British Signals Intelligence in The Trenches - 1915-1918 - Part2

Journal of Intelligence History
ISSN: 1616-1262 (Print) 2169-5601 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjih20
British signals intelligence in the trenches,

1915–1918: part 2, interpreter operators
Jim Beach & James Bruce
To cite this article: Jim Beach & James Bruce (2019): British signals intelligence in the
trenches, 1915–1918: part 2, interpreter operators, Journal of Intelligence History, DOI:
10.1080/16161262.2019.1659581
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/16161262.2019.1659581
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JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE HISTORY
https://doi.org/10.1080/16161262.2019.1659581
British signals intelligence in the trenches, 1915–1918: part 2,

interpreter operators
a b
Jim Beach and James Bruce
a
University of Northampton; bIndependent Researcher
ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This article uses prosopographical techniques to examine around Received 27 June 2018
150 First World War signals intelligence personnel. Designated as Accepted 8 February 2019
‘Interpreter Operators’ by the British army, these German-speak- KEYWORDS
ers listened to enemy and friendly messages that had leaked Signals intelligence;
from telephone lines or were deliberately transmitted through communications security;
the ground. Drawn from diverse ethnographic backgrounds, First World War; Western
these men offer up a fascinating case study of an army harnes- Front; British Expeditionary
sing language skills to support their military endeavours. They Force; Royal Engineers
also highlight a paradoxical challenge facing all intelligence
organisations; that in order to understand an opponent you
must often employ those with close personal or familial connec-
tions to that enemy.
In 1979 the Imperial War Museum’s historian Peter Simkins interviewed Oswald
Croft, an octogenarian who had listened to German trench telephone traffic during
the First World War. During their discussion Croft confessed that, because of his
advanced years, he struggled to remember details of the actual eavesdropping. He
was also shaky on technological aspects. But, unsurprisingly for oral history, he
was more lucid with regard to the generalities of his experiences and surroundings
on the Western Front. Apparently struggling with the vagueness of some of Croft’s
answers, Simkins tried to coax him into clarifying his military status within a
frontline intercept station in 1916:
PS: Were you under the Royal Engineers when you were doing this? Were they in
charge of the signals? Or was it – were you still sort of infantry?
OC: There wasn’t a proper boss, if you know what I mean. It wasn’t like, you
know – I was a [Lance] Corporal, I didn’t see any other corporals, and I
don’t remember if there was anybody else. But there were no officers or
anything like that [. . .]
PS: It seems rather curious to me that a thing of this supposed importance doesn’t seem
to have any sort of structure, if you like.
OC: It had, because you see everything, well, they didn’t want to know about whether the lines
were put out [properly]. All they were interested in was this machine and what
CONTACT Jim Beach jim.beach@northampton.ac.uk

© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License
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2 J. BEACH AND J. BRUCE
information was to be got from this machine. And therefore I suppose I must have been
the important one.1
Unknown to Simkins, at that stage of the war the military status of men like Croft was
actually rather fluid. But more importantly, and almost inadvertently, Croft’s second
reply highlighted the centrality of linguists within these listening stations.
As a companion article has explained,2 after initial experiments in 1915, from the
spring of 1916 the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) began to systematically intercept
German frontline voice and Morse communications by collecting signals conducted
through the earth, emanating either from enemy systems explicitly designed to use the
ground as a transmission medium or from badly insulated equipment or cables. This
signals intelligence activity became known to the British as IT or, more euphoniously,
IToc (aye-tok) and was carried out using listening sets controlled and manned by the
Royal Engineers (Signal Service) (RE(SS)). IToc also exercised what is today known as a
communications security function by monitoring British trench message traffic for
breaches of transmission regulations or faulty equipment. This article takes the inves-
tigation one step further by examining in detail the German-speaking men who, like
Croft, sat underground listening to German messages. From September 1916 these
linguists were designated as Interpreter Operators (Wireless), a separate trade within
the RE(SS).3 Taking a long view, because their raison d’etre was to provide signals
intelligence linguists, it can be argued that these Interpreter Operators (IOs) were
British army’s first formally-recognised intelligence trade group.4 The IOs ought to be
of interest to British military historians, but they should also be intriguing for historians
of early Twentieth Century intelligence.5
By delving into their backgrounds, work, and daily lives, the article breaks new
ground in offering up a comprehensive study of a reasonably large group of First
World War intelligence personnel. In so doing it embraces prosopography, a
historical technique that is commonly, if misleadingly, referred to as ‘collective
1
Oswald Croft interview (1979), Reel 2, Imperial War Museum (IWM) Sound Archive 4440. He had served as 1918165 Sergeant
OH Cohen, becoming Croft by deed poll in 1939. Because other IOs either transferred from/to different corps or later
anglicised their surnames this article has, unless otherwise indicated, used their contemporaneous names, ranks, and RE
service numbers.
2
Jim Beach and James Bruce, “British Signals Intelligence in the Trenches, 1915–1918: Part 1, Listening Sets.”
