It's 1941 and the military is pouring men and material into Alaska as tensions build up around the Pacific.

Among the men were included a number of pirates, who, after suffering the boredom of life in Sitka and Kodiak for a short time, decided to build pirate, unauthorized radio stations--homemade and strictly illegal......

But Alaska, a U.S. territory, had Federal Communications Commission offices with officials who kept a sharp ear out for those who violate its pristine airwaves and book-length regulations.

Almost simultaneously, three stations were slipped on the air, although "secret radio station" is somewhat a contradiction in terms. It is difficult to determine who was first and it really doesn't matter. Their efforts to fight boredom and officialdom deserve equal credit. Their efforts did much to pull the thinking of the Pentagon into the 20th century.

The Alaska Communications Service (ACS) handled regular military communications and was drafting all the amateur radio operators it could find. It shipped them off to the frozen northland with little or no military training. One such, Ervin Green, enlisted in the Army and found himself in Sitka, Alaska, exactly twenty-one days later. He had worked for a radio station in Utah and ran a pirate station there at the same time, using a phono-oscillator. This was a common enough gadget in those days, being nothing more than a phonograph which legally transmitted a signal. The signal was just strong enough to reach a speaker across a normal room before its signal pooped out and disappeared forever.

A clever amateur could diddle the innards a bit and make it send a signal for appreciable distances. Green brought his along.

His roommate, Jeff Boyce, was also an amateur radio operator with an FCC license and the knowledge that putting an unauthorized station on the air was considered by the FCC as ranking somewhere between high treason and, even worse, rudeness toward government regulations.

Naturally, they decided their fellow soldiers needed a radio station so they beefed up the power, added a microphone, begged, borrowed or bought records and went on the air using KRB as their call letters. Having access to ACS, they used the news sent from the lower 48 designed for the local newspaper and even managed to present a few locally produced radio dramas using local talent.

Although the station's schedule suffered from what radio commercials euphemistically call irregularity, the station became popular with the troops and the residents of Sitka.

Soon after it began broadcasting, boredom broke out big time in Kodiak and the finance officer, Captain W.H. Adams, hooked up a phonograph to a wired speaker system in the officers club. Soon everyone wanted to listen. A "radio club" was formed and two sergeants, Bill Merritt and Rule Bright did a little midnight requisitioning and soon had a working radio station. They called it KODK and wrote off to everyone they could think of in the States for transcriptions.

Back in Sitka, a third Alaskan station was being planned and built. Privates Charles Gilliam and Charles D. "Dowdy" Green, along with Staff Sergeant Chet Iverson, had all been on the same official Army Alaskan cruise as part of a team responsible for the communications system linking the Sitka Harbor Defense Headquarters and isolated outposts around the sound. Knowing where they were heading, and all being familiar with electronics, they managed to smuggle more than 400 pounds of electronic parts listed as personal baggage. It included a transmitter, short wave receiver and other essential equipment which Gilliam characterizes as "parts and junk."

At first, they played music over the "tactical communications system "after hours." The authorities soon brought that plan to a grinding halt. Out came the smuggled gear including a six tube wireless record player. They took turns putting records on the record changer but, because there was no microphone, they could only make voice announcements by recording them on an antique recorder using cardboard disks....

Initially heard only within a very small radius, the pirates fiddled around with various antennas and soon came up with a heavy piece of copper cable which they attached to a large chunk of bronze plate taken off a wrecked boat. Attaching the cable to the plate at one end and the transmitter at the other, they threw the plate into the salt water. Their signal boomed into Fairbanks, 700 miles away. An illegal signal that powerful was bound to make pirates cautious and FCC inspectors furious. A less effective antenna was then devised which consisted mainly of a cable thrown out the window.

Other improvements followed and Gilliam even developed methods to do radio remotes, the first being the broadcast of Easter Services from the Post Chapel.

At KRB, the other pirate, Ervin Green also raised power and it reached all the way to both Juneau and the quivering ears of an FCC official there. This precipitated a number of meetings between the Sitka military commander, the FCC, the Mayor and Green's officer in charge at the Alaska Communications System.

Green readily admitted that he knew he was breaking the law but said it was for the common good, a theory to which the other inhabitants of Sitka readily subscribed. The FCC shrugged and there were no repercussions, particularly as Green was wise enough to take the station off the air rather than jeopardize his FCC license.

Back in Washington, plans had been underway for some time to provide radio to the troops and there were many--perhaps too many--spoons trying to stir the pot all at once.

The War Department team arrived in Sitka, looked around, talked to the troops, talked to commanders and decided that this radio was a pretty good thing after all. Maybe, they said, this was the way to go.

The Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) was about to be born. It had been one of the longest pregnancies on record. Its daddy, Tom Lewis, was with the inspection team, and he was about to go back to Washington and preside over the birth of his baby.