Lt. Colonel O. Howard Davidsmeyer, Sr. was in charge of communications
in the Pacific on MacArthur's staff. He was an engineer before the war and also served in
the Navy in world war one. He participated in many landings under fire in the Pacific.
He was known to his staff as "Dave." He kept three large
scrapbooks of photos of his WWII service in the Pacific, which forms the basis of this web
site.
After the war, he worked as an engineer for AT&T and held several
communications patents. Later, he was a founder and CEO of several telecommunications
companies.
Onboard the CNS-1 news ship. (Dave on left).
With comm equipment onboard the news ship.
Staff photo. Davidsmeyer is the only one in leggings,
second from right in front row.
Dave is the man on the right.
Dave is in the middle.
Dave is on left.
The jeep photos below are of a jeep that was deliberately "sunk." Seems that
jeeps were not readily available from the motor pool when jungle recons were necessary.
So, this resourceful group would deliberately run a jeep off a road and "lose"
it in deep water. After the jeep was written off as lost by the motor pool, Dave would
send his engineers down to retrieve it. Once they cleaned it up and got it running again
it became a communications jeep.
Don't know if below is another "liberated" jeep or just one stuck in the mud.
Dave is on left. The moral of this series of photos is, if you don't want people to
know you got stuck in the field in your jeep, don't have a signal corps photographer with
you.
Yes, that is a very long, dead snake the army officer is holding.
Army officers off-duty (and unclothed) swimming, Port Morseby.
Dave on the right ready to take the plunge
3-star general in foreground
Staff in background, Davidsmeyer is front row, far left
