In many respects, the importance of communications to British military operations on the Western Front is revealed by the immense organisational transformation that took place during the course of the war. As the scale and intensity of the fighting increased, and as the BEF grew in both size and complexity, so too were there corresponding changes to the communications establishment. This was particularly the case with regards to the Signal Service, aptly described by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig as ‘the nervous system to the whole vast organism of our Army’, which grew from an establishment of just below 2,400 officers and men in 1914 to a force consisting of nearly 42,000 at the signing of the armistice.Footnote 1 This chapter charts the development of the BEF’s communications machinery, from its humble composition upon the outbreak of the war through to its maturation in 1918. In the process, it highlights the scale of the BEF’s communications effort, as it expanded from an initial body comprising just 29 signal units in 1914 to a force encompassing 443 signal units by the war’s end.Footnote 2 However, in order to make sense of these developments, it will first be necessary to examine the state of the British Army’s communications system immediately prior to the war, and assess the extent to which it was geared for the scale and intensity of the war that lay ahead.
Pre-War Developments
The origins of the Signal Service can be traced back to the formation of the first professional signal unit in the British Army, C Telegraph Troop, R.E., in 1870.Footnote 3 In 1880, the first Manual of Instruction in Army Signalling was issued and four years later, C Troop was merged with the 22nd and 34th Telegraph Companies attached to the General Post Office (GPO) and renamed the Telegraph Battalion, R.E.Footnote 4 Despite seeing action in a number of the British Army’s colonial campaigns during the late nineteenth century, including the Nile Expedition of 1884–5 and the Ashanti Campaign in 1895–6, the Telegraph Battalion’s biggest challenge occurred during the Second South African, or Boer, War (1899–1902).Footnote 5 Up until then, communication practice had often been rudimentary and extemporised, in part a reflection of the limited scale of the army’s colonial campaigns and its relatively ill-equipped and technically inefficient opponents. The conflict in South Africa, however, provided the British Army with its first taste of a more modern style of war against an adversary equipped with some of the most up-to-date French and German armaments.Footnote 6 Subsequently, the army suffered from uncoordinated and clumsy signal organisation and practice, particularly during the first half of the war. The defective transmission of information throughout the Battle of Spion Kop (23–4 January 1900), for example, confirmed ‘how inherently unreliable and subject to accidents’ British communication arrangements were.Footnote 7 Issues of interoperability were a particular concern. In July 1900, a report by Lieutenant-Colonel Tom O’Leary, the Director of Army Signalling noted that, because many signallers within the Royal Artillery were instructed in semaphore only, heliographs and signalling lamps could not be used by infantry units wishing to communicate with their artillery batteries.Footnote 8 On the whole, post-war reports concurred that the means of signalling available was thought to be ‘poor’ and ‘insufficient’ at worse, and merely ‘satisfactory’ at best.Footnote 9 Although by the end of the war there were 24 officers and 2,424 men responsible for maintaining a little more than 9,300 miles of cable in South Africa, there were strong calls from officers within the Telegraph Battalion for ‘a careful analysis of the varying conditions met with on active service’, so as to produce an organisation of much greater flexibility and efficiency.Footnote 10
Many of these problems were again exposed during army manoeuvres in the years immediately following the end of the war. Major Edmund Godfrey-Faussett, commanding 2nd Telegraph Company, complained that the 1904 summer training exercises had been hampered by a severe shortage of equipment and draught horses. As a consequence, communications among the various headquarters could not be adequately maintained since telegraph cable could not be laid fast enough.Footnote 11 In light of the disastrous experiences of the Second South African War and of the ongoing problems encountered during yearly army manoeuvres, in March 1905 a War Office committee was set up to review the state of the army’s telegraph service. Chaired by Major-General Sir Elliott Wood, the army’s chief engineer, the committee’s aim was to increase the field telegraphic establishment, since
the role in field telegraphy in war has entirely changed. It is now used as a means of communication, not only between the field army and its communications, but also between units which are actually engaged in battle; this much enhances its value, and it is a matter of the highest importance that we should possess sufficient telegraphic establishments to admit of a general being in constant communication with the component parts of his force.Footnote 12
The Telegraph Battalion was subsequently abolished and three telegraph companies formed, one for each army corps and ‘K’ Telegraph Company for the lines of communication. From 1907, a telegraph company was added to each infantry division of the newly created expeditionary force. Two airline and two cable telegraph companies were formed for army communications, three cable sections for the Cavalry Division and two experimental wireless companies created. Two telegraph companies were also provided for work on the lines of communication.Footnote 13
The Wood Committee was the first of several committees set up between 1905 and 1914 to review and amend the army’s signal organisation. Many of the recommendations of these committees, however, were met with considerable opposition from the General Staff, which considered some of the proposals to be too far-reaching.Footnote 14 One of the clearest examples of this conflict of interests occurred in 1906–7, following the report of a committee presided over by Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood.Footnote 15 Observing the lessons of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5, the committee recommended that all means of communication within the British Army should be placed under the control of one overriding authority. The committee also strongly recommended that this ‘Communication Service’ should take over infantry and artillery signalling as far forward as battalion and battery headquarters.Footnote 16 The committee’s proposals did not sit well with the General Staff, which voiced its disapproval in January 1907:
The Committee have assumed that the Manchurian Campaign should be taken as a guide to the employment of Engineers in our probable campaigns. This is not accepted by the General Staff as a correct assumption, because the conditions… rendered the Engineer work both in attack and defence quite abnormal… Brigade level of communications should not be done by the Royal Engineers… The Infantry are perfectly capable of doing this themselves.Footnote 17
Because of the objections of the General Staff, the committee’s proposals were not implemented. Although the issue of communications was at least receiving some attention, it appears that the General Staff was reluctant to provide the army with anything more than an absolute bare minimum of signal organisation.
