[Milsurplus] FW: [spyradiosets] National HRO's Dropped Behind Enemy Lines in WW2???

[Hubert Miller]

Forwarded for possible interest of a few.



Sent from my Gala


Subject: Re: [spyradiosets] National HRO's Dropped Behind Enemy Lines in WW2???


This is obviously untrue.
The HRO was NOT an inexpensive receiver and is not at all something you can move around easily. It is ludicrous to think it being paradropped.
I have 2 sets used in North America, one in Quebec and one New York. They are both R2 RS20 equipment.
I think in continental  Europe German agents used the SE series and in UK and Ireland both SE suitcase sets and the plug-in single tube adapter for the home radio. My statement here is based on my reading, so not fantasy. In the 2  North America examples, i talked with the men who owned the equipment after those events. But - - i still don't know how this low power transmitter was expected to leap the Atlantic. Was there a relay station in the Carribean or Mexico ?

Correction: the agent in New York, Erich Gimpel, who wrote his more or less accurate memoir 'Agent 146', from what i can surmise from his account, used the 6L6 tube plug-in for the civilian home radio. The question still puzzles me: how to reach Germany with this ? It's not like a ham radio contest, where you try and try and well, maybe you are successful. The second exceptional case was the Duquesne spy ring, whose radio equipment was higher powered amateur radio equipment. This ring was rolled up just before the USA entered WW2. I was very surprised to read that there were no death sentences resulting; in fact, the actual sentences seem rather lenient. Contrast that to how the USSR would have dealt with these characters.

Erich Gimpel was pardoned at war end and returned to Germany. But he visited the USA, possibly more than once  to speak at conventions of the "Sharkhunters", the US based organization of "U -  Boat history enthusiasts". So that exceptional opportunity to interview Gimpel about actual fascinating details of his mission are now lost. I became aware of Sharkhunters well past the time when Gimpel was visiting the USA. Altho the U-Boat subject is interesting to me, i looked at the Sharkhunters book catalog and concluded, this organization was one of those of people in love with the Third Reich military, and that is not me, and i declined to associate with it.

My cousin Albrecht Saelzler of Mannheim Germany was a U - Boat Funker ( radio Operator ) based out of Norway. As a youth i did not know this and it wouldn't have impressed me at all in those times. My brother did visit Germany in 1974 and stayed with them at cousin's house. Brother did not ask a lot of questions but the impression i got is that in the late war, i emphasize "late war",  you did not have so many of the dramatic sea battles, long depth charge bombings, shattering light bulbs and sudden leaks springing, but instead that the U Boat men knew the score and were, at least a good part, much less Gung Ho and just wanted to outlast the war.
-Hue Miller

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