Category Archives: Frontline Signalling

Signalling at the Battle of Passchendaele, July to November, 1917

By Dr Elizabeth Bruton

Military communications in World War One evolved to meet new battlefield and military challenges during this period. Battles were won and lost on the strength of an army’s ability to communicate on the battlefield.  New and old systems of communications were used side-by-side and interchangeably.

This was as much true of early battles on what became known as the Western Front as well as later battle such as the Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres) which took place from 31 July through to 1o November 1917. The Allied plan was for French, Belgium, and British troops as well as those from the British empire including Australians, Canadians, Indians, New Zealanders, and South Africans to take the high ground (ridge) south and east of the city of Ypres. The Battle of Passchendaele is of particular interest not because it was the site of any particular telecommunications innovations but rather because signalling failures contributed to the ultimate failure of the Allied attack and secondly because the battle is representative of signalling practice and operations at this stage of the war.

IWM Q 6050 Battle of Poelcappelle. Royal Engineers taking drums of telephone wire along a duckboard path up to the front between Pilckem and Langemarck, 10 October 1917.

IWM Q 6050 Battle of Poelcappelle. Royal Engineers taking drums of telephone wire along a duckboard path up to the front between Pilckem and Langemarck, 10 October 1917. Image available in the public domain via IWM.

Communications failures occurred at both the First and Second Battle of Passchendaele. During the early stages of the First Battle of Passchendaele on 12 October 1917, the two lead British commanders Douglas Haig and Herbert Plumer believed – due to delays in communication and misleading information – that the advance had been successful and were unaware that the German counter-attack in the afternoon had wiped almost all of the Allied advance. Of particular problem was terrain in the area around Passchendaele as well as Ypres and Messines which was unsuitable terrain for laying cables. Furthermore, the ground had been heavily bombarded by German artillery as well as intense rainfall in the weeks leading up to the attack. At the Second Battle of Passchendaele which took place between 26 October and 10 November 1917, the retreat of the 4th Canadian Division from Decline Copse was due to communication failures between the Canadian and Australian units to the south as well as German counterattacks.

The British Army commonly used telegraph cables and telephones on the Western Front to communicate between the front line soldiers and commanders. But heavy artillery (gun) bombardment meant these lines of communications were easily broken. These lines of communications were also easily intercepted by the German army, as were the very basic wireless telegraph sets used by the British Army. Despite this, the speed of telephone and telegraph communication meant they were the most commonly used telecommunications systems used by the British Army.

Ruins as telephone posts

Ruins as telephone posts by Le Section Photographique de L’Armee Francaise, n.d. Image available in the public domain.

Belgian Field Telephone

Belgian Field Telephone, n.d. Image available in public domain.

As a brief aside, these two evocative of photographs of field telephony in the war representing life more generally on the front were reproduced in various publications including printed periodicals such as War Illustrated News as well as postcards. These two particular photographs were kindly provided Dr Kate MacDonald from Postcards box GB9 – WW1: Postcards of life at the Front in the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera held by the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. The former postcard of Ruins as telephone posts was produced by Newspaper Illustrations in England and credited as an official photograph of Le Section Photographique de L’Armee Francaise.

IWM Q6230 Carrier pigeons: A bus converted into a mobile pigeon loft on the Western Front, July 1916.

IWM Q6230 Carrier pigeons: A bus converted into a mobile pigeon loft on the Western Front, July 1916. Image available in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons and IWM.

Hence alternative methods of communication were required until (so the plan went) the higher ground was taken where cables could be used. Problems with these alternative methods of communications including carrier pigeons being hindered by high wind and messenger dog handlers becoming casualties were in part the cause for the misplaced belief by Haig and Plumer that the initial stages of the attack were successful.

More generally from 1915 onwards, non-telecommunications systems of signalling were used in parallel with and as a backup to telegraph and telephones. The British Army was forced to adapt, using older forms of communication such as carrier pigeons and written messages delivered by runners and messenger dogs to keep the lines of communications open. Messenger runners had one of the most dangerous jobs in the war having to run across open ground and risk being shot by snipers in order to make sure a message was delivered. Signalling flags were also used but could be only used in the daytime but were easily visible to the enemy.

