V-Discs

[Durium]

V-DISCS FOUND ON CHRISTMAS ISLAND

V-Discs were specially made recordings by the Music Section, Entertainment and Recreation Branch, a special Services Division of the US War Department and were sent to the soldiers at the front all over the world. As a lot of these 65 years old relics were destroyed after the war, these records are now collectors items.

Thanks to Peter Symons' father, who served as a British engineer on Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean during the 1950s two of these special records were found in an abandoned bunker.

V-Discs found on Christmas Island

Durium

[sidewinder]

Those were Cold War H-bomb tests and some of the later ones were in proximity to the island (they moved the servicemen from one end of the island to the other whilst detonating). I wonder if the V-disks have a phosphorescent glow in the dark?

Some of the film footage of those tests has recently been de-classified and it is fascinating. Mainly air detonations from Valiant V-bombers.

Edited July 8, 2010 by sidewinder

[Big Beat Steve]

Well, I found two V-discs (one was by Tommy Dorsey, can't recall the other right now) in the late 80s at a local fleamarket amidst a stack of totally unrelated other items, and the stallholder wasn't Americen either. Wonder what the story was behind those? Given by U.S. troops stationed here to relatives of the stallholder in an early act of "fraternization" in the years after 1945? No doubt most of these V-discs (as they were not "supposed" to be circulated through the usual channels) could tell similar stories. But as suviving copies in many cases apparently aren't that rare after all and originals regularly do come up for sale here and there and elsewhere and virtually all of the music has been reissued through the years I think the "sensation aspect" of their discovery has worn a bit thin compared to, say, this or that Paramount or Black Patti 78 or whatever other "holy grail" there is out there ...

As Sidewinder hinted, setting up a Geiger counter near these bunker relics might indeed be "enlightening".

Edited July 8, 2010 by Big Beat Steve