SERVICE SCHOOL
The following series of photos is from Camp Robert
Smalls, the segregated training camp for black recruits at the
Great Lakes Naval Training Center, Great Lakes,
Illinois.
To visit the Great Lakes Naval Museum:
Make sure to check out Camp Robert Smalls, where the
first black recruits trained for general ratings.
Previously, only the steward rating was available to black
men. The story of the camp's namesake is an interesting
one, too. Robert Smalls led a group of his fellow
enslaved sailors who stole a Confederate Navy vessel
during the Civil War and surrendered it to the U.S. Navy!! His
story will be told in an upcoming PBS special called, "Slavery
and the Making of America", to be aired in February
2005.
Photos of Radioman recruits training at Camp Robert
Smalls courtesy of the Great Lakes Naval Museum.
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Recruits gather around an RBB or RBC
receiver |
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Recruits Learning to Send Morse
Code |
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Receiving
Practice |
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Copying Fox Broadcasts Off the
Air |
Equipment pictured above(l-r) is: first position-unknown,
second position-RAZ LF/MF receiver, third position-RAO or RBH
MF/HF receiver, fourth position-RBK VHF receiver, fifth
position-RAO or RBH.
RADIOMEN AT WORK
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