Each man was given a thorough examination when he reported on board and the results indicated that all of them were proficient and reliable operators. We promptly set to work and the radio-room fairly hummed, day and night. The transmitting apparatus was inspected, calibrated to the proper wave lengths, and tested. The receiving apparatus was also overhauled, minor repairs made, and adjusted to receive the various wave lengths used by other U.S. naval vessels. Then the inspection included the various switch-boards, storage batteries, heating and lighting systems, motor generators, etc.
The radio-room was located on the main deck with doors opening directly on deck, so it was necessary to devise a lighting circuit which should automatically switch off the lamps when the doors were opened, as the ship moved in total darkness. After stocking up with spare parts, the antenna was given careful attention, for nothing is more exasperating than to have your wires carry away and to have to replace them in heavy weather.
During a trial run in Long Island Sound, the radio installation was tested under normal conditions of service and was found to be in first class shape. The very fine type of apparatus aboard the Corsair made only a few changes necessary in order to make it conform with the standards of the Navy. We operators were fortunate in stepping into a radio-room so efficiently and completely furnished. There was a large desk with space for the Radio Officer in his work of coding and decoding despatches, a bookshelf, several chairs, a large wall settee which I used as a bunk, and a safe in which were kept the code books, ciphers, and other confidential material. With regard to comfort, there was no better “radio shack” aboard any ship of the Navy.
There was steam heat and running water which was cold, but we discovered that we could obtain hot water for scrubbing clothes, paint-work, etc., from the steam radiator. I ask you, fellow “Sparks” and “ex-Sparks” of the Navy, can you picture such comfort and convenience in a real, honest-to-goodness man-of-war? And it all helped to maintain good service. Our gang also had a percolator along with the necessary watts from the ship’s generator, and the outfit could turn out a brew of “boiler compound” that would keep a Mississippi colored gentleman with the hook-worm wide awake. We surely had a home on board the old Corsair!
At last, on that memorable 14th of June the ship pointed her bow to the eastward and steamed slowly down the Bay, with the dreary moans of fog-horns for farewell, and no cheers or blaring bands or fluttering flags. In the radio-room there was very little to do as we had been instructed to keep communication down to the minimum, for the enemy might infer from the amount of radio traffic in the air that some unusual movement was under way, or he might plot the exact positions by means of a direction-finder or radio compass. At the beginning of the war, naval vessels had a characteristic “spark” or “tone” quite different from the average commercial or naval shore stations, and an operator familiar with these variations could readily tell which was which. It was easy to understand why the troop convoys were kept as silent as possible.
For several days there was little radio work besides copying the Time and Weather reports which were broadcasted from the Arlington station, and intercepting for the skipper’s information all radio traffic heard by the operator on watch. In mid-ocean almost nothing was heard because we were out of range of the ordinary “spark stations,” but our “long wave” receiver, constructed by our own force, had no trouble in copying messages from such stations as Darien (Canal Zone), Tuckerton, New Jersey, Boston, and other high-powered naval radio stations while the Corsair was half way across the Atlantic. It was excellent work when you consider the fact that the special apparatus and “hook up” used were of the simplest type and that an amateur Audion detector bulb was employed.
When about five days out, the real job began. The Corsair was called by the flagship Seattle and a long code message received by the operator on watch. The apparatus functioned perfectly and there was every reason to believe that very little trouble, barring accidents, would be encountered. Soon we received orders to get in touch with the Birmingham, flagship of the second division of the convoy and to forward a message to her. After joining the second division, there was absolute silence for several days, and no radio signals were heard at all until we drew near to the coast of France and the edge of the war zone. Then traffic began to be heavy and the operators were busy copying messages into the “intercepted log book” almost every minute of the day and night.
This log was of great value to the captain, for the radio station of a fighting ship is an information bureau which maintains intimate touch with events occurring in other areas. In these days a man-of-war without a radio-room would be almost deaf, dumb, and blind. We knew that we were actually in the war when the distress calls from sinking ships or those which were under attack by submarines began to come hurtling through the air. This in itself was enough to prove the priceless value of the radio in saving life. For some time I kept a chart upon which were plotted all the positions of vessels which transmitted radio calls for help, but within two months so many of these calls had been received that I had little space left in which to record the new ones.
A typical distress call would come in like this:
SOS SOS SOS 48° 12′ North, 12° 00′ West. Torpedoed Sinking. S.S. John Luckenbach 1025.