However, the increasing complexity of modern warfare, as demonstrated by the Russo-Japanese War, created a growing interest in, and appreciation for, communications.Footnote 18 As Lieutenant-Colonel Bernard Dietz, CO 7th Dragoon Guards, observed in January 1908, ‘the increased range and great accuracy of modern artillery, machine guns and the magazine rifle have made the transmission of information during field operations more difficult than in the past’.Footnote 19 Indeed, as the 1909 Field Service Regulations made clear: ‘The constant maintenance of communication between the various parts of an army is of urgent importance; it is on this to a great extent that the possibility of co-operation depends’.Footnote 20 The issue of whether or not the army should possess one organisation solely responsible for all its communication needs was one of increasing importance, especially since the defects of the present service were becoming ever more noticeable during yearly army manoeuvres.Footnote 21 For example, Captain D. H. Blundell, who commanded a small experimental communication company in 2 Division during the 1906 army exercises, noted afterwards:
So long as the telegraphs and the telephones and the Communication Company worked under separate control… co-operation was hard to arrive at… because neither officer in charge knew exactly what the other was doing… To get the best work out of a Communication Company, it must be working with the telegraphs; and to ensure this, all methods of communication within a division should be under one control.Footnote 22
Eventually, in April 1909 a War Office committee met to consider whether it was desirable to coordinate all methods of communication in the field in one organisation. Chaired by Brigadier-General (later General Sir) Archibald Murray,Footnote 23 the Director of Military Training, the committee had as its primary concern that ‘while in certain portions of the field there may be overlapping of work and waste of communication personnel, in other directions the communication service may be so inadequate as to cause a complete breakdown’.Footnote 24 The committee argued that the creation of one overriding signal organisation would ensure that all methods of communication, whether telegraph, telephone, wireless, visual or despatch rider, would be used to their best advantage and that their ‘economical and scientific employment’ would be met. The major question, however, was where this new organisation was going to originate. The committee considered four possible alternatives.
The first proposal called for the formation of an entirely new corps. A separate ‘Corps of Signals’ would provide the army with all its communication needs. However, there were already objections within the military over the ever-increasing number of new corps being created. Adjutant General Sir Ian Hamilton, in a letter dated 20 April 1909, outlined his misgivings over the possible establishment of a Corps of Signals stating, ‘If a separate Corps were formed it might add to the already complicated organisation of our army’.Footnote 25 There were also concerns raised over the difficulties affecting the promotion of officers and, perhaps more importantly, problems over economy and finance. In the end, as a result of financial constraints and administrative difficulties, the committee found the idea of raising a separate corps of signals to be impractical.Footnote 26
The second alternative the committee considered was the creation of signal companies from a selection of the most suitable officers and men in any branch of the army. In essence, this would be an improvised corps of sorts. The acceptance of this proposal, however, rested on the necessity for the officers and troops selected to receive Royal Engineer pay. Since Royal Engineers soldiers were some of the highest paid in the British Army, problems of precedent and economy forced the committee to rule out this second proposal.Footnote 27
The third alternative was to provide signal personnel on a non-regular basis. While this was certainly the most economical of the proposals considered, it would not provide the army with a communication service fitting of its size and importance. There was also an additional problem of the length of training and service of troops of the Territorial Force.Footnote 28 The committee agreed that troops selected would require at least three years’ training to be of ‘the higher standard essential for the personnel of Signal Companies’. Overall, however, the proposal was thought not to be an adequate solution to the problem.Footnote 29
The fourth alternative discussed by the committee was the provision of a limited ‘Signal Service’ with personnel drawn from a communication branch of an already existing corps. It was agreed that the most suitable established corps would be the Royal Engineers as it already had a pool of highly trained personnel. This, in turn, would prove less costly than forming an entirely new corps. It was decided, therefore, that the Signal Service should be formed as a separate branch of the Royal Engineers.Footnote 30 However, the committee upheld the General Staff’s earlier decision that signalling within infantry battalions, cavalry regiments and the artillery should remain the responsibility of those units and not the Signal Service. It was felt that the duties of Signal Service personnel ‘will be firstly and mainly communication, to which their role as fighting men will be subsidiary only’, while regimental signallers were recognised as ‘soldiers first and their duties as signallers secondary’. Intercommunication within the artillery, in particular, was to remain the responsibility of the artillery signallers chiefly because artillery messages were deemed ‘generally of a highly technical character’.Footnote 31 Consequently, the responsibility of the Signal Service would end at the headquarters of infantry battalions and cavalry regiments; the communication requirements of those units were to be fulfilled by signallers provided, trained and controlled by those respective arms, while artillery communications were to remain outside the Signal Service’s jurisdiction.Footnote 32 This was to prove a major organisational stumbling block during the first half of the war, exposing a significant and highly vulnerable weakness within the army’s communications system.Footnote 33
The structure and responsibilities of the Signal Service as laid out by the Murray Committee in 1909 remained virtually unchanged in August 1914. However, it was not until 1912, as a result of the recommendations of a further committee which met in 1911,Footnote 34 that the Signal Service was officially recognised and its activities regularised by means of Army Order 309.Footnote 35 With the formal recognition of the Signal Service, the old telegraph units were abolished and the term ‘telegraph’ replaced by ‘signal’, which was now the recognised term when reference was made to communications in the army.Footnote 36
Control and Direction
