Monday, December 18, 2023

May 1944: Uncle Paul Learns to Jump out of Airplanes (STS 51)

After Uncle Paul finished up at Rhubana, he was sent down to Manchester in the central UK to one of the "other" SOE schools: parachuting at Specialist Training School (STS) 51.  

Manchester: red pin in central UK

Red pin marks Fulshaw Hall, where he stayed.


STS 51 was at the RAF Ringway (today, the Manchester Airport), which was where the RAF trained parachutists.

RAF Ringway in 1946. Source Britain from Above


Confusingly, his UKNA file lists both STS 51 and 51b, and I had to do some digging to understand the difference.  Denis Rigden in SOE Syllabus explained it pretty well:

It was provided at Ringway airfield, Manchester. The SOE students jumped alongside other trainees but they lodged an isolation from them in two secure houses (STSs 51a and 51b) near the airfield. At any one time the parachute school (STS 51) gave at least five days' training to the 70 SOE students, but many had their training stopped without warning and were sent to London for operational briefing after only two or three days at Ringway.
With a bit more digging, I found that Major C. J. Edwards, MBE commanded both STS 51a which was Dunham House, and STS 51b at Fulshaw Hall which is where Uncle Paul lived when he was learning to parachute.

STS 51b at Fulshaw Hall (pin at the bottom of the map)
is only 5 miles from STS 51 at RAF Ringway/Manchester Airport
(pin/gray area toward the top of the map).

Fulshaw in 1913 postcard. Public Domain.

Once a secret agent dormitory, now it's office space.
From the Wilmslow Website (link below)

Uncle Paul attended STS 51 twice, in May 1944, and again in February 1945 for additional training, though the file doesn't specify where he stayed the second time, or how long he was there.

Here's what they had to say about him in May of 1944:




There was a typo on the date, but it looks to me that he started the training on 14 or 15 May, 1944. When I blow up the high-resolution version, it looks to me like it had been 15, but the typist went back over it with a 4 a couple of times to make it darker, so I'm taking that as 14 May.  He left the school on or before the 19th (later in the file, it states that he arrived at STS 52 on 19 May).

Here's what they said in February of 1945 as he was preparing for his second SOE mission to Germany:



From the BBC SOE Training page in the links below: 
When undergoing parachute training at Ringway, students did at least two jumps, one from a plane and one from a static balloon. They were all equipped with a little spade attached to their leg, for the purpose of burying their parachute and SOE jump suit after they had landed. In the 'field' they had to jump from altitudes as low as 300-400 feet, and would hit the ground within 10-15 seconds. The plane's pilot was compelled to drop them at such low altitudes in order to avoid enemy radar detection.

It was a little hard to find more detailed descriptions of the training, but I finally found a bit more on this page:

Each RAF Parachute Jump Instructor (PJI) was in charge of a ‘stick’ of ten trainee parachutists at RAF Ringway. ‘Synthetic’ ground training was normally conducted in aircraft hangars using unconventional gymnastic-like apparatus to simulate the conditions a parachutist could expect to encounter from exiting the aircraft to flight and landing.

In one hangar there were mock-ups of the interior and jump-hole or door of all types of aircraft used for parachuting. The student was taught how to exit the aircraft.

In the other hangar were different types of ground equipment used to simulate landing. Trapeze swings simulated flight drills and students slid down chutes or jumped from platforms to practice parachute rolls on landing. The ‘Fan’, a platform apparatus 25-feet high, had a parachute harness connected to a ‘fan’ that used the body weight of the jumper to slow the rate of descent when he ‘jumped’ from the platform.

Certain devices such as the ‘Gallows’ and jumping from the backs of moving lorries to practice landings were discontinued due to excessive injury rates.


"Synthetic" ground training.
Paratrooper learning to land properly. Public Domain.
 
"Parachute Training at Ringway" by Patrick Hall, 1945.
See https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/11961 for bigger version.


