The Start of Armed Forces Radio Service 

By Ivan Saddler, 
from "Vintage Electrics" Volume #3 Issue #1 1991 Copyright SMEC, (now SMECC) 

Photo 1-The first AFRS crew. Their first destination was Guadalcanal. 
Standing, Left to Right: Allen Botzer, Dick Sinclair, Jack (Ivan) Saddler, Rudy Luukinen, Al Taylor.
Sitting, Left to Right: George Dvorak, Rudy Rubin, Hy Averback, Spence Allen, Will Kennedy.

Today many people travel from the US to countries with a language other than English. Shortly they are hungry for news and entertainment American style. CNN is available in the larger hotels but Armed Forces Radio and Television Service is almost everywhere. The AFRTS presentations are closest to those available in the US. This organization had humble beginnings during World War II. Being one of the earliest members of the organization allows me to give some recollections of those early days. I have even found some old photos from those times. 

At the start of WWII I was working for the City of Dallas, Texas Municipal Radio Department. The manager of that organization was Duward J. Tucker who had been my teacher in evening school of a course in electronics. Second shift at the police radio transmitter was my assignment. (Low man on the totem pole) Then police radios in cars transmitted in the 30 MHz band and received just above the broadcast band at approximately 1720 KHz. Our transmitter was surplus to our broadcast operations. Police radio transmission was from station KVP. The entertainment broadcast station call letters were WRR. The transmitter output was 50 KW. FM wasn’t around yet. 

Often I did studio control work usually on Sunday mornings or in the evenings. (Again, low man on the totem pole.) Recording network programs for later rebroadcast was fun. The discs were 16" in diameter and coated with a lacquer material that was shaved off by a diamond needle. The needle was in a recording head that modulated the groove laterally. The base for the lacquer was an aluminum sheet stiff enough to be handled. Often the recording was from the center of the disc outward. 

As the war effort increased, drafting of healthy young men intensified. Because the police radio work was important deferment for the duration of the war was possible. That didn’t seem right. Entry into the service was through the radar training program. The official title of the program was Engineering and Science and Management War Training (ESMWT). Radar was a very hush hush subject at the time and justifiably so. It was a major technological difference between the Allies and the Axis forces. In San Antonio, Texas I attended a school that taught electronic construction and repair principles. On completion of that set of courses training intensified at Southern Methodist University. The dean there was an impressive person. The possibility of getting a college education after the war lurked in the back of my mind. 

Completion of the pre-radar training at SMU brought news that the recruitment program for radar technicians was oversubscribed. Induction into the service was next. Mineral Wells, Texas was the closest induction center to Dallas. It was not really a pleasant place but introduced me to basic training. A long train ride to Sacramento, California and the basic training center named Camp Koehler. Mercifully that installation burned to the ground late in the war never to be replaced.

One of the options on leaving basic training was radio repair school. It was one of the most desirable. Others were lineman school (climbing poles) cooks and bakers’ school, and cryptography school. The site of radio repair school was at what is now University of California-Davis; then called Cal Aggie. The college had closed for the duration of the war but completely occupied by the U. S. Army Signal Corps. The school was easy because it was taught at the high school level with the idea that most of the students had no knowledge of electronics. It was a rather benign environment and only somewhat challenging. 

As the time neared for us to be assigned to duty stations we saw an announcement of the need for people with broadcast experience. The call was for production and engineering talents. That looked like something down my alley. A few weeks later found me on a train to Hollywood. The organization I was assigned to had the unlikely name of Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS). 

The location of the organization was even more unbelievable. It was at the Fox Movie Studio at Sunset and Western Avenues. The probable reason for that location was that the Army First Motion Picture Unit was there. The head of that group was Frank Capra. That unit filmed the majority of World War II footage. The head of AFRS was Colonel Thomas H.A. Lewis. He had been in the movie production business before the war and we soon found he was Loretta Young’s husband. She came by to visit several times and was always charming. 

The group was just forming when we arrived. The first enlisted man was Sgt. Bob LeMond who had been a radio personality before the war. He acted as our First Sergeant. The original plan was to staff and equip four stations to be located in the Pacific Theater of Operations. These were to be in Noumea, New Caledonia; India; Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands and; Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides Islands. Selection of some of those places is yet a mystery to me. 

Some of the early arrivals into the organization were:

Capt. Spencer M. Allen was formerly associated with WGN, Chicago. I believe he returned to that organization after the war. Spence Allen was the commander of the organization of which I was a part. 

