Admittedly I am not a specialist in WWI I military radio (still doing my reading) but I can tell from this scan that it was posted originally in Italy. Also interesting that the city of Livorno is rendered in English as "Leghorn" while the rest is unaltered. The 5th army area is probably Salerno. According to this site, the Fifth Army was composed of active Army, National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers. They were the first American army to initiate combat on the European mainland in World War II. They landed at Salerno, Italy on September 9th, 1943. Fifth Army was inactivated (in the scope of WWII) in October 1945. So this poster proabbly dates to between 1943 and 1945. While broadcasting continued to the present day, the presence of the 5th did not. More here.
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This was the precursor of AFRS. By mid 1944, they were AFRS or AFN.
ReplyDeleteThe AER stations had the "War Dept" transcriptions, when the name was changed in 1944, the stations were still there, just the name changed.Livorno, Sigorella, Naples and Vincenza are still there.
http://afrtsarchive.blogspot.com
I totally need to read more about this. It's probably the most neglected corner of radio history.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately most of the guys that were there are gone. I try to assemble what I can. There's a lot better available research on the Mosquito network. Did they ever use US sounding call letters in Europe?
ReplyDeleteI know they did in Japan and the pacific. I've assumed that they did, but I've never found proof.
ReplyDeleteI've never been able to document Europe. Mostly the Pacific but WVDI was Port Of Spain, Trinidad. The Canal Zone seems to have never used them. I have a disc labeled WRTC which corresponds with absolutely nothing.
ReplyDeleteWell it's not Radio Trinity College. My first guess would be a Recruit Training Command.. it's an old navy acronym. What's on the disc? any hits to location? freq?
ReplyDeleteRarely, the AFRS disks have call letters written or stamped on the label. Writing the calls on the label was common practice in the states. It's not absolute proof, but it's the closest thing to provenance. The disks were bicycled through stations in the theatre and Navy ships. What I have is GI Journal #69 from late 1944.
ReplyDeleteI have a bullion tab that says American Expeditionary Stations,was this used before AER...Dave
ReplyDeleteCan we get a link to an image? Thom may know.
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