MACHINE GUNS AND SIGNALS
You can sense from Bert that he actually relished the challenges of learning soldiering – all the various skills and tasks an infantryman had to pick up to keep himself and his mates alive.
In a letter to Frank in February 1917 he rather cockily wrote:
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“The chap who is winning this war, or will win it, is not the flash mounteds or the artillery signalers or tunnellers, but the infantryman. We are obliged to know all the tricks of the trade, including the use of machine guns, Lewis guns etc, semaphore and Morse signalling, throwing bombs, digging trenches, putting up barbed wire entanglements at a moment’s notice, and everything about gas attacks and helmets.
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"These hand grenades are great things; they weigh about a lb. and are charged with a very powerful explosive. On releasing a safety pin a spring flies back and hits a detonator which ignites a fuse and five seconds after the pin is pulled out the bomb explodes and causes a lot of damage."
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But there is also a keenness you can detect in Bert to be doing something a little more demanding than just the ordinary routine of life as an infantry private. He twice volunteered to take on specialist duties, requiring extra training and putting him at additional risk working from ‘forward positions’ ahead of the normal trenches. The first of those was as a Lewis Machine Gunner.
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The Lewis was a machine gun which provided much needed, heavy duty firepower to support infantry units. Gas-powered and air-cooled, it was relatively light and portable, while able to fire 600 rounds a minute with a range of up to 3,200 metres. US designed, it was perfected and mass produced in the UK and was widely used throughout the British armies of WWI. In fact, it was such a good weapon it actually remained in service until the end of the Korean War.
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There was a specialist stand-alone LMG division, treated almost as an artillery unit to lay down super heavy support for infantry in a coordinated way. But a few Lewis’ were also distributed to ordinary infantry units to supplement their firepower. While basic training on the Lewis was standard for all infantry, the Lewis guns in each Company were assigned to specific men and a Lewis Machine Gunner (LMG) was regarded as a specialist who had to have on-going training to get the best out of the gun.
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Bert began as a standard infantry rifleman and first received general training on the Lewis at Sling. But on 14 May 1917 when training was going on for the Battle of Messines, extra LMGs were needed and he volunteered: “All the infantry are divided up into riflemen, bomb-throwers, rifle grenadiers, machine gunners etc. Well, they wanted one man to make up the LMG’s and the machine gun took my fancy, so I joined.”
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Ironically, because he was keen for action and volunteered to become a machine gunner, he ended up being kept back in the reserve when the Messines assault took place - the army had a policy to keep some of its valued specialists in reserve in case a battalion got wiped out. Experience had taught them it was easier to pull together a new battalion if you had a core of specialists and veterans to begin with.
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Bert ruefully records receiving the news: Tues 29: “Still training. I hear that I am on the reserve LMG to be kept back. I am disappointed at not going over the top.”
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But when Bert was back in the trenches on 18 June he was acting as a Lewis Gunner, a quite precarious activity. The machine gunners were seen as the first line of defence and placed in ‘nests’ ahead of the actual front-line trenches to give a clean field of fire to take down attackers coming across no-mans-land. Cut-off from retreat and the target of enemy grenades during an attack, the casualty rate amongst machine gunners was therefore quite high. Bert makes the point in a letter to his brother Frank on 11 September (after he has switched to a new specialist duty as a signaler) that the life of a Lewis Gunner was not the comfortable life his father Herbert senior had obviously indicated he felt it was.
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Bert says: “Pop has some quaint ideas of the duties of a Lewis gunner; they do not occupy a pozzy well back from the front line, but just the reverse, generally in an outpost in front of the front-line trench.”
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His 1917 diary contains six pages of notes on cleaning an LMG plus a diagram for working out angles and elevations.
On 13 August 1917 Bert switched from an LMG specialist to become a signaller for his platoon. This happened four days after Bert had met up for the evening with his cousin Fred Cashmore, who had served a year longer than Bert in the army, was a signaller himself with the Dinks and had been promoted to sergeant in the course of his outstanding and courageous service. Bert doesn’t tell us why he decided to make the change to signals, but perhaps Fred had persuaded him it was a good move to make.
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The signaller was a field soldier of great importance, they formed a vital link between the realities of the front line and the orders emanating from headquarters. They kept officers in the trenches in touch with updates on orders for movements coming from battalion headquarters, or further up the chain of command, and in return let HQ know what was actually happening in the mud at the front with artillery screaming overhead and machine guns rattling. And, when positions were under attack and about to be overrun, they were the key to letting HQ know reserve troops were needed now and where to send them.
