Bien Hoa Is Taking Rockets

Timelines are strange. When you tell a story you have to decide whether to start and the beginning or the end or the middle. What makes the most sense is subjective. I think I have to tell you the middle part last. But in this case it seems to make sense.

 February 26th, 1969 a helicopter pilot from the 334th Armed Helicopter Company pressed record on a portable tape deck and captured an hour of live radio traffic during an attack at Bien Hoa in Vietnam.  A copy, possibly the original recording resides in the Michael Cook collection at the Vietnam Center & Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University. The audio is posted on line and available here. For that reason I believe that the person who made the recording is Michael Cook and that he was a member of the VHPA. It's a common enough name that which Michael Cook is hard to determine without more information. The recording on it's own merits is fascinating but it didn't come directly to me from that archive.

Fast forward to today. There is a zine and cassette of that recording for sale on eBay. It identifies the recording with additional location information and cites the recording as by the "3rd platoon 'Dragons' 334 AHC 145th Combat Aviation Battalion. The zine consists (purportedly) of a transcription of that recording along with related images and documents. But the zine was made in 1981 with a copyright is listed as "W.T. Boys" But that is 12 years after the recording was made.

The description states "These are not official U.S. Army tapes. They were recorded by Dragon 34 as a personal attempt to document the war. An inexpensive cassette recorder was carried in 34's aircraft for several weeks and was turned on whenever it looked like something was about to happen."  With that information I found the origin of the tape and zine. There was an advert in the classifieds of Solider of Fortune Magazine. This ad below is from the February 1982 issue, I also found it in the June issue. But for the zine to date to 1981 it had to have been advertised earlier as well.

The actual text is as follows:

"BIEN HOA IS TAKING ROCKETS. Cassette of TET offensive recorded by Cobra Pilot of 334th AHC as it happened. An hour of war "as it is." Includes 30 page transcript booklet with photos, just $15 postpaid. BIEN HOA PRODUCTIONS, Dept. SKS, Box 56, Fayetteville, AR 72702-0056."

That company, Bien Hoa Productions, sold other live military recordings, all advertised primarily in Solider of Fortune. It was an actual incorporated company, dissolved in 1990. [SOURCE] The agent name is "Tuckler Boys" a name that comes up often in this search. It surely wasn't their primary purpose but nonetheless, their duplication and distribution of the recordings is why they still exist today and appear in multiple university research libraries. Notes that were mailed with the tapes connect to a Tuck Boys. His name and address also appear with the PO box in the August 1989 issue of the Vietnam Newsletter. [SOURCE]. Is Tuck Boys also W.T. Boys or are they siblings? Perhaps but it looks like he also used that W.T. name in the SAAB club of American Newsletter in 1981.

The earliest I've found a classifieds ad was October 1981 in Solider of Fortune magazine. But there are still references to it in all sorts of chat rooms and corners of the internet. [SOURCE] I found it randomly in an issue of Counterparts [SOURCE], Popular Mechanics,  even an issue of Popular Communications from 1983 [SOURCE]. The tape even is cited as a source in the book Dark Laughter: War in Song and Popular Culture by Les Cleveland where the name "Tuck Boys" appears again. It was published in 1994. Once you start looking, he appears to be everywhere. I now think the connection between Cook and W.T. Boys is a red herring. He may have just been a customer who bought that tape. the connection is shaky as the same tape appears in multiple university collections. I am more confident that Tuck and W.T. are the same person and quite possibly also the person who made that tape.

Bien Hoa Productions 1990 catalog

The question remains: Who is Tucker Boys?

Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters

 

It's important to start with the fact that most of Tom Mix's radio and film catalog has been lost.  He appeared in 291 films, 282 of which were silent. Reportedly only about 10% of those are known to still exist. Recordings of his radio programs are even more rare. There are only recordings of some 30 random episodes. But we do not know how many were lost. If you have or find Tom Mix recordings please store them properly and try to preserve them.

If you compare it to Lone Ranger as a program of similar popularity and duration there could have been as many as 3,000. Tom Mix radio program aired from September, 1933 thru June of 1950. We know there was a break in 1943. But sources disagree on how many episodes aired per season the book Radio Rides the Range states 2 to 5 times a week. On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio is more detailed and it gives the schedule, day(s) of the week and number of episodes. The first season September 1933 thru march of 1934 was 25 weeks long. At three per week that's 75 episodes. It aired for 16 years so an estimate of 1,200 episodes is plausible. Some of this is estimates of course but this is getting complicated, I made a chart and came up with about 1,764 episodes. I was only able to corroborate some dates in RadioGuide, the Variety Radio Directory, Broadcasting and Billboard magazine. It could easily be more.

