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

quarters" duty, operating communi- cations and other equipment for twelve hours, during which time three contacts were made with the enemy sub—two by blimps and one by the sub-chaser. Godfrey Rendell was asked to be ready to leave on an hour's notice for a port in the British Isles. Similarly, Ed Van Duyne. in the midst of holiday preparations last December with his wife and four youngsters in New York, was called on less than 24-hours notice to pro- ceed to an Atlantic coast port for an assignment expected to require from ten days to three weeks. The job was to train crew members on destroyers at sea in the use of RCA equipment. When he next planted his feet on solid ground, it was on the soil of a Caribbean base, where his services proved so valuable that his assign- ment was stretched to six months before the Navy agreed to the as- signment of another engineer to re- lieve him. Temporarily a "man without a country" when he re- turned without passport or other credentials, he finally convinced U. S. Custom authorities of his Ameri- can citizenship and was permitted to return to his home and family. Scattered through the Caribbean area are several bases which have been operational locales for such field men as W. W. Gilreath, P. C. McGaughey, C. M. Brown, and others. Although not actually serving di- rectly with U. S. military forces, two RCA engineers did yeoman work for the cause of the United Nations by penetrating the Congo country of Africa to supervise in- stallation of powerful radio trans- mitters for our Allies. To natives of the Belgian Congo, the strange new structure at Leopoldville with its towering an- tennae is just "singa pamba"—lit- erally tran.slated: "bunch of wires; nothing." To the rest of the world, however it is Radiodiflfusion Na- tional Beige—the Voice of Free Belgium. To this far-off outpost of democ- racy went Welden Shaw to install equipment purchased from RCA by the Belgian National Government. Shaw had the cooperation of vet- eran Belgian technicians in setting up the 50,000-watt short wave transmitter. Native laborers were not impressed with the significance of the project, but they did their work methodically and well. Just across the Congo river, where it widens into the Stanley Pool, is the port of Brazzaville, in French Equatorial Africa, among the first French colonies to rally to the cause of General Charles de Gaulle. RCA Engineer Paul C. Brown was in charge of setting up a 50,000-watt transmitter for Radio Brazzaville, which is a beacon of information and inspiration for men and women in temporary bond- age in Nazi-occupied French pos- sessions. Behind these installations on the Dark Continent is a story of men working 12 and 14 hours a day, some fighting fever and all men- aced by clouds of malaria-laden mosquitos, with temperatures in the high 90's, humidity 100^,. Foreign lands are no novelty for Brown. From 1935 to 1940 he lived in Saigon, French Indo China, while in business as a distributor for RCA products in the Far East. He left Saigon in October, 1941, joined the service division of RCA and returned to the Camden plant to work on the transmitter destined for Brazzaville. Throughout the world, there are still other RCA field engineers, wherever and whenever the mili- tary requires their counsel and skill in installing, repairing and servic- ing electronic equipment, and in- structing personnel on its use and upkeep. These, for the moment, re- main unidentified. One by one they will complete their assignments, be relieved by a fellow engineer long enough for a visit to RCA offices and laboratories, then stand on call, ready for any new assignment. And so it will go, until the war is won—the unheralded and unpre- tentious RCA engineer speeding to every corner of the globe to provide a vital link between working men on the production front and fight- ing men on the battlefront. ENGINEER PAUL C. BROWN TAKES LEAVE OF CAPTAIN S. KAGAN OF THE FRENCH COMMITTEE OF NATIONAL LIBERATION IN BRAZZAVILLE, WHERE BROWN SUPER- VISED INSTALLATION OF A SHORT-WAVE TRANSMITTER. ENGINEER BROWN GETS THE HELP OF NATIVES IN PUT- TING INTO POSITION THE HUGE TRANSFORMER, WHICH WAS PART OF THE RCA TRANSMITTER INSTALLATION AT BRAZZAVILLE. NO CRANES OR DERRICKS WERE AVAILABLE.