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TI: So this was, so there's collaboration between the Russian Government to supply weather information to --

HM: Not really, it was that we were just intercepting their information. And they had their own weather collection themselves, so that they can predict, and also warn their own aircraft and all shipping and so forth on the weather predictions.

TI: Okay, so you got first the Russian signals, and then you have these weather stations on the Aleutian Chain?

HM: Yeah. We had a whole bunch of them down the Aleutian Chain all the way down to Shemya which was like, I don't know, that's about close to two thousand miles down from Anchorage. It's a long, long chain. And we also had the stations like Point Barrow and Umiat and all these different places.

TI: I'm curious. Were these stations staffed, or were these --

HM: They were staffed. They were staffed by at least thirteen people. They had their own cooks. They had their own weather people. They had the FAA airways communication type people, and air navigational facilities. So each one of these stations were independent and autonomous organizations, and they all operated out of the eighth region. And because we needed to collect the weather data, all these stations had to have com -- telecommunications capabilities. And then they all had an airport because we have to land the personnel there, and land the mail, bring 'em equipment and all this kind of stuff, bring 'em supplies. So they were all fed from the Anchorage central headquarters.

TI: Did you have occasion to go visit these, these --

HM: Well, my brother was on flight status at that time, so he would fly out of Anchorage and they'd go out to these different field stations. And one of the, his jobs was that he would have to calibrate the air navigational facility equipment, like they have radio ranges, they have landing system equipment, on some of the major fields, they had a lot of ability to have airplanes come into the system regardless of what the weather was. And it was all-weather type situation. At that point we were using the basic ILS system which was a pretty old system, obsolete system today, but nonetheless that was what was available and we would be able to use any kind of weather to bring the airplanes down. And all the FAA flight equipment was geared to that capability, so regardless of what the weather was, if they were able to fly the airplane, they would be able to land it or take it off. But, we were flying converted C47's, DC3's, Douglas airplanes, and they had all the air nav. equipment in there. And all the people that were involved in the process were required to take instrument flying. And so when I ended up taking the teletype course and the Bohme high speed interaction Morse code system, which happens to be German by nature, but the Russians adapted it after they defeated Germany. And they were using this Bohme system. And the Bohme system required exceptionally fine and meticulous maintenance on these Keying Heads. And my brother was, had the reputation of -- he came out number one in the teletype class about a year and a half before I even entered the, the school, when he first went to work for FAA. And unfortunately his reputation kind of hung on my back because we had the same last name. So the teletype instructor was very, very rigorous with me. He was very stringent. And he made me a, one of the guys that he pinpointed from troubleshooting efforts and things of this nature. So it was kind of hard for me to follow in his capabilities. And, but this was the precursor about some other things that happened later on. But, anyway --

TI: Well how did it feel? I mean you following sorta in the footsteps of your brother. I mean, was that something that you saw as a positive, or was that a negative --

HM: Well, they expected more out of me than what I was willing to provide. And it, like for instance on this Bohme Keying Head system. It, it's a very precise piece of equipment and you cannot use parts that are not paired to each other. They're honed surfaces. So consequently, when you start putting the thing together, it's like a watch that you put together because the thing is extremely accurate and precision formed machine. And it's one of these deals where you have to have a good dinner or a good meal, very content, you be, you have to be really relaxed. Because when you try to put this thing together, if you got nervous hands, you've had trouble. You wouldn't be able to put the dumb thing together. And my brother was very good at these kind of intricate devices. He was so good at it that when he went out to these different field sites, they would have a bunch of Bohme Keying Heads already available for him to overhaul. He would spend a lot of his time in the evenings overhauling these dumb things, because some of these station technicians weren't capable of doing it. So anyway, I fell into the same trap at the Anchorage central control station. And so it got to be a problem because Monday, on my Monday shift when I used to come into work, they would have all these Keying Heads lined up and says, "Henry, you got this job for the whole week. You're gonna overhaul these darn things." And once you take 'em apart, if you, you have to leave those items paired together because they had sliding surfaces, they have a Geneva Drive mechanism in it. If you took 'em apart and you just didn't track which ones were paired to which areas, you could never put the dumb thing together because they just will not fit. It would not slide together. And it had so much play in it, the thing wouldn't work right. So I devised all these trays, and I had this guy in the shop make all these different trays to put all these paired items together to identify 'em as such. So when I took it apart I had these things all into the labeled container areas. And these had little small pins with springs in it. And all these things were paired to each other, so if you took 'em apart, it must be on this side, the flat side goes to the interior mechanism. And we used to mark it with a scribe pen, this is the interior side, and we used to put the numbers on 'em. That's the only way I could go through this equipment and make it work right. And once you get that reputation it's terrible because they're gonna foist all that stuff on you.

TI: Well, I'm curious, did, in some ways did you surpass your brother in terms of doing this function?

HM: Well, my brother used to come back and say, "Oh man, you're doing it the wrong way. This is the way to do it." And he used to show me all the shortcuts that he devised over the time period he was doing this thing. So we devised some jigs to hold these things in position. So when you lowered that item into the brass housing, then you were able to lower everything together rather than trying to put one piece together then the next piece in the assembly function inside of this brass housing. That thing was designed as a nightmare for any individuals that had nervous hands because he couldn't possibly do it.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.