Early Wireless Goes to War
Scott Caldwell discusses the situation faced by amateur radio during the First World War.
By 1913, the number of radio amateurs had significantly increased. Many found the topic fascinating and the required technology was becoming far more accessible in the open market, in terms of commercialised Marconi sets. The image of a radio operator was enhanced to unrealistic levels due to the heroism of the Marconi wireless operators,
Jack Binns of the RMS Republic (1909), and John G Philips of the ill-fated RMS Titanic (1912), who stayed at their posts sending distress messages to the very end. However, the European July crisis of 1914 changed both the Government’s and Society’s perception of amateur radio, which came under increased scrutiny and regulation. Another attraction was the small fraternity of wireless operators and amateurs. Many people were amazed at the new technology, yet relatively few had the ability to operate or understand its functions.
The Wireless Society of London by 1910 stipulated that prospective members had to provide documentary evidence in the form of qualifications, or at least two years of practical experience as a radio amateur. Table 1 shows the numbers applying for an amateur radio licence. Fig. 1 features an early edition of Radio News, promoting amateur radio as a hobby. The Society had 151 full members, compared to only 11 unskilled associate members. This suggests that the formation of pioneering societies was not the defining stage in the growth of amateur radio.
In the USA, the situation was rather different. In 1912, Congress finally authorised the Radio Act. It stipulated that all radio amateurs needed to be licensed and their subsequent operation was restricted to a single wavelength of 200 metres. The US authorities inferred that regulation would curtail the interest in amateur radio and initially their perception was correct. However, by 1917 the interest in the dynamics of amateur radio had recovered quite significantly and the number of licensed operators was approximately 6,000.
The Outbreak of the FirstWorldWar
In August 1914, the alliance system that had maintained the peace and balance of power in Europe finally failed and propelled the continent into armed conflict. The European governments quickly acknowledged the advantages and risks of the amateur radio hobby and considered a host of new regulatory controls. The very nature of wireless posed many potential security risks: mobile communication channels that required limited investment and infrastructure and facilitated a significant strategic asset in modern warfare. August 1914 ushered in a culture of spy mania amongst the civil population, unparalleled since the threat posed by the Spanish Amada. The popular press (Daily Mail) played a prominent role in sensationalising the perceived threat posed by radio amateurs, who could possibly also be acting as enemy agents.
The Russo-Japanese War of 1905 had revealed the security risk that wireless communication posed. Russian authorities had suspected that reporter Lionel James was using his wireless transmitter to pass information to the Japanese military. In 1909, William LeQueux wrote the novel Spies of the Kasier, in which German agents utilised wireless telegraphy to send intelligence back to Germany, concerning the movements of Royal Navy vessels in the
North Sea. This novel set the tone for all later publications that enhanced the perceived threat of wireless telegraphy in the hands of the enemy. A British novel The Spy Hunter, published in 1916, clearly demonstrated the paranoid mindset that prevailed. The novel depicts the exploits of radio amateur Harry Nettlefield and his fiancée Clotide who are chasing German spies, who posed as ordinary civilians while secretly transmitting information via wireless.
The Post Office’s reaction to the intense spy mania was remarkably reserved. They issued instructions for all licence holders to remove vital components from their receivers, and surrender them to their local police station, rendering their equipment unusable. Many critics viewed this response as an attempt to appease the press, and it remains questionable as to how many carried out this instruction.
By 1914, approximately 5,000 licences were issued by the Post Office; many historians view this process as a pure revenue-generating exercise. No formal qualification was required before the issuing of a radio licence, it also failed to differentiate between receivers or transmitters.
