The ability to communicate is a prerequisite for success both in military and civil life. Surprisingly, everyone expects access to communications, but rarely wonders how it is achieved. The purpose of this book is to bring into focus one of the cornerstones of the success of the British Army, and to provide an insight into the complexity and diversity of the Royal Corps of Signals. This is done, not by narrative, but by delving into unit history rather than campaign history, thus offering a different perspective for the historian. Royal Signals is one of the largest Corps in the British Army, and consists of a body of very highly trained and dedicated personnel to manage, operate, and repair the advanced technology that is theirs to administer. Signals are the Invisible Elite, without them there is no victory. Before the independent Corps of Signals was formed in 1920, Royal Engineers provided communications for much of the Army. Details of their signal units are included. Reflecting the new technologies as they occur, the reader will see the new signal units being raised to facilitate the exigencies of the time. For example, during the Second World War the Golden Arrow Detachments were created as independent, mobile, high-speed transmitting and receiving stations to provide links to Britain, and thus provide High Command with the information from Commanders in the Field that was desperately needed. These units also passed intercepted enemy signals back to England for the code breakers at Bletchley Park. Other specialist Signal units were created for Air Support, Para Signals, Commandos, Interception, Fixed Communications, Peacekeeping and a multitude of other reasons. In today's changing world signals continue to get their message through - Swift and Sure. This book is a must for historians, genealogists, and those that served. It contains: - Overviews of the Signals Order of Battle at specific times in history- Detailed précis of specialist signal units including Commando, and Para units.- History of 35 Commonwealth and related Signal Corps- Photographs of many rare signal badges- Scores and scores of unit histories both Regular and Territorial from the past to the present

A history of British Army front line communications, focussing on the effect that their performance had on the outcome of main World War II campaigns.

"Historians have paid little attention to the British Army's experience with signals intelligence during the First World War. However, this was one of the Army's most important sources of information about crucial matters such as the order of battle and intentions of the German and Turkish Armies. Britain's successes and failures in signals intelligence profoundly affected battles ranging from the race for the Channel Ports, first Somme, third Gaza and Amiens, among many others." "While efforts to weed the records on these topics have created major gaps in the sources, surviving evidence throws an entirely new light on the British Army in the Great War. It allows one to trace the evolution of the Army's signals intelligence organisations, to determine many of their successes and failures, to show how this intelligence affected various operations and, indeed, to demonstrate that signals intelligence influenced the operations of the British Army as much as those of the Royal Navy." "The material reproduced in this volume includes excerpts from reports by Army Headquarters in France, Italy and Mesopotamia and the Military Intelligence Directorate. It includes the memorandum "Enemy Codes and their Solution" by the G.H.Q. codebreaking section in January 1918, which is one of the two best sources known to exist about the techniques of "codebreaking"; surviving reports on the enemy radio networks in the Balkans and Anatolian Turkey, which are the most illuminating evidence from any theatre on the approach toward "traffic analysis" and a report on the breaking of German and Turkish Army ciphers in Mesopotamia during 1917, which is the best source known about the techniques of "cryptanalysis" used by an Army in the Great War."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved