Wireless At War

Wireless at War presents a history of wireless technology and the advantages perceived for this technology's use in military armed conflicts. The book includes the example of Great Britain's military strategy as a major source of inspiration for Australia through World War II, as well as the Australian/U.S. alliance during warfare in Southeast Asia. Wireless at War is divided into the following sections: *** Part 1: 1895-1920 (Wireless Beginnings: A New Means of Communication * War Wireless before 1914 * The First World War * Technological Change: From Spark to Valve - Project 1: Wilson Transmitter Replica) *** Part 2: 1921-1950 (The Interwar Years * Interwar Military Communications * World War Two * Radio Communications in the Australian War * Clandestine Communications * Technological Change: Valves, Miniaturization, and Circuitry - Project 2: Paraset Replicas) *** Part 3: 1951-1970 (After World War Two * Computers, Sputnik, and ARPANET * The Vietnam War * The Solid-State Revolution * Technological Change: From Valves to Transistors and Integrated Circuits - Project 3: Solid-State DSB Transceiver) *** Part 4: 1970-2012 (Towards a New Century: Changing Warfare * Military Communications Requirements * Technological Change: Digital Development, Encryption, Jamming, and SDR * Battlefield Communications: 1976-2012 * Contemporary Military Communications * Future Directions)

Cover subtitle: The story of MI6 communications, 1939-1945.

While the Second World War raged in Europe, an equally fierce war was taking place with Japan in the Far East.

Though wireless communication was in early development during World War I, the technology could have made a profound impact on tactical operations and on the entire strategic conduct of the war. Providing details on how and why the technology did not fulfill its promise as a great military tool until years later, the book points primarily to the British army’s institutional bias against wireless communication as the technology’s downfall, reinforced by the crude, unreliable wireless sets with which the army began the war. It also demonstrates how improved wireless communications between infantry, command, artillery and air observation could have improved the flexibility, accuracy and effectiveness of the British military strategy in the German Spring Offensive, the Hundred Days Counteroffensive and the battles of the Somme, Passchendaele, and Cambrai.

British military and naval officers as well as journalists and others observed the Russo-Japanese War from close quarters. But there was one journalist in particular, the Times’ correspondent, Lionel James, who made war-reporting history. Details have been carefully pieced together from official Times records and other sources and recorded here for the first time.

The go-to intelligence expert and author of MI6 has “provided the clearest review of GCHQ and its predecessors in a publicly available book” (Firetrench). Signal intelligence is the most secret, and most misunderstood, weapon in the modern espionage arsenal. As a reliable source of information, it is unequalled, which is why Government Communications Headquarters, almost universally known as GCHQ, is several times larger than the two smaller, but more familiar, organizations, MI5 and MI6. Because of its extreme sensitivity, and the ease with which its methods can be compromised, GCHQ’s activities remain cloaked in secrecy. In GCHQ: The Secret Wireless War 1900-1986, the renowned expert Nigel West traces GCHQ’s origins back to the early days of wireless and gives a detailed account of its development since that time. From the moment that Marconi succeeded in transmitting a radio signal across the Channel, Britain has been engaged in a secret wireless war, first against the Kaiser, then Hitler and the Soviet Union. Following painstaking research, Nigel West is able to describe all GCHQ’s disciplines, including direction-finding, interception and traffic analysis, and code-breaking. Also explained is the work of several lesser known units such as the wartime Special Wireless Groups and the top-secret Radio Security Service. Laced with some truly remarkable anecdotes, this edition of this important book will intrigue historians, intelligence professionals and general readers alike. “Nigel West is an acknowledged expert in this field of literature and his latest book is fascinating and intriguing.” —Books Monthly “Rich in the kind of detail from which all students of radio and military history can learn.” —The Spectrum Monitor