3
The inclusion of wireless in their trade’s nomenclature may relate to the absence of fixed wires in some of the enemy
communication systems they intercepted. More prosaically, it may be due to their administrative subordination to the
RE(SS) sub-units responsible for British wireless telegraphy.
4
An Intelligence Corps was created within the BEF in August 1914, and subsequently at home and in other theatres. But
they were temporary organisations, specific to the theatre, and personnel were seconded to it from their parent
regiments. For the BEF’s Intelligence Corps, see: Jim Beach, Haig’s Intelligence: GHQ and the German Army, 1916–1918
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 66–85. For a broader regimental history, see: Anthony Clayton,
Forearmed: A History of the Intelligence Corps (London: Brassey’s, 1993), 14–54. In contrast, IOs were a formally
organised component of the long-established corps of Royal Engineers. The only other intelligence trade established
within the RE(SS) during the war was that of Intelligence Wireless Operator. For the RE(SS), see: Brian Hall,
Communications and British Operations on the Western Front, 1914–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2017), 22–87. For the Intelligence Wireless Operators, see: War Office, “Directorate of Organisation”, [undated but late
1918], 501, WO162/6, TNA.
5
IToc stations also employed two other groups of RE tradesmen: Telegraphists (Wireless Operator), who were better
able to deal with intercepted Morse messages because many had been pre-war telegraph operators with the Post
Office or other cable companies; and Telegraphists (Field Line) who laid and maintained the cables and earths used to
intercept the signals. All three trades were needed within a station but, unlike the IOs, the wireless operators and
linesmen were frequently re-deployed to routine communications duties. For example, 70289 Corporal WM Rumsey
worked as wireless telegraphist, in an IToc station, and as a wireless intercept operator: “With the Wireless Section of
the Signal Co[mpany] Royal Engineers”, passim, Rumsey Papers, Liddle Collection, University of Leeds Digital Library.
JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE HISTORY 3
biography’.6 Rather than people being selected arbitrarily to illustrate a biographical

category, a truly prosopographical analysis should focus upon the ‘sum of data
about many individuals’ for what it tells us about their historical setting. This
study conforms to the more rigorous standard in part because ‘the number and
identity’ of IOs was not known in advance and ‘the group [was] selected as the
starting point of [the] inquiry’ in order to further an understanding of their military
intelligence context.7 Prosopography pre-dates its label and these techniques have
long been embraced by different sections of the academic historical community.8
The historiography of the British army in the First World War contains a number
of examples of prosopographical studies, although their authors do not seem to been
conscious of that status. Their common characteristic is a focus upon officers and,
in recent years, what might be termed the ‘middle-management’ layer of unit
commanders and staff officers.9 The earliest of them would be open to criticism
from prosopography purists as a didactic collective biography, but more recent
works are more rigorous analyses that illuminate previously unknown aspects of
the military system.
This article’s prosopographical approach also helps to move us beyond a histor-
iography which usually draws upon a narrow pool of memoir sources to elucidate
the human dimension of British military intelligence work during the conflict.10
Importantly, the investigation also provides fresh insight into the army’s deliberate
harnessing of what has been termed ‘civilian expertise’ to conduct intelligence
work.11 Within the broader context of a Total War effort, the contribution of
non-uniformed experts and a ‘blurring between civilian and military expertise’ is
well-known.12 With regard to the British army, previous studies have tended to
focus upon the injection of civilian know-how into the logistics system.13 But a
6
For a succinct example, see: Stephen Davies, Empiricism and History (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003), 53.
7
KSB Keats-Rohan, “Biography, Identity and Names: Understanding the Pursuit of the Individual in Prosopography,” in
Prosopography Approaches and Applications: A Handbook, ed. KSB Keats-Rohan (Oxford: Unit for Prosopographical
Resarch, 2007), 141, 143–4. For guidance on conducting prosopographical studies, see: Koenraad Verboven, Myriam
Carlier & Jan Dumolyn, “A Short Manual to the Art of Prosopography,” in Prosopography, ed. Keats-Rohan, 35–69.
Available online at http://prosopography.modhist.ox.ac.uk (accessed 31 October 2017).
8
TD Barnes, “Prosopography Modern and Ancient,” in Prosopography Approaches and Applications: A Handbook, ed. KSB
Keats-Rohan (Oxford: Unit for Prosopographical Resarch, 2007), 71–82; Janet Nelson, David Pelteret & Harold Short,
“Medieval Prosopographies and the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England,” in Fifty Years of Prosopography: The
Later Roman Empire, Byzantium and Beyond, ed. Averil Cameron (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British
Academy, 2003), 155–8.
9
Frank Davies & Graham Maddocks, Bloody Red Tabs: General Officer Casualties of the Great War, 1914–1918 (Barnsley:
Leo Cooper, 1995); Changboo Kang, “The British Infantry Officer on the Western Front in the First World War: With
special reference to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment,” (Unpublished PhD, University of Birmingham), 2007; Peter
Hodgkinson, British Infantry Battalion Commanders in the First World War (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015); William Stewart,
“’Byng Boys’: A Profile of Senior Commanders of Canadian Combat Units on the Somme, 1916,” War in History 23, no.
