| James Peter Kondes |
 |
| Year |
x |
Rank |
x |
Status |
|
| June, 1931 |
x |
x |
x |
Graduated from North High,
Des Moines, IA. Home Room 102. |
| datex |
x |
Employment |
x |
detail |
| October
16, 1935 |
x |
Family |
x |
Married to Catherine Cecelia
McDonald at St. John's Catholic Church, Des Moines, IA |
| December
2, 1943 |
x |
US Army/PVT |
x |
Inducted at Camp Dodge
Herrold, IA |
| Dec., 1943 |
x |
Training |
x |
Training with 3183rd Signal Service
Corps. Where? |
| April 18, 1945 |
x |
Enroute |
x |
Departed from the United States. |
| date |
x |
Stationed |
x |
Stationed in Shanghai and Calcutta
(3183rd). |
| January 26, 1946 |
x |
Enroute |
x |
Retured to the US |
| February 2, 1946 |
x |
US
Army/PFC/
Discharged |
x |
Where? |
| 1946-1979 |
x |
Employment |
x |
Jewett Lumber Company, Des Moines,
IA |
| 1979 |
x |
Employment |
x |
Started Kondes Construction |
| date |
x |
Employment |
x |
detail. |
| May 19, 2007 |
x |
Deceased |
x |
Buried in Glendale Cemetery, Des
Moines, IA. |
|
3183rd Signal
Corps Company/1944
During early 1945 new Signal Corps units came into China, India, and
Burma, and older units reorganized.Units arriving in April and May 1945
included four signal service companies – the 3340th, the 3152nd,
3182nd, and 3183rd. In early April, General Reeder, the India-Burma
chief signal officer, transferred the 432nd Signal Heavy Construction
Battalion (Aviation) to the China Theater to help extend the long intertheater
pole line eastward from Kunming to Tu-shan. By May, the China Theater
was asking General Reeder for the 96th and 988th Signal Battalions as
well. Despite these transfers to China, the India-Burma Signal Corps
troop strength at the end of the war stood at 687 officers and 11,980
enlisted men.76 In May 1945, General Reeder was appointed G-4 on the
staff of General Sultan, commander of the India-Burma Theater. Colonel
Petzing was named chief signal officer of that theater, succeeding Reeder.
The long pole line remained a major signal effort in those lands. Military
demands upon its circuits continued to grow.
The demand upon the facilities of the Army Airways
Communications System (AACS) “has now reached a point,”
General Reeder commented on 19 May, “where they cannot clear
PX’s over the hump by radio in time to beat the planes in.”
India, Burma, and China theater commanders preferred wire line teletypewriter
service, and Reeder intended they should have it. “The coordination
of Hump Lift and Hump Allocations, and the supply services,”
he added, “literally demand fine communication between the depots
of Calcutta and Chabua and the China SOS in Kunming.”
Suddenly in August the war ended. Allied effort in
the CBI had kept the enemy out of India, driven him out of Burma,
and maintained encouragement and assistance to China. In all this,
General Reeder felt that the help to China in signal matters compared
well with the work of others. “The splendid plans which were
laid in the past (most of it due to [Henry L.] Page King, Neal, and
Petzing),” he had written to General Ingles in February 1945,
“are coming to fruition. As a result we are able to implement
the Chinese plans better with troops than are most of the branches
here.”
General Reeder had foreseen that the pole line in
China might never meet a war need, but he saw other values that it
might have. “Any pole line construction will ... be of service
after the war to the Chinese government and to the Chinese people,”
he said. If these communications facilities provided by the Signal
Corps helped strengthen good relations between the United States and
the Chinese, he felt all the effort and cost were well spent
|