Upon the outbreak of the war, within the War Office in London there existed neither a Director of Signals nor one branch that was solely responsible for the direction and coordination of the Signal Service. Instead, responsibility was divided between the various members of the Army Council. Organisation and training fell under the jurisdiction of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), via the Director of Staff Duties and Director of Military Training, respectively. The Adjutant-General dealt with all matters relating to personnel, while the Quartermaster-General was responsible for the design, manufacture and provision of signalling equipment. The former was coordinated by the Director of Staff Duties, while the Director of Fortifications and Works supervised the latter, with assistance from the Royal Engineers Committee.Footnote 37
In 1916, the position of Director of Military Training was abolished and most of his responsibilities passed to S.D.4, a branch under the director of staff duties.Footnote 38 Coordination of signal training at home and abroad was handled jointly by S.D.4(d), a section which consisted simply of one GSO3,Footnote 39 and the Royal Engineers training and special services. In the continuing absence of a senior Signal Service representative at the War Office, the Commandant of the Signal Service Training Centre, Colonel (later Brigadier-General) Reginald Boys, was consulted on an ad hoc basis.Footnote 40 These arrangements persisted until February 1918 when, upon the express wishes of the BEF’s Director of Army Signals, a separate signals branch, S.D.6, was formed, at last giving the Signal Service ‘adequate weight and representation at the War Office’.Footnote 41 Headed by Lieutenant-Colonel Llewelyn Evans,Footnote 42 and assisted by one GSO2 and four clerks, S.D.6 was responsible for coordinating and prioritising signal training, personnel and equipment throughout all theatres of war.Footnote 43 Although a marked improvement compared to the previous War Office arrangements, it was a far cry from the Signal Directorate established in January 1941, which, by the end of the Second World War, consisted of 65 staff officers, working in 11 branches and headed by an experienced signal officer, Major-General Geoffrey Rawson.Footnote 44
The lack of suitable control and direction of the Signal Service’s activities at the War Office was replicated to a similar degree in the field, and was particularly problematic during the first half of the war. Although a Manual of Army Signal Service – War did exist, not only was it under revision when the war broke out, but it also did not anticipate the enormous scale of the challenges the Signal Service was about to face.Footnote 45 Upon mobilisation, the BEF’s Signal Service numbered 75 officers and 2,346 other ranks, comprising 29 units in all (Table 1.1).Footnote 46 The control and administration of these units were the responsibility of Colonel (later Lieutenant-General Sir) John Fowler, who held the post of Director of Army Signals at GHQ throughout the war.Footnote 47 As well as advising the commander-in-chief on all matters pertaining to the Signal Service and to communications throughout the BEF in general,Footnote 48 Fowler’s main duties included the ‘organisation and maintenance of all means of intercommunication, including visual, electrical, and mechanical, and despatch riders in the theatre of operations’, and the ‘administration and distribution of the signal troops, and for the employment of those not allotted to subordinate commands’.Footnote 49 To help carry out these responsibilities, however, Fowler was afforded an extremely slender staff, consisting initially of only one staff officer and three clerks, which made it virtually impossible for him to exert complete control over the activities of such a diverse array of signal units.Footnote 50 This problem was exacerbated by the fact that Fowler had no representative of a similar appointment to himself – in other words, a chief signal officer – at corps, and later army, headquarters. Consequently, although Fowler could issue ‘all orders regarding the technical employment of the signal personnel, and for the regulation of signal traffic’,Footnote 51 the lack of an effective central chain of command within the Signal Service meant that most signal companies tended to work independently of one another and under the direction of their own headquarters’ staffs.Footnote 52 Since the officers commanding signal companies were responsible not only for commanding their companies but also for advising their staffs, the vast increase in both the scale of the fighting and the size and complexity of the BEF from 1915 meant that close supervision of subordinate signal units during the first half of the war was rarely exercised, resulting in clumsy, ad hoc and uncoordinated signal administration.Footnote 53
Table 1.1 Signal Service Establishment, BEF, August 1914
The key turning point for improved control and coordination of the Signal Service’s activities in the field occurred in 1916: first, in February with the appointment of Deputy Directors of Army Signals (DD Signals), with the rank of colonel, at army headquarters; and, second, in November, with the appointment of Assistant Directors of Army Signals (AD Signals), with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, at corps headquarters. The chief justification for the creation of these new posts was ‘to free the Officers Commanding Army and Corps Headquarters Signal Companies from their executive duties in connection with their units, and to enable them to deal with the larger questions affecting the general scheme of inter-communication throughout their respective areas’.Footnote 54 Thus, there now existed a chief signal officer at each army and corps headquarters in addition to the officers commanding the army and corps signal companies.Footnote 55 These were to prove inspired appointments, since not only did they gradually improve the coordination and overall efficiency of the Signal Service, but they also helped mend the somewhat strained relationship between the Signal Service and the General Staff.Footnote 56
Indeed, the DD Signals were accountable to the army commander, through the General Staff, for the efficiency of the methods of communication within the army area, the training of signal units and personnel, and were responsible for the provision of signal stores and their distribution. They had to cultivate good working relationships with the army staff on the one hand and with the AD Signals on the other. The importance of the relationship between the DD Signals and the army staff was particularly emphasised in a memorandum by Godfrey-Faussett, now DD Signals Fifth Army, in early 1918. He stressed that ‘it is much more important for his [DD Signals] office to be close to the “G” Staff Office than the Signal Office, and when important operations are in progress he should be in and out of the “G” Office every 2 or 3 hours’.Footnote 57 As Table 1.2 shows, given that nearly all the DD Signals appointed in early 1916 retained their posts until the end of the war, it may be deduced that the working relationships between them and the army staff were almost certainly productive – a reflection of the overall improvement in signal–staff relations and coordination during the last two years of the war, which greatly facilitated the overall performance of the BEF’s communications system.
