How a North Reading Man Changed the Course of WWII

by Matthew T. Page

The Allied victory over the Nazis. Howard Hughes’ record-breaking round the world flight. Admiral Byrd’s third Antarctic expedition.

What do these historic milestones share in common? They may not have happened without the ingenuity of James Millen: a brilliant technological trailblazer who lived in North Reading for over 50 years.

A National Reputation

James Millen spent his entire career—and much of his spare time—designing, building, and manufacturing innovative new types of radio electronics. Born July 11, 1904 to John and Ann “Annie” (née Sibbold) Millen, James Archibald Petrie Millen first began tinkering with radios as Long Island schoolboy. At age 12, he built his first transmitter; five years later, he obtained his first radio callsign (2BYP). Millen went on to study mechanical engineering at the Stevens Institute in Hoboken, New Jersey, where he specialized in a budding new field: electronic design.

From an early age, Millen sought to parlay his love of amateur radio into a career. To help pay for college, he began writing magazine columns that helped fellow amateur radio enthusiasts understand the technology and build their own radio receivers. Right out of college, he started his own consulting company, providing advice to big name firms like RKO Studios, the American Appliance Company (now Raytheon), Ceco Manufacturing Company (a Providence-based radio tube maker), and the National Company: a major manufacturer of electronic components based in Malden, Massachusetts.

Below left: James Archibald Petrie Millen. Below right: a 1930s National Company advertisement.

In 1927, National hired the 23-year old Millen to be its chief engineer and general manager. Thanks to his innovative designs and peerless work ethic, National quickly became one of the leading U.S. manufacturers of radio communications equipment. Despite his young age, Millen was widely respected—both within the industry and among the users of their systems—thanks to his many magazine columns and his naturally helpful, engaging demeanor. Millen was also an excellent team player who worked closely with other titans in his field, including Herbert Hoover Jr. (the president’s son) who was an expert in adapting radio technology for aviation use.

From the Hilltop

Around 1934, Millen moved from suburban Malden to rural North Reading, purchasing a large tract of land on the east side of town, north of where Macintyre Drive and Elm Street (Route 62) now intersect. His property encompassed a 32-acre estate known as Riverside Farm. Once centered on a stunning c.1795 Federal Greek Revival-style farmhouse (demolished around 1914), Riverside Farm had been the home of the Tarbox family.

Below: Riverside Farm, 107 Elm Street, North Reading (c. 1887)

Overlooking the Ipswich River, Riverside Farm consisted of five separate pastures and a woodlot. Town records suggest it operated as a dairy farm for much of its lifespan. The last Tarbox to live there—Charles—was a well-liked man who drove a stagecoach between North Reading and Reading. According to his 1914 obituary, he also used his coach to pick up children that lived on the outskirts of town and take them to and from school. 

Two decades after Charles’ heirs sold the farm, Millen bought large parts of it to create a country retreat he named “Hilltop.” Located at the end of Tarbox Lane—a winding dirt road—his home was situated about where a modern house (8 James Millen Drive) sits now, adjacent to a large hill now crowned with a water tower. Over the years he lived there, Millen bought up adjacent parcels of land as they came up for sale, significantly extending the boundaries of his property. Millen valued his privacy, installing ‘Keep Out’ signs and state-of-the-art mechanical sensors that recorded when vehicles drove up his private road. 

Below: A 1951 map showing the location of Millen’s Hilltop home (highlighted in purple). Millen owned dozens of acres of undeveloped woodland to the south, north, and east of his home.

Though secluded, Hilltop had many creature comforts. Millen installed a tennis court and entertained his business associates around one North Reading’s very first inground swimming pools. He built a large greenhouse next to his home containing flower beds warmed by buried steam pipes linked to his home heating system. Millen was especially fond of geraniums, which his full-time gardener planted all around his property each spring.

His main house was surrounded by several other structures: an historic barn (since rescued and relocated to 39 Willow Street); a potting shed; a massive well-fed steel water tank (salvaged from an illegal still once located on Marblehead Street); a rustic cabin that housed Millen’s personal radio station (W1HRX) and home laboratory; and a huge freestanding steel radio antenna. Worried about trespassers, Millen equipped his barn and radio shack with homemade alarms he designed himself. Millen never married and his mother Annie lived with him at Hilltop—a house she adored—until she passed away in 1951.

Above: The exterior of the W1HRX radio shack. Below: the interior of Millen’s radio shack.

Above: A close-up of the radio set-up showing the NRO receiver Millen used. Below: an advertisement detailing W1HRX’s technical specs (below). A few years before his death, Millen donated W1HRX—his legendary 1930s vintage personal radio set-up to the Amateur Wireless Association (AWA) Museum in Bloomfield, New York. In 2020, it was fully restored by AWA volunteers.

Because he largely kept to himself, few North Reading locals got to know Millen well. Those that did—like police officer Lee Turcotte and firefighter Dana Rowe—met the reclusive genius because they did work on his property or checked in on it when he traveled. Rowe remembers Millen as someone who was kind and generous to those people and organizations he got to know well. For example, North Reading was one of the first towns in Massachusetts to have two-way radios in some of their firefighting vehicles because of the friendly relationship Millen had with its fire chief.

Making History

By the mid-1930s, Millen’s cutting-edge designs were beginning to have a far-reaching impact. Dreamed up at his Hilltop retreat in North Reading and perfected his laboratory at the National Company in Malden, Millen’s products—especially his short-wave radio receivers—became the go-to communications solution for America’s booming aviation industry as well as its ham radio enthusiasts.

