Canteen Radio

[Rod Salter]

It is too hot to work on the trucks so,
Over the Christmas week I tidied another section of my radio shed, assembled a set of shelves and got some of my home-brews out of storage, then after checking them for working condition, I displayed them on the shelves

new shelves.jpg


A radio in a box came to the surface again

box.jpg

My recollection of, an incident as told to me

My Dad was with the occupation forces after the Japanese surrender and passed through Borneo, he was also on the ship to witness the signing of the surrender document.

The story goes - Some natives took Dad and a yank to a cave that contained stored Japanese radios
He was initially worried the natives had a ruse to kill them, so they managed to get a few other soldiers to accompany them

Dad and the yank returned to the cave and stripped meters, knobs, valves, little dynos, and parts from the radios, eventually Dad sent a wooden box (24”x 18”x16”) full back to home.

While he was on Borneo a POW from either Sandakan or Ranau, approached him and asked “Are you the radio man?”

Dad affirmed, The POW handed him a little box “You might find a use for this, We don't need it any-more”

Dad and I had examined the valves inside, they were 1R5 Gt, with the bases removed

The valves and wiring look impressive, however it will not do anything,
Firstly the plate (?) of each valve is connected to the Grid (?) of each valve
and secondly - one filament is open circuit!

What was it's purpose?
We all can only surmise, perhaps, to surrender when the Japs threatened heads would roll, if the camp's radio was not forthcoming.

The valves in a little wooden box has always intrigued me

With the internet, I have researched POW clandestine radio and have discovered there were many ingenious constructions and their inventive hiding places

From simple as using a razor blade for the detector to regenerative Valve types
Simple crystal style was sufficient in Germany as the BBC was near but in the pacific the local broadcast stations would have been in a foreign language and Japanese controlled
So a short wave radio was a necessity, but more complicated

I have made a few.

During this research I learnt about the radio in a canteen, possibly the most famous of all POW radios

I decided to make it (Then hasn’t everyone?)

I changed the layout, compared to others on the internet, to make the wiring as direct as possible.

As the original was supposedly left behind, we don't actually know it's layout anyway.


Canteen radio 12sk7.jpg


The construction took me a couple of days, from finding parts and cleaning them to the metal work
Deciding on the layout took some thought and time, my canteen is a 1 litre as opposed to the original, possibly being a quart, so I had less area to use

top.jpg

I had some of the Japanese capacitors and a single headphone, so I thought in keeping with a POW radio I would use them
I wound the coil on a cork
I used rubber and cloth covered wires

under.jpg

Does it work?
Well maybe I should not have used the Jap caps as the radio stations are in a foreign language LOL

The reception is quite loud and stable (I have a single wire about 100 feet long and 30 feet up)
It will even work (weak) on the 12 volt for the HT, but requires very delicate adjustment of the re-gen control

What have I learnt? WELL. . . .

An article says Captain Russell J Hutchinson of the Engineer Corps made it from scrap parts and left it with William D Gibson when he was transferred from Cabanatuan concentration camp

I am awe of the constructor, (Captain Russell J Hutchinson) who:

1- Had the idea to make it

2- The knowledge of a simple circuit

3- Locate the parts

4- Decide to fit it in the canteen

5- Then to have the ability and time to make it

6- Finding batteries (apparently there were batteries in the hospital)

Later after the 12SK7 valve got burnt out, they carried the dead radio (an extraordinary feat) on the Bataan Death March, in the Philippines of some 66 miles (106 km) that 76,000 prisoners of war (66,000 Filipinos, 10,000 Americans) were forced by the Japanese military to endure in April 1942, during the early stages of World War II, and then another person replaced the valve with a 6J5 and rewired it, to get it working again.

Such risks with their lives, Astounding!

I can understand hiding the canteen in plain sight, but headphones and batteries are another matter!

Hoping you find this interesting cheers rod