Something Old Something New: Technology and Telecommunications

during World War One

Dr Elizabeth Bruton, Museum of the History of Science

University of Oxford and Associate Member, IET

@lizbruton

Background image courtesy of Imperial War Museum. Image licensed via non-commercial Creative Commons Licence (CC BY-NC-SA).

Innovating in Combat: Telecommunications and intellectual

property in the First World War • Aims: to help museums, archives, and

public to better appreciate the significance of communications technologies and patents during World War One

• Partners: BT archives, IET archives, Imperial War Museum North, Porthcurno Telegraph Museum, Science Museum, University of Leeds HSTM Museum

• Professor Graeme Gooday and Dr Elizabeth Bruton, University of Leeds

http://blogs.mhs.ox.ac.uk/innovatingincombat

Introduction

• World War One is first truly global and industrial twentieth-century war

• Access to broad selection of technologies, old and new, as well as industrial methods and levels of production

• Engineering and scientific innovation stimulated by war

• World War One: War of chemists and engineers

• Technologies introduced and developed in wartime include poison gas, machine guns, aircraft, artillery and ordnance, tanks, as well as telecommunications

• Telecommunications and communications networks provide insight into global as well as local nature of World War One

• World War One: Birthplace of signals intelligence

WWI: Beyond the Western Front

WWI Communications

• In wartime, communication systems evolved to meet battlefield challenges

• Outcome of battles determined by ability to communicate on the battlefield and to effectively manage this communication

• Speed and reliability are key

• Different systems used interchangeably and adaptively – ancient and modern systems of communications used alongside each other

• Communications systems range from carrier pigeons, semaphore flags, and messengers to more modern telecommunications system: telegraph, telephone and wireless telegraph (radio communications)

British ‘All Red’ cable network

1902 British All Red Line map, from Johnson’s The All Red Line – The Annals and Aims of the Pacific Cable Project (1903). Image available in the public domain.

Global cable telegraph network

• Most secure and reliable method for long-distance communication

• Supported and controlled by various states, most especially Britain

• 1902: Britain completes “All Red” global telegraph route, designed by British electrical engineers and maintained and operated by telegraph staff and operators including Irish staff

• Redundancy and security embedded in very infrastructure – multiple cables and secure landing locations – 1911: Committee on Imperial Defence report notes that 49 cuts would be

needed to isolate Britain and Ireland; 15 for Canada; and 5 for South Africa.

– Britain also possessed the majority of the world's underwater-telegraph deployment and repair equipment and expertise, and a monopoly of the gutta-percha insulation for underwater lines

• Cable telegraphs key to controlling the rapid propagation of information, news, and propaganda around the world

Global cable telegraph network

• 5 December 1913: War Office drew up ‘Regulations for censorship of submarine cable communications throughout the British Empire’ – Deny naval or military intelligence to enemy

– Prevent the spread of false reports to affect the morale of civilian population

– Collect and distribute enemy information to government departments

– Deny the use of British cables to any person or firm – British, Allied, or neutral – for commercial transactions with the enemy

– Interfere as little as possible with legitimate British and neutral trade

• Managed and communicated by Post Office who held and managed telecomms monopoly and licence in Britain & Ireland

• Commercial telegraph companies fell in line due to strict imperial licensing scheme; extended to wireless telegraphy

Cable Telegraph network, 1914

Map of the global telegraph cable network, 1914. Image available in the public domain via Holtz.org

“Cable wars” in WWI

First act of war by Britain

Segment of severed Borkum cable.

Image courtesy of

Porthcurno Telegraph Museum.

