Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

LIEUT. FOLLETT BRADLEY, NOW A MAJOR GENERAL, AND LIEUT. HENRY A. ARNOLD, NOW A FULL GENERAL. IN THE AIRPLANE FROM WHICH LIEUTENANT BRADLEY SENT THE army's FIRST MILITARY RADIO MESSAGE ON NOVEMBER 2, 1912, AT FORT RILEY, KANSAS. RIGHT—MAJ. GEN- ERAL BRADLEY, AS HE APPEARS TODAY. RADIO WINS HIGH TRIBUTE Maj. Gen. FoUett Bradley. Sender of First Military Radio Message from Plane in Flight. Hails Advances In Auiation Communication ONE of the greatest tributes ever paid to radio, particular- ly the part it is playing in today's global warfare, recently came from Maj. Gen. Follett Bradley, the man who sent the fir.-;t military radio message from an airplane in flight. Speaking during the February 7 world-wide broadcast of "The Army Hour" by the National Broadcast- ing Company. General Bradley, who is now Air Inspector of the U. S. Army Air Forces, said: "A little more than thirty years ago—on the second of November, 1912, to be exact—I sent a radio message from an airplane. That was the first military radio message ever sent from an aii-plano in flight. I was a First Lieutenant then, and my pilot was another Lieutenant by the name of Henry H. Arnold—now Lieutenant General Henrv H. Ar- nold (later named a full General), Commanding General of the Army Air Forces. And down on the ground at the receiving station was still another Lieutenant, Joe Mau- borgne. Major General Mauborgne was retired a year and a half ago as Chief Signal Officer of the Army. "We had arranged this test, the three of us, to demonstrate that ar- tillery fire could be accurately con- trolled from an airplane in flight, and the test was eminently success- ful, although we had no way of re- ceiving messages in the plane. We merely flew over the receiving sta- tion and they waved back at us to let us know they'd heard us. As I sat there, on practically nothing at all—the plane was an old Wright 'B' Pusher, and we sat out in the open air with two propellers buzz- ing at our necks, and we had no parachutes or safety belts, either -—as I sat there, tapping a key strapped on my leg. I am sure that I had no inkling whatever of the tremendous gains that were to be made in the coming thirty years in aerial communications. Neither, I am sure had my companions. "I have watched aerial communi- cations grow up along with the other developments in aviation, and 1 think I can say truthfully that I have seen miracles come to pass. I went to Russia and certain other places last year. On that trip we had American radio operators aboard, we had Russians, and we had Chinese. And I discovered that the science of radio communica- tions is indeed a universal language —a language that speaks to men of all races equally. "Today's global warfare could not be carried on without the magic of communications—and the intensive operations of aerial warfare would amount to aimless guerilla fighting without our highly developed com- munications system. "We are able to talk from con- tinent to continent, we guide our fighters, our bombers, our trans- ports over unchartered skies with an ease and skill that we who sent that first radio message from a plane would have gasped at that day thirty years ago. "The men who operate our com- munications systems deserve all the credit that can be heaped upon them •—they are the men who guide our planes out into unknown parts, and who send, receive and transcribe the messages that bring them safe- ly back. "I am a pilot myself, and I know a pilot's responsibilities and his job. I have sat beside navigators, bombardiers, engineers, in flight and marvelled at their skill. But each and every one of them knows that the magic hand that keeps them all flying—them and their plane—and that brings them home again, is the hand at the radio key. "There have been mighty changes since that day. and it is a good and useful thing that the changes have come—for now we have not only the best fighting e(|uipment in the world, but the best communications equipment and the best men to use it." [28 RADIO AGE