British Army Communications in the Second World War

Lifting the Fog of Battle

Simon Godfrey

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781441181435
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence form the backbone of the Army's operating system. But while much attention has been given in the literature to the other three elements, Communications in the British Army during World War II have been widely ignored. This book rectifies the omission. It shows that failures in front line communications contributed to several of the set backs suffered by the Army but also that ultimate victory was only achieved after a successful communications system was in place. It explains how the outcome of the main campaigns in Europe and North Africa depended on communications, how the system operated and how it evolved from a relatively primitive and inadequately supplied state at Dunkirk to a generally effective system at the time of the Rhine crossings. Problems still occurred however, for example at infantry platoon level and famously with paratrooper communications at Arnhem, often simply due to the shortcomings of existing technology. The book concludes that it is only very recently that advances in technology have allowed those problems to be solved.

1

Introduction

One of the dominant motifs in the history of the British Army on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918 is that time and again senior officers found it impossible to exercise command because once their troops had crossed into no-man’s land, the German barrage came down, telephone lines were cut, runners were killed, and communications between the generals and their soldiers were often fatally disrupted. This presented commanders with a unique problem. As Gary Sheffield has written:

Wellington was able to control his army in person during his battles, which were fought in relatively compact areas. The Iron Duke had been able to rely on a staff of little more than a dozen and had on many occasions been able to ride to danger points to give orders in person, most famously at Waterloo. Even at the time of the American Civil War, generals had been able to exercise a degree of ‘voice control’. By the time of the First World War this was no longer possible. Technological developments after 1918 in the form of radios, light aircraft and helicopters were to restore a measure of voice control to commanders. The era of the First World War stands as the only period in history in which high commanders were mute.¹

This book has two main purposes. First, it will examine the extent to which the British Army did, in fact, succeed in developing communications systems between 1919 and 1945, which lifted the fog that had descended on the battlefield and allowed commanders to exercise a ‘measure of voice control’. Secondly, it will explore the ways in which the Army’s communications systems contributed to its victories and defeats in the war against Germany between 1939 and 1945. These are contested questions. The official histories of the Royal Signals, published in the 1950s, present a generally positive picture of the work of that Corps, but they were written by Major General R. F. H. Nalder, a former senior Royal Signals officer who may have been more sympathetic to Signals than to the army commanders who were their clients.² His view is not shared by many other historians, who have tended to focus their analysis on what they perceive were the shortcomings of the Army’s communications, and to pass over in silence their successes.³ This could be because good news is less interesting than bad news or because it fits with the frequent theme of the British soldier overcoming the obstacles placed in his way by incompetent auxiliary services. Whatever the reason, existing literature gives neither a consistent, objective account of the efficiency of British Army forward communications nor of their impact on the success or failure of operations, nor of the way in which they interacted with command systems.

By making use of original sources, such as the contemporary war diaries of units and formations, the many official reviews of actions and campaigns and the personal records left behind by combatants, this book attempts to establish an unbiased view of how well communications performed and how this affected the overall performance of the Army. It explains the origin of communications doctrine at the start of the war, how the communications system evolved over the following six years, and how it interacted with command doctrine. The focus is particularly on tactical command and communications, at corps level and below, and on communications within the Army rather than between the army, air force and navy.

The book deals with the five main theatres in the land war against Germany – France and Flanders (1939–40); the Western Desert (1939–42); Algeria and Tunisia (1942–43); Sicily and Italy (1943–44) and North-West Europe (1944–45). In addition, the important developments that took place in the Army in the UK – the ‘Home Forces’ – between Dunkirk and the preparations for the Normandy landings are described. But the signals doctrine used by the Army at the start of the war and the equipment that was provided was consequent to decisions made between 1919 and 1939; this period is therefore covered as a precursor to the main events.

These issues are relevant not only in an historical context, but to the present-day services too. Command systems continue to be a current topic of discussion within UK and US forces because digital technologies have greatly increased the ability to transfer information and because operations have become more complex. Although the rapidity of change is now much greater, the current situation is similar in some ways to that of the period 1919–45, when the improvement in wireless technology offered the potential for commanders to exercise control more easily than ever before. Information technology today similarly allows the possibility of new methods, such as Network Centric Warfare and self-synchronization, which can replace restrictive command systems, and take mission command to its furthest extreme.⁴

To avoid confusion, it is important to make clear that while the main responsibility for communications in the army during the Second World War rested with the Royal Corps of Signals, the Royal Signals personnel themselves normally only provided communications down to the headquarters of cavalry regiments, artillery batteries and infantry battalions. Regimental signallers normally provided the communications below this level on equipment that was generally maintained by the Royal Signals. Throughout the book, ‘Signals’ is used for the Royal Corps of Signals, while ‘communications’ is used to describe the system that both the Royal Signals and regimental signallers operated.

