Category Archives: Military

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.

Guest post by Len Barnett: Learning to use Signals Intelligence in the Royal Navy up to 1915

Learning to use Signals Intelligence: The Royal Navy from the Development of Wireless to the War Years of 1914-1915

The British Grand Fleet sailing in parallel columns in World War I

The British Grand Fleet sailing in parallel columns in World War I from Abbot, Willis John, The Nations at War: A Current History (New York: Leslie-Judge Co., 1917). Image available in the public domain.

This monograph arose partly from my personal research into civilian mariners involved in the Great War 1914-19 and also encouragement from a friend, Dr. Marcus Faulkner. My original background had been in communications-operation in the Royal Navy, Foreign & Commonwealth Office and variously in the City of London. Although having left this field of endeavour two decades ago, I have retained a past professional interest in communications systems and their operation.

Royal Navy Radiogoniometer S25 internal_workings

Royal Navy Radiogoniometer S25 internal_workings

In reading day-to-day wartime operational records and naval staff monographs I had noticed from occasional references and snippets that Room 40’s products were more widely used at sea than has been acknowledged. This was especially so in the multifarious activities around the United Kingdom’s shores and in the North Sea.

These can be generally characterised in two ways. Firstly, there were the offensive operations carried out by forces of the regular navies of both sides. The largest of these, such as the famous Dogger Bank action of January 1915, have often had their Signals Intelligence (Sigint) aspects covered in published works: although lesser ones have not. However, with Handelskrieg mit U-booten (trade war with submarines), initially conducted by the Kaiserliche Marine in February 1915, a second struggle developed in these same waters. This was carried out overwhelmingly by submarines for the Germans; and an assortment of naval units, ranging from destroyers to a miscellany of reservist small craft and also merchantmen for the Allies.

DRESDEN (postcard)

DRESDEN (postcard): German light cruiser trapped and sunk directly through SIGINT. Image available in the public domain.

It was also known that there had been a Sigint aspect in hunting down and eventually sinking the German cruiser Dresden, in Chilean waters in March 1915. Careful reference to operational records and another naval staff monograph unearthed useful detail and further usage of intelligence material. Also, in dealing with international political affairs, particularly with the United States of America that were immensely important in the development of the war, from other sources I became aware of yet more aspects of British Signals Intelligence efforts.

Having read all the standard works on First World War Sigint I realised that none of these showed the then state of wireless communications technology though. As a past communicator, I regarded this as utterly inherent in making a proper study and so, made thorough investigations. Having done so, I noticed that my take on this was significantly different to other commentators. In one respect this was to be expected, as long experience had shown me that non-communicators tended to regard communicators either as practitioners of esoteric arts, or, unfortunately, as mere drones. (The reality, of course, has always been somewhere in between!)

As well as this, although admittedly not having used hand cypher very often (and even then, only in the FCO), I had been trained in this field. However, I found from published sources that generally I could not understand how these codes and cyphers actually worked. Therefore, I studied as many contemporaneous examples, both British and German that I could find. This practical handling allowed for greater grasp and hopefully, a clear exposition.

LUSITANIA - (postcard).

LUSITANIA (postcard). Image available in the public domain.

Finally, a word on Franz Rintelen might not go amiss. Only briefly mentioned in this monograph, the ‘Dark Invader’ as he dubbed himself in the early 1930s was a fascinating character. (For those not au fait with him, for reasons that are still not entirely clear, he published an explosive ‘biography’ in English, where he claimed that he had been a super spook-saboteur in the United States in 1915, working against the Allies. Wide-ranging investigations have shown me that his life was far more complicated than even he made out and potentially, there are some intelligence aspects that have not yet been uncovered properly. Even if a biography is out of the question for me, purely on grounds of the amount of time, money and effort required, I intend producing a monograph on him. So, it is entirely possible that more might be learned on the intercepted telegrams from 1915 that are in British naval files.

About the author: Len Barnett is an experienced freelance maritime researcher and author.  For further details of his research and work and to order Learning to use Signals Intelligence: The Royal Navy from the Development of Wireless to the War Years of 1914-1915 see his website at http://www.barnettmaritime.co.uk

Hippisley Hut: Wireless interception at the outbreak of World War One

By Elizabeth Bruton

Update on 23/03/15: Hippisley Hut is now available for sale via Bedfords & Co at http://www.bedfords.co.uk/SearchPropertyDetails.aspx?propid=35329_BUR130028 and in the meantime is available to rent as a holiday home at http://www.kettcountrycottages.co.uk/cottage/hippisley-hut/

Update on 29/07/14: Much thanks to Brian Austin for clarifying the details of Richard L. Hippisley and Richard John Bayntun Hippisley; the article has now been amended accordingly.

Hippisley Hut, Hunstanton, as it looks today.

Hippisley Hut, Hunstanton, as it looks today. Image courtesy of Sowerby’s.

Hippisley Hut in Hunstanton, Norfolk is now up for sale by Sowerby’s.  This ordinary wooden house near Hunstanton on the Norfolk coast is of historic interest being the birthplace of wireless interception during World War One.  So who was Hippisley and what was his role in development of wireless interception during World War One?  Why did he choose Hunstanton for his wireless interception “hut”?

Hippisley’s background and role in wireless interception at the outbreak of war

Richard John Bayntun Hippisley (1865-1956)

Richard John Bayntun Hippisley (1865-1956). Image from Mate’s County Series (1908) and available in the public domain.

Richard John Bayntun Hippisley (1865-1956) (known as Bayntun and referred to as such throughout this article) was born in Somerset in 1865 and was educated and trained in electrical and mechanical engineering: he was trained at Hammond College (later Faraday House), London and apprenticed at Thorn Engineering Company. In July 1888, Bayntun was gazetted as a 2nd Lieutenant in the North Somerset Yeomanry.

Bayntun Hippisley’s interest in science and technology was very much following in a family tradition. His grandfather, known as the “Old Squire”, was a member of many of Europe’s leading scientific societies and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), and Bayntun inherited this interest in science. Bayntun Hippisley’s specific interest in electrical engineering and telecommunications may have been sparked by the earlier work of a relative (a half-Uncle, by my reckoning), Richard Lionel (R.L.) Hippisley (1853-1936). R.L. Hippisley was a member of the Royal Engineers and served as Director of Telegraphs in South Africa during the Second Boer War (1899-1902).  In 1902, Colonel Hippisley returned to England and served as Chief Engineer (Scottish Command) of the Royal Engineers until 1910 when he retired.  In 1903, Colonel Hippisley wrote History of Telegraph Operations during the South African War, 1899 – 1902 and in 1903 and 1906 he served as one of the British representatives at the International Conferences on Wireless Telegraphy held in Berlin.

