Advertisements from the old magazines often help detail important parts
of our history. This is particularly true for the World War II era. America's great foundation manufacturing
companies participated in, and were rightly proud of the united war effort in which they and their patriotic
employees engaged. We were under dire threat from Axis powers that sought to dominate the free world.
Stalwarts like General Electric, Westinghouse, Ford, General Motors, Goodrich, Boeing, et al, routinely
ran advertisements telling stories of their contributions to the war effort. Here is one example from
the September 1945 edition of Popular Mechanics, where Bell Telephone Laboratories ran an ad titled,
"The Bird with the 16-Mile Tail." A
C-47 Dakota
was used to lay down communications cable in otherwise isolated areas.
I OCRed this page from
the September 1945 Popular Mechanics magazine and posted it below. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.
The wire you see with the parachute on the end of it
is a telephone wire, being payed out from a C-47 cargo plane.
Bell Telephone Laboratories,
working with the Air Technical Service Command of the Army Air Forces, developed this idea. It will
save precious lives and time on the battlefield.
A soldier throws out a parachute with
the wire and weight attached. The weight drops the line to the target area. From then on, through a
tube thrust out of "the doorway of the plane, the wire thrums out steadily sixteen miles of it can
be laid in 6-2/3 minutes. Isolated patrols can be linked quickly with headquarters. Jungles and mountain
ranges no longer need be obstacles to communication.
This is in sharp contrast to the
old, dangerous way. The laying of wire through swamps and over mountains often meant the transporting
of coils on the backs of men crawling through jungle vegetation, and in the line of sniper fire. It
is reported that in one sector of the Asiatic theater alone, 41 men were killed or wounded in a single
wire-laying mission.
Bell Telephone Laboratories is handling more than 1200 development
projects for the Army and the Navy. When the war is over, the Laboratories goes back to its regular
job helping the Bell System bring you the finest telephone 'service in the world.
BELL TELEPHONE LABORATORIES
Exploring and inventing, devising and perfecting
for the Armed Forces at war and for the continued
improvements and economies in telephone service.
These images have been chosen for their uniqueness. Subject matter ranges from
historic events, to really cool phenomena in science and engineering, to relevant
place, to ingenious contraptions, to interesting products (which now has its own
dedicated Featured Product
category).
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