1 (2016): 55–78; Paul Harris, The Men Who Planned the War: A Study of the Staff of the British Army on the Western
Front, 1914–1918 (London: Routledge, 2016); William Westerman, Soldiers and Gentlemen: Australian Battalion
Commanders in the Great War 1914–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
10
For further discussion of this imperative, see: Jim Beach, “No Cloaks, No Daggers: The Historiography of British Military
Intelligence,” in Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US: Historiography since 1945, eds. Christopher Moran and
Christopher Murphy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), 211–2.
11
Phrase used in: Aimée Fox, Learning to Fight: Military Innovation and Change in the British Army, 1914–1918
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 14.
12
Tammy Proctor, Civilians in a World at War, 1914–1918 (New York: New York University Press, 2010), 177–202.
13
Ian Malcolm Brown, British Logistics on the Western Front, 1914–1919 (Westport: Praeger, 1998), 139–153; Christopher
Phillips, “Early Experiments in Civil–Military Cooperation: The South-Eastern and Chatham Railway and the Port of
Boulogne, 1914–15,” War & Society 34, no. 2 (2015): 90–104.
recent work has ranged more widely in exploring civilian contributions to the
army’s learning processes.14 Within the intelligence system, a clash of cultures has
been noted between eccentric wartime junior officers and the regular army officers
who employed them.15
The article also exposes the IOs’ diverse ethnographic backgrounds and, in some cases,
their German connections. This illustrates a wider issue affecting intelligence personnel
both then and now; the intersection of language skills, nationality, and heritage. Recent
historical studies of this phenomenon have focused upon the Second World War and
highlight the paradoxical challenge facing any intelligence organisation that, in order to
understand one’s enemy, you must often employ people with backgrounds that would
normally provoke suspicion because of their personal or familial connections to that
enemy.16 In First World War Britain similar concerns were accentuated by a visceral hatred
of Germany that was incubated early in the conflict.17 After 1939 this problematisation of
‘foreignness’ and a general ‘unease about quasi-foreigners’ was alleviated, in part, by
recruiting men and women from Establishment networks; attendance at the right sort of
school, university, or membership of a London club being seen ‘as a proxy for [. . .]
loyalty’.18 As will be seen, although some IOs conformed to such societal norms, those
from migrant families were still viewed with suspicion.
Researching the IOs is challenging. Histories of the RE(SS) only mention them in
passing and personal testimonies are limited.19 In addition to Oswald Croft’s aforemen-
tioned reminiscences, there is a rather sparse account published in an interwar
magazine.20 Beyond that, a diary kept by an IO corporal, Vince Schürhoff, provides the
only detailed picture, albeit one focused upon one man’s experiences and those of his
close colleagues.21 We therefore lack any rich sources that would straddle the gap between
the individual and the organisational; for example, testimony from the junior officers who
commanded groups of them in the field. The risk, therefore, is that generalising from top-
down accounts or extrapolating from intensely personal testimony could distort our
understanding of these soldiers. The latter problem is not uncommon in military
intelligence history, prompting one of the current authors to ask whether:
We [are] seeing just ‘personalities’ rather than truly understanding the more prosaic dimen-
sion of ‘personnel’? Grappling with the latter would require painstaking collation of data from
service records to create something that would pass muster in social history circles.22
14
Aimée Fox, Learning to Fight, 164–203.
15
Beach, Haig’s Intelligence, 82–85, 326–327.
16
Hilary Footitt & Simona Tobia, War Talk: Foreign Languages and the British War Effort in Europe, 1940–47 (Basingstoke:
Palgrave, 2013), 5–6, 24–27.
17
Adrian Gregory, The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2008), 55–63. See also the classic study of Germanophobia during the conflict: Panikos Panayi, The Enemy in our
Midst: Germans in Britain during the First World War (Oxford: Berg, 1991).
18
Hilary Footitt, “Languages in the Intelligence Community,” in Languages at War: Policies and Practice of Language
Contacts in Conflict, eds. Hilary Footitt & Michael Kelly (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012), 24, 33.
19
Raymond Priestley, The Signal Service in the European War of 1914 to 1918 (France) (Chatham: Mackay, 1921), 110;
Reginald Nalder, The Royal Corps of Signals: A History of Its Antecedents and Development (circa 1800–1955) (London:
Royal Signals Institution, 1958), 108.
20
RAB Young, “Even wars have ears! Being the frank confessions of a Territorial who served with the Intelligence Corps,”
The Territorial (February 1938): 23.
21
198145 Corporal FV Schürhoff. Jim Beach, ed., The Diary of Corporal Vince Schürhoff, 1914–1918 (Stroud: History Press
for the Army Records Society, 2015).
22
Beach, “No Cloaks, No Daggers,” 212.