In 1908, Bayntun followed his elder relative’s path in the armed services, becoming an honorary Lieutenant Colonel of the North Somerset Yeomanry.  It was also around this time, and possibly due to his relative’s interest in wireless telegraphy, that Bayntun too began to develop an interest in wireless.  Soon Bayntun acquired a wireless license from the Post Office to operate his own wireless station, operating under the callsign HLX (later 2CW).  In 1912, he operated a wireless station in the Lizard, Cornwall and picked up messages from the Titanic.  In 1913, Hippisley was appointed a member of the War Office Committee on Wireless Telegraphy.

At the outbreak of war, many pre-war wireless amateurs including Bayntun approached the Admiralty about setting up a network of wireless stations to intercept enemy wireless traffic.  Lacking the resources and manpower to establish this network themselves, the Admiralty gladly accepted and many pre-war wireless amateurs became naval “voluntary interceptors”.

Two of these wireless amateurs who joined up had already been logging intercepts of German traffic at their amateur stations in London and Wales respectively, despite the official call to confiscate all privately-owned wireless receivers.  These two men were friends and wireless amateurs Edward Russell Clarke, (callsign THX) a barrister and automotive pioneer, and Bayntun Hippisley.

From their wireless stations in Wales and London respectively, Bayntun and Russell Clarke were receiving German naval signals from the German Navy on a lower wavelength than was currently being received by the existing Marconi stations.  They had isolated and reported a number of regular signals they believed to be from German naval wireless stations at Neumunster and Norddeich. Their report was passed onto the Admiralty’s Intelligence Division and so, along with many other such amateurs, they were sent to work for Naval Intelligence as ‘voluntary interceptors’ (VIs) and reported their signals intelligence back to Room 40. Bayntun was appointed Commander RNVR for service with the Naval Intelligence Division.

In late 1914, Bayntun and Russell Clarke were sent to Hunstanton on the Norfolk coast to setup a listening post in a former coastguard station in what became known as ‘Hippisley’s Hut’.  Hunstanton was chosen because it was the highest point nearest the German coast and was also home to an existing Marconi wireless station.

Marconi wireless station at Hunstanton

The Marconi wireless station at Hunstanton was established about 1909 and the former power station is still in place today.

"Empire Series": Lighthouse & Wireless Telegraph Station Hunstanton postcard, c. 1909.

“The Empire Series”: Lighthouse & Wireless Telegraph Station Hunstanton postcard, c. 1909. Image courtesy of Gavin Fuller.

"Empire Series": Lighthouse & Wireless Telegraph Station Hunstanton postcard, c. 1909.

“The Empire Series”: Lighthouse & Wireless Telegraph Station Hunstanton postcard, c. 1909.

Two of the contemporary images of the Marconi wireless station at Hunstanton come from the Empire series.  The “Empire Series” (or sometimes “E.S.”) was published by the Pictorial Post Card Company which operated from Red Lion Square, London between 1904 and 1909.  They also printed view-cards, novelty cards, actors and actresses, and comic cards by Donald McGill as well as the Empire Series postcards.

Wireless interception at Hunstanton

When Bayntun and Russell Clarke arrived at the coastguard station at Hunstanton in late 1914, they found a wooden mast with no aerial but they were soon intercepting signals. The station was very successful, intercepting German naval and airship wireless signals, and led to a series of 14 wireless intercept (Y stations) being setup along the British coast as well as station in Italy and Malta.

As a result of his wartime service and successes, Bayntun was awarded an OBE (military) in 1918; this was promoted to a CBE (civil) in 1937.

Wireless Direction-Finding Station on the cliffs near Hunstanton, c. 1915.

Wireless Direction-Finding Station on the cliffs near Hunstanton, c. 1915.
Image available in the public domain.

Hunstanton was also home, at least temporarily, to a wireless direction-finding station (B station) which was used to locate the position of German naval vessels and airships by triangulating their wireless signals.

Utilising this combination of signal interception and direction-finding, the resulting intelligence came to the fore in 1916 with notable successes during the First Blitz by Zeppelins and the Battle of Jutland. By 1917 a turning point had been reached with more U-boats sunk and Zeppelins downed than any previous years mostly in thanks to wireless interception and decryption. Wireless was also successfully employed with the clearing of the Western Approaches in late 1917, a development which was credit to Bayntun himself. By 1918 the Admiralty signals intelligence (or ‘SIGINT’) guaranteed complete control of the airwaves and during the first four months of the year four Zeppelins were shot down over England and twenty-four U-boats sunk.

After the war

After the war, Bayntun returned to his family’s estate Ston Easton in Somerset and resumed his pre-war life. In 1931 he was elected a County Alderman for Somerset, and appointed Traffic Commissioner for the Western Counties. He was awarded the CBE (Civil) in 1937. Bayntun died in April 1956 at the age of 90 and his life was remembered with an obituary in the Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers as well as letter in The Times from his friend Lieutenant-Colonel H.W. Kettlewell. Kettlewell’s letter in The Times praised Bayntun as “an almost unique personality … [who possessed] a most remarkable mechnical and scientific gift…” In particular, Kettlewell highlighted Bayntun’s contribution to the war effort during the First World War:

[Bayntun was] given carte blanche to select, organize and maintain throughout the war the wireless stations round these [British] isles; so secret and of such importance was his work that he could then only be communicated with through the Admiralty. Some 20 years or more I happened to meet a well-known admiral, who, when I mentioned Bayntun Hippisley as among my friends, remarked: “He was one of the men who really won the war.”

Bayntun Hippisley’s vital role in World War One was further highlighted in a 1995 article in The Times by William Rees-Mogg, “Tradition and the innovate talent”:

In Somerset we believe that Bayntun Hippisley personally won the First World War. He came from a family with an engineering and scientific talent; his grandfather had been a Fellow of the Royal Society. Bayntun was an early pioneer of radio research; in 1913 he was appointed a member of the Parliamentary Commission of Wireless for the Army . When war broke out in 1914 he joined Naval Intelligence and was made a commander. He was the man who solved the problem of listening to U-boats when they were talking to each on the radio by devising a double-tuning device which simultaneously identified the waveband and precise wavelength. That, it is said, was essential to clearing the Western Approaches in late 1917, when American troops were coming over. Bayntun Hippisley sat in Goonhilly listening to the U-boat captains as they chatted happily to each other in clear German; he told the destroyers where to find them; the food and the Americans got through.

