SB SPCL @ ARL $ARLX039
ARLX039 Ham's war anniversary
 
ZCZC AX09
QST de W1AW  
Special Bulletin 39  ARLX039
From ARRL Headquarters  
Newington CT  August 9, 1995
To all radio amateurs 
 
SB SPCL ARL ARLX039
ARLX039 Ham's war anniversary
 
The young US Army Signal Corps sergeant who helped relay the ''end of
the war'' message on August 14, 1945, is an Amateur Radio legacy and
a current active ham.
 
Sgt Richard Zucker, today KB3YM of Ellicott City, Maryland, was a
radio operator with the 3116th Signal Service Battalion at WTJ Radio
Control on Oahu, Hawaii.  At 2314Z, the 21-year-old radioman
received a teletype message from the Pentagon station WAR near
Washington and relayed it to General Douglas MacArthur in the
Philippines.  The message announced the Japanese capitulation,
signifying the official end of World War II.
 
Zucker grew up in an Amateur Radio family in Mt Vernon, New York.
His father, also named Richard, was on the air in 1913 with a
kilowatt spark rig and a ''self-assigned'' call sign: 2DB.  The elder
Zucker was in the Signal Corps in World War I. Young Richard
enlisted in the service in 1942 at age 18 and was assigned to the
Signal Corps because he already knew the Morse code.  He took his
amateur license exam in 1944 while stationed in Honolulu and was
assigned his first call, W2QKT, in 1946.
 
After the war, Sgt Zucker earned a bachelor's degree from New York
University and a master's from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.
Today, he is active both on the amateur bands and on the Military
Affiliate Radio System, as AAR3EO.  His wife is Doris Jean Hauck.
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/EX