Tactically, it was around the time of the Battle of Passchendaele that the German Army switched tactics and began to use “defence in depth”, that is delaying rather than preventing an enemy attack with the hope that the enemy would lose momentum as they cover an increasingly larger area.  This had an impact upon signalling: Allied forward signal parties frequently became involved in the fighting and the larger areas covered by the Allies as a result of this tactic required artillery stations to be moved necessitating the improvisation of a fresh series of artillery signal communications.

Art.IWM ART 2920 BE2c aircraft of the Royal Flying Corps fly above the clouds amidst the small puffs of artillery fire. A small section of the landscape is visible far below the cloud line (1920).

Art.IWM ART 2920 BE2c aircraft of the Royal Flying Corps fly above the clouds amidst the small puffs of artillery fire. A small section of the landscape is visible far below the cloud line (1920). Image available in the public domain via the IWM.

During the war, aeroplanes developed rapidly from kite-like aeroplanes where pilots shot at each other with small guns to bombers and fighter planes. As the aeroplanes developed during the war, so did their means of communications. At the start of the war, pilots communicated using visual signalling such as rocking their wings and flags. By the time of the Battle of Passchendaele in late 1917, aircraft were commonly used for reconnaissance and long-range artillery spotting. Indeed by this stage of the war, most artillery spotting was done by aircraft using wireless communications: pilots communicating wirelessly with artillery stations on the ground, correcting the aims of British guns firing beyond the “line of sight” (what they could see) to German targets. Wireless communication was achieved using a mixture of radio telephony (voice over wireless) and wireless telegraphy (Morse code over wireless).

For example, on 12 October 1917 – the day of the First Battle of Passchendaele – there were one hundred and twenty-four zone (ranging) calls to the artillery for fire on active batteries, troops, transport, and machine-gun posts. Source: Jones, H. A. The War in the Air, Being the Part Played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force Volume 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), 206. By the end of the war, pilots were equipped with radio telephony (voice over radio) and were able to communicate over short distances with other aeroplanes and over longer distances with ground wireless stations.

National Library of New Zealand 1/2-012945-G Unidentified New Zealand World War 1 signaller on a German dug-out, Gallipoli Farm, Belgium, 12 October 1917. Photograph taken by Henry Armytage Sanders.

National Library of New Zealand 1/2-012945-G Unidentified New Zealand World War 1 signaller on a German dug-out, Gallipoli Farm, Belgium, 12 October 1917. Photograph taken by Henry Armytage Sanders. Image available in the public domain via the National Library of New Zealand.

To conclude, the Battle of Passchendaele was not the site of any particular telecommunications innovation and indeed the lack of British success was in part due to communications problem.  The landscape did cause some limitations in terms of problems laying cables but otherwise it was representative of telecommunications operations at the time: old and new signalling systems being used adjacent and interchangeably.  By late 1917, wireless communication in aircraft was commonly used for co-ordinating artillery and this was very much the case at the Battle of Passchendaele in mid- to late-1917.

Sources and Further Reading

BBC iPlayer – The Great War Interviews – 8. John Willis Palmer (recommended by Graeme Gooday)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01td2np/the-great-war-interviews-8-john-willis-palmer#group=p01tbj6p
John Willis Palmer, a Signaller with the Royal Field Artillery, recalls how the mud and fatigue at Passchendaele broke his spirit.

IWM Podcast 31: Passchendaele by Kate Clements
http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/podcasts/voices-of-the-first-world-war/podcast-31-passchendaele

Jones, H. A. The War in the Air, Being the Part Played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force Volume 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934).
Internet archive: https://archive.org/stream/warinairbeingsto04rale

Priestley, R.E. The Signal Service in the European War of 1914-1918 (France) (Chatham: W. & J. Mackay & Co. Limited, 1921).
Internet Archive: https://archive.org/stream/signalserviceine00prie

Wikipedia: Battle of Passchendaele
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Passchendaele

About the author: Dr Elizabeth Bruton is a historian of science specialising in history of communications and former postdoctoral researcher for “Innovating in Combat”. See her Academia.edu profile for further details.

