Becoming mobile

Mobile Unit engineer Noel Palmer inside the recording van at Maadi, Egypt in 1942. Photograph by M.D. Elias [Image: Ref. DA-04274-F Alexander Turnbull Library]

The New Zealand Listener magazine was launched in 1939. It was published by the National Broadcasting Service targetting New Zealand radio listeners. The magazine featured radio programme listings, previewed future programmes, reviewed recent ones and profiled personalities and issues debated on-air.

The magazine carried several features throughout the war about Mobile Unit. The issue of 23 August 1940 contained an article “Radio with our Troops. Travelling Broadcasting Unit now Complete.” This profiled the specifications of the Mobile Unit truck which had recently been tested at Trentham Army Camp and then driven through the streets of Wellington where it “caused considerable interest.. Like all other military vehicles, the unit has been camouflaged with futuristic patches of khaki and green paint. When it arrives at its destination if will be mounted on a Leyland [truck] chassis, a large Army one weighing 3 tons, capable of moving over any country in which the New Zealand forces may be operating.”^1.

The article goes on to describe the recording van body and its fittings in glorious detail: “Outwardly the unit resembles a large rectangular caravan, though happily free from all fantastic shape. ..The interior is a marvel of compact arrangement.” Originally, it was envisaged that as well as making recordings, the unit would regularly broadcast news and programmes from New Zealand to the troops overseas from the van, so it was equipped with outside broadcast equipment, amplifiers and loudspeakers. This aspect of its work did not last long and that equipment was soon dispensed with in Egypt.

The Mobile Unit van and trailer, built at the Petone Railway Workshops. [ The New Zealand Listener, 23 August 1940.]

The recording equipment contained in the van consisted of disc cutters, which captured sound by cutting it onto blank lacquer or acetate discs (similar in size to a modern vinyl LP record, but heavier and more rigid, having a core of aluminium.) The cutters look something like a modern turntable and playback arm – two can be seen in the van’s interior image at the top of this page. Cutting into the disc produced a highly flammable fine ribbon of waste lacquer called ‘swarf’ – hence the fire extinguisher in the photo above the disc cutters.

The two cutters sit inside dust covers, which could be zipped up when not in use to protect the equipment from desert conditions. The Listener article continued: “The windows are fly-proof and sand-proof…the roof is insulated…on the outside hooks have been inserted in the walls to hold curtains for a “black-out” when the men are operating at night.”²

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The desert sand still managed to find its way onto the discs however. When they were first preserved in the early 1990s by the Radio New Zealand Sound Archives, dirt and sand still had to be washed from the grooves.

The recording van and its trailer power-unit were transported to Egypt with the first three Mobile Unit staff on board the Empress of Japan in August 1940. The men arrived in September and the van was finally delivered to them at Maadi Camp outside Cairo in October. However, the Leyland truck chassis which the NBS had ordered from Britain, did not arrive in Egypt until July 1941 – meaning the ‘Mobile’ Unit would have been rather ‘immobile’ for its first few months. Fortunately however, they also brought a “Presto” portable disc recorder with them from New Zealand and when the truck delivery delay became apparent, unit chief Noel Palmer got permission from Wellington to buy a Ford Mercury car in February 1941.

Prime Minister Peter Fraser outside the Mobile Unit recording van in Egypt, May 1941. (Note the van body is on the ground – waiting for the arrival of the truck, but still has its outside broadcast loudspeaker attached to the roof.) [Ref: DA-00818-F Alexander Turnbull Library]

Even after the Leyland did arrive, the Presto-plus-car combination made the unit much more mobile. The 3-ton truck proved too slow in keeping up with the New Zealand Division as it chased Axis forces across the desert, so in the end it was used largely as a base unit for sound editing and recording in Maadi Camp, while a lot of the off-site recording was carried out by a portable Presto, which can be seen in this photograph from 1943. Several more Prestos were eventually purchased.

Mobile Unit staff record greetings from recently liberated New Zealand prisoners of war, shortly after their arrival at 1 New Zealand General Hospital, Helwan, Egypt c. 03 Nov 1943. From left: Charles Goodwyn Lewis (with recording equipment), John William Proudfoot (holding microphone), Sergeant Harry A Taituha, Private C A Petrie. Photograph taken by George Robert Bull [Ref. DA-03223-F Alexander Turnbull Library]

For some missions in North Africa, the Army loaned the unit a light truck and a driver-mechanic, but by the end of the war the Ford Mercury had still racked up 80,000 miles and gone through three engine changes and several gearboxes.³

When peace came, the Mobile Unit found itself in Trieste in northern Italy. The recording van was stripped down and reusable equipment and parts were sent back to New Zealand. while the faithful Mercury was donated to the Army, whose mechanics had done so much work keeping it running.

Ford Mercury advertisement, [Northern Advocate, 1 November 1946 via Papers Past]

References: 1, 2: The New Zealand Listener, 23 August 1940 p.13; 3: Hall, John Herbert, The History of Broadcasting in New Zealand 1920-1954, (BCNZ, 1980) p.133.