Although many sources might contribute to that type of collation, the most informative
are the service and pension records of individual soldiers held by the National Archives
(TNA).23 These records are digitised, thereby allowing online searches by name, service
number, regiment, date of birth, and place of residence.24 Their potential as a source for
the analysis of First World War British soldiers has long been recognised and, for
example, a recent locality-based study has demonstrated what can be achieved.25
Similarly, the ages and occupations of the army’s signallers have been profiled through
sampling across their service records.26 That said, because of German incendiary bombs
dropped during the Second World War, only around 60% of the soldiers’ records have
survived.27 Three additional problems also hamper any investigation. First, although the
exact physical arrangement of records within the repository in September 1940 is
unknown, this article’s research process suggests that while some regiments’ records
suffered almost total destruction, others have survived almost entirely.28 Second, the
pension records are sometimes limited to information bearing only upon a man’s claim
for monies and are therefore not particularly informative about his military career.
Third, their indexing does not allow direct identification of IOs by their trade, so they
have to be identified amongst the service records of the whole of the RE. Assuming a
peak establishment of just over 170 IO posts in February 1918, and factoring in a worse-
case ‘churn’ of up to 20% for training, casualties, and commissioning, the overall
number of IOs is likely to be somewhere around 200.29 Given that the RE had over
225,000 soldiers serving in August 1918, identifying such a small sub-group presented a
significant challenge.30
The investigation started with the names of around thirty IOs drawn from a variety of
published and archival sources, particularly Schürhoff’s diary. Additional names were
then obtained by exploiting the system by which the British army allocated service
numbers. After 1920 a soldier was allocated a number on enlistment that remained
23
For a general introduction, see: William Spencer, First World War Army Service Records: A Guide for Family Historians
(Kew: National Archives, 2008).
24
Two websites, www.ancestry.co.uk and www.findmypast.co.uk, were used to access the IOs’ records. Variations in
their indexing systems helped to produce comprehensive results. Before their digitisation in 2007 these records could
only be searched by surname within 28,000 rolls of microfilm at TNA: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6388637.stm
(accessed 20 March 2018).
25
Doran Lamb, “British Soldiers of the First World War: Creation of a Representative Sample,” Historical Social Research/
Historische Sozialforschung 13, no. 4 (1988): 55–98; Richard Grayson, “Military History from the Street: New Methods
for Researching First World War Service in the British Military,” War in History 21, no. 4 (2014): 465–95.
26
Hall, Communications, 72–5.
27
TNA Record Class WO363 contains those service records that survived the bombing of the War Office’s document
repository. WO364 are the records of men claiming military pensions which were held separately and hence escaped
destruction. There is some duplication between the two classes: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/first
worldwar/service_records/sr_soldiers.htm (accessed 21 February 2018). For additional details on the destruction of
the War Office’s records, see: Matthew Seligmann, “Hors de Combat? The Management, Mismanagement and
Mutilation of the War Office Archive,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 84, no. 337 (2006): 52–8.
28
Delineated by distinctions of dress, particularly their badges, the British army of the First World War contained both
regiments and corps which, in the case of infantry and cavalry, were deployed operationally as battalions or
regiments within manoeuvre brigades. For context, see: David French, Military Identities: The Regimental System, the
British Army, and the British People c.1870–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
29
Each corps was eventually allocated nine IOs: War Office Establishment No. 1019 (Corps Signal Company), 27 February
1918. WO24/918, TNA. Excluding the Cavalry and Tank Corps, there were nineteen corps in France and Italy in
February 1918: AF Becke, Order of Battle of Divisions: Part 4, The Army Council, GHQs, Armies, and Corps 1914–1918
(Historical Section, Committee of Imperial Defence, 1938), 131–246. The Canadian and ANZAC Corps supplied their
own IOs and were excluded from the investigation in order to keep it manageable.
30
War Office, Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War, 1914–1920 (London: War Office,
1922), 167.
with him for the duration of his service. But during the First World War each regiment
operated its own numbering system, so if a man transferred he was given a fresh number
by the receiving regiment.31 Normally, numbers were allocated sequentially within a
regiment’s system. Thus a man numbered 12345 would have joined that regiment before
one numbered 34567. Similarly, two men numbered 23456 and 23457 would have joined
at about the same time. Exceptions abound, and the Territorial Force (TF) had an even
more fragmented system.32
Knowing a soldier’s service number allows a search within TNA’s most comprehensive
surviving record of men who served in the British army during the First World War; the
campaign medal records.33 Available on-line, these records can provide basic information
about a man’s military service, although the amount of detail varies considerably depending
on his regiment. Therefore, in order to allow targeted searching of the surviving service
records, an analysis of service numbers was conducted to identify the names of potential IOs.
This was done in two ways. The first approach relied upon an assumption that new service
numbers would have been allocated sequentially when IOs were transferred to the RE. From
August 1916 their selection and training had became increasingly formalised, with transfers
occurring on successful completion of a course in France. Therefore, assuming the clerical
processes for transfer occurred simultaneously, each new cohort of IOs would probably have
been allocated adjacent RE numbers. Using a known IO as a datum, men with RE numbers in
a range of ten either side of him were treated as potential IOs for further investigation.