British Pathe wireless films from World War One

The entire British Pathe archive of over 85,000 films is now available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/user/britishpathe

This collection includes some wonderful wireless-related films, see https://www.youtube.com/user/britishpathe/search?query=wireless

Two particular films of interest are:

Arriving For Instructions In Wireless – Telegraphy At Marconi House (1919) which opens with a scene of army wireless operators arriving at Marconi House in London for training

Wireless Installation On Train (1914-1918) which shows a wireless mast being installed on top of a stopped train.

It was the latter of film which was of particular interest – the description below the video stated that the location of events was unknown and that the nationality of the soldiers were not absolutely certain but might be Belgian.

Screenshot of wireless mast being put up from British Pathe film, Wireless Installation On Train (1914-1918).

Screenshot of wireless mast being put up from British Pathe film, Wireless Installation On Train (1914-1918).

An answer came via one of our subscribers and Len Blasiol on the Modern Conflict Archaeology Facebook group that the soldiers were definitely French officers and men:

The helmets look a bit like those of Poilu although it’s difficult to tell with certainty whether they have the metal ridge. However, there are two officers in the scene. One leans out of the railroad car at two points, and the other walks up near the end. Both of them have a quatrefoil on the top of their kepi.

Screenshot of group of soldiers beside the train from British Pathe film, Wireless Installation On Train (1914-1918).

Screenshot of group of soldiers beside the train from British Pathe film, Wireless Installation On Train (1914-1918).

So this rather begs the question: why and how were they using a wireless system on a stopped train and where and when might this film be from?

Please answer in our comments below!

Update: Chris Phillips from the University of Leeds, an expert on the logistical administration, in particular trains, of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918, suggested that this might be an advance headquarters.  For example, Haig had a train advanced headquarters but Chris was unable to comment on how common this might have been in the French Army.

Might anyone be able to provide any further information?

Putting Art on the Map at the BPMA: Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps Signallers, Base Hill, Rouen. Telephones. Forewoman Milnes and Captain Pope.

By Elizabeth Bruton

On Monday 10 February 2014, I attended the Historypin and Putting Art on the Map event at the British Postal Museum and Archive at Mount Pleasant in London. The aim of the event was to “crowdsource” expertise and knowledge in order to improve catalogue information about First World War art held by the Imperial War Museum, London. The particular theme of the event was Postal communications and Telecommunications in the First World War and further information about the event is available on the HistoryPin blog as well as the British Postal Museum & Archive blog.

All of the participants were given physical and online copies of a selection of art relating to World War One telecommunication and postal communications from the IWM collection and asked to discuss and contribute further details.  While it was possible to contribute research and knowledge to multiple images (and this was something which happened more in the discussion at the tail end of the event), I choose to research a single image: Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps Signallers, Base Hill, Rouen : Telephones. Forewoman Milnes and Captain Pope.

Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps Signallers, Base Hill, Rouen : Telephones. Forewoman Milnes and Captain Pope.

Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps Signallers, Base Hill, Rouen : Telephones. Forewoman Milnes and Captain Pope. Art.IWM ART 2900. Copyright IWM.

The existing information in the catalogue was the title (above); the name of the painter, Beatrice Lithiby (OBE); and the description: view of a military telephone exchange, with four women operators seated at their telephone sets, a seated male officer and a soldier using a handset.

I began with the location, Rouen, France, and was able to discover the following information:

Rouen was one of the major Infantry Base Depots (IBD) and was in use for the duration of the war. Rouen in particular was a supply base and also home to a number of hospitals. As a result, it is home to a number of World War One cemeteries for the soldiers who died at the nearby hospitals. An IBD was one of the British Army holding camps which were situated within easy distance of one the Channel ports. IBDs received men on arrival from England and kept them in training while they awaiting posting to a unit at the front; they were also used supply bases.
Source: The Long, Long Tail: The British Army in the Great War of 1914-1918 – The Infantry Base Depots.