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This hierarchical structure of the British Army communication system was solid, but also obscured a problematic deficiency. Battalion HQs were not linked directly to one another even when operating as close neighbours on the same piece of frontline. Battalion HQs could only contact each other through Brigade HQ, which was further back. Under the French system, battalion HQs could talk directly so their officers could rapidly respond to crises as they occurred, passing on vital information of an imminent attack or requesting immediate support. Under the British system, valuable time was wasted as messages were sent up the line from one sector of the front, then down again to the next sector.
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Signallers were also used in forward positions to help guide artillery attacks onto enemy targets. In these positions, often isolated, the signaller became vulnerable to reprisal enemy shelling or sniper fire and many signallers lost their lives. The risks of such work parallel those of the LMG gunners operating out of advance positions. This site about the Worcestershire Regiment has a useful outline on signallers.
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Bert spent time in forward posts. He notes in his diary: Sat Oct 20: “Looking after phone during day. Sent out to strong point to look after telephone instrument. Trench very shallow and muddy.”
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The British Army used telephone and telegraph as their main means of communication – all connected by cables. There were cables everywhere, running through trenches or being specially buried to keep them safe. This caused an ongoing issue for the army, balancing the need for cables with keeping trenches unencumbered. Breaks in telephone lines caused by enemy gun-fire also had to be constantly repaired, even during bombardments. Many signallers died trying to repair their lines during action.
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Bert notes in his 1917 diary having to undertake repairs:
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Wed Oct 17: “Fritz shelling pill-boxes and pozzies at intervals. Fixed buzzer and telephone apparatus in my bivvy.”
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Thurs Oct 18: “Huns shelling us heavily. Wires cut by shells. Fixed wire up and set phone in another dug-out.”
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As the war progressed, the telephone technology improved and by 1916 the most widely used devise, and therefore what Bert was most likely to have been using, was the Fullerphone[vi] – we don’t know for certain what equipment he had in the field but do know, according to his diary, that in September 1917 he received specific training on the Fullerphone.
Of course, when troops were attacking, surging forward to take new ground, it was impossible to lay cables to keep up with the advance – specialist engineering or signalling units would rapidly follow behind laying cables – so front-line troops would also need to use some form of wireless signalling. At the start of World War I flags were used and Bert mentions being trained in semaphore on the Maunganui. But this too became more sophisticated as the war wore on. Various devices using mirrors were utilised in the day time and lamps at night. The Trench Signalling lamp was battery operated and had a bull’s eye lens to concentrate the light and had a key to quickly switch the lamp on and off to enable Morse Code. Often an operator would also have a periscope or telescope to receive incoming messages. It was always extremely dangerous to transmit using a lamp at the front as this would attract enemy rifle fire. Again we don’t specifically know what equipment Bert carried and used in the field, but within days of switching to signals he was receiving training in just these types of devises:
August Tues 21: “Left Romarin with full marching order in the evening and went to the ‘school’ near Nieppe. Some gas shells landed nearby.”
Wed 22: “Lessons in signalling with flags, buzzer, flapper and light etc.”
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September Sat 1: “Lessons in signalling with flags, flapper and electric lighter etc.”
Sat 15: “Receiving messages by flapper, lamps, flag and semaphore. Afternoon off. Football match. Night manoeuvres lining the tapes. Preparation for an advance.”
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Sat 22: “Test in receiving messages on buzzer, shutter lamp and flag by the division signalling officer. Also sending messages in gas with helmets.”
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Messages, whether by Fullerphone or signal lamp, were sent in Morse Code and the importance of Morse is underlined in Bert’s 1917 diary where he kept a half page noting key Morse signals and semaphore. And even the Morse became increasingly complex, disguised in secret code. The NZ History official website notes: It became clear that messages must be sent in code. Thanks to the conductivity of moist soil and the primitive state of insulation technology, enemy listening stations could pick up Morse signals 4500m from the front line. A British corps which suffered heavy casualties on the Somme in 1916 had later found a complete operation order for one of its previous attacks in a German dugout. This had been read over the telephone by a careless Brigade Major.