Table 1.2 DD Signals, BEF, 1916–1918
Note: All colonels, with the exception of Sadleir-Jackson, who was a major at the time.
Though specific to the corps level of command, the duties and responsibilities of the AD Signals were almost identical to those of the DD Signals. Besides maintaining close contact with commanders and staffs of all formations within the corps, the AD Signals were responsible for the planning and supervision of the general scheme of communications within the corps area, as well as with neighbouring corps; the preparation and issuing of general and technical signal instructions; control over the issue of signal stores; the formation and supervision of the Corps Signal School; and the selection and recommendation of signal officer appointments.Footnote 58 However, unlike the DD Signals, who were afforded the assistance of a GSO2 and two clerks, the AD Signals had no staff of their own, having to borrow from the corps signal company as a result.Footnote 59 As Appendix 1 shows, there was a higher turnover of AD Signals than DD Signals, though the degree of continuity varied considerably. Although only two of the AD Signals originally appointed in November 1916 (Danielsen and Harrison) retained their positions within the same corps until the armistice, seven (Stevenson, Bald, Walsh, Mair, Dobbs, Yeats-Brown and Smith) served as AD Signals in two corps, while one (Carey) served as AD Signals with three different corps. Overall, the permanent establishment of AD Signals from 1916 onwards should be viewed not only as an important milestone in the development and increased status of the Signal Service, but also as a significant indicator of the growing importance of corps in the planning and execution of the BEF’s operations. As Andy Simpson has argued: ‘From 1916 onwards, corps was the highest level of command… concerned with the detail of operations and success was crucially dependent on the planning of corps staffs’.Footnote 60
Aside from the Director of Army Signals, DD Signals and AD Signals, the signal unit of each formation down to, but not including, infantry battalion headquarters was commanded by a Signal Service officer. Typically, the OC GHQ Signal Company and the OC Army Signal Company were afforded the rank of major, while the OC Corps Signal Company and OC Divisional Signal Company were appointed majors or captains.Footnote 61 The principal duties of these officers were largely administrative in nature and included ‘the co-ordination and supervision of the Signal work not only of the Signal Service, but also of all Artillery, Infantry and other units under the command of his GOC’.Footnote 62 However, as an American observer reported in 1917, the OC divisional signal company was also instructed to ‘keep in the closest communication with the [divisional] General Staff… and be prepared to proffer advice as to communications’.Footnote 63 As such, most of the administrative details and arrangements concerning the divisional signal company, such as signal office routine, the provision of stores and writing the company war diary, were carried out by the OC divisional signal company’s second in command, typically a captain or a lieutenant.Footnote 64 In all of the duties, pre-war doctrine dictated that the provision and maintenance of communication between two headquarters were the responsibility of the higher commander and organisation.Footnote 65 However, it was also stressed that this did not lessen the responsibility of a subordinate commander in keeping his superior ‘regularly informed of the progress of events and of important changes in the situation as they occur’.Footnote 66
Arguably the most important, yet equally the most challenging, position within the Signal Service’s chain of command was that of the brigade signalling officer. Since he commanded one of the four sections that comprised the divisional signal company, he owed his allegiance to the OC divisional signal company. However, because he spent the majority of his time at brigade headquarters, it was crucial that he also lived on good terms with the brigadier-general and his staff.Footnote 67 Typically a subaltern, the brigade signal officer had the principal task of providing and maintaining communications with neighbouring brigades and, crucially, between brigade and battalion headquarters.Footnote 68 Officially, it was at the latter headquarters where the brigade signal officer’s, and thus the Signal Service’s, jurisdiction ended. Yet, as one signal officer observed after the war, ‘it was also clearly laid down that the brigade signalling officer was responsible for the supervision and coordination of all communications in the brigade area, which of course included the battalion areas, though the battalion signalling officers were not under his direct control’.Footnote 69 The Trench Standing Orders of the 124th Infantry Brigade in late 1915 also stipulated quite clearly that the ‘Brigade Signalling Officer is responsible for communications within the battalions’.Footnote 70 In light of the fact that the battalion signal officer could refuse to carry out a verbal order or instruction by the brigade signal officer on the grounds that he was answerable only to the battalion commander, the importance of getting his battalion counterpart ‘to do what you wanted them to do without any friction’ was impressed upon the brigade signal officer. In this respect, cohesion of personnel and the efficient working of communications forward of brigade headquarters ‘were not the result of the organisation, but depended on the ability of all concerned to pull together amicably’.Footnote 71 One brigade signal officer, for example, recalled how in early 1917 he was ‘most flattered at being addressed as “Sir” one day by two Battalion Signal Officers!’Footnote 72
Plate 1.1 Interior of the New Zealand signal office, 1 August 1917
Indeed, one of the major organisational concerns for the Signal Service was also where the BEF’s communications system was at its most vulnerable – the battalion level.Footnote 73 Because of the ruling made by the General Staff before the war, communications forward of battalion headquarters were to remain the responsibility of the regimental signallers, not the Signal Service. In 1914, an infantry battalion’s signal section was made up of a sergeant and 16 men, typically under the nominal supervision of the battalion adjutant.Footnote 74 Some, more fortunate, battalions managed to retain a signal officer, usually of subaltern rank, though such a position had been officially abolished before the war. Communications within these battalions were generally more efficient and better organised than in those battalions that could not spare an officer to focus exclusively on communications. However, since in the vast majority of cases the adjutant assumed responsibility for the battalion signallers, not only could he not devote enough attention to the task, since he had an array of other duties to perform, but he also knew very little about the practicalities of signalling.Footnote 75 It was not until December 1917 that the post of battalion signal officer was officially reinstated, though by that time most battalions had found it necessary to appoint an unofficial signal officer.Footnote 76 According to John Staniforth, the battalion signal officer was ‘responsible for maintaining communication at all times from his Bn. Hdqrs. to the Brigade, to the component companies of his battalion, and to the units on either flank, and to establish the necessary stations accordingly’.Footnote 77 Since such officers were under strict instructions to ‘devote the whole of [their] attention to [their] lines’ and to ‘work in the closest cooperation with the Brigade Signal Officer’, they were not ‘to undertake any other duties whatsoever’.Footnote 78
