Chenoa, Illinois

Last week I was fortunate enough to pass through the City of Chenoa, Illinois (on the way to Chicago) on a Tuesday, one of the two days (the other is Saturday) that the Chenoa Historical Museum is open. Chenoa was home to George B. Ferree, who built a "pre-foxhole" foxhole radio from spare parts during the First World War. I had worked with the Museum before - see my previous post about the late Evy Reis - but wanted to see if they had found anything else. 

We arrived a while before they opened and walked around the square a while. It is a classic small American town.

There wasn't much activity other than a guy on his riding lawnmower down the street.

The museum opened at 10:00. It was packed with documents, photos, newspapers, and all sorts of local artifacts. They have done an excellent job collecting objects significant to the area. They had a file folder on Ferree, a shadow box with some of his metals and WWI documents, and his WWI campaign hat.

They also had an interesting little stone turtle Ferree presumably carved during the Second World War, which he also served in. It was found in a garage sale in Arizona and mailed to the historical society. How it ended up in Arizona is unknown.

I didn't find much new information about Ferree but it was nice seeing the town and artifacts. The museum will be contacting me if anything else turns up so stay tuned...

A Mystery

This message was posted in the Yahoo group "Loop Antenna News and Information Forum" back in 2007:

"Hue, as a project in my AIT class (Basic Receivers) back in the early 1980's, I had the students gather the materials and build a foxhole radio during a weekend field training exercise. It took about two hours, and they were encouraged to improve on the design after successfully completing it. The model I used was handed down to me by an Uncle who served in the Marines through Guadalcanal, New Briton, and Peleliu, after which he transferred to the U.S. Navy for Okinawa. The first one he made while on Guadalcanal, the wire and headphones stolen from a Bell Aircobra. He told me the plans came by way of scuttle-butt, I.E. one guy would show the next. Apparently they were popular enough that aircraft headsets had to be locked up rather than left in the cockpit. He said he made several on Guadalcanal for buddies, and on New Briton, and one on Peleliu. All were sensitive enough to listen to Tokyo Rose at night, even on Guadalcanal. The plans he turned over to me were specific and detailed, down to which model number headphones were suitable. At the time I taught, Blued razor blades were the hardest item to procure. Luckily, a local small-town pharmacy kept a stock of blued razor blades. I don't think they are available any more. The original varied in several respects from the garden variety seen on the internet in that it was designed to receive 4-10 MHz rather than the Broadcast band, among other things. I suppose they were also used in Europe, but my Uncle never met a Veteran who had used one in the European Theater, though he met many who had used it in the Pacific."

This is one of the few references I've seen to a foxhole radio built in the Pacific theater, and, I believe, the only one I've seen built by a Marine. So naturally I'd like to find the author of this post to interview him.

Unfortunately he seems to have disappeared.

He posted under the handle mhatlau, and his real name is Mark Huss. He would be around 60 now and works in the electronics industry. If by some slim chance anyone who is reading this knows Mr. Huss please let him know I would love to interview him!