[Qcwa] Morse Code and WWI Navy Radiomen

[Neal McEwen]

Friends,
  I have some old glass lantern slides from the estate of Commander
Thomas Appleby.  He was responsible for constructing the Navy's system
of Direction Finding stations on the east coast to DF submarines during
W.W.I. 
  I will show some of the DFing slides later, but the first slide I
wanted to show you is Naval recruits on their way to becoming Radiomen. 
You will notice a practice key in front of the RM at the left of each
table.  Others are poised to copy code.  Some have headsets.  This photo
is c. 1917 or 1918.  Have a look at
http://www.metronet.com/~nmcewen/megastage/Appleby-21-Navy-Recruits-Code_School.jpg
  Here is what Appleby had to say about the slide:
  "Slide 21 Naval Radio School Philadelphia at Broad and Cherry
streets.  Personnel had to be trained for these new jobs [DFing] and
here we see the emergency Naval Radio School in Philadelphia where
hundreds of Naval Radiomen got their first 'sea-going' experiences. 
Officers standing L to R
  Cmdr. Kelly, USNR
  Ens.  Fred Chandler, USNR
  Ens.  Eugene Murray, USNR
  Lt.   *****sbeil,  DCO, USN  [can' make out the name. What does DCO
mean?]
  Lt. R.Y. Cadmus, USNR
  Ens. David J Heilig, USNR
  Lt. jg Thomas Appleby, USNR [Appleby is the small man with the
mustache standing behind the recruit sitting down at the key.]
  These recruits learned International Morse Code.  A requirement for
Radio Man 1st class was also a high degree of proficiency in the
American Morse code.  The Navy had their own landline network.  Also
DFing stations were connected by landlines.
-- 
73 de K5RW, Neal McEwen, at "The Telegraph Office", nmcewen@metronet.com
         A WWW Page for Telegraph Key Collectors and Historians
             http://www.metronet.com/~nmcewen/tel_off.html