Start Date	End Date	Weeks/Episodes	Episode count
9/25/33	March 1934	25/3	75
Sept. 1934	March 1935	25/3	75
Sept. 1935	March 1936	25/3	75
9/28/36	3/26/37	26/5	130
9/27/37	March 1938	25/5	125
Sept 1938	March 1939	25/5	125
9/25/39	March 1940	25/5	125
9/25/40	March 1941	26/5	130
9/29/41	3/27/42	25/5	125
6/5/1944	1945	25/5	125
1945	1946	25/5	125
1946	1947	25/5	125
1947	1948	25/5	125
1948	1949	25/5	125
9/26/49	6/23/50	38/3	114
8/6/50	12/31/50	21/1	21
6/11/51	9/7/51	12/3	36
9/10/51	12/16/51	13/1	13

To most people's surprise, Tom Mix's real name was Tom Mix; it's not a stage name. He was born Thomas Hezikiah Mix in 1880. He had a strange career having fought in the Bower war, and the Spanish-American war, went AWOL, was a sheriff in Tennessee and/or a marshal in Oklahoma... at some point you have to decide what parts you want to believe.

But some parts are definitely true. He was actually a cowboy and worked at the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch in Oklahoma. The ranch was 101,000 acres (hence the name) and operated it's own touring Wild West show which is how Mix drifted away from real cowboy work into horse tricks, roping contests and competitive shooting. In 1905 the Millers invited members of the National Editorial Association to an exhibition. By the time the show took a hiatus in 1916 for WWI, Tom Mix was already in multiple films. He shot more than 100 films for the Selig Polyscope Company before he even joined the Fox Film Corporation and shot more than 100 more in the 1920s. More here.

You might notice we're getting into the radio era here and there's no mention of radio yet. That's because Tom Mix was never on the radio. I think I buried the lead a bit.

In 1933, Ralston Purina obtained his permission to produce the radio series Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters. Tom Mix then died in a car accident in 1935 cutting his career short. KDKA signed on in November of 1920 so there remains the possibility of other radio appearances. But as for the Ralston Straight Shooters, that relatively short overlap meant that Tom only had a short window to make a guest appearance on the radio program. In all the old news articles I've read I have found nothing.  I can't prove a negative, but it seems highly unlikely.

I did find two audio interviews, one with film so you can hear his voice at least. Unfortunately neither video cites their origin. Presumably it's for film but it's possible that it was used on the radio. Talk programs were rare in the 1920s so again, odds are slim. More here.

In 1933, Charles Claggett did an informal survey of local kids in St. Louis on their top heroes. Because of his work in film, Tom Mix topped the list. Claggetttook this information to his boss Elmer Marshutz at Gardner advertising. They got Tom's permission and needing a sponsor they pitched the idea to William Danforth the president of Ralston Purina.

The real Tom Mix did not have a voice "suited for radio." His voice, was damaged by a bullet to the throat and/or by repeated broken noses. So he was played by radio actors: Artells Dickson, Jack Holden, Russell Thorsen and Joe "Curley" Bradley. Curley is the most associated with the role but he only took on the role in 1944.

The program actually climbed in popularity over it's run. Per the May 1941 issue of Broadcasting it was ranked 2nd among rural listeners but50th by urban juveniles. In September 1946 Billboard reported "Tom Mix, according to Hooperatings for 17 months, is indisputable king of the kid segs.  In a survey released last week, the Mutual seg copped all nine firsts in nine different categories of Hooper tabulations." That year Tom Mix beat Superman, Dick Tracey, Lone Ranger and Captain Midnight —everyone. In August 1950 the series was radically revamped. The new show, still sponsored by Ralston featured Curley Bradley under his own name as The Singing Marshal. I have no idea why. That continued until the end in 1951

But 30 years later we got an epilogue to this story. George Garabedian produced two "final" episodes in 1982 to complete one of the few partly complete story arcs "The Mystery of the Vanishing Village." In cooperation with Ralston, it was released as an LP on Mark 56 Records with some of the original cast, including Curley Bradley as Tom Mix.

