[Milsurplus] [ARC5] FW: Aziloop antenna

[Hubert Miller]

I have the LIFE magazine with this story, which i avidly read at 10 years of age, also a large photos book on the same subject, but right now i don't recall what specific radios the investigation group pulled from the wreck. There was some talk of a "jinx" as the plane with the Lady's radio installed crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. I imagine some of these items are in private collections now. I believe even headphones and throat mics were left in place when the crew bailed. The crunched up sad remains of the B-24 are in some back lot in Tripoli now; that is, unless the remnants were sold off as scrap metal. It's probably an unhealthy environment to go poking around looking, anyway.

This subject stimulates my memory. Around 1977 i talked to a 'surplus hound' type who told me he had a radio, ? maybe a 618S ? that he had grabbed from a military aircraft crash out on the Olympic Peninsula. He said he had beat the military investigators out to the site. I don't know any more about that crash event; maybe i should look into it; and i have no particular conclusion about the propriety of taking the radio. Certainly it would have gone to waste otherwise, souvenir hunters pulling off knobs or nameplates, which happened at so many other crash sites.

There was a fellow in Bellevue WA i met around that time and bought something from. In his basement he had on the wall a 50 cal. machine gun he had removed from some crash in the California desert. The barrel of the MG was obviously bent, so there i suppose would be no problem with legally owning it, but what do i know about this, nothing. In any case, the radio and the 50 cal went to better homes than just letting them rust away or be destroyed by tourist vandals. I forget the fellow's name at this instant; will come to me later. I believe he also wrote an article for Electric Radio msgazine.

Which reminds me, i also have a photo of a BC-348 nameplate from a crash site somewhere in the Pacific. I thought, "Well, why not get the whole item, instead of just prying off the nameplate, which is really nothing ? The 348 even if smashed up, still is a worthwhile memento, and it doesn't weigh a ton, really. Now you've helped decay the crash remnants".

The same scrounge ethic applies to Stalingrad mementos, altho that trade is pretty well mined out. Like, you harvest only the front panel of the radio or whatever. Makes it so much more convenient for shipping Ebay items.

I also remember now some of Ben Nock's restorations in the U.K. He has done some absolutely amazing work; much better than i could ever hope to do.

I have drifted considerably from the topic at hand. That's what you get when you push my memory button.
-Hue Miller
Newport, Oregon



Sent from my Galaxy


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