Sources and further information

A Brief History of the Hippisley Family by Mike Matthews

Auto Biography & History Michael John Hippisley Born 18th July 1934

Grace’s Guide: Baynton_Hippisley

h2g2: Richard John Bayntun Hippisley (1865-1956)

JHRB, Obituary: Richard John Bayntun Hippisley in Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, Vol 3 No 26 (1957), 111.

Kettlewell, Lieutenant-Colonel H.W. Cmdr. R. J. B. Hippisley. The Times, 11 April 1956, p13.

Rees-Mogg, William. Tradition and the innovative talent. The Times, 5 June 1995, p5.

West, Nigel. GCHQ: The Secret Wireless War, 1900-86. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986, 33, 54.

About the author: Dr Elizabeth Bruton is 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?

Leeds University Officers Training Corps (OTC) and signalling during World War One

by Elizabeth Bruton

Dave Stowe, Kate Vigurs and others at the Legacies of War project at the University of Leeds have been doing some fascinating research into World War One materials in the University Archive at the University of Leeds.

Through their research, they came across a scrapbook of photographs of University of Leeds War Work from 1914 to 1916.  Alongside photographs of laboratory research and experimental farms were included evocative photographs of the Leeds University Officers Training Corps (OTC).  The OTC photographs showed general military training of the OTC including rifle training, physical exercises, and some basic signalling including Morse code tapper training and flag signalling.  These two methods of signalling, one old and one new, were key to British Army signalling during World War One.

Leeds University OTC

The Officer’s Training Corps (OTC) was officially established in July 1908 as part of the general reform of the regular and auxiliary forces of the British Army instigated by Lord Haldane.  However, their origins lay in voluntary military work in the education sphere from the mid-nineteenth century onwards.  The formation of the OTC was a direct response to concerns about the supply of adequately trained officers in the event of war.  The OTC was divided into the Senior Division for universities and the Junior Division for schools and Leeds University OTC, established in 1909, was part of the former.

Further details on Leeds University’s OTC during World War One has been provided by Dave Stowe from the Legacies of War project at the university:

It is estimated that no less than 1600 officers from Leeds University were commissioned during the Great War. These numbers included past and present and ex-members and cadets of the university officer training corps among the staff and lecturers who also served. More than 290 officers and other ranks are known to have been killed or died of the 328 names listed on the memorial panels. Many more were wounded or injured and more than 290 military honours were awarded in total – including one VC. Captain David Philip Hirsch was awarded the Victoria Cross (Posthumous) for his part in the fighting when serving with the 4th Yorkshire Regiment in April 1917. D.P. Hirsch had joined the Leeds University OTC as an extra-mural cadet in December 1914 and was commissioned four months later.

Military communications during World War One

A pigeon being released from a port-hole in the side of a tank, near Albert in August 1918. IWM Q9247.

A pigeon being released from a port-hole in the side of a tank, near Albert in August 1918. IWM Q9247. Image licensed via IWM Non-Commercial Creative Commons license.

Military communications during World War 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.

On the Western Front, the British Army used telegraph cables and telephones 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.

However, other systems of communications were also needed to be 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 and were easily visible to the enemy.

Morse code during World War One

Signalling: a transmitting station; a receiving station, University of Leeds OTC, c.1915.

Signalling: a transmitting station; a receiving station, University of Leeds OTC, c.1915.  Image courtesy of University of Leeds Special Collections and used with permission.

This photograph shows two young officers being trained in the use of a Morse code.  It is impossible to tell from the photograph whether they are using wireless telegraphy, ordinary telegraphy or the use of the buzzer telephone but all three used Morse code during the war.

Wireless telegraph sets were used by soldiers in the trenches to communicate with generals in headquarters.  Wireless sets were useful when telephone wires were broken but could be easily listened in to or intercepted by the enemy.  Wireless sets were also heavy and could be unreliable and soldiers needed to know Morse code to send messages.

These were also problems for Royal Flying Corps pilots when they began to use wireless sets early in the war.  In 1915, Royal Flying Corps pilots began to experiment with wireless to tell soldiers where to aim their large artillery guns. However, it was still a new technology and was difficult to use while flying an aeroplane.  As with use in the trenches, wireless messages could also be intercepted by the enemy.

Morse code continued to be used as an international standard for maritime distress until 1999 but had been discontinued by many navies prior to this.  When the French Navy ceased using Morse code on 31 January 31 1997, their final message was “Calling all. This is our last cry before our eternal silence.”

Flag signalling during World War One

Signalling: a signalling parade, University of Leeds OTC, c.1915

Signalling: a signalling parade, University of Leeds OTC, c.1915. Image courtesy of University of Leeds Special Collections and used with permission.

Alongside modern electrical apparatus, other, older methods of communications continued to be used throughout World War One and beyond.  Visual methods of signalling included Begbie lamps (a paraffin-burning lamp which could be used over relatively long distances), trench signalling lamps, heliographs, and flag signalling.

Flag signalling was used on land as well on sea and was usually referred to as “semaphore” when used at sea.  In both cases, fabric flags were used and, in the case of flag signalling on land, blue and white flags were usually used.  In the case of lightweight silk flags, a competent operator could reach about 12 words per minute,were used to send the fastest messages.

Flags were portable but needed good visibility and daylight.  Semaphore flags used a form of signalling based on Morse code and required a trained signaller and a trained receiver, with a telescope, pencil and notepad, at either end.

Signalling: a signalling demonstration, University of Leeds OTC, c.1915

Signalling: a signalling demonstration including the use of telescope to receive signals, University of Leeds OTC, c.1915. Image courtesy of University of Leeds Special Collections and used with permission.

Signallers were regularly employed in forward positions to assist with artillery spotting and provide to information about their targets. In these often-isolated positions, signallers were often vulnerable to enemy shelling and attack and, as a result, many signallers lost their lives.

Visual signalling were quicker than sending a messenger but were easily intercepted by the enemy and could only be used over short distances.  As a result, flag signalling fell out of use in conflict communications by 1916.

For further details of flag signalling in the British Army, see The Royal Signals .. Signalling with Flags.