Unsurprisingly, given the lack of adequate coordination and supervision during the first half of the war, the state of battalion communications quickly deteriorated.Footnote 79 The high number of casualties amongst regimental signallers,Footnote 80 as well as the decision in early 1915 to extend cable communications beyond battalion headquarters and up to the frontline trenches, a task that was beyond the ability of the typical regimental signaller who was trained almost exclusively in visual methods of communication, further exacerbated the state of affairs within battalion signals.Footnote 81 Consequently, as early as December 1914 it was noted that ‘duties are being thrown on Divisional Signal Companies which are not included in any manuals, but which require to be recognised’.Footnote 82 Essentially, the Signal Service was compelled to step in to coordinate and supervise the provision and maintenance of communications right up to the frontline. Although it was never officially sanctioned by the high command, largely as a result of objections raised concerning practicality and economy, gradually ‘commanders of divisional signal companies acquired through their brigade signal officers a definite measure of control over battalion communications’.Footnote 83 As one brigade signal officer noted after the war, since he ‘exercised general supervision’ over the regimental signallers, he practically ‘ran his own Signals show forward of Bde. H.Q.’.Footnote 84 This tacit acknowledgement of Signal Service control was strengthened further by the fact that battalion signallers received their equipment directly from the Signal Service’s stores and that the training of regimental signallers became the responsibility of the OC divisional signal company, initially via classes arranged at brigade level, and from 1916 under the more centralised direction of the Divisional Signal Schools.Footnote 85 Thus, gradually Signal Service equipment and methods permeated down to the lowest levels of the BEF, giving the Signal Service far greater control and direction over the communications system than had been the case in 1914.
Specialist Communications
The growing demand for greater and more efficient communications from 1915 onwards meant that not only was the BEF’s communications system extended to support the functions of a whole range of specialist arms and formations, but also new organisational structures were created to enable the effective use of some of the more innovative means of communication that were developed and employed during the course of the war. With regards to the former, the three most significant arms were undoubtedly the artillery, the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Tank Corps. In the case of the latter, the growing importance of wireless communication necessitated profound changes to the way in which it was controlled and coordinated. All provided unique challenges for the BEF’s communications establishment to contend with, particularly for the Signal Service, which was increasingly called upon to extend the scope of its jurisdiction into areas that had either been excluded from its remit at the start of the war, or into areas that were entirely novel.
With the commencement of trench warfare, the increasing dominance of artillery over the battlefield, coupled with the insatiable needs of the arm, brought about some of the most fundamental changes to signal practice and organisation.Footnote 86 At first, however, the General Staff’s pre-war decision to separate artillery communications from the Signal Service’s sphere of influence had a detrimental impact upon the efficiency of artillery signals. Artillery–infantry cooperation, for instance, was very ad hoc, relying largely upon a primitive system of liaison during the first months of the war. Although this worked reasonably well during the initial period of mobility, it quickly became apparent with the onset of trench warfare that drastic reorganisation was required. Hampered by inadequate numbers of personnel and by the fact that most artillery signallers in 1914 lacked suitable training in handling telephones and laying and repairing lines,Footnote 87 it soon became standard practice for the Signal Service to lay the initial telephone lines of a newly arrived artillery unit. Although the artillery signallers would operate the line thereafter, often the Signal Service was called upon to repair faults and resolve any technical problems that occurred.Footnote 88 In this way, the Signal Service gained its first foothold in the realm of artillery communications, a process that was further extended in April 1915 when a small signal office detachment for the Commander Royal Artillery (CRA) was added to the divisional signal company, and a cable detachment created for the sole purpose of laying artillery lines. Although artillery brigade signal officers, who were drawn from the Royal Artillery, were made responsible for all communications within their area, including the links between observation posts and their batteries, and for liaison with the infantry,Footnote 89 the OC divisional signal company, via his brigade signalling officer and representative with the CRA, gradually assumed control over all lines in the brigade area.Footnote 90
Throughout 1916, the increasing demands by the artillery and its associated services – anti-aircraft batteries, flash-spotting, sound ranging, kite balloons and trench mortar batteries – became too much for the Signal Service to meet adequately under the restrictions of the existing organisation. Not only were the majority of cable circuits in forward areas required for the artillery, but they were becoming increasingly complex. Thus, during the winter of 1916–17 the decision was made to transfer all artillery signallers into the Signal Service and to give the latter complete control over all artillery communications down to, but not including, battery level.Footnote 91 Five new units were added to the Signal Service’s establishment just in time for the opening of the 1917 campaign (Table 1.3), remedying one of the greatest organisational shortcomings in the BEF’s communications system.