Information about Rouen base is available via the War Diaries held by the National Archives, in particular WO 95/4043 – Rouen Base: Commandant, August 1914 to December 1918. Unfortunately, none of these diaries have been digitised as of now (February 2014) in the National Archives Unit War Diaries.
Update from David Underdown at National Archives: At present [February 2014] only war diaries of divisions and subordinate formations have been digitised. GHQ, Army, Corps and Lines of Communication units have not yet been done (and nothing outside France and Flanders).

Next, I moved onto information about the artist, Beatrice Ethel Lithiby.

Beatrice Ethel Lithiby (1889-1966) Lithiby was a painter and designer born in Richmond, Surrey in 1889, the daughter of a barrister. She studied at the Royal Academy Schools and served as a war artist in World War One. On the death of her father set up her studio at Wantage.
Source: Suffolk Painters: LITHIBY, Beatrice Ethel (1889 – 1966).

Five of her paintings (none from World War One) are available at BBC Your Paintings: Beatrice Ethel Lithiby Lithiby also served in World War Two, in the Auxiliary Territorial Service and was awarded an OBE/MBE in 1944.

Next, I moved onto information about Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps.

Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps (QMAAC) was the successor (renamed) to the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) and was given this title in April 1918 although it took a while for the title to be put to use. If the title is correct, then this painting is from late in the war, mid-1918 or afterwards. After a German air raid in September 1940, most of the service records of the QMAAC were destroyed. Surviving records have recently been digitised by the National Archives and are searchable online via the National Archives

From National Archives War Office: Women’s (later Queen Mary’s) Army Auxiliary Corps: Service Records, First World War (Microfilm Copies):

The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was formed following Lieutenant General H M Lawson’s report of 16 January 1917 which recommended employing women in the army in France. Mrs Chalmers Watson became Chief Controller of the new organisation and recruiting began in March 1917, although the Army Council Instruction no 1069 of 1917 which formally established the WAAC was not issued until 7 July 1917.

Although it was a uniformed service, there were no military ranks in the WAAC; instead of officers and other ranks, it was made up of ‘officials’ and ‘members’. Officials were divided into ‘controllers’ and ‘administrators’, members were ‘subordinate officials’, ‘forewomen’ and ‘workers’. The WAAC was organised in four sections: Cookery, Mechanical, Clerical and Miscellaneous; nursing services were discharged by the separate Voluntary Aid Detachments, although eventually an auxiliary corps of the Royal Army Medical Corps was set up to provide medical services for the WAAC.

In appreciation of its good services, it was announced on 9 April 1918 that the WAAC was to be re-named ‘Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps’ (QMAAC), with Her Majesty as Commander-in-Chief of the Corps. At its height in November 1918, the strength of the QMAAC was more than 40,000 women, although nearly 10,000 women employed on Royal Flying Corps air stations had transferred to the Women’s Royal Air Force on its formation in April 1918. Approximately, a total of 57,000 women served with the WAAC and QMAAC during the First World War. Demobilisation commenced following the Armistice in November 1918 and on 1 May 1920 the QMAAC ceased to exist, although a small unit remained with the Graves Registrations Commission at St Pol until September 1921.

Further information on the WAAC can be found in Arthur Marwick, Women at War, 1914-1918 (London, 1977).

From The Long, Long Tail: The British Army of 1914-1918 – for family historians: Women’s organisations and the service of women in the British army of 1914-1918:

The first WAACs moved to France on 31 March 1917. By early 1918, some 6,000 WAACs were there. It was officially renamed the QMAAC in April 1918 but this title was not generally adopted and the WAACs stayed WAACs. The organisation of the WAAC mirrored the military model: their officers (called Controllers and Administrators rather than Commissioned Officers, titles jealously protected) messed separately from the other ranks. The WAAC equivalent of an NCO was a Forewoman, the private a Worker. The women were largely employed on unglamorous tasks on the lines of communication: cooking and catering, storekeeping, clerical work, telephony and administration, printing, motor vehicle maintenance. A large detachment of WAACs worked for the American Expeditionary Force and was an independent body under their own Chief Controller. WAAC/QMAAC was formally under the control of the War Office and was a part of the British Army.

