BRITISH SIGNALLERS BEST

Aylmer Express Newspaper Article
January 14, 1915

Germans Depend Altogether on Telegraph and Telephone.

Much of the hardest and most dangerous work of the British army is done by the flag signallers of the Army Signal Service. They have often to stand in the fighting line, wagging their flags or working their flash mirrors, while the German riflemen mass their fire against the men who are directing the movements of guns, infantry, and horsemen.

The German army does not use our methods of signalling. The Germans rely on field telephones and wireless apparatus, kept mainly behind the battlefront. The British troops are just as good as the Germans in this kind of safe flagging, but they find that one flagwagger in the firing-line is often worth a dozen telegraph and telephone clerks a safe distance away. A good deal of the remarkable success of the British in France and Flanders is due to the splendid work of their unmatchable signallers. Even if half a company becomes detached from the army in the course of an action, it is usually able to ‘talk’ to the main body over a distance of two or three miles.

A squadron of scouting cavalry and half of a battalion of advancing infantry cannot, in the rush and heat of a critical action, take a mile of wire and an electrical apparatus with them. But even in a charge, one man can run a flag, and if the charge is brought up suddenly by an entrenched host of the enemy, the flag man can at once signal for help. If he hasn’t brought flags with him, he can tie a handkerchief on his rifle. He can ask the gunners to rake the trench with shrapnel, and give them the range and tell them if they hit or miss; or he can ask for support to be hurried up to strengthen the charging column.

The work of the flag signaller is very simple. He takes a flag in each hand and strikes various attitudes, right flag held high up, left flag held straight down, right flag held sideways, left flat struck up, and so on. Each movement stands for a letter of the alphabet. This is known as the semaphore system. But a message can be sent almost as quickly with one flag. This is waved in two ways one a long waggle, the other a short, sharp, flutter. The long waggle represents the dash in the Morse code, the short flutter stands for the dot.