Canteen Radio
 

It is too hot to work on the trucks so,
Over the Christmas week I tidied another section of my radio shed, assembled a set of shelves and got some of my home-brews out of storage, then after checking them for working condition, I displayed them on the shelves

Attachment 111136


A radio in a box came to the surface again

Attachment 111137

My recollection of, an incident as told to me

My Dad was with the occupation forces after the Japanese surrender and passed through Borneo, he was also on the ship to witness the signing of the surrender document.

The story goes - Some natives took Dad and a yank to a cave that contained stored Japanese radios
He was initially worried the natives had a ruse to kill them, so they managed to get a few other soldiers to accompany them

Dad and the yank returned to the cave and stripped meters, knobs, valves, little dynos, and parts from the radios, eventually Dad sent a wooden box (24”x 18”x16”) full back to home.

While he was on Borneo a POW from either Sandakan or Ranau, approached him and asked “Are you the radio man?”

Dad affirmed, The POW handed him a little box “You might find a use for this, We don't need it any-more”

Dad and I had examined the valves inside, they were 1R5 Gt, with the bases removed

The valves and wiring look impressive, however it will not do anything,
Firstly the plate (?) of each valve is connected to the Grid (?) of each valve
and secondly - one filament is open circuit!

What was it's purpose?
We all can only surmise, perhaps, to surrender when the Japs threatened heads would roll, if the camp's radio was not forthcoming.

The valves in a little wooden box has always intrigued me

With the internet, I have researched POW clandestine radio and have discovered there were many ingenious constructions and their inventive hiding places

From simple as using a razor blade for the detector to regenerative Valve types
Simple crystal style was sufficient in Germany as the BBC was near but in the pacific the local broadcast stations would have been in a foreign language and Japanese controlled
So a short wave radio was a necessity, but more complicated

I have made a few.

During this research I learnt about the radio in a canteen, possibly the most famous of all POW radios

I decided to make it (Then hasn’t everyone?)

I changed the layout, compared to others on the internet, to make the wiring as direct as possible.

As the original was supposedly left behind, we don't actually know it's layout anyway.


Attachment 111138


The construction took me a couple of days, from finding parts and cleaning them to the metal work
Deciding on the layout took some thought and time, my canteen is a 1 litre as opposed to the original, possibly being a quart, so I had less area to use

Attachment 111139

I had some of the Japanese capacitors and a single headphone, so I thought in keeping with a POW radio I would use them
I wound the coil on a cork
I used rubber and cloth covered wires

Attachment 111140

Does it work?
Well maybe I should not have used the Jap caps as the radio stations are in a foreign language LOL

The reception is quite loud and stable (I have a single wire about 100 feet long and 30 feet up)
It will even work (weak) on the 12 volt for the HT, but requires very delicate adjustment of the re-gen control

What have I learnt? WELL. . . .

An article says Captain Russell J Hutchinson of the Engineer Corps made it from scrap parts and left it with William D Gibson when he was transferred from Cabanatuan concentration camp

I am awe of the constructor, (Captain Russell J Hutchinson) who:

1- Had the idea to make it

2- The knowledge of a simple circuit

3- Locate the parts

4- Decide to fit it in the canteen

5- Then to have the ability and time to make it

6- Finding batteries (apparently there were batteries in the hospital)

Later after the 12SK7 valve got burnt out, they carried the dead radio (an extraordinary feat) on the Bataan Death March, in the Philippines of some 66 miles (106 km) that 76,000 prisoners of war (66,000 Filipinos, 10,000 Americans) were forced by the Japanese military to endure in April 1942, during the early stages of World War II, and then another person replaced the valve with a 6J5 and rewired it, to get it working again.

Such risks with their lives, Astounding!

I can understand hiding the canteen in plain sight, but headphones and batteries are another matter!

Hoping you find this interesting cheers rod

Well Done
 

Excellent reading. Thanks for posting!

Peter Simundson

Fascinating stuff, Rod! Thanks for sharing.

Hanno

Winnie
 

Reminds me of Winnie the war winner , bits of it are held at the AWM I think. A wireless set put together by the chaps on Timor under Jap occupationhttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=quisMMLJRFo

Winnie the War Winner
 

There are 10 images (an 11th is a 'ring in') of WTWW on the AWM site:

https://www.awm.gov.au/advanced-sear...ype=Photograph

Captions provide a good explanation regarding its history. It is a lot more bulky than the canteen listening set.

The radio was on display in the WW2 Gallery for many years - not sure if it was included after the gallery half life upgrade.

Mike

Thanks Mike. Thanks fellows

My dad was stationed at Darwin during the war
He was at the American base out in the swamp
He was a "Listener" and communicator

I remember he said he (and others) took down the messages from the pacific island watchers, about the presence of the Japanese, the ships and planes
They decoded them before they were dispatched to Darwin, so he knew before anyone else some of what was happening in the pacific

I recall one incident where the message was plain and not in code

'They have found me I need to be rescued, send the sub'

Later another

'I am making for the beach'

Dad said he never heard from him again

I sensed he knew the man personally and it effected him for the rest of his life

Dad wore a black beret when I was a kid, I have all his kit and the wooden box (no beret unfortunately) also I have his correspondence lessons where he learned radio to be accepted into the army in signals. He had lost an eye in his youth and failed any medicals

On an occasion, Dad was travelling in the back of a big yank truck 6x6 with other men and a huge engine driven generator when the truck rolled

He helped the wounded, some died, Dad had a stiff sore neck for months and then he had a headache for the rest of his life. In his 80s it was discovered he had sustained 2 cracked vertebrae in his neck in the rollover. This caused severe shaking like Parkinsons from his 70s on until his death at 96

I believe the swamp transmitter all original was moved into Darwin about 2015 and the ABC stopped all shortwave broadcasts form it and others circa 2017 ( more research required, so I'll be more than happy to be corrected)

I was skeptical of glowing mercury vapor rectifier valves in the YouTube clip, thinking maybe Hollywood had intervened to make it look good
Then the remark of using a car generator also puzzled me as I suspect no man has the physical capabilities to drive a generator to produce any usable power

The photo from the war museum (thanks again Mike) has solved some of my questions

Attachment 111146

On the left is the antenna tuning unit (which they were soldering in the clip) then the transmitter itself contains 2 (no less ) 807 Valves (quite a monster)
Then the power supply with the mercury valves producing around 700 or more volts, and the most significant part is the small metal can on the left end in the front "A vibrator" This explains quite a lot

On the right is a control box and possibly the Morse code key

The persons who built 'Winnie the war winner" certainly knew about radio
I salute them :salute:

In the movie there is a 6 volt battery, I would think the reference of a "car generator" was used to charge it. I still wonder how they turned that "car generator"

This is a TRANSMITTER, so where is the receiver?

cheers rod

Ps I can start another post of more of my POW constructions if anyone is interested
.

Correction?
 

"The radio was on display in the WW2 Gallery for many years - not sure if it was included after the gallery half life upgrade." - on reflection, I might be wrong: I may be getting it mixed up with the POW 'broom' radio. :giveup

Mike

Max
 

Max Loveless from Hobart , a radio tech, was the main constructor of WTWW. A pre war ham .They salvaged bits of a WS 109 , the meter and knob and the PSU .