Friday, August 24, 2012

When WW II Engineers Set Down Their Slide Rules and Started Rockin' on Ascension


I just received the photo above and a note from a fellow named William Orr, principal of Hillsborough High School in Florida, whose father served on Ascension Island with the 38th Engineers at about the same time as my father. 

Orr's father was in a band some of the men formed on the island, called The Wideawakes, named after the airfield they built, Wideawake Field--still in operation today. This is the first I've heard of the band, though it makes sense, on a desert island, that men would organize something like that to while away the time.

I'm going to post the rest of the photos he sent me from his father's collection on my Ascension Island Wideawakes blog.

The castle in the band's logo is the insignia of the Army Corps of Engineers and the airplane propeller in the upper right hand corner is a symbol of the Army Air Corps--in this assignment, the engineers were working under the Air Corps, which later became the US Air Force.

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