Capt. Wilfred Kennedy had been with WLW, Cincinnati in the engineering department. He held a similar position in the team that went to Guadalcanal; my team. 

Hi Averback was an announcer and producer in Hollywood radio before the war. He is best known as the producer of the long-running TV series MASH. 

Allen Botzer was an announcer on the west coast before the war.

George Dvorak was a radio personality in Los Angeles before joining AFRS 

Richard N. Sinclair had been an announcer with KSL in Salt Lake City. After the war he hosted a radio and later TV show called Polka Party. Dick later became a reporter of financial news and stock reports in the Los Angeles area. 

Al Pearson was an announcer in the Washington State area before and after the war. 

Rudy Rubin was an engineer from the San Antonio, Texas area. 

Rudy Luukinen had been with KSTP St. Paul, Minn. as an engineer. 

Al Taylor, who before the war, lived in northern California in a mining community called Walkermine. He worked in a radio station and operated the projectors in the local movie theater. 

All the above with the exception of Al Pearson made up the group originally expected to go to Guadalcanal. The picture of that team is on the first page of this article. (see photo 1) 

As the troops gathered in Hollywood they ordered the equipment for operation of the broadcasting station and shipments arrived often. Having to provide for all supplies, equipment and spare parts to operate in isolation was a daunting task. 

The waiting for equipment to arrive was difficult. The group was already trained to do the job because of civilian experience. The military didn’t like to see idle troops. We spent a week at Camp Young, the desert training center. There Dinah Shore joined us to help entertain the trainees there. They were later to fight against General Rommel’s Panzers in North Africa. We also went to driving school at Santa Anita racetrack. There we learned how to drive big trucks and half-tracks. One other training event is yet brilliant in my memory. We went through a simulated battle field with live machine guns firing just over our heads and explosions around us. To make it realistic operators scattered animal entrails several days old. That was realistic enough for me. 

It wasn’t all bad. There were no military installations with living quarters near the Fox Studios. Rudy Rubin and I shared a room at the St. Francis Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. We were able to attend almost any of the broadcast and recording sessions being done for AFRS. And we recorded a comic history of the organization. 

When all the equipment had arrived, the time came for us to leave. We held a farewell party at what was then a famous bistro adjacent to the CBS studios, Brittinghams. Much to our surprise Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Jerry Collona came by to wish us well. They were very thoughtful guys whom we were to see later as they toured the South Pacific. 

Our crew headed for Guadalcanal on one of the famous or infamous Kaiser built ships. I know how galley slaves must have felt. There were 3500 troops on the ship. The submarines traveling submerged couldn’t keep up with the ship so we traveled alone most of the way. The ship zigged and zagged. It took 21 days to reach Guadalcanal but seemed forever. The four stations set up in the south Pacific were called the Mosquito Network. Malaria was one illness of concern to us. We took atabrine pills each day. They must have worked. My skin remained yellow from the pills for several weeks after I returned to more civilized country. 

Our radio station studio and transmitter sites were in a coconut grove about one-half mile from Lunga beach. We divided a Dallas hut into a control room and a studio. There was a large plate glass window and some sound proofing between the two rooms. (see Photo # 2) Most of the local programming was for and by the local Armed Forces. The inset news article a few pages back, shows one popular program. Occasionally we did something unusual. Photo #3 shows Captain Allen instructing a local native chorus in microphone technique. The Dallas hut easily adapted to be the control room. The transmitter needed a unique building. With help from the Army Engineers and CBs it came to be. The troops needed entertainment. The transmitter was an RCA 1K model with one kilowatt output. (Photo # 4) shows the transmitter during initial setup and adjustment) The signal was not powerful enough to carry beyond the local group of islands around Guadalcanal. We did often get cards and letters from far away places. While the ground wave did behave as predicted, the sky wave went places it should not have. We could not acknowledge the correspondence because of security. 

In providing the troops’ entertainment and news we found some unique conditions. The only wire we had for telephone communications was a standard issue twisted pair called W 110. It consisted of steel and copper strands molded in rubber and covered with a woven cloth. At such tropical rainy places as Guadalcanal the wire would absorb moisture and become noisy and lossy. Each Sunday morning we broadcast church services held at the Island Chapel. (Photo # 5) It was approximately a mile from the studio. We had the equipment for remote broadcasting. About 30 minutes before air time we would plug the line into the 110 volt wall outlet. A little dangerous but it did dry out the wire long enough for a decent signal to reach the studio. The Chapel was quite a work of art having been built by Guadalcanal natives using woven reeds, grass and palm fronds. 

