[Ccarc] Hams helped families in WWII

[Tom Murray]

Thought I would share this story I found on-line.

Tom  KB9WSL


            

                


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Ham radio operators helped ease worries



 
   
	   
	
	By Regis Behe
	TRIBUNE-REVIEW
	
	
	Sunday, December 9, 2007
	
	
	


	
	
When Lisa Spahr found a cache of letters in a trunk in a relatives'
home in York, she had no idea what she was looking at. They were
baffling to her and her family.

They were all very similar, much like the following: 

Dear Miss Spahr;
This is to inform you that I heard the following message from
Robert M. Spahr broadcast at 9 p.m., EWT May 8, 1943 via short wave
from Germany. "Arrived safely in Germany as a prisoner."
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The
letter, one of 70, was dated May 8, 1943. Robert M. Spahr was Lisa's
grandfather. The "Miss Spahr" in the letters was her great-grandmother.

"When I started to look at them, I realized I didn't recognize any of
the people, any of the cities," says Spahr, who lives in Regent Square.
"And further, I recognized they were all saying something in common.
They were saying they had heard over the radio that my grandfather was
captured and I thought, 'What is this?' "
Spahr's book "World War II Radio Heroes: Letters of Compassion"
(Intrigue Publishing, $15.95) solves the puzzle of the letters she
found two years ago. Spahr uncovered a network of ham radio enthusiasts
who tracked German propaganda broadcasts, then informed the families of
POWs that their loved ones were alive.
The above letter was written by Flavius Jankauskas, then a
teenager from Philadelphia. Lisa Spahr tracked down Jankauskas, who is
still a ham radio enthusiast. He told her he sent the message out of a
sense of duty to the country.
But the radio operators also were going against a directive
issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, that all shortwave
communications were to cease because they were playing into the hands
of German propagandist.

The radio operators, torn between duty to country and a passion to inform the families, came up with a compromise.
"They just went silent and went into a listening mode," Spahr
says. "So rather than sharing information, they complied with the
directive in a listening mode."
Thus, the letters that came from ham radio operators around the
country. One woman in Ohio was so passionate about the project that she
organized a listening schedule, so no broadcasts would be missed.
Spahr never met her great-grandmother, and her grandfather died
when she was 12. Spahr, 33, never had the chance to ask him about the
impact of the letters. 
"I have no idea what they meant to them," she says. "I know they kept them."

But she did track down a few families who received letters, along with
Jankauskas and Mort Bardfield from Massachusetts, who was also a
teenager during World War II. Both men enlisted in the military when
they came of age.
"Mort says he was just trying to get out of doing his
homework," Spahr says. "He says he didn't know he was doing anything
amazing. He delivered newspapers in his spare time to pay for the
postcards. ... I think it's interesting that even though these young
men were hearing about prisoners and people being captured and not
knowing their fate, they both chose service after this."

	
	
		
	
	

	Regis Behe can be reached at rbehe at tribweb.com or  412-320-7990.	
	
	

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