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Magicians of
Monmouth

Saturday Evening Post
by Shalett, S.

Aug. 23, 1952

pages. 34-35, 58, 62, 64, and 66 

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Project Diana

The Magicians of Monmouth, N.J.

By SIDNEY SHALETT

At Ft. Monmouth, N.J., Signal Corps necromancers bang the moon with radar, send out driverless autos, reproduce Arctic cold, tropical heat, absolute silence and 200,000 feet of altitude.  But they still haven’t found a substitute for the carrier pigeon.

 If a visitor with no scientific or military background were to be given the run of the 2000 acre area which constitutes the principal and outlying facilities of Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, he probably would wind up in a state of mental confusion.  Somewhere in the vicinity of Telegraph and Pigeon avenues, he might encounter a soldier walking along and mumbling into a handie-talkie.  In another part of the post, a soldier -- obviously an enlisted man -- would be striding in and out of buildings, in an imitation of a three-star general on an inspection tour, while twenty eager military cameramen snapped his picture on the run, beseeching,  “Just one more, general, sir!”  These would be future Signal Corps photographers being taught how to handle VIP’s on the hoof; their training, of course, also includes combat-foxhole photography.



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