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Camp Evans Oral Histories Interviewee: John C. Hansen Personal Notes Date: 1998? Place: Camp Evans Media: text and related photos Source: Jack Hansen (son)

John C. Hansen

Jack also authored a story "Without Spare Parts" based upon his dad's special assignment to make sure there were sufficent spare parts for radar units..

Jack,   Thanks!
 

Notes start here

The Radar I was assigned to work on was known as the SCR-268. It operated on about 200 megacycles.
The reason that it could operate on so high a frequency was because of the design of Harold Zahl who
conceived the idea of placing the Oscillating circuit in the vacuum tube bulb. and even at that the radar
could only position the radar with enough accuracy to position a search light on the target. The search light
would track the target so the gunners could fire on it.

At about February 1941 a shipment of equipment was received from England which was put in a building
which was off limits to all except a few who had Top Secret clearance.   The equipment was a Radar that
was powered by a Magnetron, an oscillator which was capable of operating at about 2,000 megacycles and
could track a target with enough accuracy to aim a gun without the search light. As a result of this the U.S.
collected a group of engineers and scientists at M.I.T. who in 6 months developed the SCR584 radar used
during W.W.II.

******

The war clouds were gathering and even before Pearl Harbor the government was preparing. In
September (1941) I received notice that I would be called to active duty within 30 days. I took the notice to
the Commanding Officer of the Laboratories and he got a deferment because of the work that I was doing.

Around, about, Christmas time in 1941 I received another notice alerting me for active duty, so again I took
the notice to the commanding officer and again I was deferred because of my work. In February (1942) I
received another notice alerting me for active duty and again I took the notice to the commanding officer. I
did not hear anything of this until the day I was expected to report for active duty. The Adjutant, at about
10am, called me where I was working and told me that I was to report for duty that day, however, I was
being transferred from the Field Artillery to the Signal Corps and that I would report to the Laboratories for
my assignment. This was on my (39th) birthday and because of the signing up for an officers rating was for
either five or six years and that it was the last date of which I could have been called to active duty.

I went to Fort Monmouth and reported for duty was given a physical and upon passing was sworn in for
active duty. Then I was given an allowance for clothing and a list of clothes that were mandatory.  I was
given two days to get the clothes, had my picture taken and given a active army card which entitled me to
the privileges of the Base. When I got home and told Peg of these I think she had rather expected
something of the sort to happen as she seemed not too shaken up. I took her to the base where she was
photographed and given a dependents card (the boys both received identification cards).  Took her home
and went shopping for a uniform.

As a result of my entering into the military service, there were several advantages. We were allowed to
shop at the Commissary for food where it was not only somewhat cheaper but we were assured finding the
scarce items, shop at the ‘PX’ for household items, then there was hospital service for me and my family.
Along with this there was a boat which left Sandy Hook each morning for the Battery in New York and
returned each afternoon to the Hook. We would only have to drive about 20 miles or so to get to the Hook.
Then when we arrived at New York spend the day shopping or doing what ever we had planned then take
the boat back.

We were in touch with Ray and Delva Homer who had moved to a fox farm outside of Sellersville,
Pennsylvania. They invited us to visit them during the first weekend in December of 1941 we decided on
the visit. We left on the Saturday and had a nice visit. Ray showed the boys live foxes and how they were
grown. We stayed there all night and had a very nice dinner on Sunday after which we left for Home. We
had to go through the East edge of Fort Monmouth to get home, as we were going through Military Police
stopped us and had us get out of the car and we were searched. It was Pearl Harbor day and they were
not taking any chances. This was the first that we had heard of the attack.

German submarines were operating along the coast and because of this we had to install blackout curtains
in the windows. The street lights were non-existent and the cars headlights were painted over except for a
slit about one quarter of an inch wide running horizontally across the middle of the headlight.

When I reported to duty as a First Lieutenant they were placing the officers where the ‘slots’ were, so I was
assigned to Supply of the Laboratories. Another officer who came in at the same time from the Bureau of
Standards was assigned to personal.

