Veterans...Get the hell in here now!

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
Long but worth the read.

The Rest of the Story! An incredible, mostly unknown story.
In 1933, a beautiful, young Austrian woman took off her clothes for a movie director. She ran through the woods, naked. She swam in a lake, naked. Pushing well beyond the social norms of the period. The most popular movie in 1933 was King Kong. But everyone in Hollywood was talking about that scandalous movie with the gorgeous, young Austrian woman.
Louis B. Mayer, of the giant studio MGM, said she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The film was banned practically everywhere, which of course made it even more popular and valuable. Mussolini reportedly refused to sell his copy at any price.
The star of the film, called "Ecstasy," was Hedwig Kiesler. She said the secret of her beauty was "to stand there and look stupid." In reality, Kiesler was anything but stupid. She was a genius. She'd grown up as the only child of a prominent Jewish banker. She was a math prodigy. She excelled at science. As she grew older, she became ruthless, using all the power her body and mind gave her.
Between the sexual roles she played, her tremendous beauty, and the power of her intellect, Kiesler would confound the men in her life including her six husbands, two of the most ruthless dictators of the 20th century, and one of the greatest movie producers in history. Her beauty made her rich for a time. She is said to have made - and spent - $30 million in her life.
But her greatest accomplishment resulted from her intellect, and her invention continues to shape the world we live in today.
You see, this young Austrian starlet would take one of the most valuable technologies ever developed right from under Hitler's nose. After fleeing to America, she not only became a major Hollywood star, her name sits on one of the most important patents ever granted by the U.S. Patent Office. Today, when you use your cell phone or, over the next few years, as you experience super-fast wireless Internet access (via something called "long-term evolution" or "LTE" technology), you'll be using an extension of the technology a 20 year-old actress first conceived while sitting at dinner with Hitler.
At the time she made Ecstasy, Kiesler was married to one of the richest men in Austria. Friedrich Mandl was Austria's leading arms maker. His firm would become a key supplier to the Nazis. Mandl used his beautiful young wife as a showpiece at important business dinners with representatives of the Austrian, Italian, and German fascist forces. One of Mandl's favorite topics at these gatherings - which included meals with Hitler and Mussolini - was the technology surrounding radio-controlled missiles and torpedoes.
Wireless weapons offered far greater ranges than the wire-controlled alternatives that prevailed at the time. Kiesler sat through these dinners "looking stupid," while absorbing everything she heard. As a Jew, Kiesler hated the Nazis. She abhorred her husband's business ambitions. Mandl responded to his willful wife by imprisoning her in his castle, Schloss Schwarzenau. In 1937, she managed to escape. She drugged her maid, snuck out of the castle wearing the maid's clothes and sold her jewelry to finance a trip to London.
(She got out just in time. In 1938, Germany annexed Austria. The Nazis seized Mandl's factory. He was half Jewish. Mandl fled to Brazil. (Later, he became an adviser to Argentina's iconic populist president, Juan Peron.)
In London, Kiesler arranged a meeting with Louis B. Mayer. She signed a long-term contract with him, becoming one of MGM's biggest stars. She appeared in more than 20 films. She was a co-star to Clark Gable, Judy Garland, and even Bob Hope. Each of her first seven MGM movies was a blockbuster. But Kiesler cared far more about fighting the Nazis than about making movies.
At the height of her fame, in 1942, she developed a new kind of communications system, optimized for sending coded messages that couldn't be "jammed." She was building a system that would allow torpedoes and guided bombs to always reach their targets. She was building a system to kill Nazis. By the 1940s, both the Nazis and the Allied forces were using the kind of single frequency radio-controlled technology Kiesler's ex-husband had been peddling. The drawback of this technology was that the enemy could find the appropriate frequency and "jam" or intercept the signal, thereby interfering with the missile's intended path.
Kiesler's key innovation was to "change the channel." It was a way of encoding a message across a broad area of the wireless spectrum. If one part of the spectrum was jammed, the message would still get through on one of the other frequencies being used. The problem was, she could not figure out how to synchronize the frequency changes on both the receiver and the transmitter. To solve the problem, she turned to perhaps the world's first techno-musician, George Anthiel.
Anthiel was an acquaintance of Kiesler who achieved some notoriety for creating intricate musical compositions. He synchronized his melodies across twelve player pianos, producing stereophonic sounds no one had ever heard before. Kiesler incorporated Anthiel's technology for synchronizing his player pianos. Then, she was able to synchronize the frequency changes between a weapon's receiver and its transmitter. On August 11, 1942, U.S. Patent No. 2,292,387 was granted to Antheil and "Hedy Kiesler Markey," which was Kiesler's married name at the time.
Most of you won't recognize the name Kiesler. And no one would remember the name Hedy Markey. But it's a fair bet than anyone reading this post of a certain age, will remember one of the great beauties of Hollywood's golden age - Hedy Lamarr. That's the name Louis B. Mayer gave to his prize actress. That's the name his movie company made famous. Almost no one knows Hedwig Kiesler – a/k/a Hedy Lamarr - was one of the great pioneers of wireless communications. Her technology was developed by the U.S. Navy, which has used it ever since.
You are probably using Lamarr's technology, too. Her patent sits at the foundation of "spread spectrum technology," which you use every day when you log on to a wi-fi network or make calls with your Bluetooth-enabled phone. It lies at the heart of the massive investments being made right now in so-called fourth-generation "LTE" wireless technology. This next generation of cell phones and cell towers will provide tremendous increases to wireless network speed and quality, by spreading wireless signals across the entire available spectrum. This kind of encoding is only possible using the kind of frequency switching that Hedwig Kiesler invented.
 