Images

These photographs were supplied to Legacies of War by Joanne Fitton, Special Collections Manager at the University of Leeds, and are used with kind permission.

These images are from material in the University Archive at the University of Leeds.  The University Archive was set up in 1977 to preserve the records of the University of Leeds and its predecessor bodies the Yorkshire College of Science, Yorkshire College, and Leeds Medical School, from 1874 to the present day.  The archivist actively collects material, preserving the memory of the institution, providing the evidence base for its activity and making its records accessible to researchers.

The University of Leeds also holds the Lidde Collection which includes the personal papers of well over 4,000 people who lived through the First World War, and approximately 500 who experienced the Second World War.

Sources and further information

For further information, see the Leeds University OTC tribute video put together from original historic and archive material by Legacies of War‘s Dave Stowe.  Dave has collected a number of images and press cuttings linked to his research into the Brotherton Library’s War Memorial at the University of Leeds.

The University of Leeds OTC and Roll of Honour by Dave Stowe via Western Front Association

The O. T. C. and the great war (1915) by Captain Alan R. Haig-Brown

University Archive at the University of Leeds

Liddle Collection at the University of Leeds

Royal Signals Museum: World War 1&2 Communications

The Royal Signals .. Signalling with Flags

Worcestershire Regiment: A Signaller in World War 1

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

British Army and Royal Engineers rates of pay, 1914-1915

Royal Engineers Cap Badge, as of 1900

Royal Engineers Cap Badge, as of 1900. Image available in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The wonderful blog The Long, Long Trail: The British Army in the Great War of 1914-1918 has posted an article on British Army minimum daily rates of pay in 1914 and 1915, as defined by War Office Instruction 166 (1914). These rates were later revised in December 1915.

Daily rates of pay are divided into Officers and Warrant Officers, NCOs and men and are divided according to Corps.

In both categories – Offices and Warrant Officers, NCOs and men – the Royal Engineers (which then incorporated the Signals Service) were amongst the best paid men in the British Army in 1914 and 1915, particularly at the more junior officer rank levels. Officers in the Royal Engineers shared the same basic minimum daily rate of pay as other corps but were awarded “Engineers Pay” which was an additional payment of between 20-50% of their baseline pay. In addition to their basic pay and additional “Engineers Pay”, Second Lieutenants could be awarded a further 1s 6d if they were certified by their Commanding Officer as to their technical efficiency.

Table of Officers’ daily rates of pay by rank and by corps (excluding the Royal Flying Corps)

These are the minimum daily rates of pay for typical ranks or appointments of all arms. All rates in Shillings (s) and Pence (d).

Cavalry of the Line, Irish Horse, King Edward’s Horse and Yeomanry Royal Horse Artillery Royal Field Artillery and Mountain Artillery Royal Garrison Artillerya Royal Engineersb Infantry Army Service Corpsc Royal Army Medical Corps Army Veterinary Corps
Lieutenant-Colonel 29s 6d 29s 9d 28s 0d 29s 6d
24s 6d
35s 0d
21s 0d
28s 0d 27s 0d
21s 0d
30s 0d 30s 0d
Major 17s 0d 18s 6d 16s 0d 19s 6d
16s 0d
25s 0d
16s 0d
16s 0d 19s 0d
15s 0d
23s 6d 20s 0d
Captain 13s 6d 15s 0d 13s 6d 15s 6d
13s 6d
17s 6d
13s 6d
12s 6d 15s 6d
12s 6d
15s 6d 15s 6d
Lieutenant 9s 6d 10s 6d 9s 6d 10s 6d
9s 6d
12s 6d
9s 6d
8s 6d 11s 6d
8s 6d
24s 0dd
14s 0d
13s 8d
Second Lieutenant 8s 6d 9s 6d 8s 6d 9s 6d
8s 6d
11s 0d
9s 6d
8s 6d
7s 6d 10s 6d
7s 6d
N/A 11s 6d
Quartermaster 11s 6d 11s 6d 10s 6d 10s 6d
10s 6d
12s 6d
10s 6d
10s 0d 10s 6d
10s 6d
10s 6d 30s 0d

a The figure in bold for the Royal Garrison Artillery includes Armament Pay which was payable only if certified by Commanding Officer with regard to the Second Lieutenant’s technical efficiency.

b The figure in bold for the Royal Engineers includes Engineer Pay and in the case of the Second Lieutenant the higher figure in bold and italics also includes a further 1s 6d payable only if certified by Commanding Officer with regard to the Second Lieutenant’s technical efficiency.

c The figure in bold for the Army Service Corps includes Corps Pay

d Temporary Lieutenants in the Royal Army Medical Corps serving under civil contracts receive 24s 0d per day

As can be seen by this table above, the Royal Engineers’ rates of pay (marked in red) were some of the highest across the different corps and different ranks. They were comparable with those of another technical occupation, that of the Royal Flying Corps which has been omitted as their ranks do not necessarily map readily onto those of the other Army corps at this time.

The high rates of daily pay offered to the Royal Engineers and indeed to some other Army corps show the financial value and importance of technical and specialist expertise to the British Army in the early stages of the First World War. Further to this, these figures also offer a fascinating comparison of the importance and value of engineers, especially younger officers with technical expertise, in the British Army at the start of the First World War.

See British Army 1914 rates of pay for the minimum daily rates of pay for the different corps of the British Army in 1914 and 1915.

UPDATE: For an excellent overview of the Royal Engineers between 1914 and 1918, see The Long, Long Trail: The Royal Engineers of 1914-1918.

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

German cable telegraphy in World War One: Yap Island

By Elizabeth Bruton

CS Stephan off the New Guinea coast, laying the Dutch East Indies - Yap - Guam cable, c.1906

CS Stephan off the New Guinea coast, laying the Dutch East Indies – Yap – Guam cable, c.1906. Image available in the public domain via Atlantic-cable.com.

Located in the western Pacific Ocean and forming part of the Caroline Islands, Yap Island was a major German naval communications centre in the early twentieth century up to World War One and was an important international hub for cable telegraphy.

From the seventeenth century up to 1899, Yap Island was a Spanish colony within the Captaincy General of the Philippines. After the defeat against the US in 1898 and subsequent loss of the Philippines, Spain sold these islands and its other minor Pacific possessions to Germany.