Table 1.3 New Signal Units, Winter 1916–17
| Unit | Allotted To | No. of Personnel |
|---|---|---|
| Signal Construction Company | 1 per Army | 3 Officers and 116 Men |
| Area Signal Detachment | 8 per Army | 1 Officer and 15 Men |
| Corps Heavy Artillery Section | 1 per Corps | 1 Officer and 36 Men |
| Heavy Artillery Group, Sig. Section | 1 per Group | 1 Officer and 36 Men |
| RFA Brigade Signal Sub-section | 1 per Brigade | 1 Officer and 19 Men |
Plate 1.2 A New Zealand battery receiving communications on a field telephone, Beaussart, France, 23 May 1918
In contrast to the artillery, from the outset of the war the planning, direction and control of the ground communications of the RFC, along with its related branches, the anti-aircraft and kite balloon sections and field survey companies, was the responsibility of the GHQ and army signal companies. While the RFC was responsible for air-to-ground communications, the headquarters of RFC brigades, wings and squadrons were connected via a ‘self-contained and self-sufficient’ exchange system, which formed part of the larger Signal Service network, though RFC operators manned the telephone switchboards and operated the telegraph instruments.Footnote 92 The formation of the RAF on 1 April 1918,Footnote 93 however, necessitated much tighter control and administration of what was to become known as Air Formation Signals, a task that was given to the newly appointed AD Signals, RAF, Lieutenant-Colonel (later Colonel) Jacob Waley-Cohen.Footnote 94 In addition, the Independent Force – the RAF’s strategic bombing component – was afforded an AD Signals in July and an establishment of 7 officers and 229 men to oversee its ground communications system.Footnote 95 By the end of the war, 80 RAF ground stations were in operation, linked via an intricate wireless system.Footnote 96
The organisation of communications for the Tank CorpsFootnote 97 was particularly unique, since it was impossible to allocate a permanent system of telegraph and telephone lines to link tank formation headquarters to the rest of the BEF until it was known where and when an offensive would take place.Footnote 98 Both on the Somme in the autumn of 1916 and at Arras in April 1917, tank formation headquarters were simply connected to the lines already provided, operated and maintained by the infantry signal companies.Footnote 99 Tank units had only a very small number of linesmen to maintain and repair their own lines, and as a result faults were commonplace and communication between headquarters severely impaired.Footnote 100 Consequently, beginning in May 1917 three tank brigade signal companies, each consisting of a mixture of tank and Signal Service personnel, were formed in order to facilitate communications for and between Tank Corps, brigade and battalion headquarters.Footnote 101 Although that was a notable improvement, one of the principal lessons to emerge from the Battle of Cambrai in November was the necessity for even closer liaison between the Tank Corps and the Signal Service.Footnote 102 Thus, in late 1917 Lieutenant-Colonel John Molesworth was appointed AD Signals, Tank Corps, a move that led to improved signal training and tighter Tank Corps–Signal Service coordination, the first notable fruition of which was the creation of the 4th Tank Brigade Signal Company, the first to consist entirely of Signal Service personnel.Footnote 103
Finally, technological advances also led to the formation of specialist organisations tasked with coordinating newer methods of communication, the most noteworthy of which was wireless. In January 1915, ‘Q’ Wireless Section at GHQ was expanded into the GHQ Wireless Company and a separate wireless headquarters was established, responsible for the activities of both wireless communication and intelligence. In September, a wireless officer was attached to each army headquarters, charged with advising the OC Army Signal Company on all wireless-related matters and responsible for arranging experiments with new and existing wireless equipment, and for overseeing the training of wireless operators. This training arrangement persisted until the creation of the Wireless Depot at Abbeville and the Central Wireless School, based at Montreuil, in April 1916.Footnote 104 Two months prior to the school’s opening, the OC Wireless, GHQ, Lieutenant-Colonel Lyster Blandy,Footnote 105 was officially charged with coordinating all wireless throughout the BEF, and in July, ‘in view of the increasing importance of wireless telegraphy as a means of communication in the field’,Footnote 106 army wireless companies were formed. Although these wireless companies were independent of the army signal companies, because they were under the control of the OC Wireless, GHQ, they composed sections for each corps and sub-sections for each division, thus representing an important step in the decentralisation of wireless in the BEF.Footnote 107
This process of decentralisation was furthered in June 1917 when the post of OC Wireless, GHQ, was abolished and coordination of the BEF’s wireless activities transferred to the newly created AD Signals, Wireless, who served on the Director of Army Signals’ staff.Footnote 108 Thereafter, GHQ’s wireless activities were limited to the Wireless Observation Groups, whose primary function was to intercept German wireless communication, a formation which was subsequently duplicated and passed to army control.Footnote 109 Meanwhile, the wireless sections and sub-sections in each army, corps and division were absorbed into the respective signal companies, ending the semi-autonomy and separation of wireless from the Signal Service,Footnote 110 and sparking greater interest in wireless communication within divisional signal companies and brigade signal sections.Footnote 111
Growth of the Communications Establishment
