Technical School, Sioux Falls Army Air Field — Themes and Context

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In Category - Mechanics

Authors: Northwestern Bell Telephone Company Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2019 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: United States. Army. Training School for Radio Operators and Airplane Mechanics (Sioux Falls, S.D.); Sioux Falls Army Air Base (S.D.); Sioux Falls (S.D.) -- Directories Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 6,700

Reading time 30 min

Text sections 1

The catalog record for Technical School, Sioux Falls Army Air Field — Themes and Context provides practical reading context through 6,700 words, 30 min estimated reading time, and 1 detected text section.

The text analysis averages about 15.2 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “United States. Army. Training School for Radio Operators and Airplane Mechanics (Sioux Falls, S.D.),” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #61030

This 1944 handbook, produced by Northwestern Bell Telephone Company for trainees at the Sioux Falls Army Air Field Technical School, blends practical telephone etiquette with camp logistics, revealing wartime communication constraints through its diction and structure.

Editorial Edition Score 4.4/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg61030

Read the Text

_Technical School_ Sioux Falls Army Air Field

SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA

TO NEWCOMERS IN TECHNICAL SCHOOL:

This handbook contains information about the Technical School, Sioux Falls Army Air Field, Sioux Falls, S. D., and its many services for the school personnel, including telephone service. Also, there is a map of Sioux Falls and city information which may be helpful to you.

I am here at the School to help you get the best telephone service that is possible under difficult wartime conditions. Telephone lines are crowded as never before and the materials required to build more lines are going into military equipment and munitions. We will do our best for you with the lines and equipment available.

You can recognize me by the badge with the Blue Bell. If I can help you, just hail me. Sincerely, R. W. “Bob” Anderson Camp Telephone Manager NORTHWESTERN BELL TELEPHONE CO.

In case of emergency notify

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Sioux Falls, largest city in South Dakota, is located at the falls of the Sioux river, named after the warlike Sioux Indians and called by them “Te-han-kas-an-data” or “Thickly-wooded-river.”

White men found this part of the country occupied by the Dakotas, the most powerful member of the great Sioux family. Here these hard-riding, hard-fighting Indians hunted buffalo and battled intruders. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were among their great war chiefs; Custer’s Massacre is their best known victory over the white men.

Sioux Falls was first settled in 1857, but after the Sioux Massacre in southern Minnesota in 1862, it was abandoned until 1865 when Fort Dakota was established at this site. The present city dates from the coming of the soldiers who afforded protection for pioneer settlers.

The Technical School, Sioux Falls Army Air Field, adjoins the residence part of Sioux Falls on the northwest. Started in the summer of 1942, it is one of the largest training schools of its kind anywhere.

TECHNICAL SCHOOL INFORMATION

POST HEADQUARTERS—Post Headquarters is only a short distance from the entrance at Gate No. 1, and is easily recognized by means of the large flag pole in front. Here are the offices of the Commanding Officer, Executive Officer and Adjutant, as well as S-1, S-2, S-3, S-4, Message Center, and Administrative Inspector.

BUILDING NO. 2—Situated next to Post Headquarters, this building houses the Post Judge Advocate, Classification, Legal Aid Department and the Historical Department.

SPECIAL SERVICE OFFICE—Is located in Building No. 13 and it is here that a multitude of activities are sponsored for the welfare and entertainment of the enlisted men and WACS. Also located in the same building are the Post Chaplain’s Office, Post Broadcasting System, Public Relations Office and the Personal Affairs Division, which includes War Bonds, Insurance, Legal Aid, and Army Emergency Relief. It is through the Person Affairs Division that assistance is provided military personnel and their dependents in securing employment, re-employment, education and vocational rehabilitation. Each squadron has a Special Service Officer who should be contacted by all those interested in sports, orchestras, glee clubs, acting and other recreational activities.

SERVICE CLUB—The Service Club is the center of recreation for enlisted personnel and their guests. It is on Algonquin Avenue between Gate No. 1 and Post Headquarters. The main salon is used for dances, band concerts, shows, and broadcasts. Included in the club are a cafeteria, snack bar, and soda fountain, a game room, a balcony which is used for letter writing and a library with more than 8,000 books. There also is a public telephone center on the second floor off the balcony with operators in attendance during the busier hours. Another telephone center with operators is located in Mess Hall No. 4—Building 845. Guests can be taken to the Service Club when proper arrangements are made. (See page 24 for pass procedure)

GUEST HOUSE—The Guest House is adjacent to the Service Club and provides lodging for relatives of enlisted personnel. The charge is 75 cents a day and there is a three-day limit for guests. For reservations apply at the Service Club office.