Theories of command, control and communications

Command in an army may be defined as the expression of will necessary to accomplish a mission, while Control encompasses the structures and processes needed to ensure that this will is carried out.⁵ Command and control (C2) systems in an army can only operate if means exist to communicate information and decisions between personnel. Command, control and communications together are generally known as C3, and with the addition of Intelligence, the system is known as C3I. The capabilities of the communication system place restrictions on the type of C2 that can be operated, though there may be a choice of alternative types of C2 systems that can be adopted with a given communications capability. For example, as explained below, even though its communications systems are more sophisticated than they have ever been before, the British Army currently operates a mission command system whose core principle of devolved responsibility is the same as that of the Royal Navy’s command system in the eighteenth century, when communications at a distance scarcely existed.

The ability to communicate has undergone many step changes, each of which has broadened the range of possible C2 systems. As in most technologies, the pace of change has accelerated, with more changes occurring in the last century than in the previous millennium. The main developments and methods have been:

• Messengers carrying verbal or written messages
• Fire and smoke signals
• The telescope, whereby the commander could observe much more of what was happening from a vantage point
• Flag and semaphore systems which, combined with the telescope, enabled messages to be passed over longer distances
• The telegraph and Morse code
• The telephone (the major new technology in the First World War )
• Wireless telegraphy and Radio telephony (the main innovations in use in the Second World War)
• Satellite telephone
• Email
• The internet and Web-based systems

The means of communication used by the Army during the period of study were line, wireless, written messages sent by the army postal system or by despatch riders (DRs) and personal visits by liaison officers (LOs), who could add verbal explanations as well as deliver messages. ‘Orderly’ was a frequently used term, and often meant a soldier who delivered verbal messages, somewhere between a DR and an LO. Additionally, commanders themselves frequently travelled to deliver or receive orders personally. Visual signalling by light (visual telegraphy or V/T), flags and Verey pistols was also used, as were carrier pigeons and dogs. Line communications were sent via special field cables or civilian telephone lines, and utilized voice conversations (line telephony) or Morse code (line telegraphy). Similarly, wireless communications used voice conversations known as radio telephony (R/T) and Morse code messages known as wireless telegraphy (W/T). Signal security was an extremely important issue with both wireless and line leading to the use of codes and ciphers. The discovery that line signals could be intercepted by the enemy measuring induction through the earth led to the invention of the Fullerphone in the First World War, which enabled W/T to be operated securely over normal lines and continued to be an important instrument until well after the Second World War.

It is worth considering some of the characteristics of line and wireless methods in relation to one another and to email and Web-based systems since this would highlight the limitations of the methods available during the Second World War and the advantages offered by more modern methods. In the following table, features that may be considered undesirable are given in italics.

It will be seen that the first four modes of communication – the ones that were available in the Second World War – have considerably more limitations and disadvantages than email and Web systems. The telephone is particularly restrictive although, like R/T, it does have the key advantage of being interactive, explaining why it was and remains a very popular method – for example, the UK’s current emergency services communication system is specifically designed for voice communication.⁶

Table 1.1 Characteristics of communication methods

	Tele-graph	Tele-phone	W/T	R/T	email	Web
Need to know identity of recipient	yes	yes	no*	no*	yes	no
Need to know location of recipient	yes	yes	no	no	no	no
Multiple simultaneous recipients possible	no	no	yes	yes	yes	yes
Sender and recipient need to be ‘online’ at the same time	no^†	yes	no^†	yes	no	no^§
Immediate interaction possible between sender and recipient	no	yes	no	yes	no	no^§
Written word	yes	no	yes	no	yes	yes
Audio	no	yes	no	yes	no	yes
Pictures	no	no	no	no	yes	yes
Security^‡	high	medium	medium	low	high	high

* This is linked to security. Wireless can be intercepted and received by anybody, including an enemy.

^† Although a teleprinter needs to be online to receive the message, the ultimate recipient does not need to be present.

^‡ This is somewhat subjective and assumes that with today’s technology, email and Web systems are (or can be made) secure.

^§ Under usual circumstances.

Command systems have been classified into as many as six types – cyclic; interventionist; problem-solving; problem-bounding; selective control and control free.⁷ However, this seems unnecessarily complicated for our purpose and two contrasting methods, ‘restrictive’ and ‘mission’ command systems suffice. The key distinction lies in the amount of direct continuous control that the commander seeks to impose over his subordinates. In restrictive command systems, the commander formulates a plan and issues detailed orders to his subordinates to ensure that his plan is carried out. Subordinates are allowed little freedom of action and are expected to refer back if unexpected eventualities occur, so that the original orders may be modified by the commander. Thes...