In the Special Forces World War II Secret Operations Handbook by Stephen Hart and Chris Mann, they had this to say about the training:

Agents' first sessions were spent being dropped from special harnesses on to crash mats to simulate landings. This then progressed to jumping from a 23m (75ft) tower and then to a static balloon 213m (700ft) up. Finally, there came three daylight drops from an aircraft and two at night. The students needed to master basic parachute landing technique and learn the necessity of keeping both legs together to lessen the chance of breaking something.  This had to become instinctive as there would be no time to think when the time came for real.

Evidently there were even parachute songs used during training, mostly sung to common tunes, like "I'm Dreaming of a Soft Landing," sung to the tune of "White Christmas."  Here's a whole list of them:  https://www.3para1945-48palestine.com/parasongs.html

SOE agents were given a different jumpsuit than RAF parachutists: they used an easy-to-get-out-of suit (hence its off-color nickname "the striptease suit"). It was made of either white or camo canvas with lots of zippers and pockets.  It was designed to be worn over civilian clothes, and big enough to accommodate two great coats underneath it.  They carried a spade with them and buried the suit, helmet, and chute when they reached the ground.





Surviving example of a striptease suit.

Note: The source of the four jumpsuit images above is:  


Surviving suit in a museum. See Warrelics site for source.


Ringway Links:

Fulshaw Links:

Parachute Training Links:
SOE Jumpsuit (the "Striptease" suit):
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Friday, December 15, 2023

1940s: WW2 Theme - Abrasives as a Sabotage Technique

 As I research WW2 and life in Nazi-occupied Europe, I keep seeing specific themes, such as not having decent shoes, not enough food, control of the media, and propaganda. However, a few days ago, I discovered a theme that was new to me (though apparently not to historians): the use of abrasives as a sabotage weapon.

    Note: All hyperlinks to the articles where I found the quotes are at the end of the article.

In 1988, my grandfather told me this story, which took place in Belgium in 1941:

    At one time we had to manufacture – also in my division; I’m not talking about other departments – huge tank, galvanized. The tank was for gasoline, for aviation gasoline, which Germans were supposed to use for testing the airplane engines. And someone in my division sabotaged the work by leaving in the tank after inspection, not leaving but, putting into it, some abrasive powder and other – more abrasive than sand – powders. Obviously this would damage airplane engines to be tested. It was very bad. Before the Gestapo came to investigate what happened and who was responsible, I left a second time; we left Brussels.
I'd never heard of this practice anywhere but in my grandfather's stories, and I always thought, "cool - that's really clever." I don't know why, but I assumed it was an isolated method of sabotage.

Then a few days ago, just as I was leaving for my morning walk, I was listening to A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell and the following quote jumped out at me. I was so excited that I went back inside so I could play the snippet for Chris:

As usual, he [Ben Cowburn] headed straight to Virginia’s apartment to prepare for his mission, which included persuading friendly workers at a local aircraft factory to introduce abrasives into the machinery and blowing up high-tension lines around a power station.

That got me wondering how common the practice was, and so I did some searches. And, well, it was totally a thing.

In her article "Sabotage and Subversion," Mandy Baker wrote:

In order to give the agents more of an edge, the SOE also employed budding scientists to invent unique weapons of war. These weapons included ... carborundum—an abrasive grease which, when smeared on the right spot, could bring a locomotive to an immediate standstill.

On Wiki, I found:

In the days before 6 June French operatives of the SOE's Pimento network, headed by Anthony Brooks, sabotaged the rail cars by draining the axle oil and replacing it with an abrasive powder that caused the axles of the cars to seize up. The powder had been parachuted in by SOE. The perpetrators of the sabotage were a 16-year-old girl named Tetty, her boyfriend, her 14-year-old sister, and several of their friends.

I even found an entire article on powdered substances (not just abrasives) by John S. Forrester called "How Powders Helped to Win World War II" and this is what he had to say about silicon carbide:

SOE agents mixed silicon carbide powder with oil to jam the parts of machines and vehicles in German-controlled areas. According to Stephen Twigge’s “The Spy Toolkit,” many trains were derailed by operatives using this gummy concoction.  