POST THEATRES—There are two large Post theatres each seating more than 1,000 persons. Both run on staggered schedules, so that the men on the various school shifts may attend. The charge to military personnel is 15 cents per show or $1.20 for a booklet of ten admission tickets. Other entertainments, such as USO camp shows and personal appearances of movie and radio stars, are frequently provided. Time schedules and programs are announced in the Daily Bulletin, the Post newspaper, “The Polar Tech”, and over the Post Broadcasting System. The theatres are located in Buildings 73 and 23.

BOATING—The Special Service Office has provided boats on Covell Lake for Army personnel only, during seasonal weather. This lake is a part of Terrace Park, located just outside the Hospital

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This handbook, issued by the Northwestern Bell Telephone Company to personnel at the Technical School, Sioux Falls Army Air Field, opens with a personal letter from Camp Telephone Manager R. W. “Bob” Anderson. His tone is direct and apologetic: “Telephone lines are crowded as never before.” The book’s primary purpose is to manage expectations about phone service under wartime material shortages, but it also serves as a guide to the base and city. The authorial voice shifts between bureaucratic instruction and neighborly advice, a blend that reflects the telephone company’s dual role as service provider and community fixture.

Diction of Scarcity and Efficiency

The handbook’s language consistently emphasizes scarcity and the need for brevity. Phrases like “please be brief” and “give the other fellow a break” recur, framing long-distance calls as a shared, limited resource. The section on reduced night and Sunday rates is presented not as a perk but as a practical measure to ease network congestion. Instructions such as “plan your calls ahead” and “jot down the items you intend to mention” treat conversation as a transaction to be optimized. This diction reveals an authorial assumption that trainees are both eager to connect with home and potentially unaware of the strain on the telephone system.

Voice of the Corporate Go-Between

The handbook’s voice is that of a corporate intermediary, speaking on behalf of the Bell System while addressing individual soldiers. The opening letter is signed by Anderson, identified by his “badge with the Blue Bell,” a detail that personalizes the company while reinforcing its brand. Elsewhere, the text uses imperative mood for rules (“remain near telephone,” “don’t lose your nickel”) but softens them with explanatory clauses. For instance, the instruction to have soldiers place calls themselves rather than receive them is justified by “changes in the schedules of camp life.” This voice balances authority with empathy, acknowledging the difficulties of wartime communication without ceding control.

Structure as a Map of Priorities

The handbook’s structure mirrors the base’s hierarchy and the telephone company’s priorities. It begins with historical background on Sioux Falls and the school, then moves to technical school information (post headquarters, building numbers), and only later to telephone procedures. Within the telephone section, the order of topics—from reduced rates to calling orderly rooms to telegrams—reflects a logical flow from general advice to specific protocols. The inclusion of a rate table for long-distance calls from Sioux Falls to cities across the U.S. (e.g., Bismarck $0.81, Los Angeles $2.44) grounds the abstract advice in concrete numbers, emphasizing cost as a key concern.

Recurring Details of Wartime Life

Recurring details anchor the handbook in its specific wartime context. The mention of “WACS” (Women’s Army Corps) in the Special Service Office, the “three-day pass” for the Guest House, and the “post-payment” coin system for public telephones all point to the routines of a training base. The historical section’s reference to “Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse” and “Custer’s Massacre” situates Sioux Falls within a longer regional history, but the handbook quickly pivots to the present: “Started in the summer of 1942, it is one of the largest training schools of its kind.” These details, while brief, create a sense of place and time without relying on narrative.

The Telephone as a Lens on Military Life

Throughout the handbook, the telephone serves as a lens through which military life is organized. Instructions for calling orderly rooms require going through the Sioux Falls information operator, a workaround that underscores restricted access. The advice to “make sure that they have your complete mailing address, including your barracks building number” reveals the transience of trainees. Even the rate table, listing cities from Albuquerque to Miami, hints at the geographic dispersal of the men stationed at Sioux Falls. The telephone is not just a device but a node in a network of constraints, a theme the handbook makes explicit through its focus on procedure.

Readers should approach this handbook not as a narrative but as a document of institutional voice and wartime logistics. Its value lies in the tension between the telephone company’s commercial interests and the military’s need for order, a tension visible in every instruction. Pay attention to what is assumed—that trainees are homesick, that calls are expensive, that materials are scarce—and what is left unsaid about the broader war effort. The handbook is a practical artifact, but its language and structure reveal the social and material conditions of its production.

There’s something tender about that old handbook—how carefully it teaches a stranger to say “please hold,” as if politeness could soften the static of a wartime line. It reminded me of another quiet manual, Experimental Mechanics A Course of Lectures Delivered at the Royal College of Science for Ireland — A Reader’s Guide, where patience itself becomes a kind of instrument. Both feel like letters from a slower, more deliberate world.