'W.A.A.C. Every Fit Woman Can Release a Fit Man', 1918 (c).

‘W.A.A.C. Every Fit Woman Can Release a Fit Man’, 1918 (c). Image courtesy of National Army Museum.

Based on recruitment posters depicting the uniforms of the WAAC and the QMAAC, it would appear that the uniform did not change when the corps name changed – see National Army Museum: ‘W.A.A.C. Every Fit Woman Can Release a Fit Man’, 1918 for an image of the WAAC and Art.IWM PST 13167: Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps, June 1918 for an image of the QMAAC uniform (thank you, Helen Glew!). Independent of the fact that this artwork does not show the front of the women’s uniforms, this lack of difference in uniform means confirming whether this artwork depicts the WAAC or the QMAAC is challenging.

Last and most definitely not least, I moved onto the image itself and was even to trace the details of one of the women depicted, Forewoman (Evelyn) Milnes.

Members of QMAAC served with Royal Engineers Signals and Postal Units and this is what this image appears to show.

The women are wearing the white and blue signallers armbands and are working as telephone operators. In civilian life up to and including World War One, most telephone operators were female. However, military telephone operators especially those in France, were generally men and Royal Engineers. For example, see the photograph below (which is also used in our header image).

Signallers working at the headquarters of R.E.S.S. in France, during World War I

Signallers working at the headquarters of R.E.S.S. in France, during World War I. Image courtesy of the National Library of Scotland.

The photographic image above entitled “Signallers working at the headquarters of the Royal Engineers Signal Service (RESS) in France during World War I” closely matches the setup and apparatus of this painting. This would suggest that military telephone exchange apparatus did not change significantly during the war, assuming the dates I have attributed are correct. Although undated, I would date the RESS HQ photograph image to c.1916 and assuming the artwork title is correct and this does depict the Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps then this art can be dated to mid- to late-1918. The close match of apparatus and setup, even down to the lampshades and headsets used, also suggests that the war artist was realistically and faithfully depicting the telephone exchange and indeed may have based it on sketches taken in situ.

Later in the war, the gender of military telephone operators began to change and safer locations such as the telephone exchange at Rouen depot began to be operated by female operators. The US Army also used female telephone operators, in particular bilingual operators fluent in English and French, towards the later stages of the war. These were known, as they had been referred to at home, as “hello girls”.

The image shows Forewoman Milnes (WAAC/QMAAC equivalent of NCO), the lead female telephone operator (on the right of the image) and Captain Pope (the seated military officer). An additional second male soldier operating a telephone handset is unidentified.

Forewoman Evelyn Milnes

According to her military record held by the National Archives, Forewoman Milnes was Evelyn Milnes, born in Sheffield on 24 August 1881 and served in the WAAC and later QMAAC from 1917 to 1920. Evelyn Milnes had five years worth of experience in telephony when she joined the WAAC in 1917 having joined the Post Office as a telephonist in Sheffield in 1912. See Post Office: Staff nomination and appointment, 1831-1969. British Postal Museum and Archive POST 58 reference number 109, accessed via Ancestry.co.uk. Milnes’ appointment is referred to in Minute E23103.

Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to find information on Captain Pope (most probably Royal Engineers).

Further information about the telephone switchboards was provided by David Hay of BT Archives:

The telephone switchboards, or at least the cabinets, appear very similar to those used by the National Telephone Company seen at http://www.allposters.co.uk/-sp/The-Switchboard-of-the-National-Telephone-Company-United-Kingdom-Posters_i1874235_.htm, which is interesting as the NTC was nationalised in 1912 which would make these fairly old, presumably sourced by Royal Signals some years before. Post Office switchboards at this time were less decorative.

All in all, it was a wonderful, collaborative day and I look forward to contributing further information to the IWM art collection catalogue.

Dr Elizabeth Bruton is postdoctoral researcher for “Innovating in Combat”.  See her Academia.edu profile for further details.