One of Millen’s highest profile clients during this period was his friend Howard Hughes: billionaire, business tycoon, daredevil pilot, Hollywood movie producer, and (later in life) ultra-eccentric hermit. In the 1930s, Hughes set multiple air speed records and pushed the boundaries of aviation technology with prototypes like the H-1 Racer and the H-4 Hercules, (better known as the “Spruce Goose”). He also acquired Trans World Airlines (TWA), turning it into one of the world biggest carriers.

Above: Howard Hughes legendary birchwood-built folly: the Spruce Goose.

Indeed, it was Millen’s cutting-edge radio equipment that enabled Hughes to safely carry out a record-shattering 91-hour round-the-world flight in July 1938. A milestone in aviation history, Hughes’ well-publicized circumnavigation showed the world that long-distance air travel was both possible and safe. Millen’s equipment transformed intercontinental air travel by allowing planes to maintain radio contact with one continent or another rather than forcing them to make long risky ocean crossings during which they might fly for hundreds of miles outside of communications range.

Above: Howard Hughes landing in New York in 1938 after his record-breaking around the world flight. 

Like Hughes, polar explorer Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd also reached out directly to Millen to supply communications gear for his third Antarctic Expedition (1939-1941). Directed by FDR to establish two new long-term manned U.S. bases on the frozen continent, Byrd’s 125-man expedition included radiomen, pilots, mechanics, biologists, geologists, geophysicists, surveyors, meteorologists, photographers, and a sizable support staff. 

Thanks to Millen’s ingenuity, these explorers were able to communicate with ease, making it easier for them to complete their mission objectives. Unfortunately for Byrd, as he and his team overwintered in Antarctica in mid-1940, World War II began to intensify, prompting Washington to order his expedition to return home in early 1941.

Above: click the image to view a short 1939 newsreel film about the U.S. Antarctic Survey Expedition. Byrd ensured that his team was equipped with cutting-edge radio equipment designed by James Millen. Below: The USS Bear—the vessel that took Admiral Byrd on his third mission to Antarctic.

“Hell of a Rush”

Millen’s most important invention by far was the HRO: a short-wave radio receiver that is widely credited with helping the Allies win World War II. Designed and built by a team of engineers he led, the first HROs hit the market in early 1935. The name of the new receiver came from a note Millen scribbled on the device’s engineering drawings ("Hell of a Rush,” later abbreviated to “HOR”), referring to the pressure his team was under to bring it to market. Worried that this nickname sounded crass, National Company executives later scrambled its initials, renaming it the “HRO”.

Above: The iconic HRO designed by James Millen for the National Company. Click on the image of the advertisement to listen to the sound of how a broadcast received by an HRO actually sounds.

As the specter of war in Europe approached, the British and U.S. government began ordering thousands of HRO receivers. U.S. military orders exponentially increased again after Pearl Harbor, with Washington telling the National Company to "start supplying HROs—we’ll tell you when to stop." From the start of the war, Millen’s HRO was the radio-of-choice for Allied communications monitoring, cryptographic intercept stations, diplomatic messaging, and naval communications. By the end of the war, Millen-designed radio receivers (most which were HROs) were being used on 90% of all U.S. Navy ships.

In Britain, the HRO was the primary receiver used by the ultra-secret Y-Service: a network of radio intercept stations that fed coded Axis messages to Station X (Bletchley Park) where they were painstakingly deciphered. Historians agree that the Allies’ cutting-edge signals intelligence and cryptanalysis operations—which heavily relied on Millen’s HRO receiver—shortened World War II by two to four years. The HRO was such a game-changer that Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union tried to copy and produce their own variants of it.

Below left: A view inside of one of the largest Y-Stations (Scarborough) at the height of World War II. Below right: the notorious German Enigma machine whose codes were intercepted by Millen’s HRO receivers before being cracked by the brilliant cryptologists at Bletchley Park.

Why was NRO so successful? A combination of superb engineering and fortuitous timing. According to one historian, “many intercept operators will state that it was the best intercept receiver available during World War II, and for quite some time after the end of the war. It was stable, rugged, simple to operate, and the dial mechanism allowed resetting to a frequency much better than any other available receiver.” Without a doubt, Millen’s HRO changed the course of history.

Millen’s Legacy

At the start of the war, Millen and several of his associates left the National Company to establish their own firm: The James Millen Manufacturing Company. Much of his new company’s business came from subcontract work it did as a manufacturer of specialized radio components for the  likes of General Electric and RCA. The Millen Company continued to operate well into the late 1970s before closing its doors.

After he retired, Millen—like many modern-day snowbirds—split his time between North Reading and Florida. Knowing that his property was prime land for development, Millen inked an agreement with a local homebuilder that ensured his Hilltop home and about five surrounding acres would be protected from demolition. Before his lawyers could ratify the deal, however, Millen passed away.

After his 1987 death, the inventor’s estate sold the entire property to a developer who tore down Hilltop in the process of constructing the upscale Macintyre Crossingsubdivision. Fortunately, Millen’s friend Dana Rowe salvaged a beautiful historic “bullet glass” window from the wreckage of Millen’s home which he recently donated to the North Reading Historical & Antiquarian Society.

Thirty years after his North Reading home was razed, Millen is barely remembered locally. He is not buried in Riverside Cemetery, but rather alongside his beloved mother and father in Maple Grove Cemetery, Kew Gardens, Long Island—not far from the childhood home where he built his first radio. 

But Millen deserves to be remembered by the people of North Reading. A prolific inventor and talented engineer, he earned hundreds of patents, authored several books, and wrote countless magazine articles during his lifetime. He also mentored and inspired legions of amateur radio enthusiasts, actively promoting a hobby that many enjoy to this day. But perhaps one of the greatest legacies of one of our town’s least known residents is the outsized impact his inventions had on long distance air travel, Antarctic exploration, and the course of World War II.

Do you have memories of James Millen or photographs of his Hilltop home? If so, please reach out to the Society at: info@nreadinghistory.org