Interesting OSS V-Mails

[digi-shots]

I thought I'd share this small collection of V-Mail correspondence from DeWitt Goddard and his wife, Eleanor while DeWitt was stationed in England and working on the Joan-Eleanor Radio System with his friend and former co-worker, Stephen Simpson. Much of the correspondence deals with day to day life and looking forward to the time they can be back together.

 

For those of you that might not be familiar with these names, if you google "Joan-Eleanor", you'll get this from wikipedia:

 

The Joan-Eleanor system was developed from late 1942 onwards for the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) by DeWitt R. Goddard and Lt. Cmdr. Stephen H. Simpson, with some contributions from mobile radio pioneer Alfred J. Gross. It was reportedly named for Goddard's wife's Eleanor, and a WAC Major of Simpson's acquaintance named Joan.^[1]

The initial design work was performed at RCA's laboratories in Riverhead, NY, and the production units produced by Citizens Radio of Cleveland, Freed Radio Corporation of NYC, Dictagraph Corporation of New York, and the Signal-U Manufacturing Company. Most of the testing was carried out at in the USA and some at Bovington, England, beginning in July 1944, to refine the equipment with the first operational use later that same year.

The system was classified as top secret by the US military and was not declassified until 1976.

[digi-shots]

A little more info on the radio system:

 

 

[Brian Keith]

Really Great Historic items. V-mail is neat but usually not particularly interesting to read due to censorship. Those are great items, thanks for sharing them.

BKW