Although fairly successful, two groups cannot be identified by this method; men already
serving in the RE before becoming IOs because they retained their original service number,
and some, but not all, TF men who were allocated RE numbers within the separate TF
numbering system. A second approach then identified IOs who had been transferred from
the RE to the Intelligence Corps. The Intelligence Corps was a temporary wartime organisa-
tion and its personnel management systems were complicated. However, from 15 July 1918,
following the creation of Intelligence Corps companies for administrative purposes, some
degree of order was imposed with the transfer of all other ranks to a notional battalion of the
Royal Fusiliers (RF), known as 10(B).34 Any RE-to-RF transferee within the blocks of RF
numbers allocated to 10(B) was also treated as a potential IO.35
31
A man who moved between units of his parent regiment was ‘posted’, whereas those moved to serve temporarily
with a unit of another regiment were ‘attached’, and someone who permanently changed corps was ‘transferred’.
Additionally, within the RE, a man on first qualifying as a tradesman or subsequently changing trade was recorded in
his service record as having ‘remustered’.
32
For regimental numbering systems, see: https://armyservicenumbers.blogspot.co.uk; www.longlongtrail.co.uk;
Howard Williamson, The Great War Medal Collectors Companion, Vol.2 (Privately published, 2014). For difficulties in
managing TF manpower, see: Alison Hine, Refilling Haig’s Armies: The Replacement of British Infantry Casualties on the
Western Front, 1916–1918 (Solihull: Helion, 2018), 35–6, 62–3, 67–70, 105.
33
TNA Record Classes WO329 and WO372. For additional context, see: William Spencer, Medals: The Researcher’s Guide
(Kew: National Archives, 2006), 62–72. This methodology may have wider applicability. For example, the service
numbers of men who served in the mechanical transport section of the Army Service Corps are suffixed with the
letter M, thereby creating a tag which should allow prosopographical research into an important component of the
army’s logistic system.
34
Schürhoff’s diary suggests that he was given this option in August 1918: Beach, Haig’s Intelligence, 74; Beach, ed.,
Schürhoff, 277. The establishment of 10(B) Royal Fusiliers can be dated exactly by their “Part II, Daily Orders (No.2)”, 24
July 1918, surviving in the service record of 228969 Private AH Munro. See also: “Intelligence Corps, compulsory
transfers to & rates of pay of,” 388, WO113/7, TNA.
35
This process also threw up previously unknown IOs who were then used as fresh datums for further ten-either-side
searches within the RE medal records.
Although both approaches demonstrated that neat theories of service number alloca-
tion were rather untidy in practice, they yielded the names of around 600 potential IOs.
Many could be quickly discounted, but about 120 were confidently identified as having
served as IOs.36 When added to the previously known men, this resulted in an overall
sample of 158. As noted earlier, if the total number of British IOs probably does not
exceed 200, this is a very significant proportion these men. Surviving service records
were subsequently found for 54 (34%) of the 158 men in the sample. Another 11 (7%)
were subsequently commissioned and their officers’ records contained details of their
non-commissioned service.37 The whole sample was also researched genealogically
using a full spectrum of open-access and commercially-available sources.38 This process
yielded manifold details of their military service along with insights into their civilian
lives both before and after the First World War. Additionally, through one of the
genealogical websites, contact was established with some IOs’ descendants, resulting in
a small but illuminating trove of papers and photographs. The aggregation of this
information within a database underpins this article’s analysis. The full sample is listed
in Table 7.
I. The men
To those who encountered them, the IOs were notably different from stereotypical
‘Tommies’. Speaking to a post-war audience, one signals officer described how the system
had ‘produced rather heterogeneous drafts, one including a clergyman, two conjurers and a
Russian chef’.39 A former signals intelligence officer wrote that they were ‘trained young
men of the clerical breed [and] experts in dialectical German’;40 and a telegraphist
employed in IToc stations recalled that:
Among the interpreters were two educated and one ignorant Russian, two Swiss –
uneducated – and two British. The latter two were very efficient men. One was a journalist,
the other a courier, interpreter and entertainer.41
These subjective descriptions are confirmed by this article’s analysis of their backgrounds,
with their diversity being underpinned by the German language requirement that was central
to recruitment into their military trade.42 Taking the question of language acquisition as a
36
Apart from direct evidence from documentary sources or service records, men have been identified as IO based on a
combination of civil occupation, pattern of service, and their numbering. For example, there is no direct evidence that
207385 Corporal JEE Shore served as an IO, but before enlisting he was a ‘foreign correspondent’; a clerk dealing with
correspondence in a foreign language rather than a journalist in the modern sense of the term. On transfer from the
Royal Garrison Artillery to the RE he received a number close to that of known IOs and was later transferred to the
Intelligence Corps. In 1939 he described himself as an ‘export manager and linguist’.
37
TNA Record Classes WO339 and WO374.
38
These included birth/death/marriage registrations, censuses, the 1939 Register, probate, immigration and travel
records, and university/school rolls of honour; London Gazette notifications of gallantry awards, officers’ appoint-
ments, notifications of naturalisation, and name changes by deed poll; local newspapers and the Times.