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The Imperial War Museum in London notes that “by 1915 signal communication was mainly by telephone and various buzzer telegraph instruments, connected by single line and earth return. The earth was full of telephone and buzzer induction which the Germans were able to tap. To counter German signals penetration Captain (later Maj.Gen) Algernon Clement Fuller, of the British Royal Corps of Engineers Signal Service, developed and tested the Fullerphone in 1915, which was increasingly used in front-line trench operations from 1916. The Fullerphone was a portable DC line Morse telegraph. Its main feature was that transmissions were immune from overhearing, which made the system very suitable for forward use in the trench warfare of the time.” This was achieved by the two phone operators synchronizing their buzzers. This worked as a simple scrambling mechanism which the Germans could not make sense of.
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Signallers were trained in encoding and decoding messages. The need to maintain communications, under all circumstances and at all cost, was drilled into them at every signals school they attended. All messages received at, or coming from, a trench signals station were officially secret. Signallers were under orders to reveal the contents of messages to no one but the officer designated, and they had to be passed to him immediately. Messages had to be precise and guesswork, even under danger and pressure such as the noise of shell-fire, could be punished by court-martial. Errors could be costly and sometimes fatal. Company officers highly valued a fast, accurate and reliable signaller.
Bert writes a line in his diary during his early signals training which is not entirely clear, it could be that he was being ticked off for yawning – signals training was being interspersed between hard days digging trenches and the day before he had only got back to camp from working party duty at 4.30am. Telling him off for being tired seems uncalled for. But it underlined the point that tiredness when receiving signals info even in the field under extreme pressure was no excuse for mistakes:
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August Sat 18: Received second lesson in signalling with buzzer flags etc also map reading. In the evening warned for fatigue.
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Bert had early on shown aptitude at signals. On the troopship coming over he said he was “some kid” (meaning pretty good) at signals. Bert impressed Coates as signaller for his Platoon during the heavy fighting at Ypres in October - in the letter to Bert’s parents after his death, Coates says Bert did just what a good signaller was meant to do, he kept his communications lines open, despite his Platoon being decimated around him. As a result of such bravery Bert was promoted by Coates to Company Signaller meaning he worked closely with Coates. Bert mentions this promotion in a letter of 5 November 1917.
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“I am in the company sigs (having been promoted to them since the stunt, being only a platoon signaller before).”
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When there was some doubt about an important message getting through by telephone or telegraph, a runner carried the same message. This was one of the most hazardous duties on the frontline, having to leave your trench and make your way through bombardments to other positions to pass messages. During a major assault when the front line troops outpaced the ability to string new cable the signaller sometimes had to run messages and on 4 October, during the major Gravenstafel assault at Ypres, in addition to taking part in the attack, Bert acted as a runner so Coates could try to control what was going on as his men surged towards their objectives, and let Battalion HQ know what was happening. Bert notes in his diary for October 4:
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Thurs 4 “We lined the tapes in early morning and hopped over the bags at 6am. Reached our objective and dug in. I acted as runner from Company to Battalion.”
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In November 1917 he attended specialist signals training at what was known as battalion “school” which included buzzer work and “lines-man’s work.” Then it was back to digging drains, repairing roads and loading timber trucks. In early December he was back at school:
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Tues 18 “School begins buzzer semaphore reading morning.”
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Wed 19 “Morning buzzer receiving semaphore. Afternoon joining lines, reef knots etc”
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Thurs 20 “Morning lecture on elementary electricity, flag drill, buzzer etc.”
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He also received training on helios, galvonometers, flappers, lamps and – of all things – pigeons, which he terms in a diary entry “pigeoneering.” And in a letter to Frank, tongue firmly in cheek, he says:
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“One branch of the signal service is the carrier pigeon service which is much used in this war. Unfortunately, pigeons can only he used to send messages written on paper but experiments are being tried to cross the birds with parrots so that verbal messages may be sent.”
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On January 12, January 14 and again on January 15 he sat various practical and theory tests for his first-class examination in signalling, which he passed, noting in his diary rather curtly: “I passed alright.” He was marginally more expansive in a letter back to his mum: “I passed my first-class examination in signalling, which is a very handy thing to have.” He must have done better than alright, because having been sent back to join 3rd company, he was then temporarily transferred to Battalion headquarters from 25 January 1918 for a month to act as a replacement signaller there, working alongside eight other signallers from the brigade. He told his mum: “I am at present at Brigade transport lines attending a phone receiving and sending messages.” That was a significant acknowledgement of his ability.
