It was back on August 5, 1944, during World War II in the
Pacific, that Corporal William Becker at an American weather station at
Northern Samar in the Philippines, sent a radio message in Morse Code to
General Douglas MacArthur at his headquarters in Hollandia, Dutch New
Guinea. As part of his radio message, he
asked: Where is your radio station KAZ located?
Corporal Becker inserted into his question, a touch of mild profanity, which
we have removed.
Quite
unexpectedly as far as Colonel Becker was concerned, he did receive a reply
from
General McArthur about
other matters that were in the colonel’s radio message. However, MacArthur did not respond to the
inquiry about radio station KAZ, and he did not reveal to the colonel the
actual location of radio station KAZ.
So then our
question would be: Where was MacArthur’s radio station KAZ located?
In
response, we could ask another question: Which presidential
aircraft is Air Force One? The answer to
that question is quite simple: In whatever airplane the president of the United
States happens to
be a passenger, that is Air Force One.
Likewise,
whatever radio station General MacArthur chose for the transmission of an
official wartime message, that station was at that time station KAZ. However, that answer is not totally
accurate either. This is
the story of radio station KAZ; before, during, and after World War 2 in the
middle of last century.
It was back in the year 1924 that RCA, the Radio
Corporation of America, established a regional office in the Philippine
capital, Manila. Two years later (1926),
work commenced on the construction of their first shortwave radio station in
the Philippines at a location nine miles south from Manila.
According
to a contemporary article in Time magazine, this large new radio station was
established by RCP, the Radio Corporation of the Philippines, which was a
Philippine subsidiary of American RCA, the Radio Corporation of America.
The
article in Time magazine goes on to state that this new radio station in the
Philippines was one of the largest stations in the Far East, and it was
constructed specifically for communication with San Francisco in
California. At that stage, the RCA
communication station at San Francisco was in reality their large station
located near Bolinas, a little north of San Francisco.
During the following year, 1927,
four radio transmitters were
activated at RCA Manila, two on medium wave and two on shortwave. The twin medium wave transmitters, rated at 1
kW each, were
inaugurated
on February 12, 1927 under the callsign KZRM with a programming service from
the city studios. The first two letters
in the callsign KZ indicated the Philippines back in that era; and the two
final letters RM, indicated Radio Manila.
Quite simultaneously, a preliminary RCA communication circuit to Bolinas
California was also inaugurated.
Three years later again (1930), it was during the month
of May actually, test broadcasts from RCA Manila were noted on shortwave in the
United States and in Australia under the experimental
callsign
K1XR. Programming was a relay from the
mediumwave station KZRM, and these test
broadcasts
continued spasmodically for a period of some six months. After that, the new shortwave communication service
was officially dedicated, on November 26 (1930) under the callsigns KAZ and
KBK.
Exactly one month later (1930), a special Christmas broadcast
was relayed from KZRM back to the United States on two shortwave channels; KAZ
on 9900 kHz and KBK on 18750 kHz. Over
the
following
months, many other notable program broadcasts from KZRM Manila were relayed by
RCA shortwave and they were heard in the United States and in the South
Pacific.
In the early 1930s, additional
shortwave transmitters were installed at RCA Manila, with
apparently
at least one at 40 kW and another at 20 kW.
At the same time the KAZ channel was
adjusted
from 9900 kHz to 9990 kHz
Over the next decade or so, RCA
shortwave communication transmitter KAZ on 9990 kHz was often logged in the
United States, New Zealand and Australia.
However, with the Japanese military
advances
in the Philippines beginning on December 8, 1941, and the impending threat to
the city of Manila itself, American personnel began the destruction of major
facilities in the capital city area.
On the very last day of the year,
December 31, 1941, the RCA medium wave and shortwave station just nine miles
south of Manila was deliberately destroyed.
The 40 kW KAZ was dead, gone forever.
Nearly three months later: It was at
7:45 pm during the evening of March 12 of the following year (1942) that
General Douglas MacArthur left Corregidor Island in Manila Bay, bound for
Australia at the orders of the President of the United States, President Harry
Truman. It was indeed an
adventurous,
though harrowing journey by small boat, plane and train that took them from
Manila in the Philippines to Melbourne Australia where they arrived nearly ten
days later.
A total of 23 people traveled in
four PT boats from Corregidor island in Manila Bay, running the blockade of
Japanese navy vessels along the western coasts of the Philippine Islands. Initially this squadron of four navy boats
traveled in a diamond pattern, though they all soon got separated in the
darkness and the stormy night. It was
such a threatening storm, the weary travelers described the journey like
traveling in a cement mixer; almost all of the people were seasick.
They arrived at the pineapple
plantation owned by the Del Monte Corporation on northern
Mindanao
Island two days later, only to find that a plane load of refugees had already
been evacuated to Australia on the plane that was actually schedule to carry
MacArthur to Australia.. The Australian
government had sent a flight of four Boeing Flying Fortress B17 bombers from
Darwin on the north coast of Australia to pickup the VIP contingent on
Mindanao, though only one plane arrived, due to technical problems with the
other three, one of which crash landed out of fuel in the ocean near the
island.
Two days later Darwin on March 16
(1942), another flight of three Boeing Flying Fortress B17 bombers flew out
from, though one turned back. The two
remaining planes landed on the dirt airstrip on Mindanao Island by the light of
burning flares.
Next day in the early morning
darkness, the two bombers took off from the Del Monte plantation for the nine
hour flight back to Darwin. General
Douglas MacArthur himself sat in the Radio Operators seat in his plane; the plane
was under radio silence and no radio operator was therefore needed.
However, as the planes approached
Darwin, word was received that Japanese planes were bombing the city, and so
the planes were diverted to the Batchelor Airfield, forty miles to the
south. However, no sooner had the American
planes landed at Batchelor, then word was received that
additional
Japanese planes were on their way to bomb Batchelor. Hurriedly the MacArthur party, now aboard two
ANA Australian National Airways passenger planes, the reliable Douglas DC3,
took off for Alice Springs in the center of the Australian continent.
Interestingly the daily newspaper,
the Adelaide Advertiser, stated in a front page news item on Wednesday March 18
(1942), that the Japanese made their 19th bombing raid of Darwin “yesterday”. On that occasion, the newspaper reported, the
Japanese planes bombed Darwin and Katherine, though not Batchelor. MacArthur and his party were part of the
melodrama on that dramatic occasion.
In Alice Springs, MacArthur and some
of the staff boarded a special narrow gauge train that took them to Terowie, in
country South Australia. Thence to
Adelaide for another train, the Melbourne Express, which conveyed them to the
Spencer Street Station in Melbourne, where they arrived on Saturday March 21
(1942). The MacArthur family were then
ensconced in the ornate Menzies Hotel at 140 Williams Street where they took
over the entire third floor in the new hotel wing.
And so that’s where we leave the story of General
Douglas MacArthur’s favorite shortwave
callsign
KAZ for today. Thus far we have observed
that the American callsign KAZ was applied to
several
different transmitters (1 kW, 20 kW & 40 kW) usually on 9990 kHz at the RCA
shortwave station located nine miles south of Manila in the Philippines from
1930 to 1941. When we continue this
topic in a few week’s time, we will observe the usage of the American callsign
KAZ as it was applied to American shortwave stations in Australia.
(AWR-Wavescan/NWS 479)