The exponential growth of the BEF, from six infantry divisions and one cavalry division totalling approximately 150,000 men in 1914, to a peak force of 66 divisions numbering more than two million men in 1918,Footnote 112 generated a dramatic increase in the communication needs of the army. This in turn necessitated a substantial growth in the size of the Signal Service as it sought to provide communications ‘on an immense and elaborate scale’.Footnote 113 The most dramatic areas of expansion occurred within the GHQ and Lines of Communication (‘L’) signal companies. In 1914, GHQ Signal Company consisted of 5 officers and 75 other ranks, while ‘L’ Signal Company numbered 5 officers and 263 other ranks. They also consituted three airline and six cable sections, totalling an additional 9 officers and 381 other ranks. By October 1916, GHQ Signal Company alone had expanded to 6 officers and 129 other ranks, and in April 1918 numbered 13 officers and 315 men.Footnote 114 In 1918, the two signal companies were amalgamated into the GHQ Signal Battalion, which totalled 40 officers and 1,784 other ranks. Combined with the five telegraph construction and six railway telegraph companies that worked behind the army areas, the grand total working on the lines of communication at the end of the war amounted to an incredible 73 officers and 3,232 other ranks (Figure 1.1).Footnote 115
Figure 1.1 Signal Service organisation (GHQ), November 1918
Upon their creation in late 1914, the army signal companies each consisted of 7 officers and 142 other ranks. By 1916, this number had increased to 10 officers and 224 men, and by the end of the war an army signal company boasted 15 officers and 340 other ranks. During this period of growth a wireless section, consisting initially of 1 officer and 23 other ranks, had been added in 1917, the army artillery sub-sections taken over in the same year, and a wireless observation group and light railway signal company, totalling 3 officers and 116 men, established in 1918. In addition, one signal construction company, three motor airline and two cable sections had been added by 1918, and an army signal school of four officers and 10 NCO instructors established (Figure 1.2).Footnote 116 Taken as a whole, and notwithstanding corps and divisional signal units and artillery signal sub-sections, by the end of the war a DD Signals commanded approximately 32 officers and 815 other ranks.Footnote 117
Figure 1.2 Signal Service organisation (Army), November 1918
A corps signal company at the beginning of the war consisted of just 4 officers and 63 other ranks, which included 18 motorcycle despatch riders and 20 signal office staff.Footnote 118 Although gradual increases to the number of personnel were made during the first half of the war, it was not until 1917 that major changes in corps signal company organisation occurred. Again, this was in many respects a reflection of the growing importance of the role and responsibilities of corps during the war.Footnote 119 Not only was a Wireless Section, consisting of 3 NCOs and 24 men, added to the corps signal company, but a Corps Heavy Artillery Signal Section, comprising 1 officer and 36 other ranks, was also created. In addition, corps signal schools were established in the same year, comprising 1 officer and 5 NCO instructors. Arguably the most important development, however, was the creation of permanent area signal detachments, each initially comprising 1 officer and 8 men (8 per army), responsible for ensuring continuity in line construction, maintenance and operation when reliefs took place.Footnote 120 Thus, at the end of the war a corps signal company numbered 8 officers and 191 other ranks, in addition to two motor airline and two cable sections (Figure 1.3).Footnote 121 The exception to this, however, was the Canadian Corps, which, by virtue of its larger size, possessed four cable sections in 1918.Footnote 122
Figure 1.3 Signal Service organisation (Corps), November 1918
In 1914, a divisional signal company consisted of a headquarters and four sections.Footnote 123 No. 1 Section was made up of three cable detachments, each possessing 10 miles of cable and capable of establishing three telegraph offices (‘base’, ‘intermediate’ and ‘travelling’),Footnote 124 as well as the staff which manned the divisional signal office. Also possessing four mounted orderlies, eight cyclists and nine motorcycle despatch riders, No. 1 Section had the primary responsibility of establishing communications between divisional and brigade headquarters, and between neighbouring divisions.Footnote 125 Sections 2, 3 and 4 were each allocated to the infantry brigades, charged principally with connecting brigade and battalion headquarters to one another, and each comprising 1 officer and 26 other ranks. In all, the divisional signal company totalled 5 officers and 170 other ranks. By 1918, this number had expanded to 15 officers and 400 other ranks.Footnote 126 In the process, a fourth cable detachment had been added in 1915 for the purpose of laying artillery communications, before the headquarters of the Royal Artillery Signal Section and the field brigade artillery sub-sections were absorbed in early 1917. Finally, in 1918 No. 5 (Machine Gun) Section was added, which consisted of 1 officer and 20 other ranks drawn largely from the Machine Gun Corps, and the personnel within the divisional signal company headquarters increased from 1 officer and 44 men in 1914 to 3 officers and 173 men in 1918 (Figure 1.4).Footnote 127 On paper, the establishment of the infantry brigade signal section remained largely unchanged until the last year of the war, when a second officer and three ‘pigeoneers’ were added. In reality, the creation of ‘brigade pools’ in 1917, which consisted of eight specially trained signallers drawn from each battalion in the brigade, significantly reinforced the brigade signal section’s manpower, though there was never a shortage of complaints about the inadequate number of sufficiently trained reinforcements amongst forward signal units.Footnote 128
Figure 1.4 Signal Service organisation (Division), November 1918