Charles U Farley

Well-Known Member
I have never viewed this sub, as I did not serve.

I know I haven't earned the right to post here.

Full disclosure, in 1973 I registered as a CO and during that process I interacted with some Generals from WW2. I've got the XXXX number form the military uses to record the interaction around here somewhere, but suffice it to say they busted my ass but I did not waver. I wasn't going to fight in a war that killed my friend for absolutely no fucking reason.

However, two of our four kids have served. One of them retired a couple years ago as a Senior Master Sargent in the AF after serving over 30 years. He retired during covid and couldn't have the ceremony he deserved but I was so very proud. He's had PTSD issues since he retired, an issue I've dealt with as well. But I've never feared for my life treating trauma victims in the ER like he did in combat. I've come home from work with brains on my shoes but nobody in the ER tried to fucking _kill_ me. So I have a difficult time talking with him about it but I know he's suffering. Saw the following video that I hadn't seen since his was on his 2nd deployment, cried my fucking eyes out most of today, which I seem to be doing much more these days as I'm approaching 70:



I won't share all of what I said but if anyone reading this feels killing yourself is the solution, please believe me it's fucking _not_ the solution. I finished up with this line that I hope it will help him:

"Anytime you need me, I'll be looking at you face to face within 24 hours, just hang on till then."

If anyone who reads this in the future thinks killing yourself is the solution, please remember the ones you leave behind will suffer more than you are.

You all who served are fucking awesome!
 
Last edited:

injinji

Well-Known Member
Mom worked in the Bendix plant assembling instrument panel gauges for B-29's. My Uncle was a B-24 nose gunner. He made a letter opener for her out of perspex after a AA round blew a section out right next to him.
I hate to say it, but you guys must all be really old. Mamma dropped out of high school her sr year to go to Washington state to meet Daddy when he came back from the war. Later on when they moved to Tampa, {after my grandfather went to prison for making whiskey} she did work at Lykes Brothers to make potted meat and dog food for the free world.

It's cool though. I don't mind being the baby. I'm used to it by now.
 

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
The attack on the USS Cole was a precursor to the cheap and mass producible marine drones that are fighting the Russian Navy to a draw. (well they have had some help from storm shadow) Every navy in the world is going to have to change the way they do business.
Your post got me to lookin' to see what we're doing about drone defense tech...

 

injinji

Well-Known Member
Your post got me to lookin' to see what we're doing about drone defense tech...

I recently heard a story on NPR about how there were lots of cheap drones on shelves ready to go, and the paperwork taking up to two years. Plus all the folks who do the buying are used to high dollar tech with all the bells and whistles. I hope the red tape gets trimmed soon.
 

FirstCavApache64

Well-Known Member
Just following the T.O. procedure...
View attachment 5337415
Reminds me of an entry in a logbook for an Apache we were tearing down to send to Boeing for upgrades. The pilot listed a fault as "dead bugs on windscreen". The crew chiefs correction report was " used CPR in an attempt to resuscitate dead bugs, attempt unsuccessful. Dead bugs removed from windscreen".
 

raratt

Well-Known Member
Reminds me of an entry in a logbook for an Apache we were tearing down to send to Boeing for upgrades. The pilot listed a fault as "dead bugs on windscreen". The crew chiefs correction report was " used CPR in an attempt to resuscitate dead bugs, attempt unsuccessful. Dead bugs removed from windscreen".
We had a bird that belly landed and destroyed one of our antenna's, basically ground it in half. I had to turn in the part with a 350 tag so I listed the reason as "Failed abrasion test."
 
Top