station had been set up and broadcasting, locally based servicemen were trained to operate the outlet. Usually, after the team was sure that the station could be run by the local GIs, they returned to Honolulu for reassignment to another location. This connected conglomerate of military stations became known as the Pacific Ocean Network (PON). Late World War II By late spring of 1944, the island-hopping campaigns of the war had made household words out of the names of previously little-known islands in the Central and South Pacific. The hard-fought battles in each area as the Allies moved northward introduced many famous battlegrounds. AFRS stations were set up on most of them, including Bougainville and New Britain (Solomon Islands—March 1944), New Guinea, New Ireland, Kavieng, and the Admiralty Islands (April 1944) and Rabaul (May 1944). These were all under Gen. MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Command, and at various times were referred to as the "Jungle Network" or the "Mosquito Network." AFRS team personnel received mixed receptions from the various island commanders. Drawn from whatever dominant branch of service on any particular island, some island commanders were very high on the broadcast idea, and gave support wherever they could. Others were less receptive, and there were times when the problems AFRS teams confronted had to be "bumped up" to the next higher echelon of command. Though there were untold numbers and types of problems facing the generals and admirals in the war theater, the largest single problem was how to boost and keep up the morale of the hundreds of thousands of servicemen under their command. The delivery of mail from home was sporadic, at best, and often took several weeks or months to reach its destination. Though it was not long after the establishment of AFRS, commanders began to realize that AFRS was probably the greatest morale booster ever devised, especially if the radio stations provided entertainment as well as news from home. So, even the threat of reporting AFRS problems to a higher headquarters often resulted in quick action by local commanders to do whatever they could to solve them. Still, some AFRS teams experienced problems that could not be easily solved by local island commanders, and the teams resorted to other methods of getting the job done. Several Pacific Ocean Network stations acquired high-powered transmitters, up to 200 watts in strength, through requisitioning procedures. A few obtained theirs through