39
AGT Cusins, “Development of Army Wireless during the War,” Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers 59 (1921):
765.
40
Ferdinand Tuohy, The Battle of Brains (London: Heinemann, 1930), 158.
41
”With the Wireless Section of the Signal Co[mpany] Royal Engineers,” 25, Rumsey Papers, Liddle Collection, University
of Leeds Digital Library.
42
For discussion of the ‘inherently multilingual’ nature of the First World War, see: Sandrijn Van Den Noortgate, “Caught
in the Crossfire: Interpreters during the First World War,” in Languages and the First World War: Communicating in a
Transnational War, eds. Julian Walker & Christophe Declercq (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2016), 98–112.
starting point opens multiple dimensions for prosopographical analysis. This section there-
fore explores the men’s parentage, familial heritage, class, and employment. It also touches
upon the army’s enlistment restrictions and the specific example of Jewish IOs.
In pre-1914 Britain, there were two main ways that a man came to speak
German; either he was born into a German-speaking family, or he acquired the
language through formal education or some other exposure in later life.
Unsurprisingly, there are a multitude of variations on these general categories. For
example, Herbert Benoly was both the offspring of German and Russian parents and
a postgraduate student of German at Cambridge.43 The parentage of 130 IOs can be
established with certainty. Of these, 77 (59%) would have been considered of purely
‘British’ descent because both their parents were ‘natural born British subjects’ in
that they had been born in Britain or some portion of its empire, or if they had
been born outside ‘His Majesty’s dominions’ their father in turn had been a natural
born British subject. The remainder were of half or full European parentage. The
parentage of 28 IOs cannot be established. Of these, seven (25%) would probably
have been considered to have a ‘foreign’ element in their names.44 Overall, more
than a third of IOs were, to some degree, of recent European descent and hence
more likely to have acquired their German within a family context than those of
‘British’ descent.
While parentage is useful in indicating the origins of a man’s German language
skills, his familial descent was also intertwined with the question of his nationality,
with the latter determining how he was treated by officialdom. Therefore wartime
policies on this issue form an important backdrop to any study of the IOs.45 In
1914 British law recognised three categories of nationality. The largest group were
the ‘natural born British subjects’ described above. The next category were British
subjects by naturalisation. This process required five years’ residence in Britain,
some command of English, an avowed intent to remain in Britain, and the Home
Secretary’s approval. The third category are those who were not British subjects by
birth or naturalisation and were therefore designated as ‘aliens’. Until the late
Nineteenth Century Germans had formed the largest group of aliens in Great
Britain, but Jewish migrants fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe meant that by
1914 the largest category were Russian nationals.46
Natural-born and naturalised British subjects were free to enlist in the armed forces
without restriction, but aliens could only enlist in the army, up to a maximum of 2% in
any one corps.47 The Aliens Restriction Act, passed at the beginning of the war,
instituted monitoring and control of all aliens in Britain and led to German, Austro-
Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Ottoman nationals being interned, repatriated, or having
their liberties restricted. Obviously this prevented enlistment from these aliens,
43
197914 Sapper HJ Benoly.
44
When the 1911 Census was analysed by government, in the absence of a definite statement as to nationality, ‘persons
with distinctly British surnames [. . .] were classified as British subjects’: Cmd 7017, ‘Census of England and Wales,
1911. Vol. IX. Birthplaces of persons enumerated in administrative counties, county boroughs, &c., and ages and
occupations of foreigners’, xv.
45
Sadly, small sample sizes do not allow us to identify clearly the direct effects of the evolving legislation.
46
The following discussion has drawn primarily upon: JC Bird, “Control of Enemy Alien Civilians in Great Britain 1914–
1918” (Unpublished PhD, University of London, 1981), 8–12.
47
Army Act 1881, S 95(1).
although those of other nations could continue to join up.48 The situation was further
complicated by introduction of conscription in January 1916, resulting in the War
Office issuing detailed guidance about the handling of aliens and men with foreign
parents. Initially conscripts of enemy parentage, even if legally British themselves, were
to be posted to labour units at home. Men already serving were to be transferred to
these units. In August the policy was amended to allow these men to join, or remain
with, other regiments. It is impossible to determine whether this policy blocked any
potential IOs from employment in the first half of 1916. However, men who theoreti-
cally should have been transferred to home labour units continued to serve as IOs and
by the time the trade had been established formally the rules had been relaxed.49
Reviewing the alien regulations retrospectively, the War Office concluded that poor
co-ordination between the recruiting, security, and other staff sections had meant the
rules were never applied uniformly.50 Enemy and other aliens had also been excluded
completely from conscription. This changed in July 1917 when a new law allowed
foreign citizens, with their government’s consent, to be conscripted into the British
armed forces.51 This change was particularly contentious for those Jews who had fled
Russian pogroms and retained a cultural memory of Tsarist use of conscription as an
instrument of oppression. Unsurprisingly, this led to some resistance and avoidance of
the new Act.52
Rather than applying a binary definition of ‘British’ or ‘non-British’ descent, a close
examination of the IOs’ nationality status provides a more nuanced view of their heritage.