The Goodwill Family

 

Let's start at the SHSM - State Historical Society of Missouri  [LINK]. The few images I can find of the Goodwill Family all seem to originate there. On one post card they stand in a row: Uncle George, Little Eddit, Slim, Aunt Martha, and an unnamed person titled merely "yours truly." In another picture, they pose with a couch, with a note from the Busy Bee Department store of Springfield, IL. The text at the bottom reads "Heard over KWTO every Monday - Wednesday - Friday 6:45 - 7:00 AM." This one is a smaller group: Martha, Slim, Junior and George. In that one Junior looks old enough to drive, it's maybe 5 years later or so.

Springfield News-Leader 2019

Little Eddie, grew up to become Herschel "Speedy" Haworth Jr., a cast member of ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee from 1955–1960. He died in 2008. More here. From George's biography we can learn more about the more obscure Goodwill Family. George was an Earle and was no relation to Slim and Aunt Martha. Martha was not his Aunt, but his mother, Vancie Martha Haworth (née Wilson). Slim was her brother, Clyde aka Slim Wilson. Yes, that Slim Wilson. Slim appears in the first issue of the KWTO Dial in August of 1941, playing with a trio, the Hoakum Boys. But the Goodwill Family appears on the schedule, Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6:15 AM.  [SOURCE]

George Earle and Speedy were the first to get on the radio. Speedy played guitar and George read the funny papers aloud. It was a thing back then. Martha, Speedy, and Slim formed the first Goodwill Trio and began performing on KGBX-AM in 1932. KWTO-AM had the same owner at the time and they moved to the more powerful station after it signed on in 1933. In 1935, Guy Smith joined the trio as "Uncle George." With that addition, the Goodwill Trio became the Goodwill Family. Rev. Guy Smith didn't fit the musician model though, he was a  fundamentalist minister and he didn't stick around long. More here. He later turned up at KCKN and KANS, Cactus Jack Call got him a gig in 1963. More here.

Sources conflict sometimes. Little Eddie was also called Junior at one point which is confusing. Some sources clearly say that Junior grew up to be "Speedy." But the Springfield News-Leader says the "little boy" in that image above is Speedy. They cannot both be him. Speedy (Hershel) was born in 1922. If that image was taken in 1934 then he'd be 12 years old. Little Eddie is not 12, Junior might be so let's go with that theory and assume the image is just poorly labeled. This is consistent with another solo image of Speedy at the age of 12 that calls him a "Yodeling Cowboy." He's a little young to herd cattle but he'd already won a yodeling contest at the age of 10 so he was on his way.

That hymnal at the top has a single page of background on the troupe. It cites the 1932 date, but it makes some claims I find dubious. Firstly it states "...it's personal, with one exception remains the same as the day it first sang over the air on radio station KWTO..." Just between the two images we have an extra member and we know it began as a trio, not a sextet. Confusingly it describes them as "four people, a brother, sister the sisters son and a friend." That should be Martha, Clyde (slim), Junior and probably George (Guy) at that point in time. But it goes on to name them "Clyde "Slim" Wilson, "Aunt Martha" Baty, Junior Haworth, and George Rhodes" A PBS documentary on KWTO also cites Rhodes, specifically as a bassist. [SOURCE] But I'm lost again. Martha was a Wilson, like her brother Clyde (Slim). Her married name was Haworth. Where does the name "Baty" come from?

Let's go back to George for a moment. George was George Earle when the story started and was Guy Smith in the middle. That skips the third George, George Rhodes. That George played on KWTO’s Ozark Farm and Home Hour going back to at least 1944. Prior to KWTO he played with a band, Lonnie and His Cornhuskers. In 1947 he was part of the "RFD Round up" with Ozark Red and Goo-Goo Rutledge. He was performing at KWTO at least until 1951 with Buster Fellows. But he is the George most often remembered in print. They all played together on the barn dance program "Korn's A-Krack-in'." Those barn dance style programs were happening as early as 1946, and there was at least one in 1949. A general article about Ozark county musicians [LINK] casually mentioned that George Rhodes became part of Slim Wilson’s family group, the Goodwill Family during the 1940s.

