The Story of IBM's Machine Records Units
War Technology: Machine Records Units (MRUs)
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Published August 30, 2021
Updated August 9, 2022 |
Russ, passed away in 2018. I enjoyed watching his postings on Facebook, and our occasional communications. There is one less World War II Veteran, one less IBMer and one less good man walking this earth. He will be missed. Russ was the individual who called my attention to the importance of this IBM development to support the World War II effort.
Peter E. Greulich
We Are Losing Our World War II Veterans
- There Are Only 1 of 16 Million World War II Veterans Left
- We are losing them at the rate of 555 each day
- IBM and Its Employees Answered Their Country's Call
- Pause for a Moment Today and Say Thank You to a Veteran
The First-Hand Story of Machine Records Units (MRUs)
When I asked the 95 year old on the phone—my elder by 35 years—what his job was during World War II, he simply commented, “I went ashore at Normandy on D-Day+3. My job was to follow General Patton with a string of wire.”
MRUs entering Germany
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As the war progressed, he was assigned to a Central Machine Records Unit (MRU). Couriers from the fighting units in the field, religiously delivered punch cards to this U.S. Army team of specialists in Paris, France. Three shifts worked around-the-clock to produce General Eisenhower’s daily morning reports.
Today, Russ could easily use his experiences to scribe opening lines for articles such as this, except that in 1941 he chose to repair electric writing machines—the typewriters of his day—instead of typing on them. In October, IBM hired Russ as a customer engineer, a hardware repairman. A few short weeks after he returned from his initial class in Rochester, N.Y., Pearl Harbor was attacked. |
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He answered his country’s call to service in 1943—putting aside a wartime deferment—to become a member of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He has experiences to share from a long lifetime, and his story started my personal journey to understand and honor a select group of World War II veterans.
Along the way I also learned more about the company that he and I share. I discovered how IBM once supported its servicemen and women. You see, it had to support them because, by September of 1943, one out of every four IBMer would leave the service of their company, to serve their country. |
Picture provided by an IBMer's daughter. She reserves all copyright--may not be copied or reproduced without her permission. Members of the Eighth Corps,13th Mobile (MRU) as they entered Germany. In memory of all the IBMers who served in World War II Machine Record Units.
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Machine Records Units (MRUs)
Mobile Machine Records Units (MRUs) were the invention of Lieutenant Arthur K. (Dick) Watson, son of Thomas J. Watson Sr. He proposed housing punch-card machines in army trucks for mobile use in combat zones. It was a unique application of IBM Electronic Accounting Machines (EAM) with their installation in deployable units, which followed the troops—sometimes under fire—gathering, evaluating and forwarding intelligence.
These units would keep track of bombing results, casualties, prisoners, displaced persons, and supplies. Russ commented that, “We knew within a two-week accuracy where all our troops were around the world.” This was, at the time, a wartime advantage. The same type of machine was used to break the Japanese code before the Battle of Midway, help hunt down and sink German U-boats, and architect the atomic bomb that finally ended World War II.
These units would keep track of bombing results, casualties, prisoners, displaced persons, and supplies. Russ commented that, “We knew within a two-week accuracy where all our troops were around the world.” This was, at the time, a wartime advantage. The same type of machine was used to break the Japanese code before the Battle of Midway, help hunt down and sink German U-boats, and architect the atomic bomb that finally ended World War II.
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These units discovered honor in the South Pacific, North Africa and, yes, following General Patton across Europe.
General Patton honored these men with words and decorations; the German High Command honored them by trying to hunt them down—a German officer was captured with orders to take a Machine Records Unit with all machines and records intact—and all personnel alive. These were soldiers that made a difference, not with bullets, but information. Russ was a member of this elite team not necessarily honed in the art of hand-to-hand combat, but skilled in maintaining the equipment that provided timely information to their commanders—information that saved lives and shortened the war. I am honored to have known such a man and honor such teams—composed largely of IBM veterans that answered the call to serve their country and fellow man. |
The 20th Century IBM supported its veterans
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IBM paid every serviceman a quarter of his usual pay while in uniform and sent gifts to them overseas along with the IBM Business Machines—the company newsletter—to stay in touch with their work family. The company started a fund for IBM’s wartime widows and orphans, and guaranteed a job for its veterans that returned safely. It empowered its management to do the right thing.
In one case, a serviceman’s wife understood her husband’s priorities; and expressed gratitude for IBM’s. |
An MRU Field Ration Permit from 1950
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"We, too, are proud of our service man, and glad too that he was employed by a company whose understanding and policies make it possible for him to do his duty with no worries about those at home. We came to IBM 10 years ago after being on government relief. Today we owe no bills. We have built and paid for our home, and my husband is free to do the work he feels will mean most to our country, knowing that I have a job with the company, and can keep things going at home. . . . This is what our opportunity to work at IBM means to us."
A letter published in IBM Business Machines, January 27, 1944
IBM limited its wartime profits on ordnance production to one and one-half percent—and two-thirds of IBM’s factory capacity was dedicated to that ordnance work. IBM, in addition to manufacturing computers, produced machine guns for fighter planes, infantry carbines, bombsights, gas masks, and more than thirty other war items. IBM set up a nine-panel display in its headquarters listing all of its employees in the service [seen above].
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IBM was rewarded, not in wartime profits, but in sales that tripled from $46 million in 1940 to $141 million in 1945. It then put this excess manufacturing and its dedicated man-and-woman power to work in a post-World War II environment.
Where will you be on Veteran’s Day? On Veteran’s Day, I will be sitting with my grandson in his kindergarten class telling him about: his two great grandfathers that, like Russell, served their country during World War II; his grandfather that stood watch in Germany to help bring down the Berlin Wall; and his uncle that served as a Marine reservist.
I have written this article to remind Corporate America—our economic system—of the obligation it has to its underlying political system—our democracy—that allows corporations to exist, survive and flourish. Protecting the four freedoms articulated by Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II cost dearly in men’s lives:
They learn by example; and they are our future—the next generation of corporate leaders will need to make critical decisions on where to spend their profits if democracy is to continue to survive. We veterans will graciously accept the children’s thanks, and—every time—remember our fallen comrades-in-arms and their families that made the true sacrifice. They span generations and were our brothers and sisters. |
May we never forget or neglect.
Cheers,
- Peter E.
Cheers,
- Peter E.