You can read the sentence above as "dit dit dit dit pause dit pause dit dah dit dit" (and so on) and it means "Hello, this is Morse code!" in Morse code. Or you can cut and paste it into a website that conveniently converts it to English (and vice versa) such as the one you can find here.
I wonder what my mother's father would have thought of that!
While looking for pictures of my other grandfather for a newspaper article covering his upcoming 100th birthday, I found this:
My grandfather's pocket manual, used while he served in the US Navy during WWI. The cover reads Audel's Easy Lessons in Wireless Telegraphy in fine gold letters.
I carefully opened the cover.
Where I saw my grandfather scrawled name along with the name of the ship he served on. I then just had to ask Professor Google about the history of the "USS Ball.". It took me a while to realize that the period (".") meant "Ball." was an abbreviation.
After gingerly turning the page, I read the title page.
It says, "Easy Lessons in Wireless: A practical course of instruction on the principles - construction and the workings of wireless apparatus. For the use of student-experimenters and operators. Fully illustrated - [written] by A. F. Collins. Theo. Audel and Co. Publishers - 72 Fifth Ave. New York City. The next page bears the copyright date of 1917.
While Morse code is outdated, the fundamentals of wireless communications has has a HUGE impact on our world. I only need to say "cellphones" or "watching the Olympics live from anywhere in the world" to illustrate my point.
After some digging and follow-up, I found out that "Ball." was an abbreviation for "Ballard".
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Specifically, the DD-267 USS Ballard - Picture from Wikipedia
This is the Navy ship my Grandfather, a signalman, served on as a "Wireless Apparatus Operator". The USS Ballard was a destroyer and escorted convoys of cargo ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean carrying supplies for the Allies during WWI.
The ship was named for Edward J. Ballard who served on the American frigate "Chesapeake" and was killed when a cannon ball took off his right leg close to his body on June 1, 1813 fighting the British man of war "HMS Shannon" outside of the Boston harbor during the War of 1812.
The USS Ballard was launched December 7, 1918 in Squantum, MA; Lieutenant Commander H. M. Collier in command; and reported to the Atlantic Fleet. Between July 1919 and July 1920, she (and my Grandfather!) cruised to various ports in Europe and the Mediterranean.
I need to find a safe place for this keepsake - I'm going to print this entry out to put with it. :)
14 comments:
Great post. :)
It's nice to have things like that you can keep even when your grandfather is gone.
You're so lucky to have all these great keepsakes from your older relatives!
oh Wow, so much wonderful family history.... what a keepsake, how precious......
x
Awesome keepsake!
My dad was also the wireless operator when he was in the Air Force. I remember when I was a little girl how he would patiently try to explain how it all worked. I don't think I ever understood...
It's so wonderful the things we learn from our relatives.
Isn't it amazing how history seems to come alive when we see our relatives as a part of it??? Awesome post and info!!!
And your Grandad was Signal!!! Thomas will love that!
What a wonderful piece of family history. I am lucky if I can find a picture of my grandparents!
What a wonderful blog today Iggy. My dad was in the signal corps in the army in WWII..but he strung the lines that the operators sent the signals over. He didn't acutally operate the telegraph. Just made sure they could get one message to another via the wires that he and his guys strung.
Very good idea to print this out and put it with the booklet for safe keeping. :)
Oh, this makes me want to go through my grandparents stuff...but I'll probably wait until they don't feel violated by my intrusion. LOL Interesting it launched on Pearl Harbor day....12/7.
Oh wow! "old" stuff is so cool!
Quite a treasure you have there. You are fortunate to have so much family history that you can actually hold onto and "feel".
thats wonderful to have a keepsake from your granddad...hang on to it..
I used to have my daddy's p-13(military can opener)...I had it for almost 30 years on my key chain..and my son lost my keys..it's been over 30 years and i'm still pissed at him about that.
Oh you're making me impatient for my long weekend to CO next month. I'm really hoping I have some time to go through my grandfather's WWI and WWII records that my aunt copied for my niece. (confused yet? LOL) My neice is being promoted to Lt. Colonel on July 11, and asked me to be there.
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