“The carborundum was used in powder form or ready-mixed with grease. It had the advantage of not appearing to be a sabotage weapon and so was unlikely to arouse suspicion even in close proximity to targets – locomotive yards, factories, workshops, and garages,” wrote Mark Seaman wrote in his 2018 book, “Undercover Agent,” on the experiences of a British agent during the war.

There's that phrase, "necessity is the mother of invention," and I think it applies here. My grandfather's experience happened very early in the war when the SOE was a fledgling organization, and before resistance organizations were very strong or organized enough to easily pass on practices like this, and because of that, I suspect that the person in my grandfather's division who used the abrasives to damage the fuel tanks, probably thought of it on his own, and like all good ideas, it arose independently in many different places.


Bibliography:


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Tuesday, December 12, 2023

April-May 1944: Uncle Paul Went to Rhubana Lodge (STS 22)

After Uncle Paul completed the SOE assessment at Winterfold, he was sent to the Group A (paramilitary) Specialist Training School (STS) 22 at Rhubana Lodge, at Morar, Inverness-shire, which is in Scotland, right on the western shore of Loch Morar, in a rather remote area:

Morar in the northern end of the the UK.

Map closeup: Note the red heart - that's Rhubana Lodge,
between Loch Morar and the Sea of the Hebrides in the North Atlantic.


Here's what the place looked like over 100 years ago:

Rhubana Lodge in 1913.
Image courtesy of University of St Andrews Libraries and Museums.
See links below for high-res version

I think it's still pretty remote almost a century later. Here's a photo of the lodge taken in 2017, and it's incredibly lovely. Give me a place like this over the (also lovely!) Winterfold House any day.

Image by J.M. Briscoe ("Doffcocker"): https://flic.kr/p/YJBfbQ

Image by J.M. Briscoe ("Doffcocker"): https://flic.kr/p/ZLzxeQ

According to Denis Rigden in SOE Syllabus:

    The paramilitary schools, or group A schools, were opened between November 1940 and June 1941. Numbered STS 21 to STS 25C, they were based in 10 shooting lodges in the Arisaig and Morar areas of Inverness-shire. The surrounding countryside, which includes Loch Morar and Loch Nevis, is rugged and remote, ideal for the commando-style training that was provided… STS 22a, at Glasnacardoch Lodge, Mallaig, was a foreign-weapons school. The only instruction not given in Inverness-shire was parachute training.

    The Arisaig and Morar group of schools could accommodate up to 75 students. Courses at first lasted three weeks but were gradually increased to five. The main subjects on the syllabus, details of which changed often, included physical training, silent killing, weapons handling, demolition, map reading and compass work, field craft, elementary Morse and raid tactics.

STS 22 was commanded by Major G. Maxwell, and the training Uncle Paul got there was (I think) the equivalent of basic training in the military, though an abbreviated version of it.  But he continued learning Morse, plus how to fight, shoot, and blow thing up.  

Here is what his STS 22 instructors wrote about Uncle Paul in May of 1944:





That's definitely an improved opinion of him over what they had to say at SAB/STS 7 ("This man is neither dominant, robust nor aggressive. Signs of indecision, carelessness and rather an offhand manner may be due to feelings of social inferiority ... in any unusual situation there was a good deal of hesitation and nervousness."). So he was improving and getting more comfortable even in the short time since he was first assessed by the SOE.

The UKNA file doesn't give the exact dates he was at Rhubana. But we know the class started out 3 weeks long, quickly growing to 5 weeks, but the clues in the file suggest that his training was on the shorter end. I believe the timeline must have looked like this (or something very close to it):

  • 20 April 1944: Assessment at STS 7 concluded*
  • 21 April 1944: Travel from STS 7 to STS 22
  • 22 April 1944: Begin STS 22 paramilitary training
  • 12 May 1944: Complete STS 22 paramilitary training (3 weeks)
  • 13 May 1944: Travel from STS 22 to STS 51
  • 14 May 1944: Begin training at STS 51*

* Known dates

I've sent away for three publications put together by the Land, Sea, and Island Centre of Arisaig, a historical society in the area, to learn more about the training Uncle Paul went through, and they look very promising:


The miniseries on Netflix called Churchill's Secret Agents: The New Recruits episodes two and three deal with the paramilitary training.


