After having already been a designer of radios for GE, an oil company engineer and an electric locomotive maintenance man, Klipsch was brought into the U.S. Army. It was August 1941. He would be assigned to the Southwestern Proving Grounds, then being built, which would be the third such facility in the United States after the one in Aberdeen, Maryland and the one in Jefferson, Indiana.
As Hunter explained, the scale of the new proving grounds would be impressive, not just in size but in dollars spent to clear the land and build the facilities, including a new airport, in the woods north of Hope.
“On June 7, 1941 the Hope Star announced the facility would cost $15 million. Today, that would be $331 million. Initially, they acquired 30,000 acres, with over 400 family farms being acquired by eminent domain. Soon they realized that another 4,000 acres would be needed for the airport. Eventually, the base would comprise over 50,000 acres,” Hunter said.
Klipsch would first go to Aberdeen for some training and then be transferred to the new grounds being built in Hope. While in Aberdeen, he worked with Captain Fred Whitlock, the engineer there. The two carried on a correspondence during and after the war. Klipsch’s work in Hope, Hunter said, helped make American artillery shells safer to fire over assemblages of American and allied troops. While he would tell people he “fit the battle of Arkansas,” he did not regularly go into detail about exactly what he did.
“What Paul did not brag about was his method of quality testing of the 105 millimeter [shell]. The projectile has a brass rotating band at the base. This soft metal engages with the barrel’s rifling, but it also had to be very tight on that projectile to prevent leakage. At the beginning of the war, some of the duds with loose bands were falling on our own troops. Thousands of rounds were fired here in confirming the effectiveness. Paul's patented quality control process likely saved countless American lives,” Hunter said.
Hunter read some excerpts from letters Klipsch sent to Aberdeen. One of his first describes the area of the proving grounds in the spring of 1942. “Housing here is very nice. There are about 20 new houses within easy walking distance of the job. Location is in a grove of trees which has just turned green. Living here is not bad at all.”
In another excerpt, he is writing Whitlock to explain the policy of employing women in his department. “We too are going to use women in the chronograph operation. Our personnel situation here is none too good, since men of any description are hard to get, and Arkansas girls generally don't seem to go in for science. So we have to start our training with pretty elementary stuff. However, they seem to be able to learn as well as anybody, and I believe will make fine chronograph operators.”
Hunter read from the letter of commendation Klipsch received from the Southwestern Proving Grounds’ commander, “You were responsible for developing a means for determining the looseness of rotating bands, which was one of the outstanding problems confronting the Ordinance Department. I recognize that much of the work was necessarily done in overtime hours, as your routine duties kept you busy and left little time for research. I'm directing that a copy of this letter be placed in your 201 file after the war.”
Klipsch’s correspondence to Whitlock also had its share of jocular moments, as was a characteristic of most interactions with the inventor and speaker manufacturer. He provided an assessment of the availability of alcohol in the region. “Speaking of quarts, I guess you've heard that Hempstead County has no more quarts, fifths, pints or nothing. I suppose you can still get Greased Lightning, if you know the right people, but they make it with sugar. Whoever heard of putting sugar in corn anyway? The Arkansas technique would make a good Kentuckian turn over in his grave so fast the angels would call him whirling Joe.”
A letter in 1947 to Whitlock came after Klipsch was explaining why he had begun his speaker-making business in Hope. He had made a trip northeast the year before. “I spent a month in and around New York early in 1946 with the idea that the larger market possibilities would warrant my going there to build speakers. But prices are out of sight. I looked at a shop out Long Island Way, 10 foot by 20 foot for $400 a month. I found a place here for $10 a month,” Klipsch wrote. The place he spoke of was a tin shack behind present-day Still’s Automotive.
The ceremony began with an invocation from County Judge Jerry Crane, included Mayor Don Still leading the assembled, which included many veterans of four of America’s armed forces. No veterans from the Space Force were yet present. But the entire fourth-grade class from Bill Clinton Primary watched from behind the large tent. After quilts were presented to four veterans by the Hempstead County Quilters Guild, Hempstead County Sheriff James Singleton acknowledged the fourth-graders’ presence and spoke to them directly.
“It's up to you to carry on the remembrance of this special day. Without you, it'll go away. So I want you to keep in your hearts as you go through life to always remember November the 11th at 11am, and I want you to gather whoever you got at that particular time and bring them to this courthouse. We can't do it without you,” Singleton said.
After the ceremony, veterans and their spouses could line up to enjoy a free fried catfish meal from the Hope Lions Club and many did so.