• 4 August 1914: British cableships destroy and divert German telegraph cables passing through English Channel including cable from Borkum, Germany to New York via the Azores

• Prevents Germany communicating with their outpost on the Atlantic Island as well directly and securely with neutral US

• Part of cable diverted into infrastructure of “All-Red Line” to provide Allied communication from Dunkirk to Cherbourg and Brest to Cherbourg

Outbreak of war

Joint Anglo, German and American Cable Station, Fayal, Azores, early twentieth century Image available in the public domain via atlantic-cable.com

War in the Far East: Yap Island

• German naval communications centre as well as centre of German telegraph network in Pacific

• Alternative to “All Red” Line

• 1910: Wireless station built

• August 1914: Comes under Japanese control & telegraph station shut down

• 12 August 1914: Wireless station destroyed by British naval cruisers

German-Netherlands Telegraph Company District Office and Cable Station, Yap, c. 1908.

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.

Telegraphy network management

• After outbreak of war, ‘censors’ were installed in telegraphy stations throughout Britain and Ireland

• Mainly military and ex-military most with little technical and telegraphy knowledge

• Tension with telegraphy staff and operators

• October 1914: Most censors moved to London, where all telegraphic cables including neutral cables passed through – Now Post Office staff at telegraph stations read messages and passed

onto censors in London

– Telegraph stations were considered of strategic importance and were kept under military guard, at least domestically

– 1918: For example in Ireland, eleven Post Office ‘censors’ installed at Valentia telegraph station, three at Ballinskelligs and six at Waterville

German response: Fanning Island

• Germany lacks naval dominance, telegraph infrastructure especially cableship fleet so attacks weak point in “All Red Line”: geographically isolated telegraphy relay stations

• Early September 1914: SMS Nürnberg and SMS Titania attack Eastern Telegraph Company telegraph station on Fanning Island in the Pacific Ocean

Cable relay station, Fanning Island, Line Islands, the relay point that boosts the power & signal for the

British trans-Pacific telegraph cable between Canada & Fiji. Image courtesy of Spontoon Island

and available in the public domain.

Cocos Islands attack, Indian Ocean

• Early November 1914: SMS Emden attacks Eastern Telegraph Company telegraph & wireless station on Direction Island, part of the Cocos Islands in the Indian ocean

• Jammed wireless station from off-shore, cut the telegraph cable, destroyed the telegraph station and equipment, and felled the wireless mast (destroying the tennis courts as a result).

Right: Plan - Cocos Islands; Action Between Sydney and Emden, 9 November 1914. Image taken from Corbett, Julian S. History of the Great War – Naval Operations. Volume 1, to the Battle of the Falklands, December 1914 (1920).

Attack on Cocos Islands

The destroyed wireless mast after the attack.

Image courtesy of Porthcurno Telegraph Museum.

Attack on Cocos Islands

The instrument room on Direction Island, as left by the Germans.

Image courtesy of Porthcurno Telegraph Museum.

Attack on Cocos Islands

The two severed ends of the severed cable after the attack….or was it?

Image courtesy of Porthcurno Telegraph Museum.

Change of German tactics

• July 1915: Germany servers British-Norwegian telegraph cable off the coast of Norway

• Impressive albeit isolated, desperate and ultimately unsuccessful attack on cable from Britain to “neutral ally” Norway

Left: The message left by the Germans that attacked the cable: “No more Reuter war-lies on this line! Kindest regards from a “Hun” and “Sea-Pirate”. Right: The two ends of the severed cables with the “mysterious apparatus” still attached. Both images courtesy of BT archives.

Zimmermann Telegram, 1917

Left: The encrypted version of the Zimmermann telegram obtained from the Mexican telegraph office. Right: A portion of the Telegram as decrypted ‘Room 40’. Both images are available in the public domain.

Telephone: Trouble in the trenches ‘In the summer of 1915 the enemy did suddenly appear to be extraordinarily well informed of all that was going on behind our lines. This was manifested in many ways…

Carefully planned raids and minor attacks were met by hostile fire, exactly directed, and timed to the minute of the attack.

One day, even, a well-known Scotch battalion took over its new front to the strains of its regimental march, exceedingly well played upon a German cornet’

Priestley, Major R.E. The Signal Service in the European

War of 1914-18 (France) (1921), 98-99.