Martha opened a restaurant Aunt Martha’s Cliff House in the late 1940s. It was destroyed in a fire in 1958. By the time of the fire, she was married to the chef, Charlie Hicklin. It was her second restaurant. In 1948 Martha operated the Corn Crib Cafe at 302 South Jefferson in downtown Springfield, and after the fire, she ran Aunt Martha's Pancake house. Martha died in 1966. [LINK]  The obituary names numerous family members and in-laws, but not the date of her marriage to Hicklin. More here.

But a contemporary description of the old Cliff House restaurant property, the Springfield News-Leader again refers to her as Aunt Martha Baty. [LINK] I had thought this was a typo, or bad AI. But even the original 1958 article about the fire referred to her as both as "Aunt Martha" and "Mrs Baty."  I found the answer in the June 1949 issue of the KWTO Dial. Mrs T.M.D. of Birmingham Alabama wrote in to ask "How long has Aunt Martha been married to Mr. Baty?"  The answer was "A little over a year and a half."  Mr. Baty was pictured in the May issue and named as Everett Baty. His story arc is short. The October 23rd, 1954 issue [LINK] of the Motion Picture Herald includes a small obituary.

"Everett Baty, Jr., 62 years old, identified with theatres at Springfield, Mo., and husband of Martha Baty, radio entertainer, died recently in a resort cabin at Kissee Mills, Mo., just after he had returned from a fishing trip on a lake."

It's hard to say when the show was over for the Goodwill Family. Their time at KWTO wrapped up in the mid 1950s and Martha became a restaurateur. They recorded a few 78s, and a few 45s. But that pancake house outlasted everyone. It didn't close until October of 2015, lasting a full 55 years. That's longer than the Goodwill Family program, Aunt Martha and all three of her husbands, her famous brother Slim Wilson and even her most famous son, Speedy Haworth, who passed in 2008.

Testing a 1913 Deforest Sperical Audion Radio

 I only found this video recently but it's excellent. I've never seen a radio engineer go thru the circuit component by component and explain how it's working at this level of detail. He has several other videos all worth watching but this one is really something special. If you've never seen someone make a resistor with paper and a wood dowel this is a must-watch.

Direct Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6ZVqr0fPo4

PDX to SFO

It's about 650 miles from Portland to San Francisco, that's a full day at the wheel. The plan was to spend as much of the drive on the coast as possible so instead of heading down I-5 or Route 99 I drove north west up Route 26 to join 101 in Seaside, OR; lost some time but gained some road miles.

The coast of Oregon is mostly rural, small towns separated by miles of forest. KXJM is located in Banks, along route 26 but at 68k watts is just another Portland station. KMHD petered out and I started looking for local stations. The Classic rock station 102.3 KCRX in Seaside was the first and their license is held by "OMG FCC Licenses, LLC" which is the best LLC name I've seen since "The Dude Abides LLC."  In this area OMG also owns 1230 KKOR and 1370 KAST-AM in Astoria which is too far north to receive here. (They also own a cluster of station in Alaska.) OMG sadly only stands for Ohana Media Group and not the exclamation "oh my god." Ohana's website has been down for quite a while and is excluded from the wayback machine so they're running dark online.

KCRX is classic rock if you think The Offspring is classic rock. It's fine but it's not all about Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. Further down the coast in Cannon beach there's a whole cluster of FMs to check out. The best option was 94.9 KBGE an actual AAA format station: Gorillaz, Florence and the Machine, Blur, Genesis, Live etc. Nothing unexpected but at least it's not new country. Down the road Manzanita has a local Classical stick, KQMI and then down around Bay City  we have another cluster of FMs now audible from Tillamook. Two are public radio: KTCB and KTMK. But down on the AM band I can now clearly get 1590 KTIL. My info said that it was classic rock but all I heard was country music... Slim pickins' out here. Bay City next door has an actual LPFM station 92.9 KAYN. [LINK] They had a bluegrass program and it's the best thing I've heard since KMHD faded out. 

Route 101 swings inland and I can briefly hear Portland stations again before heading back to the coast. In Newport is Lane Community College and their stations 89.7 KLCC and 90.5 KLCO. It does have some local programs, notably Eye 5, a Saturday roots music show but it's not Saturday today so I get an NPR zombie. Another hour south, in Lincoln City there's another classic rock station KCRF. But they're silent today. That went dark in the Pacific West foreclosure. [LINK] and [LINK].

