(Source: The Daily Journal via Richard Cuff)
KGEI: A forgotten WWII radio story
Sometimes history is hidden in plain sight or site — as is the case of a blockhouse-shaped building located, appropriately, on Radio Road in the Redwood Shores area of Redwood City.
There is no plaque to remind the few visitors to the area that the two-story building played an important role in World War II: It housed the transmitter for shortwave radio station KGEI, which was the only voice from home for GIs fighting from island to island in the Pacific.
Among other accomplishments, the station broadcast Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s “I have returned” speech that fulfilled his promise to return with victorious American troops to the Philippines, occupied by Japanese forces since 1942.
Today, the building of about 7,000 square feet is owned by Silicon Valley Clean Water, the wastewater plant operated jointly by Redwood City, San Carlos and Belmont. The plant is adjacent to the KGEI building, which itself is right next to a much larger transmitter building used by KNBR. Ground was broken in late 1940 for the KGEI structure made of reinforced 3-foot thick concrete walls designed to withstand bombing.[…]