Orders to the Fleet
During the whole of World War One, practically every move that the British, French, or German fleets made was the result of a radio order from their respective war office. England directed the manoeuvres of her fleets from the Marconi station at Carnarvon in Wales; Germany, from Nauen, and France from Paris. Except for one hour each day, Carnarvon transmitted the orders of the British Admiralty to the various ships in a very complex secret code, which was changed daily. To further insure secrecy, the wave length was frequently and suddenly changed. The principal advantage gained in directing fleets wirelessly was that fewer ships could do the work of the many which were formerly required. Before the days of radio telegraphy, ships of a fleet clung together, and orders were either semaphored or carried from ship to ship by fast cruisers. A naval battle line, 200 or 300 miles long, was now quite feasible, while in the days before wireless telegraphy one only a fraction of that length was possible.
The military importance of radio was immediately apparent. In August, 1914, the Belgians had to completely destroy a major international communications station located at Laeken, near Brussels. near Brussels, in order to keep it from falling into the hands of the advancing German army. At Laeken Robert Goldschmidt had erected one of the most powerful wireless telegraphic and telephonic stations in the world. This station was constructed so that direct wireless communication might be held between Brussels and Boma, the capital of the Congo State, a distance of about 4,000 miles. After trials extending over two years, Goldschmidt succeeded in establishing communication with Boma three or four months before the declaration of war.
The antennae were entirely destroyed with explosives, but the transmitting and receiving station were situated in a tunnel under the Vilvorde Road, between the Willebroeck Canal and the aerial site. It was only possible to carry away some of the light instruments but the remainder had to be destroyed. The most delicate parts were broken up with hammers, and to complete the destruction the station was blown up with dynamite. Finally, so that even the ruins could not be put to any possible use, the station was filled with straw and hay and set on fire. A dense smoke rose from the tunnel. It was seen rising over the canal until the evening, and the last bursts of flame were not extinguished when a detachment of the enemy's cavalry appeared on the scene.
During the war wireless was to score many successes. The SMS Emden was a German cruiser which, early in the war, sank many British merchant ships in the Indian Ocean. The Emden received all its instructions direct from the huge high-powered station of Nauen, Germany. But wireless also proved to be the Emden's undoing. Just before she attacked Direction Island and demolished the wireless and cable stations there, one of the Direction Island wireless operators managed to send out an SOS call. This was picked up by the HMAS Sydney, and the engagement shortly followed in which the Emden was sunk.
In 1915, in East Africa, a Curtis seaplane transmitted information by wireless to ships of the Royal Navy, which then located and sank a German cruiser, the Königsberg.
The
British Navy successfully intercepted wireless messages on the high
seas and in an outstanding feat of code breaking, Signal Officer
Charles Stuart of the cruiser HMS Glasgow
determined that the
German cruiser Dresden
would take on coal at
Juan Fernandez Island off Chile, from deciphering an intercept from
the Nauen Telefunken station.
There, she was
trapped by British cruisers, including HMS Glasgow
and the British violated
Chilean neutrality and opened fire on the ship. The
Germans scuttled the Dresden and
the majority of the crew escaped to be interned in Chile for the
duration of the war.
The
SMS Karlsruhe,
another
German ship, acting with her convoys, adopted an ingenious dragnet
method of capturing British vessels. The German cruisers reduced the
sending radius of their apparatus to 30 miles, and travelled forward
in a circular formation no more than 30 miles in diameter. When an
enemy was sighted by one of the circle, the others were notified and
the ring closed in on the helpless victim. By thus reducing the
transmitting range the possibility of location and attack by British
warships was very slight.
The
inevitable command of the Germans upon sighting and capturing a ship
was 'Don't use your wireless!' Usually that order was followed by
imperative instructions to cut down the antennae and throw it
overboard together with the instruments.
Wireless was an essential part of the War at sea in World War I and naval forces made extensive use of radio to control widely dispersed fleets. But in the 1916 battle of Jutland (and in many other battles), admirals often failed to make the best use of radio information, relying on flag signals that might be misread in battle conditions.
RMS Olympic Radio Room, c. 1912 (MWT)
Photographs of WW1 Royal Navy Installations are difficult to find - but Marconi shipboard installations were fairly standard between RN and Civilian vessels.
SS Majestic Radio Room, c. 1918 (MWT)
Marconi Marine receiver, c. 1916 (MWT)
As the antiquated spark gap equipment was replaced (1916–1917) by better 'Arc' transmitter and by 1918 vacuum tube (thermionic valve) powered equipment, the value of radio to the navy increased further. Wartime needs and growing equipment procurement greatly accelerated the pace of radio’s technical development. Vacuum tube–based equipment, almost unknown in 1914 was becoming standard by 1918, vastly increasing radio’s capabilities by adding voice communication.
Except when a warship is actually under fire the wireless room was perhaps the liveliest place on board. Every message caught on the instrument, whether intended for that particular ship or not, is delivered to the captain. Whenever anything suspicious is sighted -smoke on the horizon or a speck in the sky that might be a Zeppelin and it is immediately reported to the rest of the fleet. Aside from messages of a general character, such as this, the operator must be constantly on the alert for battle orders from the admiral.
The role played by the wireless operator in war time is certainly not a desirable one, at least from the standpoint of personal safety. He was always shut up tightly in his room, fully aware of the dangers of attack by air, sea, and submarine.