Around Newport, more Eugene stations came in range. It didn't add any great options, further south Reedsport and then Coos Bay there's even more NPR zombies; KLFO, and KSBA, and yet more classical: KZBY, KWAX, and KWVZ and further south are KSOR, and KOOZ. AAA outlet KTEE was playing some Roasanne Cash. But in Florence 90.7 KXCR, a hyper-local unassuming 900 watt station. I stuck around and I heard a show about poetry, and listened to a talk show KXCR Conversations. These get posted online here so you can hear that very show. Also notable is KMHS, a high school station with not one or two but three sticks: 1430, 105.1 and 91.3. I just wish it wasn't wasted playing modern country music.

The drive was beautiful of course. I stopped at a joint named Mr. Ed's Espresso, Juice, and Underground Pub. The walls and ceiling are all hung with guitars of every make and model. The pizza is great it was one of the best stops on the whole drive. As I approached the California border I could hear 790 KRJY-AM, the Travelers Information station out of Eureka. This station is interesting because it's privately owned. They signed on in 1980 as KEKA. Prior to 2000 it was an Adult Standards format, and under Westwood One it was Spanish Oldies until 2016.

Station 910 KURY-AM should be playing Nostalgia but it too has drifted forward a couple decades more like it's FM counterpart on 95.3. The first California FM station I can hear for sure is 91.9 KHSR, an NPR zombie. I hear it best near the coastline. 1480 KEJB-AM out of Eureka is playing some actual oldies: Chiffons, Martha Reeves, Bobby Fuller the first one I've heard all week. I drove through Brookings, past several state-line themed cannabis shops and was in suddenly California.

I might have missed something but the giant redwood trees do seem to only start south of the border. I have since read that they do grow in Southwest Oregon but are smaller. The first LPFM I hit was 101.1 KFUG in Crescent City but they were playing modern country music as I passed through town but according to their website it's a crapshoot. It could have been Noiseparade or all Elvis. More here. I could hear 104.7 KHUM out of Humbolt by the time I got to Kalamath, more true AAA: Dan Auerbach, Beatles, Lana Del Rey and way too much J.J. Cale. 

Down the road I hit the Eureka-Arcata market which has a more robust radio dial. Station 95.1 KMDR playing is listed online as Rhythmic Oldies but is actually Soft AC. 94.1 KLGE a loungy jazz station... not quite Adult Standards though it sports some Mel Torme. A couple years ago they did a real deal radio play called "Hard Boiled Humboldt, A Half-Baked Detective Story". Yes you can download it and you should. [LINK] I expected it to come in but 105.1 KRFH, the one college station in town was not audible.

The area between Eureka and Ft. Brag is pretty rural but I noticed, starting in Eureka what KMUD has become. Firstly it is the station I remember. I tuned in and the first thing I heard was some talk about Shamans and then Native American music. They are now a real deal public radio network: 91.1 KMUD, 88.1 KMUE, and 90.3 KLAI. Don't ever change.

The dial got quiet until we hit Ft. Bragg and then Mendocino, home of 89.3 KAKX. The kids are surprisingly adept, nice mix of indie rock. Then the highway routed further inland. In Santa Rosa I can hear a repeater for KCSM on 90.7, and KWMR is keeping it weird. Kay Clements was still MD last time I came through, she's not listed on the staff website anymore but they just celebrated 25 years of broadcasting[LINK], congratulations! I also bumped into KRJF-LP which I've not heard before [LINK]. In the mid-afternoon I caught the New Music show, mostly a mix of AAA and indie rock, nice driving music. From there I could already hear San Francisco stations like KPFA, but I stuck with 93.7 KJZY, one of the few Nostalgia stations left, then all jazz 91.1 KCSM all the way into the city.

Filled with tacos from Tacos Oscar next door, I paid a visit to 1-2-3-4 Go Records on 40th Street in Oakland. Among other things I got a few stickers there, one for 92.7 FM KEXP.  The problem is that KEXP is on 90.3 in Seattle. Much like KYA Gold in Seattle... this station is 800 miles away from this sticker. The truth was a big surprise. In 2009 KEXP bought the station we now know as 92.7 KEXC. I'm not sure how I missed the news, but KEXP bought the old KJAZ stick from Flying Bear in 2022. There were other sights and other sounds, but you can't stay on the road forever.