2/10/43 Hallicrafters’ Test Lab

The units sat on the test bench, they weren’t pretty, wires were strung out all over the bench, they had the smell of hot tubes and electronics and the tubes were exposed but they were working. The unit could scan one third of the German naval radio bands. It would take three units with different coils and crystals to cover the German Naval bands used by the U-boats. With this unit they could find a transmitter if it stayed on the air for more than twenty seconds. But there was a hitch in the equipment, it couldn’t just be placed anywhere. The antenna farm for the unit was enormous, nearly a mile long and it must be installed away from any interference. There was only one place the unit would work well and cover the Atlantic, on the isolated coast of Iceland. There were a ton of diplomatic considerations and they had to be resolved. Any other installation site was a bad second. This was presented to the President and the word came down, proceed with the construction of the units and the preparation for installation. When the contract was prepared, Hallicrafters’ offered to build five of the installations for twenty percent more than the price of the two that were planned, hoping to recover some of the development costs. Somehow the order got signed with that modification and the work commenced. The diplomatic issues were resolved and the construction of the site began immediately. It would be ready by the time the first equipment was available in April.

2/12/43 1300 hours—Colorado

Colonel Dolittle was summoned to the base commander’s office. He was introduced to a Jack Fargo, a fighter pilot who had just returned from Europe. Bob Plank, one of the recent graduates of the bomber school was with him. He was surprised to see Bob, it was extremely unusual to ever see a graduate let alone shortly after the class was stationed. They trained them and sent them off. Sometimes they heard a crew was killed. Three days ago Jack was flying a P-47 escorting B-17’s over Germany. He told of how they were forced to leave the bombers because of lack of fuel and could see the Me-109’s wait until they left to attack. If they could just stay with the bombers a little longer, even a few minutes would help. He met a B-17 pilot in a pub that evening after a raid. They discussed the day’s battle and how the Germans held off till the fighters were gone. The B-17 pilot asked why they didn’t refuel the fighters over the channel, giving them additional range. Jack had looked at him like he was crazy.