It also allows a comparison with the general population, as recorded in the 1911 Census.
Table 1 shows that, taken together, naturalised British subjects and aliens comprised
less than one percent of the overall population, but made up a nearly a fifth of the IO
sample. Furthermore, of those who were British by birth or naturalisation, more than
one in ten had ‘enemy’ fathers, suggesting the War Office had failed in its efforts to limit
the employment of such men. Another noticeable difference between IOs and the wider
population is an over-representation of Jews. They comprised only a half of one percent
of the British population in 1911, but number at least thirteen percent within the IO
sample.53 Most were known as ‘Russian Jews’ because they came from Yiddish-speak-
ing, Ashkenazi families who, as noted earlier, had fled the Tsarist regime in previous
decades. However, this Jewish group also included two Sephardi brothers from a family
long involved in Romanian banking and commerce.54
48
The definition of ‘enemy’ alien was subsequently blurred by the recognition of ‘friendly races’ among enemy
nationals, primarily Czechs and Alsatians: War Office, Army Council Instruction (ACI) 2120/16, 10 November 1916
WO293/5, TNA.
49
ACI 467/16, 1 March 1916, WO293/4; ACI 1209/16, 17 June 1916; ACI 1613/16, 18 August 1916 WO293/5.
50
War Office, “Directorate of Organisation”, [undated but late 1918], 641–646, WO162/6, TNA.
51
Military Service (Conventions with Allied States) Act 1917.
52
Sascha Auerbach, “Negotiating Nationalism: Jewish Conscription and Russian Repatriation in London’s East End, 1916-
1918,” Journal of British Studies 46, no. 3 (2007): 594–620. For the context of Jewish recruitment/conscription, see: Ian
Beckett, Timothy Bowman & Mark Connelly, The British Army and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2017), 121–3.
53
Those self-identifying as Jewish in their documentation or listed in: M Adler, ed., British Jewry Book of Honour
(London: Caxton, 1922); H Bernstein, ed., American Jewish Year Book 5675 (Philadelphia: American Jewish Publications
Committee, 1914), 422.
54
553901 Sapper RD Fermo, 553902 Sapper LD Fermo. In late 1916, presumably due to the German invasion, the latter
had travelled from Romania to Britain to enlist: Family information.
Table 1. Interpreter operators’ nationality and familial descent.

Interpreter
Operators (%) Population (%)
Natural-born British subjects 81 99
Both parents natural-born British 56
Father natural-born British 5
Father ‘enemy’ 10
Father other 6
Unknown 4
Naturalised British subjects 6 <1
Father ‘enemy’ 2
Father other 5
Aliens 12 <1
Source: Census of England and Wales, 1911; Genealogical records of 130 IOs.
The question of IOs’ loyalty towards Britain is difficult to address. Their service
records do not reveal any investigations, but Schürhoff’s diary offers two indications
that the army was concerned about their sympathies. In July 1917 he discovered, from
his superior officer, that the IOs were:
All very much under suspicion, in fact being watched, because an [IO] at a neighbouring corps’
Hun prison cage was caught in the act of helping a cousin of his, a German prisoner, to escape.
[The officer . . .] had to guarantee each one of us, [giving] our whole history individually.55
Sadly, it has not been possible to identify the IO in question, but this incident highlights the
potential security problems created when employing intelligence specialists with close
familial connections to Germany. The second occurred in October 1918. Schürhoff and
three other IOs were withdrawn from intelligence work and confined to the signals depot
on the French coast.56 His diary is frustratingly reticent about the reason for this develop-
ment, except that it related to ‘a certain enquiry that [he] had to attend’ a few days before.
Given that three of the men had Germanic surnames, it is possible they had fallen under
some sort of suspicion. But with all counter-espionage resources tied up in the pursuit of a
retreating German army, as a safety measure they were presumably exiled to the depot to
await an investigation that was then rendered redundant by an unexpected armistice.
As Table 2 shows, examining the IOs’ peacetime occupations also reveals significant
difference with the general population.57 IOs were drawn from only ten of the twenty-three
Census categories, with two-thirds of them being either ‘professional’ or ‘commercial’.58 This
contrasts dramatically with only seven percent of the British male population in these
categories. However, this predominance of middle class occupations is unsurprising when
the acquisition of German language skills is taken into account. The majority of IOs had learnt
German through their formal education rather than being born into a Germanophone family.
This route would have been part of wider secondary or tertiary education leading on to white
55
Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 192.
56
206948 Sapper R Lederer; 108152 Corporal BEP Nienhaus. The third (Long) could not be positively identified.
57
For the application of this methodology upon two infantry battalions, see: Helen McCartney, Citizen Soldiers: The
Liverpool Territorials in the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 28–30.
58
244939 Sapper HC Bush, a ‘music hall artiste’, illustrates the fact that in 1911 those working in the arts were also
categorised as having a ‘professional occupation’.
Table 2. Interpreter operators’ occupations.