Guest post by Brian Austin: Wireless in the Trenches: The tale of BFJ Schonland OBE (mil.), a colonial wireless officer

Second Lieutenant Basil Schonland R.E.

Second Lieutenant Basil Schonland R.E. Image available in the public domain.

No Corps of Signals existed in those days. Signalling was very much the province of the Royal Engineers and specifically its Telegraph Battalion and it was they who attempted to use wireless for the first time in a military conflict during the Boer War in South Africa. But it was not equal to the task and it was left to the Royal Navy to show the way. And show it they did during the blockade operation they were mounting in Delagoa Bay, Portuguese East Africa. Wireless proved itself at sea; it was still to do so on land.

In 1908 the Royal Engineer Signal Service came into being and it was this body of men, plus their horses, cable carts and much other paraphernalia of war that provided the British Army with its signalling capability during conflict that broke out in 1914.

By now wireless equipment suitable for use by soldiers and rugged enough to be hauled about on carts and on the backs of men was slowly becoming part of the Army’s inventory of equipment. And the officers and men were being trained to use it. Amongst that group was a young South African by the name of Basil Schonland. During the summer of 1915 he completed Part 1 of the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge and immediately set his sights on serving his adopted country. Even whilst a schoolboy, and then an undergraduate in his home town of Grahamstown in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, Schonland was a loyal subject of the King and, along with many of his fellow South Africans, he saw it as his duty to fight for King and Country.

Schonland was commissioned as a second lieutenant in August 1915 and immediately began training at the Signal Depot in Bletchley. In October he was given command of 43 Airline Section with 40 men, their horses and their cable carts and in January 1916 he led them into France where they joined the Fourth Army then being formed under Sir Henry Rawlinson.

It was the Battle of the Somme that saw wireless equipment pressed into service in earnest. Though hundreds of miles of telephone and telegraph cables had been laid only those buried at considerable depth had any hope of surviving the onslaught of almost incessant artillery barrages. Visual signalling by flag, heliograph and lamp was perilous in the extreme for the operator who raised himself mere inches above the parapet of a trench: wireless became almost obligatory. And Schonland, whose skills had already been noted, was soon to become a W/T officer in the Cavalry Corps. None was more enthusiastic.

Map showing the deployment of the wireless sets near the front line in September 1916

Map showing the deployment of the wireless sets near the front line in September 1916. Image available in the public domain.

This new technology caught the imagination of a young man for whom science, and especially physics, was of almost overwhelming interest. He threw himself into mastering the wireless equipment and of passing on his knowledge to his men. The three trench sets with which Schonland became so familiar were the BF Set, the Wilson Set and the Loop Set. The ‘BF’ presumably meant “British Field” but to those who used it in earnest its eponymous letters had another meaning entirely! Like most of the equipment in use at that time the BF set had a spark transmitter and carborundum crystal detector. It radiated signals over a band of frequencies between about 540 and 860 kHz at a power of some 50 watts. The Wilson set was more powerful and used a more sophisticated method of generating its spark. The frequencies (or wavelengths in those days) that it covered were similar to the BF Set. Both were used extensively from within the trenches during First Battle of the Somme in September 1916.

In 1917 a new wireless set was introduced. Called the W/T Set Forward Spark 20 Watt B it soon became rather more familiar by the less wordy name of the Loop Set. The loop in question was its peculiar aerial (or antenna) which consisted of a square loop of brass tubing 1m per side that was mounted vertically on a bayonet stuck into ground. The Loop Set’s other great claim to fame was that it was extremely simple to use even for an inexperienced operator. Morse code was the mode of transmission and that skill was fundamental to all who served in the R.E. Signal Service, officers included. Of particular importance, especially to the technically-minded such as Schonland, was the much higher frequency on which the Loop Set worked. It could be tuned to transmit and receive between 3.8 and 4.6 MHz and was claimed to have an effective range of 2000 yards. And though the transmitter still used a spark, the receiver contained two thermionic valves – an astounding technological leap at that time.