Raymond Edward Priestley, by unknown photographer, 1938. Image courtesy of University of Melbourne Archives, UMA/I/1950.

Further interception and perils

• Somme, 1916: Intercepted General Rawlinson’s eve of battle message sent to forward unit; copy of intercepted message later found in German trench – Middlebrook, Martin. The First Day on the Somme (2003), 155.

“Through” 1917 Francis Martin, Royal Engineers . Image courtesy Royal Signals Museum.

Fullerphone: private invention • AC Fuller (1885-1970) trained at Woolwich,

graduating 1904 with Armstrong Prize & Royal Engineers Commission

• 1914-15: problem of German interception of telephone lines

• Anti-interception telegraphic device invented privately by Fuller in holiday cottage in 1915

• Fullerphone was portable signalling device – (Mk I) portable Morse telegraph which sent a low-voltage DC signal through a single wire

• Operated over telegraph and telephone wires

• Very difficult to intercept due to scrambling, miniscule earth currents of signal and lack of induction

Fullerphone Mk I, 1916. Image from Petra Henderson via Petra Henderson’s Virtual Telephone Museum (VTM).

Wireless telegraphy in WWI

Wireless at outbreak of war

• At outbreak of war, most belligerents were equipped with crude systems of wireless telegraphy

• Mostly used for naval and maritime use

• Best developed systems belonged to Telefunken (Germany) and Marconi Company (Britain)

• Quickly realised what valuable and dangerous tool wireless telegraphy could be – 22/23 August 1914: British and French attacks on German long-

distance wireless station in Togoland, Africa

– 26-29 August 1914: Germans intercept unencrypted wireless messages sent by Russian army at Battle of Tannenberg on Eastern Front – turning point

• British military works closely with Marconi Company

Marconi Company and wireless • 1897 & 1900: Marconi company innovations

in wireless point to point communication

• August 1914: Outbreak of war announced by messages from Marconi wireless stations

• Marconi Company patriotically offers wireless operators & training to services and allows government ‘censors’ to monitor all wireless communications – code-breakers in Admiralty’s secret ‘Room 40’

• Many Marconi Company engineers work with or for British military to develop wireless innovations needed in wartime – wireless direction-finding and radio telephony for aircraft

Transcript of wireless message sent from Marconi long-distance station at Poldhu on 4 August 1914. Image courtesy of Burton-upon-Trent Amateur Radio club.

Wireless direction-finding • Developed by Marconi Company engineer HJ Round before

outbreak of war

• Initial prewar and wartime experiments and developments at Marconi factory in Chelmsford

• Used multiple fixes to locate enemy wireless transmissions from ships, Zeppelin airships and later submarines

• Outbreak of war: Round joins Intelligence Corps and sent to France to establish wireless direction-finding stations

• Very successful so returns to UK to build network of wireless direction-finding stations for the Royal Navy, some using Marconi wireless stations along east coast

• Used at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 as well as to combat U-boat threat in 1916 & 1917

Wireless direction-finding

A postcard of the Lighthouse and Marconi Wireless Station at Hunstanton, early 20th C. Wireless station is to the left of the mast.

Image available in the public domain.

Wireless direction-finding

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

Image available in the public domain.

Wireless direction-finding

Map of routes of Zeppelins made by Marconi direction-finders on English east coast, 1916.

Marconi Archives, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Image

courtesy of Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Wireless in aircraft

• Pre-war experiments and demonstrations – July 1899: Marconi Company demonstrate concept of wireless in

airships to Army at Aldershot

– 1907: Captain Llewelyn Evans, commander of the 1st Wireless Company, Royal Engineers, assisted Colonel Capper of the Balloon School in developing ground-to-air wireless telegraphy in airships

– 27 August 1910: First air-to-ground wireless message sent from a Curtiss biplane in New York

– 27 September 1910: First air-to-ground wireless message sent in the UK, using a Bristol Boxkite over Salisbury Plain

– 1911: Captain Hugh Lefroy, Royal Engineers experimented with wireless-fitted airships and aircraft

– 12 May 1912: World’s first successful two-way wireless transmission made by AW Mathieu with a Marconi receiver fitted in a Flanders Monoplane flying over Brooklands.