Obtaining news of the progress of the war and of the home front was a challenge but was important to listeners. We strung an antenna between two palm trees and hooked it to our receiver. 

The best communications receiver available then was the Hammarlund Super Pro. AFRS broadcast news and entertainment programs by short wave from the U. S. We received the broadcasts using our Super Pro. Hammarlund built them on contract with the Army and painted them gray. The usual civilian model had black crinkle finish. The receiver pictured in Photo # 2 is in a relay rack to the right of the control console. My opinion is that receiver is yet one of the best ever built. I have one that was obtained from war surplus some years after the war. It is serial number 5. Performance is equal to modern all solid state communications receivers. Vacuum tubes though aren’t as reliable as semiconductors. 

AFRS located stations in the South Pacific at Espiritu Santos in the New Hebrides Islands and at Noumea New Caledonia. Pictures of the Espiritu Santos station are Photos # 6, 7, and 8. No Photos of the New Caledonia installation are available, unfortunately. It was larger and better equipped than the stations at Guadalcanal and Espiritu Santos.

As AFRS stations became popular the provision of programs became a big business. There were some regularly scheduled programs that were very popular. The programs performed at studios primarily on the West Coast used live audiences. Recordings of the programs used 16" lacquer coated aluminum disks. Masters used the normal record making techniques. Pressings were of vinyl. Because the performances were primarily free the artists insisted that the disks be destroyed after the war. Most were but a few disappeared and are now collector’s items. Smaller disks recorded individual songs and performances. These became known as V-disks. My collection contains just one of those-the Abbot and Costello Baseball Routine. You remember "Who is on first, What is on second." 

Shipping of the vinyl transcriptions used Military Air Transport Service. The dedicated group at the Fox lot supplied world wide service. Buddy Duncan though a midget was a fully functioning member. The station teams while waiting to be shipped overseas often had lunch with the group that packed and shipped the transcriptions. Buddy Duncan was an entertainer as well as a member of the distribution team. He kept a violin case on a high shelf. Several of the troops kept asking Buddy to play the violin. After a number of excuses he one day said he would the next noon play for us. When it was time to play he climbed to get the violin case. It fell open and scores of violin parts fell out. I wonder how long he had planned that gag? It is yet a marvel to me that the transcription team and its suppliers did such a high quality job of keeping us supplied. 

During the time at Guadalcanal promotions came somewhat regularly but the major jump came after interviews with a board of officers. Rudy Rubin and I obtained our commissions as second lieutenants. Rudy said he outranked me because he was sworn in first. R comes before S in the alphabet. The military has always done things Alphabetically. The war was soon over. Rudy Rubin stayed at Guadalcanal to oversee the shut down of that station. New Caledonia became my new home. 

The station at New Caledonia had a professional cast of players. Among them were Jack Paar and Jackie Cooper. Paar was later to do the Tonight Show on television. Jackie Cooper was an actor best known for his childhood role in a movie called "The Kid." W. H. A (Bill) Cole an engineering staff member was later renowned in Hollywood as the audio engineer on some well known radio and TV programs. Another personality at Noumea was Bruce Collier from Chicago radio. One of the best loved characters at the station was not a human but a dog named Muck. Muck with one of her pups Melvin with his front paws across her back is seen in Photo # 9. A more famous pup was Satchmo Brown. (Photo # 10 ) Satchmo was fun because he liked to play football. We had an old football with no bladder. It was stuffed with newspaper. When it was thrown in the air he would catch the ball with his two front paws. He would put it down and then pick it up by the lacing thong and bring it back. Bruce Collier liked Satchmo well enough that he wanted to take him back to Chicago an almost impossible task. Bruce was going home on a merchant ship and we arranged with the Captain to stow away the dog. Some records and entertainment equipment helped. The sailors soon learned that Satchmo liked to play ball. An old tennis ball was handy. One day Satchmo missed the ball that went down a scupper into the ocean. Satchmo went after the ball through the scupper and he was also in the ocean. Sailors alerted the helmsman and the ship captain elected to reverse engines. A launched boat retrieved Satchmo. The ship docked at New Orleans. Bruce Collier had some difficulties with authorities but did get Satchmo to Chicago. 

With the war over AFRS had done its job and was destined to die or be mothballed. One of the earliest officers to be assigned to AFRS was Lieutenant Clifford Frink. He believed there was a continuing need for both broadcast services outside of the US and wired entertainment in Armed Forces hospitals. He elected to spend the rest of his career in the Army building that organization into what it is today. Cliff Frink retired with the rank of Colonel. If he were around today I know he would be proud of Armed Forces Radio and Television Services.

About Ivan Saddler

Mr. Saddler is a noted expert in the field of microelectronics. He has been active in the field since 1952. His experience includes several years experience in a tube and semiconductor manufacturing organization; management of a hybrid microcircuit company for several years; work in semiconductor companies for 29 years and; presently assistant professor at Arizona State University.

EDUCATION

BSEE degree University of Texas at El Paso 1950
George Washington University Law School 1951-1952
Motorola Executive Institute - 1974
Graduate Gemmologist-Gemmological Institute of America-1981

SERVICE IN BUSINESS

RCA Semiconductor 1952-1962 Various sales, marketing and contract management primarily with U.S. government.

Microlectron, Inc. 1962-1964 V.P. and General Manager. Manufacture of thick film hybrid microcircuits.

Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector 1964-1982 Management positions relating to U. S. government research and development in the semiconductor field; patent technology and; management of the Very High Speed Integrated Circuit ( VHSIC ) program; a $37 M research and development program in VLSI.

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Three issued patents in the semiconductor field.
Membership in Arizona Electrostatic Discharge Society, Membership in Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Member of International Society of Hybrid Microcircuits

Numerous articles and papers including:

Microprocessors Vs. Custom ICs-Military Electronics Countermeasures June ‘77

Can VLSI Growth Continue? Military Electronics Countermeasures Feb. ‘80

The Future of VLSI in Our Defense-with Chas. Meyer GOMAC Conf. Nov. ‘80

Engineers for VLSI-A Scarce Commodity-IEEE Transactions on Components, Hybrids and Manufacturing Technology-Mar.’82

The Challenge of Education for VLSI-with W. G. Howard- VLSI Electronics Microstructure Science Vol. 4-Apr. ‘81


The Challenge of Education for VLSI-with W. G. Howard- VLSI Electronics Microstructure Science Vol. 4-Apr. ‘81

HONORS

Listed in Who’s Who in the West Listed in Who’s Who in America. Listed in Who’s Who in Technology

It was 1942, I think. I was attending Specialists School at what was then known as Cal Aggie.  The school now called UC Davis had been converted to a Signal Corps training center.  We were being trained to repair the then in use radios and other electronic equipment..  One day we received an announcement that a new organization was being formed in the Los Angeles area and needed people who in civilian life had been occupied in the radio broadcasting industry.  That caught my eye because that is what I was doing before volunteering.

Soon I was on my way to Hollywood.  The outfit being organized was to be known as Armed Forces Radio Service.  The outfit was located at Sunset and Western Avenues.  The place was known as Fox Studios.  and yes, movies were still being made there.  It was also headquarters of the Army First Motion Picture Unit under the direction of Frank Capra.  AFRS was being headed by a former advertising executive named Col. Thomas H. A. Lewis.  He was also Loretta Young’s husband.

It soon became evident that ours was a waiting game.  Crews were assembling without knowing where they were going.  We were to ship out to our destination with our equipment.  We were to be a complete radio station with studio stuff and transmitters.  That was the rub.  Personnel were easily assembled, but equipment even with Army priorities, was hard to come by.  Thus we grunts played a waiting game.

We played poker, drove trucks and half-tracks, and smelled war gasses.  We even set up a temporary station at Camp Young, where soldiers were being trained for the invasion of North Africa.  Those things were not enough to keep us busy.  Some wag suggested that we record the history of AFRS.  That’s all it took to get the creative juices flowing.  The script as finished was called “AFRS, An Histerical History.”  I wonder whether a copy yet exists.  I believe the script was written by Hy Averback with lots of help.

Who would do the narration, play the parts and do sound effects was never in question.  Nor for that matter was where to do the show.  Radio Recorders was the organization which did most of AFRS recording.  They were then located a few blocks from the Fox Studios on Western Avenue.  Our contact was a very competent guy named Eddie DellaPina..  He arranged for this motley crew of broadcasters to record the show.

The script started something like this. “AFRS started when Bob LeMond and (name not remembered) were in a bar discussing--What were you discussing? Tits.  Dropping tits...”  At that point Rudy Rubin and I each dropped a Los Angeles telephone directory from about three feet to the floor.  The show got funnier as it continued.

The only time I remember the recording being played was at the infamous last meeting of the original crews.  It was at Brittingham’s restaurant the night before we were shipping out to Angel Island to go to our destinations in the Pacific and China Burma India. 

While I have emphasized the funny side of Radio Recorders, they were the backbone of the early success of AFRS.