. Bell telephone magazine . b-lic and private phones. Switzerland, surrounded by com-batants, maintained service with theUnited States throughout the war—al-though with difficulty. Improvisa-tions were necessary to make up forwartime scarcities, and vital parts,such as vacuum tubes, were severaltimes flown into the country viaPortugal. Soldiers began to visitthere after V—E Day, first in smallnumbers and later in larger groupsunder an organized leave program having radio telephone service avail-able to the States. But Germany wassmashed — politically, economically,and physically. There was no

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. Bell telephone magazine . b-lic and private phones. Switzerland, surrounded by com-batants, maintained service with theUnited States throughout the war—al-though with difficulty. Improvisa-tions were necessary to make up forwartime scarcities, and vital parts,such as vacuum tubes, were severaltimes flown into the country viaPortugal. Soldiers began to visitthere after V—E Day, first in smallnumbers and later in larger groupsunder an organized leave program having radio telephone service avail-able to the States. But Germany wassmashed — politically, economically,and physically. There was no equip-ment available, no constituted author-ity to operate it, no organization re-maining upon which a nucleus of apublic telephone system could be the Army asked the Long LinesDepartment to establish service byoperating both the German andAmerican ends of a radio telephonesystem. This was an unprecedentedstep. It was tackled, nevertheless, Inthe interest of the radio equipment which could ^*.

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Keywords: ., bookauthoramerican, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookyear1922