EE-8

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EE-8 with bag and telephone receiver
EE-8 attached to the tree
United States Army Rangers during Operation Overlord , 1944
Battle for Guadalcanal . This EE-8 also worked after being hit by a splinter

The EE-8 was a field telephone the United States Army . It was introduced in 1937 and used for several decades, including World War II , the Korean War, and the Vietnam War .

Development and use

The EE-8 was created because of the requirement of the United States Army Signal Corps for a light, robust and easy-to-use field telephone. It was developed in Fort Monmouth in 1932 , but was not produced by Automatic Electric until 1937 . It had a transmission range ten kilometers longer and was lighter than its predecessor, the EE-5. The EE-5 was in the First World War used. Before the Second World War, communications in the US Army relied mainly on wired technology; Wireless transmission methods by radio were intended for emergencies and for communication with vehicles.

At the beginning of the Second World War, the US Army had to fall back on the EE-5 because the EE-8 was not available in sufficient numbers. Both phones were used at this early stage; it was not until 1942 that the EE-8 replaced the EE-5.

The mobilization plan provided for a target number of 63,593 EE-8s; the production orders for 56,678 were initially distributed among six companies. At the beginning of the war the production capacity was only 50 pieces per day. The kangaroo leather for the bag was cut and sewn manually; Plastic parts like the telephone receiver were also made by hand. In order to increase the production capacity, manufacturing was switched to mass production, assembly line production and sewing machines were introduced. Leather from cattle the kangaroo leather replaced. The maximum daily production rose to over 2,000 pieces. Since the leather bags dissolved in a hot and humid climate, linen was later used as a material.

The Signal Corps' procurement system planned to distribute the orders for the EE-8 between several manufacturers, even if one or two larger manufacturers could have completely fulfilled them. The Signal Corps accepted higher prices from smaller manufacturers. For example, the Connecticut Telephone & Electric Company was commissioned to manufacture 15,000 EE-8s. Many EE-8s were produced by Western Electric .

Under the Lending Act, 201,174 telephones were delivered from the United States to allies , many of them EE-8; Thousands of EE-8 had to be converted to heavier and larger frost-proof batteries in order to be able to use the telephones in the winter months in the Soviet Union .

The EE-8 lived up to expectations and proved itself in the war. It ensured communication between the units. In order to coordinate the actions of tanks and infantry in combat, an EE-8 was sometimes attached externally to the rear of tanks for communication between the tank crew and the infantry.

The EE-8 was the standard field telephone during World War II. In addition to the EE-8, there were two other field telephones. The TP-9 possessed in addition to the generator and the bell of the EE-8 via a tube amplifier , the increased transmission range. The TP-3, on the other hand, was a powerless phone; it was very light and did not require batteries because it used the energy of the sound to generate the voltage required for transmission. The transmission range was a few miles.

The EE-8 was later used in the Korean War (1950–1953) and in the Vietnam War (until 1975). The more robust, lighter and smaller TA-312 was introduced as a successor in the 1950s. Both field telephones were compatible and were used in parallel for decades.

During the Vietnam War , American forces tortured with the EE-8, which was misused as a stun gun . The hand-operated generator was used as the power source. Amnesty International also accused Turkey of torture with the EE-8.

Discarded EE-8s were later used in phreaking to manipulate public telephone connections. A simulated bell signal could be generated via the generator of the EE-8 and thus a free connection could be established.

technology

The EE-8 was an analog phone and could be used in two modes. In the local battery operating mode , the hand-crank-operated generator generated a signal that signaled a call to the exchange . In the central battery operating mode , the operator operated the hook switch for this purpose . The connection was opened when the switch on the receiver was thrown. The basic components were the telephone, the telephone receiver and the leather or canvas bag. The phone itself consisted of a housing, some electrical components, two D batteries that supplied the handset's microphone with power, an electromechanical bell and an electric generator with a hand crank . The TS-9 handset was also used on other communication devices. The bag material was first leather, later linen, from 1967 nylon. The bag was 24 cm high, 18 cm wide and 9 cm deep and had a shoulder strap. There was space in the pocket for the basic device and next to it the telephone receiver. The EE-8 weighed about 4.5 kg with batteries and could transmit the signals 16 to 27 km, depending on the cable and other conditions.

The variants EE-8, EE-8-A and EE-8-B differ slightly in terms of the materials and internal components used. The operation of the variants is identical. There was no device to turn the bell signal down, which was necessary in the vicinity of the enemy. In order to attenuate or completely suppress the bell signal, the housing had to be opened and the bell manipulated. A visual signal transmitter could also be attached.

literature

Web links

Commons : EE-8  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Signal Corps: The emergency p. 34
  2. ↑ IRE Transactions on Military Electronics, Volumes 1-4, Institute of Radio Engineers p. 544 [1]
  3. ^ The Signal Corps: The emergency p. 34
  4. ^ The Signal Corps: The emergency p. 248
  5. ^ The Signal Corps: The emergency p. 138
  6. ^ The Signal Corps: The test, p. 70
  7. ↑ a b c d e Alfred J. Nigl, Charles A. Nigl: Silent Wings, Savage Death: Saga of the 82nd Airborne's Glider Artillery in World War II , Graphic Publishing, 2007, ISBN 9781882824311 , p. 91 [2]
  8. ^ The Signal Corps: The emergency p. 248
  9. ^ The Signal Corps: The emergency p. 171
  10. ^ The Signal Corps: The test p. 330
  11. ^ The Signal Corps: The test, p. 168
  12. ^ The Signal Corps: The test, p. 501
  13. ^ The Signal Corps: The test p. 480
  14. ^ The Signal Corps: The Outcome, p. 222
  15. ↑ a b c d Christopher H. Sterling (Ed.): Military Communications: From Ancient Times to the 21st Century , Verlag ABC-CLIO , 2008, ISBN 9781851097326 , p. 446 [3]
  16. ^ The Signal Corps: The emergency p. 308
  17. ↑ Darius Rejali: Torture and Democracy , Princeton University Press , 2009, ISBN 9781400830879 , p 585 [4]
  18. ↑ Amnesty International : Turkey: brutal and systematic abuse of human rights , Verlag Amnesty International USA, 1989 ISBN 9780939994427 , p. 15 [5]
  19. ^ Lewis Coe: The Telephone and Its Several Inventors: A History , McFarland Verlag, 1995, ISBN 9780786401383 , p. 138 [6]
  20. ^ The Signal Corps: The emergency p. 341
  21. ↑ TM 11-333, pp. 1-2
  22. ↑ TM 11-333, pp. 1-2
  23. ↑ TM 11-333, p. 8
  24. ↑ TM 11-333, pp 23-25