In the early twentieth century, the Deutsch-Niederlandische Telegraphen-gesellschaft (German-Netherlands Telegraph Company, sometimes translated as German-Dutch Telegraph Company) was established with the remit to link the German Pacific Colonies into the main submarine telegraph networks.  As part of this, in 1906 the company laid telegraph cables from Menado, Dutch East Indies to Yap Island and to Guam.  At Yap Island, a spur was run into Shanghai.  Yap Island formed part of the Menado-Yap-Guam-Shanghai undersea cable route and this route meant that Germany was no longer reliant on British-controlled (“All Red”) telegraph cables in the Pacific.

German-Netherlands Telegraph Company District Office and Cable Station, Yap.

German-Netherlands Telegraph Company District Office and Cable Station, Yap. CS Stephan is at centre right. Dated 2 July 1908, the card was sent to a member of the staff of the German Atlantic Telegraph Company Cable Station at Vigo, Spain. Image available in the public domain via Atlantic-Cable.com.

Between 1906 and 1914, Yap became a major German naval communications centre and was an important international hub for cable telegraphy as it offered one of the two key alternative routes to the US-controlled Commercial Pacific cable. Yap Island formed a key node in the German telegraph cable line which also included Guam, Shanghai, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines.  Some telegraph messages sent to the German South Sea domain were delivered on from Yap by ship and, after the construction of a wireless station around 1910, by wireless.

Around 1910, the German South Sea Radio Company (a subsidiary company of the German-Netherlands Telegraph Company) established a wireless station on Yap Island to provide wireless communication where a telegraph cable would have been costly and difficult to lay: to Rabaul in New Guinea and to Nauru.  The station, issued the callsign KJA, had a range of 300-500 miles and was commercially operated.

Upon the outbreak of war in early August 1914, Yap Island as well as its telegraph station came under the mandate of Japan.  The wireless station was destroyed by British naval cruisers shortly after war broke out on 12 August 1914 and the Japanese shut down the telegraph station for the duration of the conflict.  The Japanese mandate continued for a short period after the end of the war and this was confirmed by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

However, this tiny island in the middle of the Pacific was of immense strategic importance in the overall global telegraph cable network and was one of only two alternative routes to the US-controlled Commercial Pacific cable from Manila to San Francisco; the other alternative route passed through Japan.

The US was deeply concerned about control of the Pacific Ocean and competition with Japan, both in terms of shipping lanes as well as the telegraph cable network.  As a result, the US objected to Japanese control over the island.  This was eventually rectified by an agreement signed in December 1921 and which came into effect in 1922 which recognised the Japanese mandate over the island of Yap but gave the US equal access to the island and shared control, management, and operation with the Japanese of the telegraph station and the cable from Yap to Guam. The Japanese fortified the island and continued to control the island until it was occupied by the US towards the end of World War Two.

Jetty & buildings on Yap Islands, probably dating from German colonial period

Jetty & buildings on Yap Islands, probably dating from German colonial period. With narrow-gauge tramway tracks running down the jetty. Image available in the public domain via Spontoon Island: Pacific Island Architecture.

Sources

Wrinkler, Jonathan Reed. Nexus: Strategic Communications and American Security in World War I (2008).

Memorandum on Cable Communications in the Pacific.Memorandum (Institute of Pacific Relations, American Council), Vol. 1, No. 16 (Sep. 1, 1932), pp. 1-3.

Knoll, Arthur J. and Hermann J. Hiery (eds). The German Colonial Experience: Select Documents on German Rule in Africa, China, and the Pacific 1884-1914 (2010).

The World at War: CAROLINE ISLANDS 1898 – 1919

History of Yap by William Hampton Adams

History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications: German Cable Companies by Bill Glover

Department of the Navy and the Bureau of Steam Engineering. Wireless Telegraph Stations of the World including shore stations, merchant vessels, revenue cutters, and vessels of the US Navy, updated to 1 January 1912 (1912).

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

Guest Post by Brian Austin: Wartime Wireless Intelligence and E.W.B. Gill

A rare image of EWB Gill, taken in 1922

A rare image of EWB Gill, taken in 1922

Walter Gill (1883 – 1959) was an Oxford physicist and a specialist in electromagnetic phenomena. He was also a man with an incisive mind – though well-balanced by a ready sense of the absurd.  A likely candidate, one would have thought when war broke out in August 1914, for some useful position in the Army then assembling with much urgency. But Gill was too old, so he was told, to be commissioned as an officer and so he took himself to the recruiting office and volunteered as a private.

Following a short spell digging trenches on the Isle of Wight, Gill received a letter from the War Office reconsidering its earlier decision. He was offered a commission in the heavy artillery – his knowledge of trigonometry had clearly helped – and told to report to Woolwich. But the arsenal had no guns so, to keep its newly-created officers busy, they were lectured on the art of grooming horses, incessantly. During the time he spent there, much of which involved such seemingly pointless activities, the not-so-young Second Lieutenant Gill became acquainted with many strange military practices not least of which was the need to salute almost anything that moved.

But the war was itself moving on and soon it was realised that there was need for officers well-versed in the wireless art and especially its use for intelligence purposes. Gill was immediately transferred to the Royal Engineers in whose parish wireless had found itself.  This appealed to him for many and obvious reasons: his physics background equipped him rather better than most for such a technical task and his natural scepticism, when confronted by extravagant claims, made him the ideal intelligence analyst.

Front cover of "War, Wireless & Wrangles" by EWB Gill (1934).

Front cover of “War, Wireless & Wrangles” by EWB Gill (1934).

After the war, in 1934 in fact, Gill published a delightful book describing his wartime experiences.  Called War, Wireless and Wangles, and illustrated with some wonderful cartoons, the book recounted, in often hilarious detail, the contest between the “Teutonic mind”, as he saw the German obsession with organisation of the most methodical and precise kind and the, at times, almost shambolic British response.  As just one example, he described how the Zeppelins, those cumbersome predecessors of the bombers of the next war, were all equipped with wireless and each had a call sign beginning, shall we say, with the letter L followed by another, thus LA, LB, LC and so on.  It took little intelligence, in both senses of the word, on the British side to soon deduce that this grouping of letters was reserved for the German Zeppelin fleet and, from that, considerable operational advantage flowed. Some time later, realising this weakness in their system, the German planners changed their call signs but, in well ordered fashion, so LA became MB and so on. More was to follow.

One of the cartoons from War, Wireless and Wrangles (1934)

One of the cartoons from War, Wireless and Wrangles (1934).

