
As I recall, the wooden handle was completely gone but conversely, the brass top piece, the microphone proper, was totally intact, appearance - wise. These items were harvested before the islands forbade any
harvesting of such relics. Now tourism is seen to be a money - maker. I even have an article with a photo of a display of relics on Guadalcanal and the sign there says "Photo $20", but I'm very sure the author didn't
fork over the requested $20. High intelligence people there. I had the name of the ships was able to look up the call letters and transmitter power and frequency bands in an old ITU station marine list. On the other
hand the recovered radio in the QST photo was just a ball of fuzz.
This reminds me of a story Greg told me, that I was planning to include in my compilation "Tales of Surplus Glory". He was after - hours scrounging by flashlight in a submarine hulk being disassembled on the Everett WA
waterfront. Ship name eludes me at moment but it will come back. The scene as I get it was almost dream - like in that things he was interested in were unstable and vaporized before his eyes. When he went to touch
something, it would crumble into dust. I think he got some tubes and connectors from the wreck. He had photo documentation but that was all lost when his house burned. Sub name was "Menhaden", SS-377.
-Hue

From: Geoff
Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2020 5:36 PM
To: Hubert Miller Subject: Re: Titanic Wireless

".....Regarding Titanic, I don't see what's wrong with salvaging the radio.  I can't imagine there is much left now other than a pile of dissolved metals and encrusted pieces.  There was a "photo" somewhere but I think it was a CGI creation rather than the real thing.

Once upon a long time ago I knew a British fellow named Richard Marris.  He must be dead now as he was in his 90's in 1988.  During the war he was with whatever MI-6 was then, and he was tasked with going through the wreckage of German planes that had crashed, looking for any intelligence clues.  He related stores of being on the Thames Estuary inside some Heinkel that had just crashed, going through the crew member's pockets and bagging all paperwork on board and anything electronic that looked unusual.  He mentioned that the magnesium components in the plane would be reacting with the salt water and the plane was gradually sinking into the mud while the metal parts looked like they were "boiling."  So...I wonder how much stuff that has been under salt water for any length of time is in recognizable condition at all."

Geoff
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/milsurplus/attachments/20200520/c2d8e119/attachment-0001.html>