The Headquarters and the research labs were located on the Southwest end of Shark River Inlet on the
land that was originally used for the Marconi Trans Atlantic radio station, built about 1923. The larger
building was used for the Headquarters of the labs. The smaller building just across the street was to be
the commanding officers home.

The grounds covered about 20 acres and several long buildings were or had been built close to the
Headquarters. The labs. were located a bit more than 2 miles from the Shark River inlet and the city of
Belmar.

Bell Laboratories had the production line on the radar SCR-268. and because they were classified I was
assigned to escort convoys from Kearney to the Avon Siding where they were to be shipped to the troops.

I was issued a .45 automatic side arm with ammunition for protection. I had a driver for my jeep and troop
carrier.  Depending upon the number of radars we were bringing back we took a driver for each radar to
Kearney. Upon arriving at the plant I would sign for the number of radars and form a convoy with ‘lights on’
the vehicles and start out going to the Avon siding and getting a receipt from the siding for the radars then
going to the supply headquarters and turning in the papers, then on to headquarters to turn in my side arm.

This continued from March until the first part of May when the procurement people discovered that they
had ordered no spare parts for the radars. I was called in to Headquarters and told that my next assignment
was to procure parts that could be used to repair of the radars from the open market. As a starter I was
assigned an Engineer and a Procurement man and we were sent to Washington to work out a plan for the
procurement of the parts. We left on a Sunday night train for Washington and reported in at a temporary
building near the reflection pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument for work.

We first went through the schematics (SCR-268, 270 and 271) of the components of the radar and decided
which parts would be apt to break down. We then made a master list of them by type and value and
tabulated the results. This took about a week so we got travel orders written to go to New Jersey and
return to Washington the following Sunday night. The second week we visited the radio shops in
Washington and cleaned out all the supplies in the shops during that week. The result of the work was
tabulated and we returned to the labs. We reported to the labs and were assigned a total of three
engineers and three procurement men and returned to Washington. Master lists were made out for each of
the three teams. We sent one to New York, one to Boston and one to Newark to purchase the parts. They
would telephone me at Washington each night giving me the purchasing numbers. When I tabulated them
and subtracted them. During the evening they would call me and I would tell them what parts were needed
and what parts were filled. The teams visited Chicago, Buffalo N.Y., Cleveland Ohio and Atlanta Georgia
before we had completed the task. It took about four or five weeks. The teams spent in excess of
$2,000,000 on this job.

The job was about completed when we were given another $1,000,000 to purchase small
Gasoline-Electrical Generators which we spent in about two weeks. We were just winding up the whole
project, working hard to finish it on a Friday when I was told that instead of going to New Jersey that I was
leaving for Lexington Signal Depot in Kentucky that all arrangements were made for me on the train and a
hotel when I arrived and that as soon as I arrived I would have a driver assigned to take me to the Depot so
I would work through the week end and each day until the work was done.

The components which we had purchased were only color coded as to value, on the other hand the signal
depot would have to assign the design numbers that were on the schematics. The way the drawings were
made up each component in the radar was given a number and if a certain component was used in several
places of the chassis it would have a different number. So my job was to assign any one component such
as a one fourth watt 100,00 ohm resister the numbers which appeared on the schematics and to allocate
them as we had agreed that the rate of failure would probably be, for instance a component that had a 50
volt drop would probably have a greater failure than one with a 25 volt drop. This job was completed in
about two weeks including working Saturday Sunday and overtime.

I left Lexington on a Thursday night and arrived in Washington Friday and reported the results of my work,
then headed for home Friday night by sleeper.

In the meantime Peg had an attack of Appendicitis and was taken to the Fort Monmouth Hospital where I
understand her Appendices ruptured and she was very ill. The hospital tried to get in touch with me so they
got in touch with the labs and was told I was at Washington so they contacted Washington and was told
that I was under sealed orders that they would not give them any information as to where I was and that
they would not get in touch with me to let me know that Peg was in the Hospital.

When I got home I found that Peg was still in the Hospital and was recovering. A young girl was taking care
of the children.  Peg had one ordeal and I was not there when she needed me.

