John Dupont's Voice From The Past

[updated on the 80th anniversary of D-Day, to restore audio file links]

One of the family members that many in the family have been gathering information on is my great uncle, John Dupont.  John and two of his brothers enlisted to fight in WWII.  Two brothers returned safely, but John, an Air Force pilot, died in September 1944, while flying a P51 solo over Schladen, Germany.  John was returning from a bombing raid over Magdeburg.   

A German farm woman rescued his dog tags and personal effects at great personal risk.  My father, a boy of 10 at the time, and all the others in the family, felt the loss deeply.  Several of John’s nieces and nephews have gathered news clippings and other information on John’s unit’s experiences in Europe.  Dad made a photo collage showing events in John’s life.  In 1999, three of John's nieces (and a husband) visited France and Germany to visit the sites there.  They were able to meet the woman who pulled Uncle John out of his plane.

Front side envelope cover art and address

Well, time moves on and John’s generation is now all deceased.  This year, John’s nephew, Ted, was going thru his father’s effects and discovered the record shown above.  A razor company, American Safety Razor Corp., made recordings of service men in the 1940’s and the men sent them home to their families as audio postcards.  John Dupont recorded an audio letter to his family on one of these records.  Well, the wax record was not in good shape but Ted played it anyway, skips and all, and sent it out in mp3 format.  The cousin network did its work when we got cc:d on a forward from the photographer in the family, Sharon.  We played it and could make out only a few words, but still, there was John, speaking to us after all these years!  Great Uncle John sounds caring, witty, and energetic!  And how similar his tone is to that of the old newscasters – did everyone talk that way back then?  But the skips on the record were horrible, and it was hardly intelligible, we could catch only a few words here and there.  So Alan got out Audacity – a tool we learned of thanks to CAGGNI - and went to work on the recording.  He was able to remove the skips and filter out some of the noise.  We asked Ted to re-record it slower, to keep the phonograph needle from bouncing so much.  Al sped it back up digitally and the result is cleaner still.  We have managed to transcribe all but about 10 words.  “Write me all about yourselves and about your new jobs.  Tell me all about your romances too you can tell me you know.  Hello Pops take it easy too.  So long and write me.”  What a profound experience to hear this voice brought back to life, in a way.  The sound, while not harmony and melody, was music indeed, to our ears.

The original recording.  Notice the regular skips at 1.9, 2.8, 3.5, 4.3 and so on. 

The same recording, after converting to mono, low-pass filtering and removal of the skips using Audacity.

The sound files are available here - the original recording and cleaned up versions, split into the Intro by the Gem Blades announcer and then the body of the letter from John.

Here's our attempt at transcription.  If you hear this differently, please let me know.  Unintelligible words appear in highlights.

… Robert Dupont.  This record is being made at Williams Field, Arizona, November the 15^th 1943 with the compliments Gem Blade.

Hello then I’d like to clutter a day  xxx  worried about  paper unda write ger I was going to call home tonight but I’ll call when  you get back from up north tell Don to write me all about it and not to scare me again like that.  I’m getting along all right here so far and hope I hope I [sic] can to continue to do so.  This must seem a little funny but I thought I’d try it anyway.  Say hello to Pa, Fritz, Mabel and all the kids.  Say hello to Gari  if you see her too.  I was hoping I could see Don when he was in Frisco but I didn’t know his address so I couldn’t look him up.  We’re staying [at] hotels for now so I’ll have him ???  turn the pow ??? renew I have to make a pool slip.

I’ll write soon anyway.  In case I can’t get in touch with Don have him call me here.  Wait and I’ll say a word to him.  Hello Don how’s everything.

Write me all about yourselves and about your new (jobs / brides).  Tell me all about your romances too you can tell me you know.  Hello Pops take it easy too.  So long and write me.

Updated 20 Jan 2020 upon info from ND regarding the four family members who met with the woman in Germany: she was indeed alive in 1999 when the family visited.