Neither episode was filmed at Rhubana, however, as it's privately owned. According to IMDb, "the filming [for the series] took place at the Alvie and Dalraddy Estates (4 miles from Aviemore) in the Cairngorms and Forglen Estate, near Turriff in Aberdeenshire."

Links and references and other related and interesting stuff:

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Tuesday, December 5, 2023

April 1944: Uncle Paul Went to Winterfold (STS 7) - AKA Paul Starts SOE Training

Family lore always described my Great Uncle Paul as working for the RAF, but when I sent away for his file in the UK National Archives, I discovered he'd never joined the RAF. Instead, he worked for the Belgian Sûreté (similar to the CIA in the US) which had begun operating in exile in Britain after the Nazi occupation of Belgium in May of 1940. He also worked for the SOE.  

That means Uncle Paul was a secret agent. :-)

According to the UKNA file, the first place he was sent for SOE training was "STS 7."

After a little bit of research, I learned that the SOE divided training up into four main sections:
  • Preliminary - the assessment.
  • Group A - the paramilitary schools, which included the 3-5 weeks initial training in Scotland.
  • Group B - the "finishing schools" where they were trained in security and "tradecraft" (how to be a spy).
  • Group C - the operational schools - advanced training on a wide variety of very specialized techniques (like how to concoct explosives using every-day household chemicals).
  • "Other" school categories like the parachute schools in Manchester, the signals schools, and schools that were specific to the needs of certain countries (eg: Poland and Norway)

But what was "STS 7"? 

With some digging by myself and a friend, I found that  STS 7 was the SOE "Specialist Training School number 7," commanded by Major G. A. Brown, and it was where the preliminary assessment (and some early training - the student must receive training, in order to determine if he or she is trainable) took place.  According to the SOE Syllabus by Denis Rigden: 

SOE introduced a much quicker and generally better system of selecting students. In place of the Preliminary Schools, it set up a Students Assessment Board (SAB). In a country house called Winterfold (STS 7, formerly STS 4) at Cranleigh, in Surrey, the SAB gave the candidates a wide variety of psychological and practical tests over a four-day period ... The SAB's examining team consisted of six military testing staff (three captains and three sergeants) and four Royal Army Medical Corps officers, comprising two psychiatrists (majors) and two psychologists (a captain and a lieutenant). After the testing, a final selection board -- made up of the SAB president (the lieutenant-colonel commanding STS 7), the examiners, and representatives of the Country Sections -- discussed the performance of each candidate thoroughly and suggested which of the men (and women at some sessions) should be chosen.
Winterfold.  Shades of George R. R. Martin or J.R. R. Tolkien there. 

Winterfold is a 6000+ square foot house located on Barhatch Rd, Cranleigh GU6 7NH, United Kingdom.  It was a bit hard to find, and the map link is to the Winterfold North Lodge (a mere 1500 square feet), which had been part of the estate and at some point was actually detached and moved to an adjacent property to make two separate dwellings.  

Cranleigh is in the southern UK:

Winterfold is marked with the red pin labeled "North Lodge"

It's about 90 or so minutes by train southwest of London.


This is an excerpt from the UKNA file.  It tells me he attended the "SAB" from April 17-20, 1944, and if he passed he'd head to STS 22 and then STS 51.




It also tells me they thought he was very smart (which he was), picked up Morse code relatively well, had good mechanical skills, and could take instruction.   The remarks speak for themselves and demonstrate that Uncle Paul wasn't very sure of himself.  Indecisive. Social Inferiority, hesitation, not really a leader.