Every hour, and almost on the hour, those Zeppelins would report their position to the High Seas Fleet under whose command they fell.  These regular wireless transmissions were a bonanza of the highest order for the listening British wireless stations with their associated direction-finding facilities.  Not only was warning given of an impending attack, several hours before they crossed the British coast, but their positions and courses were plotted as they lumbered on.

But behind the humour was much of historical value too, particularly of a technical nature.  The art of direction finding by radio came into its own during the war owing to the work of two brilliant engineers at the Marconi Company: H.J. Round and C.S. Franklin. By means of the infant valve technology of the time that provided unprecedented amplification, and arrays of antennas that produced controlled directivity, these two men gave the Army a formidable intelligence tool. But it was the Royal Navy, initially highly sceptical until they changed their view on seeing the performance of that equipment when deployed in France, that took great advantage of the technology.  In May 1916, a 1.5 degree shift in a DF bearing indicated that the German High Seas Fleet was on the move from its anchorage at Wilhelmshaven and this intelligence enabled the Navy to position its Grand Fleet for the Battle of Jutland that took place the next day.

Another cartoon from War, Wireless and Wrangles (1934)

Another cartoon from War, Wireless and Wrangles (1934)

Gill himself was soon on his way to Egypt. He was posted to what would become a wireless intercept station but his first task was to assemble another one on Cyprus so he proceeded thither with the four tall masts of a Bellini-Tosi DF antenna. That they fell down during the erection process was merely part of the Army’s day but all was soon well once the guys had been correctly set. By now Gill had become something of an antenna expert and his next contribution followed in short order. Back in Egypt and charged with setting up another intercept station he astounded his commanding officer when he announced that he’d found the ideal very tall supporting structure for its aerial. Since nature had provided nothing taller than palm trees in the region, the CO was naturally sceptical until Gill pointed out the Great Pyramid at Giza with a wire affixed to its pinnacle.  This aerial proved itself to be very effective: a Zeppelin, on its mission over England, was heard on the single-valve receiver of the station. No mean feat!

After encounters with Egyptian princes and British Army officers who kept pet chameleons, Gill began to acclimatise to the rather exotic way of life common, or so it seemed, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean.  From Cyprus he went to Salonika to take charge of one of the intelligence wireless stations in that region. This was the place, it was alleged, that St Paul only visited once. Afterwards he contented himself by writing epistles to its inhabitants.  It turned out that malaria was rife in the country and, as might be expected, the Army took this very seriously. Various deterrents were either to be swallowed or applied as medical science evolved. One day he noted that the latest approved substance bore an uncanny resemblance to gearbox grease. It was claimed to be lethal to mosquitoes. However, Gill was confronted by the regimental sergeant major just before he was due to order all his men apply the stuff to themselves. Should he first remove the mosquitoes from the tin where they appeared to be eating the grease?

Another cartoon from War, Wireless and Wrangles (1934)

Another cartoon from War, Wireless and Wrangles (1934)

By the war’s end, the now Major Gill had become one of the British Army’s experts in the art of wireless intelligence both technically and operationally. The latter skill he acquired without benefit of formal instruction. When in Egypt, and the flow of intercepted German wireless traffic became a daily occurrence, the standard procedure was to send it all, by cable, to London where it would be deciphered by experts, perhaps at “Room 40” the centre where such dark arts were practised. But to a man of Gill’s intelligence and curiosity, and with the collaboration of a similarly endowed colleague, it seemed only natural to “have a go” themselves. And soon, based on little more than common sense plus the application of a logical mind, they did indeed “crack” the code. It should be said at this stage that it was by no means a high-grade cipher; more like something based on a “child’s first cipher-book”, as Gill put it. German cipher policy, it would seem, differentiated between theatres of war and clearly the further east those happened to be the lower the quality of the cipher required.

They duly sent the deciphered ciphers to London in the approved way and fully expected to be soundly reprimanded for their unauthorised efforts. However, the reaction forthcoming was precisely the opposite: their action was approved and the War Office said they would send one of their experts to Egypt to give Gill and his colleague instruction in the latest cipher-solving devices. This story has interesting repercussions soon after the outbreak of the next World War when, once again, Gill offered his services to the military. And again he found himself at the very sharp end of the intelligence war. However, this time, his indiscretion by once again breaking the German code (emanating from the Abwehr no less) had a very different outcome. That story, though, has been told elsewhere and will not intrude upon this account of his First World War service.

Walter Gill’s war ended in 1918 with him back in England and in command of the Army’s intelligence wireless stations as well as a training school. For his service he was awarded the OBE (mil.) and was twice mentioned in despatches. One of Gill’s many remarkable characteristics was his modesty. He sought no honour for himself nor even any publicity. Finding a single photograph of the man proved a major task and when accomplished it shows Walter Gill, back at Merton College, Oxford, in 1922 where he resumed his academic career until the next encounter with the Germans when he again offered his services.

This blog post is based on Dr Austin’s full-length article on EWB Gill published in The Journal of the Royal Signals Institution vol.29, No.2, Winter 2010 [pdf].

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.

Guest post by Keith Thrower: Army radio communication in the Great War

Prior to the outbreak of WW1 in August 1914 many of the techniques to be used in later years for radio communications had already been invented, although most were still at an early stage of practical application. Radio transmitters were predominantly using spark discharge from a high-voltage induction coil. The transmitted signal was noisy and rich in harmonics and spread widely over the radio spectrum.

The ideal transmission was a continuous wave (CW) and there were three ways of producing these: by an HF alternator, a Poulsen arc generator or a valve oscillator. The first two of these were high-power generators and not suitable for battlefield communication. Valve oscillators were eventually universally adopted. Several important circuits using valves had been produced by 1914. Predominant amongst these were the amplifier, detector and oscillator. The oscillator, apart from its use as a CW generator for radio transmitters, was also used in radio receivers in a heterodyne circuit and the resulting beat note produced an audible tone of the Morse signal in the headphones.

Valves at this time were still at a primitive state of development. Those available were: The Fleming diode, the de Forest audion triode and the C and T triodes designed by the Marconi engineer Henry Round. All these triode valves were gas-filled to improve their sensitivity but had erratic performance.

Both the C and T valves were used in the Marconi Short Distance Wireless Telephone Transmitter and Receiver. This radio, however, would not have been robust enough for use under battlefield conditions. The C valve, however, was used by the army in direction finding stations.

