A small tip of the hat to the WWII generation

[Bob Womack]

Back at the height of the hostilities in WWII, as young soldiers marched off to war, their families were desperate for some keepsake from them, something to prove they had existed were they to be claimed by the war. As foreign as it may sound to us, the Japanese left their families hair and fingernail clippings in order for them to have something in their hands that was part of them. Of course, folks in the West were a bit more stoic in this regard and usually settled for photos. But the USO came up with another idea to help connect families and soldiers.

In order to create a little more personal memento, the USO offered the state-of-the-art in consumer audio recording at the time - a booth with a 78rpm transcription disk (record) cutting system. It was an opportunity for a soldier to leave a little vocal message for his family. Yup, a microphone fed a cutting head that literally cut records spinning at 78rpm. A recordist had to sit by the deck and brush off the long, thin tendril of plastic that was being cut out of the groove by the lathe so that it wouldn't lay across the next pass and cause a drop-out. The result was a real recording that could be played on the standard playback device of the time, the 78rpm record player. The disks came in a cardboard packing sleeve with space for the family's address to be written in. The Post Office was a bit more careful with packages back then.

And so in 1943, as he was shipping off to the European Theater of Operations, one particular young American soldier leaving a base in Petersburg, VA, dropped by the USO club and availed himself of their services - he recorded an audible greeting for his family. He packaged it up, sent it home, and then went off to war and died. The family received both the recordings and the news of their loved one's death. After playing the records a few times, the family packed them up and put them away.

A couple of weeks ago, the family asked a friend of mine if he knew anyone who could possibly resuscitate these recordings. They, like most people, hadn't had a 78rpm record player in the house since the 1960s. That is where I came into the mix. I am an audio recording engineer, specifically an Audio Post Production Design Engineer. I specialize in mixing and sound design for video and film and work with state of the art equipment to accomplish my chores. I do a lot of cleaning up recordings. At first, when I brought the recordings into my editing software and played them back, I thought my friend was playing a great prank on me: They sounded like empty, worn-out, and abused disks, nothing but crackles and pops. But as I listened through the racket on the studio monitors, I realized I could just barely perceive that there was a voice way off in the clutter, singing. Oh, my! The noise-to-signal ratio, yes, noise-to-signal - that's opposite of signal-to-noise because the the noise was louder than the signal - was probably about 65db. For those in the biz, that means that if the voice was considered a background noise and the surface crackles the main program, the voice's level could be compared to that of the background hiss on a 1970s professional tape deck without noise reduction. Hoo-boy! I almost threw up my hands.

But this was a memento from a soldier to his family. I had the chance to help do a service to the family of a soldier who bought my freedom. I blocked out some time and attacked the project. First, I spent some time applying several of the digital tools designed to do just this job, remove surface crackles and pops. Unfortunately, one by one they packed it in and gave up. They just couldn't deal with the fact that the noise was higher than the signal. Hoo-boy! This was going to require all my Jedi audio skills. I tried another tactic and applied a tool that was not designed for this job. As I worked on it, little by little, an fine tenor began to emerge, singing a pair of Irish lullabies. A few hours and devices later I had cleaned up the two songs as well as possible. The final product was anything but pristine. But you could recognize the voice and enjoy the songs.

I finished up the work a few days ago and prepared a compact disk. My friend gave it to the family of the soldier. I heard nothing about them until today, when I crossed paths with my friend who had been the go-between. I asked, "How did it go with the CD?" He said simply, "His sister cried when she heard it." So, I had the privilege to bring a young soldier's voice back to life for his family. If you ask me, all the work was worth it.


Bob

Information

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[critter44]

Thank you for your service to that man and his family!

[A. F Medic]

Found in local auction. Friend is trying to bring out the voice. Difficult to do.

[Nubber]

Having grown up in Petersburg, VA I remember the USO club on Wyth Street. It resembled a Army Barracks in shape. It was demolished many years ago.

[Bill Hollinger]

At my son's JROTC awards ceremony last week lots of medals and ranks were given out to the kids but the highlight of the evening was the WWII/Korea vet that was present in the audience. I had to get in line to shake his hand and thank him for his service to this country.