The four-day assessment was grueling. Maybe not like the initial basic training in the military, but it was exhausting nonetheless. Imagine four 18-hour-days' worth of college entrance exams, psychological and intelligence tests, physical tests and obstacle courses, mechanical aptitude tests, memorization, cleverness, and teamwork testing exercises.  

There's a 5-episode miniseries on Netflix called Churchill's Secret Agents: The New Recruits that is a cross between a reality TV show and a documentary, where they take modern people through the same training the men and women of the SOE went through.



I don't normally like reality TV, but this was pretty good, and got more and more compelling the further along it got.  The first episode is all about the SAB, though they used a different country estate (Winterfold is a private home) for filming.  

Anyway, I found pictures of Winterfold and North Lodge and they do give a feel for the place where my Uncle Paul spent 4 days in the spring of 1944. I didn't bother with pictures of the kitchens and bathrooms which are thoroughly modern and don't really help to get a feel for the place.

Winterfold:








There are more pictures here (find the picture, and use the slider bar underneath it to slide left/right):

https://themovemarket.com/tools/propertyprices/winterfold-house-barhatch-lane-cranleigh-gu6-7nh


Winterfold North Lodge:








There are more pictures here (find the picture, and use the slider bar underneath it to slide left/right):

https://themovemarket.com/tools/propertyprices/winterfold-north-lodge-barhatch-lane-cranleigh-gu6-7nh

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Friday, August 4, 2023

1952: Arthur's American Girl

I just found a copy of a 1960 letter my grandfather wrote to the editor of Reader's Digest, with a submission to the column Life in These United States. My grandfather described a sweetly off-color comment he made in the courtroom just before the federal judge entered to confer citizenship on the group of new Americans. 

Note: He'd been in the US for almost 13 years when he wrote it, and his English was quite fluent (I cannot tell from reading the article that it's not his native language).  However, I modernized his punctuation and capitalization, and added a couple of paragraph breaks to make it flow a little better, but otherwise made no changes.

    We immigrated, my wife and myself with our two children, to the United States coming from France. After a few fully expected hardships, the usual American miracle worked its way and our life started following a quite successful course. My situation with a research department of a major oil company in a midwestern city quickly improved, the children loved their schools; we made a lot of friends. 

    Then came the great day when my wife and myself became citizens of this republic.  We were both sitting in a federal courtroom along with about 30 other prospective new Americans. Around us stood delegations of schools, civic organizations, Daughters of the American Revolution with flags, all waiting to see the forthcoming ceremony and greet all of us.  

    The bailiff asked us to rise. Silence spread over the solemn courtroom. The federal judge was about to enter. 

    Suddenly, for a reason I could not explain, I felt a compulsion to address myself to a friend standing with his wife in front of me, and who also were about to become citizens. "Lotar," I said in a very quiet whisper, "do you know what will happen to me tonight?" 

    "No," was his scarcely audible answer. 

    "Well," I said, "for the first time in my life I'll go to bed with an American girl."

    My poor wife beside me and my poor friends in front of me had to strive hard to overcome an irresistible urge to laugh. The judge entered. Then we all became genuinely solemn. 

252 words
From Arthur Lubinski
Tulsa, Oklahoma


Grandpa wrote that they were in a federal courtroom, so I think they must have been in the Boulder Avenue Federal Building and Post Office, which was built in 1917:

The Page Belcher Federal Building wasn't built until 1967, 15 years after my grandparents became citizens, so it couldn't have been there. These days, naturalization ceremonies are held at local high schools, museums, and other locations like stadiums or the YMCA and occasionally at the Belcher building.  

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Sunday, July 9, 2023

August 1944: Uncle Paul Memorizes a Fake Identity

 Last winter, I discovered that there was a file on my Uncle Paul Lubinski (my grandfather's younger brother) in the UK National Archives. I requested a file search and then paid to have the file digitized and sent to me.

It turns out he worked for the S.O.E. (I thought he'd been in the RAF), was a radio/teletype operator, a paratrooper (at 5'5" tall!) and he was sent on at least one secret mission to Germany in 1945. 