Early army radios

At the start of the war the only radios available were a few 500-watt and 1500-watt spark transmitters and their crystal-detector receivers. The 500-watt pack sets were used with Cavalry Brigades and the 1500-watt wagon sets with Cavalry Divisional Headquarters and General Headquarters.

The principal method of communication by the British army, up to late 1917, was by cable for speech and Morse transmission. Initially, a single cable was laid above ground and the earth used as the return. However, the cable was vulnerable to damage by enemy fire and by the passage of tanks across the battlefield, a problem not solved even when buried cable was used. Very often communication was not possible, particularly when troops were moving rapidly forward or in retreat. During the course of the war tens of thousand miles of cable was laid and, at times, there was an acute shortage of replacement cable.

It was found that the Germans were able to listen in by picking up earth currents or tapping into the cable. This was not realized at first but, when discovered, it was necessary to limit the number and content of the message and, where possible, to use codes or encryption. A solution to this was the Fullerphone, which made the signal immune from eavesdropping, but it could not be used for telephony.

Other non-wireless means of sending messages that were used with mixed success during the war was by runners, dispatch riders, pigeons, lamps and flags.

Up until the end of March 1918 the Royal Flying Corp was part of the army and experimental work on aircraft radio communication was carried out at Brooklands and later at Biggin Hill. The development group, headed by Major Charles Prince, also worked on the development of CW voice transmission. This culminated in mid-1916 with the successful demonstration of ground-to-air speech communication. However, it was to be a further two years before suitable equipment was incorporated in aircraft. Consequently all the early radios were spark transmitters fitted in the aeroplanes and crystal receivers on the ground.

No 1 Aircraft Spark

Amongst the earliest radios to be used in aeroplanes was the 30‑watt, No 1 Aircraft Spark (Figure 1), powered from an accumulator. The set was designed in 1914 and fitted to approximately 600 aircraft during 1915. It was used for spotting enemy artillery and reporting back to ground by Morse code. There were several variants of the set and, altogether, nearly 4000 of these were manufactured.

Unlike with the RFC there was a general lack of enthusiasm in the army for using radios, particularly during the first two years of the war. There were several reasons for this: the equipment was bulky; the accumulators needed frequent re-charging; and there was a genuine fear that the enemy would be able to intercept the messages.

This situation was to change later in the war when radio had proved to be the only reliable way to communicate, particularly when troops were on the move.

The BF Trench Set

One of the earliest radios to be used in the trenches was the 50-watt Trench Set, also known as the BF Set (Figure 2) which was used for communication from Brigade to Division. This went into action in the Battle of Loos in September 1915 and in the first Battle of the Somme on July 1st 1916. The transmitting portion of set was based on the design of the No 1 Aircraft Spark set. The receiving portion used a carborundum crystal detector. It was powered from an accumulator and also required dry-cell batteries for biasing the carborundum crystal and an internal test buzzer.

Its range was 3.7km with aerials mounted on masts but this reduced to 1.1km when the aerial was run close to the ground.

Careful planning of frequencies was required in order to minimize interference from neighbouring spark transmitters, a problem much simplified when CW sets came into use.

The BF set was used extensively during the second half of the war and approximately 1200 were manufactured.

130-watt Wilson Trench Set & Short Wave Tuner Mk. III

The Wilson Transmitter was used primarily for Division to Corps communication and Corps Directing Station. This set came into service about the same time as the BF Trench Set. It had a fixed spark gap with a motor-driven, high-speed interrupter rather than the slower magnetic interrupter. The greater number of sparks produced a musical note in the headphones, making the Morse signal more easy to hear through interference. The transmitter had the same frequencies as the BF set and the higher power meant that the range was up to 8.3km. The set was supplied by an accumulator.

Tuner Short Wave Mk. III*

The Mk. III version of this tuner was introduced in 1916 and the Mk. III* in 1918. Its prime purpose was to receive Morse messages from aircraft flying over the trenches but it was also used with the Wilson Set. The receiver used a crystal detector and there was a buzzer for calibrating and testing the tuner. Total production was 766 transmitters and 6595 receivers.

Later valve Developments

Towards the end of 1915 an entirely new type of valve was developed under Colonel (later General) Gustav Ferrié who was in charge of the French Military Telegraphic Service. The construction was very simple: it had a straight tungsten filament, a spiral grid and a cylindrical anode. It was evacuated to a low pressure and during the manufacturing process the glass and metal parts were heated to a sufficient temperature to release occluded gases. The valve, known as the TM, was immensely successful and widely used throughout the war, over 100,000 of which were made by the two French companies, Fotos and Métal. By 1916 it was being manufactured in Britain as the R-valve.

There were many variants, including the Air Force C and D, and the low-power transmitting valves B, F and AT25. Two higher power transmitting valves, introduced in late 1917, were the T2A and T2B which had 250 watt dissipations. These were used by the RFC (later RAF) in ground station CW transmitters.

One problem with the TM and R-valve was the high capacitance between the anode and grid. This made its use as an RF amplifier very difficult because energy fed back from the output of the valve to its input was liable to cause unwanted oscillation.

To overcome this Round of the Marconi Company developed the type Q in 1916 which featured small size and low capacitance. It had a straight tungsten filament terminated by the two pointed metal caps at each bend of the bulb. Both the anode and grid connections were taken to two further caps near one end of the tubular glass bulb. The Q was primarily intended as a detector but it was also used as both an amplifier. It overall length was 73mm and the bulb diameter 16mm. Later in the war Round designed the V24 which was better suited as an RF or AF amplifier.

Later army radios

Valve radios first made their appearance in 1916. One of the earliest was the Tuner Aircraft Valve Mk. I but this was not made in significant numbers.

W/T Set Forward Spark 20 watt “B”

This set came into service in 1917 and was also known as ‘The Loop Set’ and was used for forward communication. There were both Rear Stations and Front Stations sets, with two versions of each. There were also separate receivers for the Rear and Forward Stations. These receivers had two valves which were either the French TM or the British R.

The transmitter had a fixed spark gap powered directly from an induction coil operating in a similar way to the BF Trench Set. The power for the stations was supplied by an accumulator and a 32-volt HT battery.

Approximately 4000 of the transmitters and receivers were manufactured.

W/T Trench Set Mk. I 30-watt

The first CW sets for field use were made in 1916 and used a single valve for both the transmitter and receiver circuits and was used for forward communication by ICW. The Mark 1* version came into service in 1917 and incorporated a high-speed interrupter to modulate the transmission.