By then Schonland had left the front line and was instructing at the GHQ Central Wireless School at Montreux where he was also promoted to lieutenant. It was there that he and another South African by the name of Spencer Humby conducted their own ‘researches into wireless’ which they published in a scientific journal soon after the end of the war. “The wavelengths radiated by oscillating valve circuits” became an important paper in the field of wireless communications that flowered in the 1920s.

But Schonland was not only a competent physicist; he also wielded an educated pen and his most lasting contribution to wireless communications during WW1 was his four-part series of articles published in 1919 in The Wireless World. They appeared under the title of this article and described the use of wireless in the trenches and were possibly the first such articles to tell how wireless was used during the war by the R.E. Signals Section. The Boy’s Own Paper had nothing on them for verve and excitement! Take this passage in which the young Schonland describes an attack during the battle of Arras in which a key hilltop position had been captured by the British Army. However, the enemy was re-grouping below and a counter-attack was imminent.

Owing, however, to the speed of their advance our troops were out of touch with the higher command, and the guns behind them. Out of touch, did I say? What is this queer mast affair some sappers are rigging up in the garden of what was once a pretty cottage? Up go the small steel masts in spite of the shells streaming into the village … The aerial up, it is not long before they have installed their tiny set in the cellar and are ‘through’. R9 signals each way. Just in time too, for the Boche at the foot of the hill shows signs of counter-attack. “Get at the guns, Sparks, get at the guns!”. And Sparks bends to his key …

By the war’s end Basil Schonland had been promoted captain and was in charge of all wireless communications of the British First Army. Under him he had thirty officers and more than 900 hundred men, along with over 300 wireless sets. And soon, after the end of hostilities, strenuous efforts were made to retain his services as Chief Instructor in Wireless in the British Army. But Schonland was intent on following a career as a scientist and he returned to Cambridge to work under Lord Rutherford at the famous Cavendish Laboratory. However he was not lost entirely to the colours for a mere twenty years later he was back in uniform and served throughout the second great conflict with distinction, ultimately as scientific adviser to Field Marshal Montgomery’s 21st Army Group.

About the author

Dr Brian Austin is a retired engineering academic from the University of Liverpool’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics. Before that he spent some years on the academic staff of his alma mater, the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He also had a spell, a decade in fact, in industry where he led the team that developed an underground radio system for use in South Africa’s very deep gold mines.

He also has a great interest in the history of his subject and especially the military applications of radio and electronics. This has seen him publish a number of articles on topics from the first use of wireless in warfare during the Boer War (1899 – 1902) and South Africa’s wartime radar in WW2, to others dealing with the communications problems during the Battle of Arnhem and, most recently, on wireless in the trenches in WW1. He is also the author of the biography of Sir Basil Schonland, the South African pioneer in the study of lightning, scientific adviser to Field Marshall Mongomery’s 21 Army Group and director of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell.

Brian Austin lives on the Wirral.

JRR Tolkien, World War One Signals Officer

By Elizabeth Bruton

Tolkien's Webley Mk VI service revolver, now on display at the Imperial War Museum, North. Photograph: Imperial War Museum

Tolkien’s Webley Mk VI service revolver, now on display at the Imperial War Museum, North. Photograph: Imperial War Museum

JRR Tolkien’s First World War revolver used during his time as a Signal Officer on the Western Front is now on public display at IWM North, part of Imperial War Museum, in Manchester. The revolver has been put on display ahead of the opening of IWM North’s major exhibition ‘From Street To Trench: A War That Shaped a Region’ in April 2014 to mark the First World War Centenary.

Tolkien is probably known for his authorship of the fantasy novels The Lord of the Rings trilogy (1954-1955) and The Hobbit, or There and Back Again (1937). This novel and series of novels have been (or are in the process of) being converted into successful cinematic adaptations with the most recent example being the first in a trilogy of films based on The Hobbit which was released in UK cinemas in December 2013. Many commenters have drawn parallels between Tolkien’s experiences in World War Two and his novels, in particular the popular The Lord of the Rings published just under a decade after the war had ended.

