WORLD’S “KEYHOLE”

Evening Star, Issue 23861, 16 April 1941, Page 9

WORLD’S “KEYHOLE”

VILLAGE SOMEWHERE IH ENGLAND 8.8. C. LISTEHIHG POST A village “somewhere in England ” has become the world's keyhole. Hundreds of ears are glued to it for 24 hours a day. They are French, German, Hungarian, Persian, Spanish, Hindu, Norwegian, negro, Japanese, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Kaffir ears. Their owners wear the ordinary dress of British civil servants, picturesque robes of Arab chiefs, sweeping cloaks of Moroccans, sports caps which cover caste marks on some brows, and signet rings of Royal families on some fingers. .They are citizens of this modern Tower of Babel. They are the 8.8. C. listening. post, the front line of Britain's war for civilisation. ■ The “Tower” rises one story from the ground. In it are grouped 42 pairs of headphones on ears which are listening, listening, always listening to every tongue and dialect crowding the ether. At the control panel 27-yoar-old Olive Renior. of Holland, plugs in the listeners to anywhere in the ether their native tongue or dialect is being broadcast. Olive wears slacks and a matching jacket, for she cycles to the - “ tower ” from her billet. “ We are called monitors,’’ she said. “ Everyone must speak at least three languages, and must have a good working knowledge of their particular countries and a grasp of politics and world affairs. Most important of all is a musical ear, which is a great help in picking out in a broadcaster’s deflections of voice any emphasis or lack of it, anything that gives significance to the spoken word.” Olive claims to know the voice of every announcer the moment he strikes the air. Thev have a nickname for every one of them. There is “ Sinister Sam.” who directs a spate of fury against England to Batin America—a butcher’s boy from lowa, who disparages from Germanv. in a strong American accent, all English victories. There are hundreds of others, for Gprmany alone broadcasts in 30 languages —in Hindustani to India, Africaans to South Africa, Chinese and Japanese to the Orient, etc. ' Twiddlers at this G.H.Q. of the ether know them all. UNCANNY SILENCE., Never before has a stranger been allowed to pass in the “ tower,” and as 1 looked down on the room I wondered for. a moment : if it was true or if 1 was wandering through a scene from the Arabian Nighte. There was almost an uncanny silence in this room, holding 42 people in every dress, with every cast of feature imaginable. The oniy uniformity was row upon row of sensitive receivers, pair upon pair of earphones clipped on heads, dictaphone upon' dictaphone recording hundreds of thousands of words in dozens of languages and dialects: An Indian girl named Mainioona took-off her headphones, pulled up her sari, and_ translated important points sho_ had jotted down from a Hindustani blast from Germany. Like other important points, these were flashed by teleprinter to Whitehall. Later she translated the whole text, and this was 'included iu a 400,000-word- summary of the day's combings of the air. A digest of this is served to Mr Churchill with his morning tea, while it is placed fully before the Cabinet and Foreign Office Intelligence. Shades of tjhe Red Square in Moscow were conjured up as I read a bearded Russian’s translation of a Moscow broadcast giving as Stalin’s Budget for 1941 the astronomical figure of 2] 6,000,000,000 roubles. Intelligence may read into these figures some indication of U.S.S.U. policy. A French monitor, who is a lawyer, listens in, and interprets Vichy decrees. A fair Norwegian notes Quisling’s querulous quotes. Germans and Austrians who have known the horrors of concentration camps use their technical and military'knowledge to extract from German home programmes the secrets of Nazi militarists. A handsome Bulgar' listens to -a bedtime story and notes that it is subtle propaganda. “ Once it is on the air it"s there,” .a monitor tolls me as she bows me to a room where girls pack up words just as a grocer might pack up sugar. Here ■they know just how many times Hitler has said Churchill, and how often Italy’s hot-air merchants have taken a wordy crack at Australians. It is all very useful knowledge, when the Axis is working up to something. A file marked Pacific was mounting up nicely. PROPAGANDA TROOPS. So in a war in which propaganda ■plays a leading role the freo peoples of all nations, from refugees of the Axis Powers to the smallest desert tribe, work shoulder to shoulder delivering the goods of the war-time air. And what of our troops in this war of propaganda? Recruits from every part of the earth, equipped with machines that type language and dialect of every country, firing off facts into the microphone, their uniform anything from an embroidered Chinese dress to corduroy trousers, they are the Foreign Legion of the 8.8. C. Sergeant Mahomet Ben Mahomet, a dusky Moroccan warrior, in the khaki uniform of France and wearing a white tuban, has 13 decorations and some intriguing sabre cuts. He tells General de Gaulle’s Free French forces in Africa what really is happening. In dialect ho retells it again to Moroccans. Fuad Attaoullah writes script for a Turkish news bulletin, and he does not have to look once at a dictionary beside him, because he is the author of that Anglo-Turklsh lexicon. The Turkish announcer is the daughter of a high diplomat. Her desk is littered with fan mail from Turkish women, who have known freedom for only one generation and do not want it snatched away. Shaikh Muhammad thumps out in Persian characters on a typewriter working right to left the equivalent of such newly coined words in onr language as “ direct hit.” Then he sweeps to the microphone. In the weird costumes of Araby the sheiks work. Arabic was the first foreign language to be broadcast by the 8.8. C. Its picturesque characters and script from which announcer Mahand was reading was translated for me: “ Here’s how Australians are sweeping out the Italians,” and he paints a picture from behind the lines. Thus many tents in the desert,.will learn of the victorious Australian army. Assisting with the Serbo-Croat broadcast is a cousin of the Duchess of Kent, Princess Natasha. • In Babel'Town, where 1,200 people speak 32 languages, the strange costumes, customs, and foods intrigue the villagers. But even the shyest now makes friends with this fantastic army, whose battlefield is the ether, whose lines of (•'"voir'ir ■ 1 1i■ >:i are wave lengths, and whose ammunition is words.