Sept. 2, 1918
Co. 47. Harvard Radio School
Cambridge, Mass.
Dear Mr. Cole,
My sister has been sending me the News quite regularly and I read it with a great deal of pleasure and especially the Camp and Field Section. As I have never seen a letter from this district I thot (sic) my Baraboo friends would like to hear a little about this branch of the service.
Part of Harvard University has been given over entirely to the Navy which uses it as a radio finishing school and has a finishing school for the Ensigns specializing as gas engine men. There are approximately 5000 men in the Radio school and 1000 in the Ensign school. The radio course is for 19 weeks and the Ensign school takes six months. About 100 finished Radio operators are turned out each week but ships are being built so fast that that is hardly enuf (sic) to supply the demand. Each boat has from three to forty operators upon it, depending on the kind of boat and the nature of the boat and the nature of the work it does. The large battleships carry the largest number as it is necessary there to have a complete relief set. I am trying to get on a destroyer doing active service in French waters.
The time in school is equally divided between theory and operating. The theory includes actual work with practical sets. Each week a different subject is studied and at the end of the week we have a written examination on that week's work. Many of the fellows who have never had electrical experience find it pretty tough sledding. The favorite expression for a particularly difficult subject is, "Oh boy, that's dizzy stuff!" And some of it sure makes a fellow feel that way.
Our instructors are nearly all practical men many of them, have three or four and a few up as high as seven "hash marks" which is the term used for a hitch or reenlistment. Nearly all have a special nickname among the Jacks of which "Salty" and "Hardboiled" are the most common but usually refer to two certain C.P.O.'s who have those special characteristics.
Now a little about the country around here. Its nice country and all that but give me dear old Wisconsin any day.
Cambridge is six minutes ride on the subway from Boston. Boston is about as peculiar a town as I ever have been in. It's all laid off in squares with streets running around in every direction. There is a saying that the town was laid out along the cow paths of the old settlers. Well, I don't doubt it a bit. And tho (sic) they say these same people were puritans, etc, I have my doubts on the stuff they watered those cows with. The first Sunday in Boston I started out from Old South Church each time on a different street and tho (sic) I can't remember turning a corner I came back to that same church tree times. Old South Church you remember is the one from which the lanterns were hung to let Paul Revere know that the British were coming on that now famous April Seventeenth. There are many more historical places in and near Boston that I have seen but will make this letter too long, so I will leave them to another time if you care to hear of them.
I ran across Arthur Peck the other day. He had just landed here and I guess we are the only Baraboo lads here as yet. The men here come from all over the country but most of them are all from the West and South.
Well, I shall have to stop for this time. I would be glad to hear from any of my old friends back in Boo who care to write me. I will be here six or seven weeks yet.
Very sincerely,
Arnold O. Braun
Co. 47, U.S. Naval Radio School
Cambridge, Mass.