However, Tolkien himself suggested that a more ready parallel lay with World War One:

One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead.
Foreword to the Second Edition, The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings

J. R. R. Tolkien (aged 24) in army uniform, photograph taken in 1916.

J. R. R. Tolkien (aged 24) in army uniform, photograph taken in 1916.
Image available in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

So what were Tolkein’s wartime experiences and how did they shape his later fictional works?

Tolkien choose not to join up when war broke out in August 1914. but instead joined the Officer Training Corps at Oxford and thus deferred his enlistment until he completed his degree in July 1915.  Upon graduating from Oxford with a first-class degree in English Language and Literature in July 1915, Tolkien was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers as part of Kitchener’s “New Army”, the volunteer army which had succeeded Britain’s small professional army. The small professional army which had been part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in August 1914 and beyond had suffered an extremely high casualty rate early in the war and was gradually replaced by the “New Army” of which Tolkien was a member. Tolkien then trained in Staffordshire for eleven months before begin transferred to the 11th (Service) Battalion with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

In March 1916, Tolkien was granted leave and on 22 March 1916 he married his childhood sweetheart Edith Bratt. When Tolkien was sent abroad, Edith was deeply concerned about her husband’s whereabouts and safety. In order to circumvent the British Army’s postal censorship, Tolkien and his wife developed a secret code which Tolkien used in his letters home to indicate his movements on the Western Front.

In early June 1916, Tolkien’s battalion was sent abroad to France. Tolkien receiver three weeks’ training as a signals officer at the British Army camp at Étaples. Tolkien was appointed Battalion Signal Officer and was responsible for maintaining communication between officers on the frontline and more senior Army officers directing the battle from Battalion Headquarters behind the frontlines. Tolkien learned how to use field telephones, flares, signal lamps, Morse code buzzers, carrier pigeons, and runners to keep the lines of communication open. In July 1916, the 11th Battalion was sent to the Somme to join the joint British-French attack to break through the German lines, later known as the Battle of the Somme.

Fortunately for Tolkien, his battalion was assigned to the reserves at the beginning of the battle and did not take part in the initial attack. Instead Tolkien and his battalion were sent to the trenches a week later and took part in the protracted and unsuccessful attacks that continued the Battle of the Somme into the autumn of 1916. Tolkien and his battalion occupied front-line trenches at Beaumont-Hamel, Serre and the Leipzig Salient. Tolkien’s revolver now on display at the Imperial War Museum, a Webley Mk VI, was the standard issue gun for British servicemen at the outbreak of the war and dated from Tolkien’s time in the trenches.

Frontline conditions made signalling and Tolkien’s role especially challenging: chaotic conditions with damaged apparatus, broken telephone lines and mud everywhere made communication unreliable and impractical. Furthermore, the Germans were successfully intercepting British and French frontline communications during this period meaning telephone and Morse code buzzers were insecure. Thus with the practical introduction of the Fullerphone being a few months’ away, signallers were forced to rely on more traditional modes of communication including runners, visual signalling, and carrier pigeons.

In October 1916, Tolkien contracted “trench fever” which was a disease common in the basic frontline conditions and was carried by lice. In early November 1916, Tolkien was sent back to Birmingham to recover. Shortly after Tolkien’s arrival back in Britain, his battalion was almost completely wiped out. Tolkien never saw frontline service again and a physically weakened Tolkien spent the remainder of the war alternating between hospitals and garrison duties. Tolkien remained in hospital recovering from trench fever until early 1917 when he was deemed medically unfit for general service and was posted to garrison duties in camps in England until the end of the war.

After the war, Tolkien worked at the Oxford English Dictionary and the University of Leeds, amongst others, while he also began writing. In 1925, he was appointed a Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford where he began to write the Hobbit as well as the first two volumes of the Fellowship of the Rings.

Further information

John Garth. Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth (2003).

JRR Tolkien and World War I – Nancy Marie Ott

First World War Centenary News: JRR Tolkien’s First World War revolver to go on display at IWM North

The Guardian: JRR Tolkien’s wartime gun goes on display in Manchester

About the author: Dr Elizabeth Bruton is postdoctoral researcher for “Innovating in Combat”.  See her Academia.edu profile for further details.