 He had at least two different aliases, and a couple of code names ("Ironside" and "The Termite"). Most of the file is in English, but there are a few pages in French, and I just translated one of them: it's the cover story for one of Uncle Paul's fake identities. Whoa. How cool is that?!?

Confusingly, the cover story was dated in August of 1944, when he was still in SOE training, which he completed in November of 1944. So I don't know if the cover story was just used for training purposes, or if it was never used at all.

Either way, it's a weird blend of fake, real, and similar. 

  • In real life, he was a mechanical engineer like my grandfather, and in the cover story, he was an electrician. 
  • His birthdate was the same in real life and in the cover story.
  • His mother's first name is Micheline in both real life and in his cover story, but her maiden name is in the story is fake (though similar to other family names). 
  • His father's real name was Herman, but was Henri in the cover story.
  • In his cover story, his parents had been born in Belgium and had already died. In real life, they were born in Poland and were naturalized Belgian Citizens and his father at least was still alive. His mother may also have still been alive (though she did die before the end of the war).
  • In real life he had been born in Poland, but in the cover story, he had been born in Belgium (in real life, his family returned to Belgium when he was a child). 


Click to enlarge

Here's a translation:

NAME: LEBEQUE

SQUAD: 

DATE: 28.8.44


PRELIMINARY COVER SKETCH


1. IDENTITY false true

Name: XXXXX Paul LEFABVRE

15 av. de France (Frankrijklei)

ANTWERP.


Place and date of birth: 18.2.1918


Identity card Commune of: ETTERBEEK

Issued on: 40

(see details attached)


Family details: (in case of false identity)

Father: Henri LEFEBVRE (Courtier d'Ase.) born in CHARLEROI, died in BRUSSELS in 1939 aged 58 years. He worked for S.A. Le Phéniz.

Mother: Micheline born TELLFELD in ANTWERP and died in ANTWERP aged 56.

He is unmarried.


2. YOUR PRE-WAR LIFE:

In 1925 your parents moved to BRUSSELS at 19 Av. del la Chasse, ETTERBEEK.

1926-1936 Collège St. Michel, Bd. St. Michel, ETTERBEEK.

1936-1939 University of Brussels (Provide real details yourself) 

1938 No Military Service "Sursis" because of your studies.

After your father's death you left the University and worked atxx E. DE RYCK (Radio-Depannage) 195 Av. de TERVUEREN 1939 you and your xxxx xxxxxxxx to xxxxxxxxxxx to:-.


3. YOUR LIFE FROM 1940 UNTIL YOUR DEPARTURE FROM BELGIUM:

43 AV. EDOUARD DE THIBAULT - ETTERBEEK.


4. YOUR JOURNEY FROM BELGIUM:

May 14, 1940 Left by train passing through AMIENS - ROUEN - LE MANS - TOURS - VIERZON - LIMOGES - MONTAUBAN - TOULOUSE.


5. YOUR STAY ABROAD: 

June, 1940 - November, 1942 in TOULOUSE staying with friends M.L. BARLANGUE, (electrician) 30 rue Caraman.

December, 1940 - November, 1942 worked Ets. PEROURET (electricians) 23 Allée Jean-Jaurès. TOULOUSE.

November, 1942 - March, 1944 with M. Falabrègue - route d'Avignon, Châteaurenard-Provence, in a farmhouse.


6. YOUR TRIP BACK TO BELGIUM: 

March, 1944 back to Belgium AVIGNON - VALENCE - LYON - DIJON - PARIS (G. de Lyon) - PARIS (G. de l'Est) - MEAUX - REIMS - MEZIERES - CHARLEVILLE GIVET. (Clandestine passage between GIVET and Heer-Agimont. 

Returned to the same address in ETTERBEEK, staying with your mother's friends: Mme. Vervaone.


Worked from May, 1944 - “X” September, 1944 in the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare attached to the “Special Mutual Fund for Family Allowances for Trade and Itinerant Crafts, Hawking and Professions exercised by Showmen, 12 rue de la Presse, BRUSSELS.