Finally, with regards to cavalry communications, in 1914 the Cavalry Division was served by a signal squadron, organised into four troops: ‘A’ Troop consisted of two wagon wireless detachments responsible for communication with GHQ; ‘B’ Troop was made up of two cable detachments, having 28 miles of cable in total, and employed to facilitate communication between cavalry division headquarters and the wireless stations of the squadron, or to connect the former to the civil telegraph system; ‘C’ Troop consisted of one wagon and three pack wireless detachments, charged with establishing communications between cavalry division and brigade headquarters; and, ‘D’ Troop, which comprised 12 mounted men, 28 cyclists, 6 motorcycle despatch riders and two motorcars, was responsible for an array of communication duties throughout the division. The signal troop of a cavalry brigade consisted of an officer and 23 other ranks capable of laying and operating 7.5 miles of cable, with eight portable telephones, and augmented by a wireless detachment comprising two pack sets. Its primary responsibilities were communication within the brigade and connecting with the permanent telecommunications network of the country.Footnote 129 When the Cavalry Corps was formed in October 1914,Footnote 130 a signal squadron consisting of 4 officers and 101 men was added, though little change occurred thereafter in the size of the squadron, or indeed in the cavalry communications establishment as a whole, until 1918, when the most notable addition was the Cavalry Wireless Squadron, comprising 3 officers and 136 men, which replaced the wireless troops of the divisional signal squadron.Footnote 131
Signal Research, Design and Supply
The enlargement of the BEF’s communications establishment resulted inevitably in the huge demand for signal equipment. Throughout the war, responsibility for the supply of signal stores rested with F.W.9, a branch of the Director of Fortifications and Works. Headed by Major Algernon Dumaresq, the chief electrical engineer, and with the help of just two officers and six other ranks in August 1914, F.W.9 grew to comprise 12 officers and 34 subordinates by the end of the war. However, the pressure of the job took its toll on Dumaresq, who died suddenly in his office in May 1917.Footnote 132 His successor, Lieutenant-Colonel Edwin Seaman, also succumbed to a similar fate, dying of a stroke in May 1919.Footnote 133 Throughout this period, F.W.9 was assisted by the Chief Inspector of R. E. Stores at Woolwich, Captain (later Colonel) Frederick Robertson, whose staff grew from 4 officers and 165 other ranks upon mobilisation, to 30 officers and 1,620 subordinates by October 1918. The stores F.W.9 supplied the BEF included 11,000 telegraph sets, 120,000 telephone instruments, 100,000 signalling lamps and 600,000 miles of telephone cable. It was also responsible for supplying wireless sets to the RFC.Footnote 134
In September 1916 a Signals Experimental Establishment was set up on Woolwich Common, under the initial command of Chief Experimental Officer Colonel Arthur Bagnold.Footnote 135 As the precursor of the Signals Research and Development Establishment, it employed 17 officers and 267 other ranks, and was charged with designing, adapting and testing specialist signalling equipment that could not be obtained from other sources. Also in 1916, at the request of the Director of Army Signals a Signal Service Committee was established and a separate branch of the War Office, F.W.7, was subsequently formed, responsible for coordinating the activities of the many contractors, departments and organisations involved in signal equipment research, design and experimentation. These included, amongst others, the Munitions and Inventions Committee, the Marconi Company, the GPO, the RFC Wireless Telegraphy School and the R.E. Wireless Training Centre.Footnote 136
The system of supply on the Western Front was, from the outset, firmly under Signal Service control.Footnote 137 All signalling equipment was held at a Signal Park, which opened at the Advanced Base at Amiens in mid-August 1914 under the administration of the DD Signals, Lines of Communication.Footnote 138 In light of the BEF’s situation, however, the park was relocated at the end of the month to Le Mans, where it remained until the end of the year, when it was moved to its final location at Le Havre. A second park was opened at Calais later in the war and smaller parks established within army areas shortly before the war’s end.Footnote 139 Strict control of signal stores meant that all requests had to receive approval from the office of the Director of Army Signals before being sanctioned. Naturally, priority was given to requests made by signal units either about to take part in a large-scale offensive, or residing in a sector of the front that was facing an imminent enemy attack.Footnote 140 Maintenance of signal equipment, meanwhile, was the responsibility of individual signal companies, although each army also set up repair workshops. In February 1917, official Signal Repair Workshops were built at Le Havre, dealing mainly with equipment too badly damaged for the army workshops to repair. Although personnel from ‘L’ Signal Company supervised the workshops, the majority of the technical maintenance workers were German POWs.Footnote 141
Overall, the growth in both the size and complexity of the BEF’s communications establishment conformed to the overall pattern of expansion experienced by the army as a whole during the course of the war. In 1914, the Signal Service was marked by its diminutive size and the absence of a central chain of command, as well as being handicapped by restrictions imposed upon its sphere of influence, most notably within the artillery and infantry battalions. Humble, ad hoc and inadequate coordination and supervision during the first half of the war, however, gradually gave way to a far larger, more influential and more proficient organisation, though it was not until 1916–17, first with the appointments of DD Signals and AD Signals for armies and corps, and second with the absorption of artillery communications into the Signal Service’s jurisdiction, that the control, direction, scale and provision of the BEF’s communications machinery began to mature. Even then, problems remained, most notably at the strategic level with the inadequate control and direction exercised by the War Office until the establishment of S.D.6 in early 1918. Nevertheless, through an evolutionary process of trial and error, by the end of the war the BEF had in the Signal Service an organisation more than capable of meeting the insatiable communication needs of the army.