Wireless in aircraft in wartime

• August 1914: Royal Flying Corps take over Marconi experimental establishment at Brooklands

• September 1914: Wireless used at Battle of Marne for artillery spotting

• December 1914: No 9 Squadron led by Hugh Dowding established in France to provide wireless-equipped aircraft for artillery spotting

• April 1915: No 9 Squadron comes to Brooklands; major increase in wireless training school at Brooklands under Majors Prince and Dowding

• Summer 1915: First air-to-ground voice transmission at Brooklands over about 20miles (ground-to-air was by Morse)

• Late 1915: Marconi Company begins to manufacture Sterling aircraft transmitter weighing 20 pounds

• 1916: first transmitter tests using valves for air-to-sea transmissions

• Summer 1916: Wireless activities moved from Brooklands to Signals Experimental Establishment at Woolwich with some personnel going to Biggin Hill

Wireless for artillery spotting

Artillery Observation - Be2c machines over Hooge ranging British guns by means of wireless telegraphy, 1915.

Image available in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons and the Imperial

War Museum.

Easter Rising 1916

• Republican leaders realise importance of telecommunications in communicating the news of the rising, especially internationally, and gaining wider support

• Easter Monday 1916: Joseph Plunkett sends seven men from GPO across the street to occupy the Irish Wireless School of Telegraphy, formerly Northern Wireless Schools Ltd and operated by PK Turner

Advertisement for Northern Wireless Schools Ltd Image available in the public domain via http://1916easterrisingcoachtour.blogspot.ie/

Easter Rising 1916

• Wireless school had been closed down since August 1914 with sets sealed up or dismantled

• By Tuesday morning, the men had fixed the transmitter and sent out messages in Morse code:

– Irish Republic declared in Dublin today. Irish troops have captured city and are in full possession. Enemy cannot move in city. The whole country rising.

• Receiver was never fixed and building had to be abandoned the following day so the men operating the set had no idea if message was received or not

• Message was indeed received by a few wireless sets but these were operated by the British military – all private wireless stations being shut down – so there was little to no impact

Easter Rising 1916

• Easter Rising was communicated internationally via cable telegraph station at Valentia operated by Western Union

• Most Irish telegraph operators were sympathetic to Allied cause but a number of republican supporters including Sinn Fein supporters began working in telegraph stations

• News of the Easter Rising reached New York via London in part due to actions of Ring brothers, Eugene and Tim, telegraph operators at Valentia

• 15 August 1916: Ring brothers arrested under Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) – Eugene was dismissed but Tim was not

• Outcomes included an unsuccessful attempt to remove republican sympathisers as well as tighter telegraph security and censorship measures

Conclusions

• World War One not just about poets, trenches, and the Western Front – truly global conflict

• Science and engineering technology are adopted and adapted, used and misused to meet wartime and military needs

• This is especially true of telecommunications which are used and managed to great effect during the war – communications successes leads to battlefield successes

• The newest form of telecommunications is wireless communications which comes to dominate post-war communications: broadcast radio, much later wireless networks

Coming up….

Dear Harry…: Henry Moseley, A Scientist Lost to War at the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, 14 May to 25 October 2015.

Thank you! Further information on telecommunications in Ireland: Donard

de Cogan, “Ireland, Telecommunications and International Politics” History Ireland Volume 1 2 (1993)

Any questions?

elizabeth.bruton@gmail.com

w: http://blogs.mhs.ox.ac.uk/innovatingincombat/

@lizbruton