After this assignment I worked as the assistant to the Chief of the supply program for a couple of months.
The Chief was transferred from the area and I was promoted to Chief Supply for Evans Signal Labs. About
a month later I was promoted to Captain.
 

*****
Dated 1942
The work load on the laboratories was expanding and the Signal Corps were renting buildings as they
became vacant. Being in the military I was expected to be ‘Officier Of The Day’ about every two or three
weeks. This consisted of visiting each place where the Signal Corps had anything doing either research or
storage. At one time there were 9 places to be visited between closing time and the start of operations the
next day.. These were scattered from West of Red Bank to Sea Girt a distance of about 25 miles. They
were to be visited twice each night so by the time one round was made one had only about an hour before
one had to start the second round. Then one was expected to report for work the next day, so one would
go without sleep about 36 hours.

****

My responsibilities as Chief of Supply were 1. To keep records of all property
including expendable and nonexpendable items. 2. To keep a running account of the
number of each items on hand 3. To order supplies as needed and 4. Keep records of
each person as to the number of items that he or she was responsible for. The
personal that I had to do the work was about 250 people including three commissioned
officers who were responsible for each of the three areas. Among the officers was Lt.
Larry Peek whose wife was named Mary who were the best of friends. They had a Son and
while there had two sets of twins so the oldest son was four years of age when the
second set of twins were born. Peg as usual found time to help Mary while the second
set of twins were young."

****

It was in the spring of 1944 that word came down from Washington that because of my
technical background I was ‘mal-assigned’ in my duties and that I would be assigned
to a technical division, so the work started to balance the accounts for the supply
department. In the meantime experimental Radar was being crated to go to Asia. As I
was the logical one to go I was to accompany three trucks loaded with secret
equipment with three drivers and deliver them to Hamilton Field, Calif. The convoy
left Belmar on decoration day 1944 and the drivers decided that as they had 10 days
driving time that they would rather drive long hours each day and have time off when
the trip was completed so we traveled about 12 to 14 hours a day stopping at a
defense place where the Radar equipment was in a safe area and as we were under
secret orders we had first preference for accommodations. We made the trip to
California in 5 days and upon reporting to the designated officer were told that the
equipment was to be returned to the Signal Labs. We stayed at Hamilton Field for two
nights. We went to see San Francisco the first day and left for New Jersey the
morning of the second day. On the way back they decided that we would stay in Salt
Lake so they could see the city. The equipment was stored at Fort Douglas during this
time. I went to Provo and visited with Pegs Parents and Vern and Clara during the
day, returning the next morning to meet the men at Fort Douglas for our trip home. We
were gone on the trip about 12 days and because the orders were for 21 days the men
had about 8 calendar days of leave coming. Of course I had to report for work the
next morning.
In the meantime I was assigned to the Radio division and would be working on problems
that they were having of Quartz crystal failure. The building I was to work out of
was a temporary one in North Long Branch. As it turned out I would be working with
Arthur Prichard for about a year. It was at this time that Prich decided to give up
smoking. His son was growing up and he wanted to set an example for him. Working with
me there was not the temptation to smoke. One day at noon as we were walking outside
he reached into his shirt pocket and held up a half a pack of cigarettes saying I am
quitting now, then he put the pack back into his pocket. He never as far as I knew
smoked again. He carried the half pack around for almost 6 months before he threw
them away.
The design of Radio receivers had been switched from the ‘LC’ Radio tuning of
receivers to Quarts Crystals. The advantage was that one would only have to plug
correct crystals into the Radios and the frequency would not change. The problem was
that the manufacturing process was not perfected and the crystals would either drift
off frequency or would just fail to oscillate. There were about thirty small concerns
that were manufacturing the crystals, some with some success and others with little
success. The problem was that some of the crystals manufactured by any one company
had no relation to the life of the crystals. We at the labs were fabricating by
various techniques small groups of crystals to give us some experience. Then we would
visit the various companies to discuss their problems and to discuss their methods of
manufacturing crystals.

****
   Page updated January 2, 2004  page created September 6, 2002

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