52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
Week 12 – March 18 – 24, 2024
Technology

It was 1941 and the war had come to the shores of the United States on December 7th at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Young men from various geographical areas of the U.S. had been killed in action or injured in that faraway harbor in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The United States of America was now fully involved in the World War II.
Draft-age men from the far reaches of our country began to enlist in the military. Many of those young men were still in high school, just seventeen years old. Among those who enlisted was a young man, barely out of boyhood, seventeen years old, a junior in high school. Not since the Spanish-American War in 1898 had
Joseph S. Allen, Jr. 1944
anyone from his family served in the military, his father and uncles were too old for World War I. His grandfather had served in the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War, and only his great-uncle had served in combat in the Spanish-American War since then. His name was Joe, he was my father, Joseph S. Allen, Jr.
Joe had always been interested in ham radios as a boy and as a teenager enjoying the interesting communication options it offered to him, so it came as an easy choice for him to enlist in the Army Air Force training to become a radio operator.
The technology of radio and radio waves had increased greatly, and the Army Air Corps chose select men to train and then serve in the Panama Canal Zone, a strategic area of command for our military service members.

And so, my then seventeen-year-old father left school as a high-school junior, trained, and was deployed to Central America to the Panama Canal Zone deep in the Darien Jungle at what was known as Howard Air Force Base carved out of the jungle 500 yards from the Pacific Ocean. He operated radios and intercepted crucial radio communications for the defense of the
Thick Jungle of the Darien Gap, Panama
United States and its allies, in addition to protecting the crucial Panama Canal Zone that had been established in 1903.
Born out of the necessity for mobility, radio wave relay became a significant development during WWII. Messages had to be transmitted quickly to avoid interception or decoding. Certain messages that couldn’t pass through enemy territories were flown to their destination. Radio facilitated real-time communication among all branches and ranks.
Dad served as a member of the 1060th AAF Base Unit and in the 530th Aircraft Warning Group. Along with other mementos of my father’s life was his Certificate of Service as a private in the Army Air Forces. This document certified that my dad had successfully passed all the U.S. Army Aviator cadet training on the 16th day of February 1944 given at Providence, R.I.

When he was discharged, he was a corporal and then enlisted in the Air Force Reserves until 1949. When he returned to the United States, he finished his high school requirements and received his high school diploma.
He served his military assignment in the Panama Canal Zone using some of the most innovative technology in the early days of radar detection during the 1940s.
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