Foxhole Radio

What should have been a simple book about radios…

Cajun cake

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I won’t often post recipes on this blog, but Mr. Wiley did read off the instructions for the cake he served as dessert during my visit. It’s Cajun cake, a Southern standard, though I don’t know why pineapple and coconut is considered particularly Cajun. It was good with coffee.

Here it is, pretty much as he read it to me, loudly, from the kitchen.

20 oz can crushed pineapple
A stick and a half of butter, softened (he said margarine but I don’t touch the stuff – ed.)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs slightly beaten
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
another 1/2 cup of sugar
8 ounces evaporated milk
cup of pecans
cup of coconut

Drain the pineapple and keep the juice.

Cream 1/2 cup soft butter and 1 1/2 cup sugar. Add eggs and beat.

Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder and a pinch of salt. Mix this in with the butter, sugar and eggs. Mix in 1/2 cup of the pineapple juice. Mix in the crushed pineapple.

Pour into a buttered cake pan and bake for 30 minutes or “until it’s done” at 350. (It takes longer – closer to 45 minutes or an hour – but keep an eye on it – ed.)

Cook 1/4 cup of butter, 1/2 cup of sugar, the evaporated milk, pecans and coconut in a pan until it just boils. Add a little vanilla and spoon it all over the cake when done. let it cool and eat.

Cannonballs

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The story of the mysterious cannonballs, from the previous post, as told by William Lloyd Wiley.

“At one time they had a cannon here at Gonzales. I found a stack of these balls, they was about so high…piled up, and I got two of them and I didn’t know whatever happened to the rest of them. But Gonzales had an old cannon… (and these were) balls I guess for that cannon.” 

“They was in the river at the – where the dam is at the river. At one time back years ago the river would always get dry there. I used to go down and do a lot of fishing, and went down there one morning and the dam – they had let the water all roll out and it was almost dry there, and there’s this stack of those balls, right in the middle of the river.” 

“Those balls out there, I know where they came from, but I wish I could have taken a picture of it at the time. But it was in a pile right in the middle of the Guadalupe River right below the dam. Well they closed that – somehow cut the water off – and it was just almost dry there. You know, people used to drive across that river in their cars down there. But that pile of balls was stacked up there and I don’t know why I picked up a couple of ’em but anyway I went up to town and told the people at the newspaper about it. And I guess they all disappeared. All the balls disappeared. Somebody picked them up.” 

“At that time was – well that was back in the – I guess probably fifties- sometime in the fifties.” 

The Wileys

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This is William Lloyd Wiley, one of the veterans I interviewed, and his wife, Helen. They lived out in the country near Gonzales, Texas with their two dogs and a small herd of cattle. I visited in November 2007, intending to stay for only an hour or two. I ended up staying for the better part of the day.

They were lovely folks and very generous with their time. Mr. Wiley was a delight to interview and really didn’t need much prompting – he told what seemed like one long continuous story for most of the time. It was a sunny cool November day so we spent a lot of the time on the back porch, sipping hot coffee. Around noon they realized it was lunch time, and without interrupting his narrative Mr. Wiley headed to the kitchen to make us all a delicious lunch (meatloaf, veggies, and cake for dessert). He did most of the cooking in the house and enjoyed it.

He told of his life in the service (he was both in the Army and the Navy), of growing up in depression era Texas, and of a pile of mysterious cannonballs he found after the War one day when the Guadalupe river was temporarily diverted near Gonzales. He always wondered if they could be from the famous “come and take it” cannon, but there was no way to prove it.

After the interview, and after I scanned a few of his photos, as we were saying our goodbyes, he handed me two cannonballs, which he had picked up from that pile in the Guadalupe so many years before. He wanted me to have them, because he wasn’t doing anything with them and I would appreciate them. What an incredible gift. I’ve done some research but so far nothing close to a proper i.d. (I need to find a cannonball expert).

The Wileys made me feel very welcome and we had a wonderful visit. It was a great day. Sadly they both passed away not long after my visit, both in 2009. Many of the veterans, in their 80s and 90s when I interviewed them, have since passed on. Dedicating this book to their memories is the thing that drives me most to finish.

All About Radio and Television

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Here is the first picture of a foxhole radio I ever saw – from Jack Gould’s All About Radio and Television, 1958. It’s long since out of print but usually available at Amazon or eBay. It was still in many school libraries when I was a kid and inspired many science fair projects. It was the book that got me started on the foxhole radio project. Mr. Gould was the radio correspondent (later TV and radio) for the NY Times and wrote about these sets during the War. The book was reprinted in dozens of languages so I imagine kids all over the world were building these from the late 50s on. Foxhole radios still occasionally show up in science fairs.

This is the “pop culture” example of a foxhole radio that most folks remember, but there were many more…

Why this blog? Why this book?

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Many years ago, in the primordial days of the internet, I posted a short article about crystal radios. In it I mentioned “foxhole radios”, which were very basic sets utilizing a razor blade and pencil lead for a detector. I didn’t think much more about it until I was contacted by a few WWII veterans who built or saw sets like this. Their stories were so interesting that I was inspired to look for more. It turns out these little receivers were everywhere. I found more stories, and many more (very generous and patient) veterans to interview. Pretty soon I realized I may have the makings of an interesting book. The little radios would be the unifying theme, but the real story would be the stories of the veterans and their experiences. I started with a few simple questions:

1. Why were there so many similar radios all over Europe and the Pacific?
2. Why a razor blade?
3. What were they listening to?
It turns out these weren’t such simple questions, and they have lead me through years of complex twists and turns. I even found a WWI scratch built radio in the process.Here I will post bits and pieces from my travels, interesting foxhole radio related tidbits, and requests for things I am still looking for.