Wireless clubs and societies still managed to organise regular meetings, although attendances were reduced as many members were conscripted into the armed forces. Before, the outbreak of the First World War, the only electrical goods retailed to the general public comprised a small range of electric lighting fittings and lamps. Radio amateurs had to be both knowledgeable and resourceful. Bench skills were a necessity due to the widespread shortage of serviceable and spare components. A newspaper report on the establishment of the Derby Wireless Club also depicted the level of versatility that radio amateurs had to possess: “If you possess a few empty jam jars, a roll or two of copper wire, a rubbish drawer and 30s you can erect a wireless receiving station, and by spending another 30s you may also signal through space to anybody who has a similar installation within a radius of six miles”. The September 1914 edition of The Wireless World featured an article on the effects of the war. However, the perceived effects were visible to the readership, the content had been significantly reduced from 72 pages to only 58. The publishers acknowledged that due to the war effort there was a chronic shortage of quality printing paper. Ingenious ways for amateurs to practice their hobby were also introduced. The Wireless Press and Gramophone Company produced a series of records for disc playing devices that catered for a range of abilities as they played a message made up of Morse code characters.
Before the Liberal Government introduced wireless restrictions, a number of radio amateurs had begun listening to enemy broadcasts. Operator W Kenneth Alford intercepted the following message: ‘Aug 4th, 1914. POZ Nauen. War is declared against France & Russia’. His friends and neighbours did not believe him until it was featured on the front pages of the following day’s newspapers.
The Defence of the Realm Act 1914
The Defence of the Realm Act 1914 provided Asquith’s Liberal Government,
Fig. 2, with a range of exclusive political controls, Fig. 3. It became law in the United Kingdom on August 8th 1914. It stipulated that “No person without the permission in writing of the Postmaster-General shall buy, sell, or have in his possession any apparatus for sending or receiving messages by wireless telegraphy, nor any apparatus intended to be used as a component part of such apparatus”.
In the early hours of August 5th 1914 the Royal Navy cut Germany’s submarine trans-Atlantic cables that transited through the English Channel to Vigo, Tenerife, the Azores and the USA. This forced the German military to rely solely on the medium of wireless telegraphy, ultimately increasing the number of messages transmitted. At the outbreak of hostilities, there was only a single Admiralty longwave monitoring station, located near Stockton-on-Tees, near the North Sea coastline. This station had already begun to become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of Imperial German Navy wireless traffic. However, amateur radio operator
Edward Russell Clarke (1871 – 1918) (callsign THX) had built up considerable experience listening to post-war German traffic that originated from Neumunster and Norddeich, as part of his hobby. Clarke was also a qualified barrister and had an interest in the developing automotive industry. He had already alerted the Admiralty to the fact that the German’s had altered their frequencies to utilise shorter wavelengths. Clarke now offered the Admiralty additional support in monitoring German signals, on condition that he received official facilities for his exclusive utilisation. An intercept wireless station was set up at Hunstanton that was manned by Clarke and his fellow amateur wireless operators. The Hunstanton site was selected because it was the highest point nearest the German coastline and it already possessed the required infrastructure because it was home to a Marconi wireless station.
Richard John Bayntun Hippisley
(1865 – 1956) (Fig. 4, callsign HLX, later 2CW) was also a pioneering radio amateur and a close friend of Clarke. They subsequently worked alongside each other at Hunstanton during the war years. The wireless station at Hunstanton would become universally known as Hippisley’s Hut. In 1903, Hippisley published The History of Telegraph Operations during the South African War 1899 – 1902, and he acted as a British representative at the International Conference on Wireless Telegraphy 1906, ironically held in Berlin. Hippisley, was later promoted to the rank of Commander in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) for his service with the Naval Intelligence Division. As a result of his wartime service, Hippisley was awarded an OBE in 1918, and a civil CBE in 1937.
A description of the structure of the wireless intercept station at Hunstanton is provided by English Heritage in their publication First World War Wireless Stations in England (2015).
“The building consists of two small single-storey structures, both with a pitch roof and large window on the front elevation, on either side of a larger central building. The latter has an overhanging
first floor to the front elevation supported on posts, with a long run of windows to the upper level. The building is timber clad with a pitch roof and an ornate barge board.”
Archival research and surviving primary historical evidence suggest that accommodation for the wireless operators was rather basic. They were usually housed in on-site quarters, or in local lodgings. An example from the wireless station at Flamborough Head describes the accommodation as being within bungalows, which consisted of eight iron bedsteads, four chests of drawers and two showers.
