subject: Amateur Radio: How Two Hams Helped To Win The War [print this page] During World War I and World War II radio enthusiasts in the USA were starved of their hobby because they were not allowed to broadcast. Elsewhere however radio technology played a big part in both wars.Never more so than in the war in the Pacific.
Everyone knows that the armed forces make extensive use of radio, but in at least one famous case it was civilian amateur radio enthusiasts who made the real difference.
The arrival of WW11 in the South Pacific found Paul Mason, a 40 year old Australian plantation manager on the Solomon Islands. He was a short unexceptional man with glasses and looked much more suited to a bank or insurance office, but nothing could have been further from the truth.
He had been interested in radio since he was a boy, and was largely self taught. He was proficient in Morse code, and could repair his own equipment and wind his own coils. Consequently he was recruited by Australian Intelligence as an unpaid civilian coast-watcher and assigned to the Kieta area, near his work.
He positioned himself and his huge, heavy radio on a high ridge which allowed him to observe movements from many directions.
After their success at Pearl Harbor and the capture of Singapore it wasn't long before the Japanese armed forces spread out to Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands.
Paul successfully reported Japanese naval activities to base in Port Morseby which resulted in the bombing of many enemy ships, but Japanese intelligence suspected that there was a coastwatcher in the area and sent out a party to find him. Mason however had boys that were loyal to him that kept watch and he was able to escape into the jungle. The Japanese eventually left when they couldn't find him.
Mason wasn't alone. He covered the South of the island and a man called Read was in the North, this way they covered all sightings of shipping / aircraft activity in the area.
One day Paul saw a formation of aircraft heading toward Guadalcanal and sent the most important message ever sent by a radio ham -
'From STO, twenty four torpedo bombers headed yours.'
The US forces were unloading their human and equipment cargo but with this news they gained a 2 hour window. All the fighters on the aircraft carriers pounced and all but one Japanese bomber was destroyed. No US ships were damaged or destroyed.
The next day Read sighted 45 dive bombers heading SE and radioed the following -
'Forty five dive bombers going SE.'
Two hours later they both heard the commentary on the battle.
'Wow, what a sight,enemy aircraft being shot down like flies'. This was a boost to their morale and again the same afternoon and the next day Mason reported more enemy planes which were dealt with in the same way.
General Macarthur awarded the DSC to Lt. Read and Petty Officer Mason for 'Their contribution to the war effort'. They were given naval rank to provide some protection if captured and some income for their services.
Radio has been in regular use for only a little more than one hundred years, yet in this and many other incidents, amateur radio operators have made their mark on history.