W/T Set Trench CW Mk. III*

This (CW) set comprised a transmitter and a heterodyne receiver in separate boxes. It came into service in 1917 and was used for forward area telegraphy.

The transmitter was rated at 30-watts and had a range of 3.7km. It utilised two valves which were either the type B or AT25.

The receiver had two R valves. The first of these was used in a heterodyne circuit and the second as an audio frequency amplifier for the Morse signal.

The complete set also included a heterodyne wavemeter, Selector Unit and Rectifier Unit.

Total production was a little under 3000 for both the transmitter and the receiver and approximately 400 of the Selector Units.

Telephone Wireless Aircraft Mk. II

The Telephone Aircraft Mk. II came into service in 1917. It had two B or F valves, one being used for control and other an output valve. An accumulator was used to supply the valve’s filaments and the HT was derived from a wind-driven generator. It had a range of 3.2km to other aircraft and 2km to ground stations.

The aerial was a trailing wire of length 100–150ft with a lead weight at the end.

Earlier attempts to fit radio telephones in aircraft had been hampered by the high background noise from the aircraft’s engine. This problem was alleviated by the design of a helmet with built-in microphone and earphones to block much of the noise.

A typical receiver for use with this transmitter was the Tuner Aircraft Mk III which had three R valves, one for the detector and two for low-frequency amplification.

Conclusions

The army was very slow to adopt wireless for communication on the battlefield and relied too much on communication by cable. There was a genuine fear that wireless would be intercepted by the enemy but this was also true with cable. The cable used was being constantly severed by shell fire and the passage of tanks across the battlefield.

Apart from a few high-powered transmitters that played a minor role in the war, the first wireless transmitters were fitted in aircraft during 1915. These were used to communicate with crystal receivers on the ground to direct artillery fire.

The first trench sets went into service towards the end of 1915. From this time onward the army came slowly round to realizing that wireless communication was a more reliable way to communicate than by cable, particularly when troops were moving rapidly forwards or backwards.

The most significant technical breakthrough came following the development of the TM valve in France. This, and its many derivatives, enabled reliable valve transmitters and receivers to be produced from 1916 onwards. It now became possible to make CW transmitters, which were far superior to the spark sets.

By mid-1917 the army at last accepted that radios were the best way to communicate and increasing numbers of these came into service in the final year of the war.

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank Nick Kendall-Carpenter and his archive staff at the Royal Signal Museum, Blandford, Louis Meulstree and John Liffen of the Science Museum for their valuable assistance.

About the Author: Keith Thrower OBE is author of British Radio Valves: The Vintage Years – 1904-1925 and British Radio Valves: The Classic Years 1926-1946.

This article is based on the paper Keith gave at “Making Telecommunications in the First World War” in Oxford on 24 January 2014. See our events page for full details including the abstract, PowerPoint slides and full version of Keith’s paper.

(left) Commercial version of Fleming diode; (right) BT-H version of the de Forest Audion triode

Fig. 1 (left) Commercial version of Fleming diode; (right) BT-H version of the de Forest Audion triode, a ‘soft’ valve erratic in operation.

Marconi-Round C and T valves of 1913

Fig. 2: Marconi-Round C and T valves of 1913. These were both ‘soft’ valves. The C was a receiver valve for use as a detector or RF amplifier. The T was a transmitter valve.

Marconi Short Distance Wireless Telephone Transmitter and Receiver

Fig 3: Marconi Short Distance Wireless Telephone Transmitter and Receiver. This set used a C valve in the receiver, connected as an RF amplifier with regenerative feedback to increase its gain and provide improved selectivity. Detection was by a carborundum crystal. For transmission there was a single T.N. valve (seen mounted in the frame) and this was connected as an oscillator. It is believed that Marconi used this set for CW voice trials in 1914.

Marconi 1.5 kW spark generator of approx. 1911 design

Fig 4: Marconi 1.5 kW spark generator of approx. 1911 design. Note the rotating spark gap seen at the front.

Marconi 1.5 kW spark Pack Set

Fig 5: Marconi 1.5 kW spark Pack Set showing the operating cart with the crystal set receiver.

No. 1 Aircraft Transmitter Spark

Fig 6: No. 1 Aircraft Transmitter Spark. 30-watt input. Note the spark gap on the top right inside the cabinet with the adjustment for the gap at the front.

W/T Trench Set 50 Watt D.C. (Also known as the BF set)

Fig 7: W/T Trench Set 50 Watt D.C. (Also known as the BF set) The spark gap is clearly seen at the bottom.

W/T trench Set 130-watt Wilson

Fig 8: W/T trench Set 130-watt Wilson. Transmitter only; used with Tuner Short Wave Mk. III.

Tuner Short Wave Mk. III*

Fig 9: Tuner Short Wave Mk. III*. This receiver has both a carborundum and a Perikon detector.

French TM and Osram F valve

Fig. 10a & 10b: French TM and Osram F valve. The TM was a general-purpose valve used mainly as a detector or an AF amplifier. The F was a low-power transmitting valve similar in construction to the TM.

Top Q, bottom V24

Fig. 10c & 10d: Top Q, bottom V24. The Q went into production at Edison Swan in 1916 and was used mainly as a detector. The V24 probably went into production at the end of 1917 or early in 1918. It was used as both an RF and an AF amplifier.

W/T Forward Spark 20-watt “B” transmitter

Fig. 11: W/T Forward Spark 20-watt “B” transmitter.

Fig. 12: W/T Forward Spark 20-watt “B” receiver.

Fig. 12: W/T Forward Spark 20-watt “B” receiver.

W/T Trench Set Mk. I

Fig 13: W/T Trench Set Mk. I. Combined transmitter & receiver.

W/T Receiver Short Wave Mk. III**

Fig 14: W/T Receiver Short Wave Mk. III**.

W/T Trench Set Mk III* transmitter

Fig 15: W/T Trench Set Mk III* transmitter.

W/T Trench Set Mk III* receiver

Fig 16: W/T Trench Set Mk III* receiver.

Tuner Aircraft No. 9

Fig. 17: Tuner Aircraft No. 9. This went into service in 1916.

Telephone Wireless Aircraft Mk. II

Fig 18: Telephone Wireless Aircraft Mk. II, complete with remote control and headphones.

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.