World War II Amateur Radio Use

In the last post I talked about the use of Ham Radio for emergency communications in today's world. In the previous post to that I talked about how my ham radio interest helped my in the Army and how the Army helped my ham radio hobby.

But that was in the early 1960's. Last Thursday was Veterans Day. I attended the ceremonies in our local elementary school and had fun telling the children about my service and how ham radio fit into that time. I was surprised how many of them had never heard of "The Iron Curtain". Veterans Day reminds me of World War II and of my father and uncles who served in the Army, the Army-Air Force, and the Navy during that war. My Uncle Erv was also a licensed ham radio operator as well.

Did you know that at the start of World War II in 1939, ham radio was banned by 121 countries including the Canada and the UK. When the U.S. entered the war in 1941, the hams in the U.S. showed their patriotism by following the same ban to the letter. Soon after, the ARRL petitioned the FCC to create the War Emergency Radio Service (W.E.R.S.). These licenses were issued to communities, not individuals. Hams were asked to participate in WERS activities when the community government asked them to help. This was probably the first example of a similar system that is in place today with FEMA and it's subsidiaries all the way down to the community level with RACES calling out amateur radio operators to help with their radios during emergencies.

You can read the full story on A6CV's History Website. Scroll halfway down the page to the read The War Years" by KH6O. Our thanks to them both for preserving this history.

'73
WA2KKG