Clarke was also conscripted into the ranks of the RNVR, and the wireless station was operated by a diverse number of roles that included an officer in command, chief operators, operators in command of the watch, clerks, runners and maintenance engineers, and assisting engineers.
Clarke’s task was greatly assisted as the three most significant German codebooks were obtained in the first months of the war, one from the German merchantman
Hobart interned in Melbourne Harbour, one salvaged by the Russians from the German cruiser Magdeburg stranded off Odensholm, and one salvaged from the sunken German destroyer SMS 119 off the Belgium coast. This provided British intelligence in ‘Room 40’ (Admiralty Headquarters) with the entire codes of the Imperial German Navy and their Mercantile Marine fleet.
Tragically, Clarke died at Penbidwal on October 17th 1918. His death was attributed to sheer exhaustion from his demanding and excessive workload. He was laid to rest in St Michael’s Churchyard, Llanfihangel Crucorney.
Overall, in defiance of the Defence of the Realm Act, amateurs continued to operate discreetly and tended not to leave any traces of their illegal activity. The Daily Telegraph summed up both the advantages and risks of wireless telegraphy:
“Wireless telegraphy conferred a boom upon mankind, but it is not without its dangers in times of international complications. A representative of the Daily Telegraph was yesterday shown messages originating in Germany, France, and the North Sea, which some time ago were received at a private wireless station in the
West End. Like the telephone when it was in its infancy, the wireless system attracted many amateurs and experimentalists, and numbers of aerials were erected. In times of war, these installations may be used against the public weal. They may also be brought to serve in the best interests of the Empire by catching stray messages intended for the enemy”.
There were still small legal loopholes that permitted amateurs to operate during the war and improve their techniques. It seems that amateurs who operated in excess of 50 watts were subjected to the restrictions outlined in the Defence of the Realm Act, allowing the utilisation of low power sets. Some amateurs had moved to other countries before Europe was engulfed in conflict. They readily continued to remain in contact with their native amateur networks. An example relates to an English operator located in Turkey, in 1915, who continued to listen to messages from various foreign Embassies and their naval vessels, predominantly German and French. He referred to their wireless traffic as “the concert of Europe”.
After the signing of the armistice (November 11th 1918), a number of radio societies petitioned the Post Office about the restrictive measures contained within the Defence of the Realm Act. They maintained that it was preventing amateurs from contributing as effectively as they might to the development of radio communication. However, it is claimed that the German espionage service had no intention of risking the safety of their agents with bulky, noisy, obstructive, and electrical power demanding wireless radio equipment. This myth was useful in assisting the authorities unifying the population against a common enemy of the state, either real or imagined. In many ways the perceived dangers of amateur wireless operators greatly assisted the nation’s wartime propaganda effort.
Conclusion
Post-war, the utilisation of radio was significantly transformed. A radio amateur of the early 1910s predominantly listened to rare chaotic messages that were intended for technical communications. However, an amateur of the late 1920s was subjected to regular communications from all over the world. Regulation remained and the post-war chaos was systematically reduced by a new licensing system and the segregation of technical messages, radio broadcasts, and radio amateurs by set operating frequencies. Social liberalisation in post-war Britain also facilitated female operators to take up the hobby. Barbara Mary Dunn, callsign G6YL, was widely known as the first licensed transmitting YL on April 14th, 1927 (though, as I will show in a later article, she was almost certainly the second).
Suggested Further Reading
English Heritage (2015) First World War Wireless Stations in England, Oxford Archaeology.
Juniper, D. (2003) The First World War and radio development, The RUSI Journal, 148(1), pp. 84 – 89.
Raboy, M. (2016) Marconi the Man Who Networked the World. London: Oxford University Press.
Wander, T. (2013) Marconi on the Isle of Wight. London: New Generation Publishing.
Wander, T. (2015) Guglielmo Marconi: Building the Wireless Age. London: New Generation Publishing.
Wander, T. (2016) Marconi Hall Street Works 1898 – 1912. London: New Generation Publishing. Weightman, G. (2002) Signor Marconi’s Magic Box. London: Harper Collins Publishers.