Review of 'The War on the Wire – Signalling during the Gallipoli Campaign' by Clive Harris (March 2023)

There are three major problems for signallers while on campaign – the terrain (i.e. it is not very flat); complexity (when two services e.g. Royal Navy (RN) and Signallers do not use the same systems); and logistics i.e. sourcing the ‘kit’ and repairing it when there is a problem. All three became very obvious during the Gallipoli campaign.

Signalling became an obvious problem during the first few days of the campaign when the RN were involved in ‘ship to shore’ communications. The C-in-C of the Mediterranean Force, General Ian Hamilton, spent these days on the battleship Queen Elizabeth and had poor communications with the shore commanders at Y beach and V beach. He had considerable trouble reaching the commander of 29th Division, Major-General Hunter-Weston, concerning the transfer of troops from V beach, where they were held up by Turkish gun fire, to Y beach where the initial landings had advanced unopposed. The message took 48 hours to reach Hunter-Weston who, by that time, was committed to V beach.

Ground to air communication was another problem, the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) provided limited air cover during the day with sea planes brought to the Mediterranean by HMS Arc Royal, one of the first seaplane carriers. The major problem was aircraft communicating with artillery regarding accuracy of shell fire, on many occasions the primitive wireless systems did not work. HMS Manica was a kite balloon ship of the RNAS (originally a steamship used as an oil tanker) which saw active service at Gallipoli. Initially the balloons were used to direct fire of the supporting ships bombarding Anzac Cove, once a deckhouse for the W/T had been installed. When communication became almost impossible, the observer would land and convey the information on foot!

Initially the Australian signallers were prepared to use heliographs as they had in the South African War at the turn of the century. But many of the signal lamps and heliographs were lost during the landing from small boats under fire. Using semaphore flags was largely impracticable as most parts of the beachhead were exposed to Turkish fire. A wireless set was swiftly set up on the beach, but telegraph lines and runners were the most common means of communication ashore and lines were laid connecting Divisional HQs to Brigade. 

Lance-Corporal Cyril Bassett, an Auckland bank clerk, won the only Victoria Cross awarded to a New Zealander on Gallipoli for his bravery in laying and repeatedly repairing telephone wire from the headquarters of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade on Walker’s Ridge across to Pope’s Hill on 7 August. It was Gisborne postman William Birkett who managed to get a line and a telephone up to Colonel W.G. Malone at the Wellington Battalion headquarters on Chunuk Bair next day. Birkett then toiled alongside Bassett until the following morning, repeatedly mending this wire under fire. Both men were in a party which took another line up to Chunuk Bair on the night of the 9th, just hours before the English troops now holding the crest were overwhelmed by a Turkish counter-attack.

The major problems with wireless communication were the batteries and the aerial. In 1915, the weight of the batteries was so great that they required powered vehicles to move around. The aerials were ‘omni-directional’ and very tall. This not only revealed the position of the operator but also allowed an enemy receiver to understand the messages. After the Allies landed at Suvla Bay in August, despatch riders were employed to take messages from Suvla to Anzac. Some of these riders were members of the Australian Light Horse regiment. They volunteered to ride from one beach to the other as fast as possible, with the rider crouched over the neck of the horse to avoid being a sniper’s target.

Charles Kingsford Smith, enlisted for duty in the 1st AIF, and served as a motorcycle despatch rider in the Gallipoli campaign before transferring to the Royal Flying Corps. He went on to become an Australian aviation pioneer after the war.

Sam Sutcliffe enlisted at 16 in September 1914, trained as a signaller, went to Gallipoli and fought at Suvla, with 2/1stLondons (Royal Fusiliers -29th Division). After the war he wrote a memoir, ‘Nobody of Any Importance’, in which he recalled his experiences in the Great War. He landed at Suvla Bay in September, coming ashore under gunfire from Turkish troops. When the weather changed for the worse, he recalled manning a hill-top signals post for 24 hours when a blizzard hit. Only when the food ran out did he retreat back to HQ for advice & further orders.

Lance Corporal Bill Headley, Canterbury Battalion New Zealand regiment, wrote a diary of his experiences at Gallipoli, ‘Shrapnel & Semaphore’ . He recalled using lamps and heliographs as laying wirefor telegraph communication was too perilous due to shrapnel and machine gun fire.

Harold Hinkfuss, a signaller with 26th Battalion AIF, served on Gallipoli at Taylor's Hallow, ShallacDerree , Russell's top , where he witnessed Kitchener’s visit 11/11/15, Mule's Gully and Plugges and after Gallipoli continued onto the Western Front. He recorded his memoirs of the war in a book, ‘Memories of a Signaller’ in which he gives some wonderful detailed descriptions providing the reader with the realism of the war. After the AIF were moved to the Western Front, he was awarded the MM for action at Westhoek Ridge on the Gheluvelt Plateau close to Ypres.

Finally, we were told about Henry Moseley, an English physicist whose work on the structure of the atom using X ray spectra to identify Atomic Number of elements is still relevant today. Moseley left his research work at Oxford University to volunteer for the Royal Engineers in 1914. He served as a technical officer in communications during the Gallipoli campaign, beginning in April 1915, where he was killed by a sniper at Suvla Bay on 10 August 1915.

Report by Peter Palmer

Below is a video of the presentation by Clive Harris