NOTE:

If you consider that a change needs to be made to this project, you must inform us within 10 days of receipt of this sheet. In the absence of such notice, the detailed text of your cover will be prepared as outlined above.


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Monday, June 19, 2023

Good coffee on the cheap (sort of)

 Coffee can be an expensive habit, no doubt.

But, it doesn't have to be.  

Here are some easy ways to improve your coffee game without breaking the bank. I ranked these from most important to least, so start at the top of your list, and work your way down, stopping at any time you want. But, if you do nothing else, I'd at least follow the first two suggestions (grinding just before brewing, and buying fresher beans).

Buy whole beans and grind just before brewing.  Purchasing pre-ground coffee guarantees a stale cup within a day or two.  So, get a grinder and buy whole beans.  Grinders start under $20. 

  • Hand crank burr grinder. Burr grinders produce a consistent grind (though you'll need to experiment until you get a good grind size, so expect to get a few bad cups at first). Cheapest are hand-cranked, something like this: https://a.co/d/9Ty0UD6. $19.
  • Blade grinders are not as good because they don't produce consistent particle sizes. BUT, a blade grinder is still a huge step up from buying pre-ground coffee. Coarseness/fineness is determined by the time spent grinding (a longer grind time results in finer grounds, a shorter one results in a coarser grind). Grind for 15 seconds and see how the coffee tastes, then grind for longer/shorter times until you get a cup you like.
  • Any electric burr grinder of your choice. They start around $40 and go on up in price. BUT DO NOT USE THE HOPPER. They do a poor job of storing the coffee, exposing the beans to light and air, causing the beans to go stale. Do what is called "single dosing" and pour just what you need for that batch of coffee into the grinder.
Buy freshly-roasted beans. If they come in a can, they aren't fresh.  Beans are best about 3 days after roasting, to let the CO2 outgas.  They will start at about $10 per 16-ounce bag. I usually spend about $15-$20 for 12 ounces. That still works out to be wildly less expensive than buying brewed coffee at a coffee shop.  Buy your beans from coffee shops and local roasters, or by mail order. Some grocery stores carry fresh beans, but you'll need to check roast dates.  Look for beans that have been roasted within the last week, but if the bags are well-sealed, then buying them up to 1-2 months after roasting may be fine (it's a matter of preference, but I don't buy beans that are more than a week post-roast).

Improve your coffee storage.  Keep your coffee fresh, by storing it away from light,  heat, humidity, and oxygen.  Believe it or not, this is one of the cheapest and easiest things to improve. If you use beans quickly, then keep them at room temperature. Otherwise, wrap them well and freeze or refrigerate (most coffee snobs think the fridge is bad for beans, but I've found that if they are well-wrapped, it's fine). In either case bring them fully to room temp before using so that moisture doesn't condense on the beans and make them go stale.
  • Store it in the bag: the bag the beans are sold in usually have a little one-way valve on them. Just store it in the bag, and get an alligator cup measuring spoon. Squeeze excess air from the bag, and clip it closed with one of these. https://a.co/d/4wP0VPD. $5.
  • If you go through a 12 ounce bag of coffee relatively quickly (say, in a week or so) get a medium Airscape. https://a.co/d/g5DnVPf. Get one of the metal or ceramic ones, not glass (glass exposes the beans to light, which isn't good for them). $32
  • If it takes you more than say 10 days to finish 12 ounces, then get a small metal or ceramic Airscape (same link as above, but select small). $27.  Put about half the beans in the Airscape, and leave the rest in the bag. Squeeze all the air out of the bag, clip it closed with a cheap alligator clip, and pop the bag in the freezer.  When you need more beans, remember to let them thaw fully before opening the bag. $27.
  • If you buy a bunch of coffee at a time as I do (to save on postage), vacuum pack the beans and keep them in the fridge (and as with frozen beans, let them warm up before opening the container and transferring to the airscape).  Use brown glass canning jars to limit light exposure, and a handpump (or if you have it, an electric vacuum sealer like a Food Saver).
    • Amber Canning jars. https://a.co/d/cJAZu5P.  Pints (widemouth only!) are a good size because they contain about 1/2 a bag of beans.  Once sealed, I keep these in the fridge and when I'm ready to open a jar, I let it come up to room temp overnight and transfer to the Airscape. Get wide-mouth jars (not regular). $35
    • Hand pump. https://a.co/d/2Yqa0Xi.  You'll use this to pump the air out of the canning jar. I take the vacuum to 20 psi on the dial. You will also need the FoodSaver jar sealer. $17.
    • FoodSaver jar sealer. https://a.co/d/1Lpz2mn. Use the wide mouth version (I usually can't get the narrow-mouth to work). Plug one end of the tubing into the lid sealer, and if using the handpump, you'll remove the connector from the other end of the tubing, and use one of the adapters from the hand pump kit to attach the tubing to the pump. Remove the ring from the jar, slide the sealer down over the lid, pump to 20, then push the little pressure release on the pump, then remove the jar sealer. The lid should be vacuumed down. $20.
Explore manual methods of coffee brewing. Brewing using an auto-drip coffeemaker is a perfectly fine, reliable way to get a decent cup. BUT, you'll up your game if you go to a manual method. Heat your own water and brew it yourself.  It's not hard, and not much more work.  This is split into two sections: controlling water temp and brewing.

Controlling water temperature: Cheapest (if you have a microwave) is a glass measuring cup, or a garden-variety stove-top kettle, but it's more fun to use an electric kettle.

Cheapest options:
  • If you have a microwave, get a microwave-safe glass measuring cup and a cheap metal thermometer. Nothing fancy is needed. Measure your water, heat to boiling, then take it out and stick the thermometer into the water. When it drops to 200-205, then use it to brew your coffee.  
  • Electric kettle (any inexpensive one will do fine). They run $25-$40. You'll still need a thermometer though.
Brewing the coffee. I've tried lots of methods over the years, but the cheapest and easiest brewer I've found that will give you a great cup is the Clever Dripper, which brews similarly to the French press. FPs  are cheaper, but they are harder to clean and you wind up with sludge in your cup, so I prefer the Clever. I'd use the glass option ($61) for daily use, the plastic one ($36) when camping or traveling. Super easy to use: 
  1. Pop in a filter, fill it with hot tap water to pre-heat it while you are heating the brew water.
  2. When the brew water is ready, drain the preheat water and discard. 
  3. Fill it with 400 ml (14 ounces) of 200F brew water and add 25g (2 tbsp more or less) of medium ground coffee
  4. Give it a stir until the floating grounds are fully wet, then put the lid on. 
  5. Stir after 2 minutes (to get any remaining floating grounds to sink).
  6. Drain at 4 minutes by setting it onto your mug. The edge of your mug will release the valve, and the coffee drains from the brewer.
Here's a video.  Here's a more advanced video from my favorite coffee guy. You'll note that he grinds the coffee more finely and steeps for half the time. (Those are things you can play with, the amount of coffee, amount of water, steep time, and grind size).  

To make 2 cups at once, do everything the same as above, but double the grounds used, and drain into a vessel that can hold about 28 ounces, then dilute the concentrate by adding another 400 ml/14 ounces of hot water.   Pour into two mugs.


And finally, there are some more expensive toys that reduce hassle:
  • Coffee scale (any cheap kitchen scale will do, but coffee scales are designed for a wetter environment and they are more expensive).  But they are great because you don't have to measure anything by volume. You brew on the scale itself and do everything by weight.
  • Variable temperature electric kettle - Bonavita makes one but I like the Fellow Stagg Electric kettle ($195). It takes the water to the desired temp and holds it there so no guesswork.  Some cheaper electric tea kettles have pre-sets. Look for one that has a 200F or 205F setting, but they do cost a bit more (start at around $50 instead of $30).

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