K9IUA Kevin Anderson's Home Page [Dubuque, Iowa] Focusing Primarily on Interests in Army Air Force Aviation during World War II, Plus Amateur ("Ham") Radio, Shortwave Listening, and Geography

The following webpages and documents are contained on this site.

World War II Aviation:

• A collection of webpages/documents dedicated to the 382nd Bombardment Group (Very Heavy), which trained for combat at Smoky Hills Army Air Field, Salina, Kansas, from December 1944 onward, including some time at Harvard Army Air Field, Harvard, Nebraska, and in Cuba, but ended up not going to combat. My uncle, Chester S. Anderson, trained as a gunner with the 382nd BG(VH) between December 1944 and July 1945. This webpage provides some history of the bomb group and catalogues a variety of history documents on this unit as derived from the official Air Force microfilm archive of the group, and also contains several pictures provided by former personnel (or family) of this bomb group.
• The Missions and Crews of Lt. Roy Anderson - This webpage documents what I can find out about the missions my uncle, Roy Anderson, flew as a pilot with the 100th and 70th Bomb Squadrons from mid-1944 through January 1945. It also provides pictures and information on the crews he flew with as a co-pilot with the 100th BS in 1944.
• A Photo Tribute to the H series of the B-25. This plane, one of the types that contained the 75mm cannon, is of particular interest to me. My uncle, 2LT Roy L. Anderson, was a pilot in the Pacific who flew this type of plane in mid-1944. This webpage provides a collection of photographs acquired on the internet, documenting the appearance and features of the airplane.
• Research on a particular B-25 known as "Powerhouse." This is a plane that apparently my uncle, Roy Anderson, got to fly soon after he started combat flying in mid-1944, and was important enough for him to have his picture taken with it. This webpage documents my attempts to determine which plane this is. This webpage is also a good summary of the steps in research one might do, including sources to consult, if one is doing similar research.
• Access to the book, The Crusaders: A History of the 42nd Bombardment Group. In 1946, the historians that were with the 42nd BG(M) in the South and Southwest Pacific during WWII got together and published a book on the history of the combat group they served with (which is also the group my uncle was with). The above link allows you to download a PDF scan of the book as 25 separate parts, each less than 10 Mbytes in size and roughly covering a chapter each of the book, or from 3-11 pages each. Please note that the above site is "offsite," separate from where you are seeing this webpage, utilizing a free sharing service offered by Box.net; at least for now the book is there. For completeness sake, here is the complete citation for the book: The Crusaders: A History of the 42nd Bombardment Group, Authors: Cohn, Maj R. H. and Wachs, Capt Marvin C. and Strong, Cpl. Charles W. Copyright 1946 by the Crusader, 42nd Bomb Group, Typography, engravings and printing by Army and Navy Pictoral Publishers, Army and Navy Publishing Company Building, 234 Main St., Baton Rouge, LA, 205 pages.
  [Disclaimer: I did not do the original scanning of this book. That credit goes to Dan (last name unknown), aka "WxMan" from the ArmyAirForces.com forums. I am the person who created the version in 25 parts from Dan's scan when his copy was no longer available and provide this particular Box.net distribution as one way to get the book.]
  Since my earlier project, two additional sources have come to light that I now recommend you use instead of mine:
  • Bangor (Maine) Public Library copy - A high-quality, professional version scanned as a single 55 MByte PDF document, as part of a collection of World War II organizational histories that the library has scanned;
  • Harry Dole's full-text version - Harry scanned the document to text, cleaned it up nicely, and scanned photos separately, making a very nice HTML presentation of this book that is text-searchable.

Amateur Radio:

I have been a licensed amateur radio operator since 1993, originally as KB9IUA, but currently with the callsign K9IUA. My particular interest is in operating at low power, typically 5 watts and less, using both Morse code (CW) and voice (SSB). This low-powered operation is known as "QRP" after the old Q-signal for "Shall I lower power?".

For almost the entire time I have been licensed, I have been a regular subscriber to an ongoing e-mail forum/listserve, QRP-L, that has existed on various websites through the years. Back in the mid-1990s, folks on that e-mail listserve started a CW operating event known as the "QRP-L Foxhunt," which had designated operators (known as the "Fox" or "Foxii") get on once or twice a week, at designated times, with the rest of us (known as "Hounds") trying to work them. Each contact (earning a "pelt") was worth one point. Over the course of the Foxhunt season, hounds worked individually or in teams to contact as many Foxii as possible, which was a form of low-key contesting geared both to get more QRP operators on the air and to build skills in operating.

The following two documents (.txt documents; use your "back" button to return) are collections of e-mails from the QRP-L forum, documenting the beginnings and first year of the QRP-L Foxhunts (which are still ongoing, by the way). I created these two documents back in December 2000 as a courtesy and archive for the QRP-L online community:

• Text Document describing the beginning of the QRP-L FoxHunt
• Text Document archiving e-mails for the first QRP-L FoxHunt in 1994-1995

I'm also partial to amateur radio equipment built by the Ten-Tec Company of Sevierville, Tennessee. In January 2001, using help from folks on another e-mail forum I was a part of, I put together information on the lineage of the various models of radios that Ten-Tec had produced up until that time. Here is that document:

• Ten-Tec Lineage (As of January 2001, as reproduced on the W8KC Virtual Ten*Tec Museum website, http://mywebpages.comcast.net/w8kc/tentec.html)

Post Oil Geography

Educated as a geographer, and formerly a college professor of the same, I am still very much interested in water resources and climate studies, as well living within the Earth's resources. Of particular interest of me lately is the fact that petroleum and natural gas are finite resources, and we are running out of both. Given that our entire life style is built on the ready availability of these resources, to run out of both resources will be significant for all of us. And running out is what we are doing! To this end, I've created a blog that I occasional post to on the topic. If you are interested, please look at my Post Oil Geography blog.

In combination with my radio interests, here is document I typed up to describe the various two-way radio options that might be used for communication backup into the future.

• Communication Options -- Two-Way Radio (Version 1.0.3, October 12, 2009)

Kevin Anderson
Dubuque, Iowa

Contact me with comments.

Webpage initially created 6 April 2007
Last updated 15 February 2024