Vernon Nathaniel Hook

T/5 in Army Experimental Station at Pine Camp : 9402 Technical Service Unit, Signal Corps

ASN#31403230

Born 1914 in VT, Died 1993

County of residence at enlistment: Orange County, VT

Other residence(s): Chelsea, VT; Matawan, NJ; Barre, VT

United States Army, did not accompany the unit to Europe

Occupation before the war: teachers and instructors, n.e.c.

Notes: Radio call number W1EKU; rank changed from PVT in GA roster to T/5 per American Radio History photo (radio call number found for Vernon Hook which matches the one in the photo caption); also served with the 3133 Signal Service Company

Source: 3133rd Program, 15 Sept 1944; americanradiohistory.com/Archive-DX/QST/40s/QST-1945-09.pdf; photo courtesy Ancestry®

Vernon Hook was born on March 29, 1914 in Chelsea, VT, the second of four sons in a farm family. At some point prior to 1930, the family moved to Matawan, NJ where Vernon's father continued to farm. Vernon graduated from Matawan High School in 1931, and earned his amateur radio operator license the same year (as did his older brother, Melvin).

He returned to Vermont within a year or two, and got a job working at Radio Service & Supply in Barre, where he would work for eight years. He married Eva Rich on July 20, 1935 and they would go on to have six children: Richard, Katherine, Sylvia, Mary Lou, Elizabeth, and Roberta.

In 1940, Vernon became the chief radio instructor at the National Youth Administration (NYA) radio school in Waterbury. In July, 1943, he was recruited from there to teach at the Barre Radio School along with his brother Melvin. The six-month program was sponsored by the state board of education, Barre schools, and the US Employment Service. The brothers taught a course which included radio and electrical theory, Morse code, and radio repair. An article in a local newspaper described one of the main purposes of the school. "Here is an opportunity for the fellow entering the service to obtain a rating in the signal corps." The article also described other employment opportunities for those who pursued the course and stated that "girls may also enter this school and obtain training for employment under the civil service commission as radio inspectors with the signal corps."

Vernon had registered for the draft on October 16, 1940 and enlisted on November 18, 1943, reporting for duty in early December. (Melvin finished up the radio school's program in January, and then reported for service in the Navy as a radio technician in a ship repair unit.) He was first sent to Camp Crowder in Missouri for training with the Signal Corps and assigned to the 3133 Signal Service Company by September, 1944. But at some point he was reassigned to the technical service unit of the Army Experimental Station at Pine Camp where he did "special electronic work," according to a 1945 newspaper article. His wife and three children (and a fourth who was born in 1945 while he was stationed there) joined him at Pine Camp.

Ad for Vernon Hook's new radio repair business after the war, from the White River Valley Herald, December 27, 1945

He was discharged on December 12, 1945 at Fort Devens in Massachusetts, and returned to Vermont, opening a radio repair shop at his home in Chelsea before the end of the year. (He would operate this business until his retirement.) Beginning in 1964, his wife Eva would work alongside him in the business, which grew to include electrical, TV line, and fire protection systems throughout the state. Vernon was a master electrician, installed Notifier Northeast alarm systems, and was a TV technician for the Chelsea TV cable system. Vernon and Eva's daughters Elizabeth and Roberta also worked as electrician's helpers for the business in their teenage years.

Vernon was written up in the local newspapers for installing a television at his home in 1950 (must have been one of the first in Chelsea) and installing televisions in three other local homes in 1951.

He was also well-known in the local area for his ham radio activities. A 1956 newspaper article described how, in a five-week period in March and April that year, he had communicated by radio-telephone with 150 countries and all of the states in the US, using his 225 watt home-built transmitter. (Apparently, sunspot activity was particularly favorable during this period.)

Along the way, Vernon also served as auditor for the town of Chelsea and a school bus driver for the Chelsea school district.

Sadly, three of Vernon and Eva's children (Richard, Katherine, and Elizabeth) died in the 1950s and 1960s—two of them from epilepsy (and possibly the third as well).

Vernon died on June 21, 1993 and is buried at West Hill Cemetery in Chelsea.