Interpreter
Operators Population
Occupations Census category (%) (%)
artist, naval architect, dental mechanic, teacher, lecturer, 3, Professional 23 3
clergyman, doctor, translator, librarian, music hall artiste,
journalist, photographer
merchant, salesman, commercial clerk, shipping clerk, foreign 5, Commercial 44 4
correspondence clerk, stock jobber
motor driver, seaman, tourist director 6, Conveyance 2 10
jeweller, watchmaker 11, Precious Metals 1 1
furrier 16, Skins & Leather 1 <1
printer, printer’s clerk 17, Paper & Printing 2 1
woolen manufacturer, lace manufacturer, glove manufacturer 18, Textiles 2 4
tailor, presser 19, Dress 2 3
restaurateur, hotel clerk, publican, tobacco trade, baker, hotel 20, Food & Lodging 6 6
porter
student, barber 23, Other or None 18 16
collar employment. But this seems to have been a general rather than absolute relationship.
Some IOs had impressive academic qualifications, but not all of the ‘British’ IOs had acquired
or perfected their German through formal education. Three men illustrate the variable
linguistic journeys: The Reverend Colin Kerr was a Church of Scotland minister with a
PhD in religious philosophy from Jena University.59 In contrast, Walter Breakey had spent
eighteen months interned in the Cameroons before being repatriated, while ‘Wilkie’ Roberts
claimed German army service in South West Africa and had also worked as a crewman on
German merchant ships.60 Those who had spent long periods in Germany were especially
useful as they ‘were so conversant were they with German dialects, that they could tell at once
what part of Germany a man came from as soon as they heard him speak’. With the German
army organised regionally, this helped identify unit changes on the other side of No Man’s
Land.61
Assuming a correlation existed between an IO acquiring German as part of his education
and a subsequent white-collar job, those who acquired it through a Germanophone family
would presumably have had relatively lower status employment. This would be expected
because their ability to speak German was less connected to their education-to-occupation
journey. Table 3 seems to confirm this assumption. Although both ‘British’ and ‘non-British’
IOs worked in white-collar occupations (categories 3 & 5) to a greater extent than the general
population, it was somewhat more pronounced in the case of the former. However, the
representation of ‘British’ IOs is significantly greater within the professions (category 3) than
their ‘non-British’ counterparts. It is also noticeable that ‘non-British’ IOs are much more
59
199044 Sapper CM Kerr, author of Eine untersuchung über das hauptproblem der religionsphilosophie mit besonderer
berücksichtigung des englischen agnosticismus (Jena: Frommann, 1908).
60
206935 Sapper W Breakey; 198144 Sapper W Roberts: Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 101, 103, 130.
61
W Arthur Steel, “Wireless Telegraphy in the Canadian Corps in France, Chapter 6. Interception: I Toc and Policing
Work,” Canadian Defence Quarterly 7, no. 3 (April 1930): 364. For Second World War parallels, see: Footitt,
“Languages”, 23.
Table 3. Interpreter operators’ occupations by familial descent.

‘non-British’
Census category ‘British’ Interpreter Operators (%) Interpreter Operators (%) Population (%)
3, Professional 32 12 3
5, Commercial 48 38 4
6, Conveyance 3 2 10
11, Precious Metals 3 - 1
16, Skins & Leather - 2 <1
17, Paper & Printing 2 3 1
18, Textiles 4 - 4
19, Dress - 5 3
20, Food & Lodging 3 14 6
23, Other or None 4 19 16
prominent in lower-status occupations related to hospitality (category 20) than both ‘British’
IOs and the general populace.62
The German language requirement not only shaped the IOs’ occupations but is also
reflected in where they lived. This was presumably because their occupation categories were
naturally drawn to London and large provincial cities. Alternatively, they hailed from
existing migrant communities’ locations.63 Within the sample, where place of residence
in Britain is known, over half were living in major cities, with 42% living in London or its
environs. Other concentrations were in Manchester (8%) and Liverpool (5%). Those living
outside of major cities included individual professionals such as clergymen and school-
masters, or those engaged in commercial activities in North Sea ports and northern mill
towns. As with any dataset, there are unusual outliers. For the IOs, these include an
electrical engineer in Dorset and a salesman for a seed business in Lincolnshire.64
Additionally, 8% of the IOs lived overseas prior to enlistment. This was primarily because
they, or their families, were involved in commercial occupations overseas. But this group
also included two Russian nationals living in Belgium who probably enlisted directly into
the BEF in France.65
Another point of difference between the IOs and the wider British population was
often the possession of a ‘foreign’ name. Around five percent of them sought to soften
this contrast by adopting anglicised forenames and, less commonly, surnames before or
when enlisting in the army. For example, when he joined the infantry in 1914, Fritz
Vincent Schürhoff asked his comrades to call him Vince. Similarly, Bernhard Edwald
Nienhaus served as Bernard Edward.66 Most were retrospectively formalised by deed
poll and, unsurprisingly, these name changes were largely confined to natural-born or
naturalised British subjects of German descent. However, despite the strong anti-
German sentiment within Britain, this anglicisation process was not universal amongst
62
Within that sector in 1911, servants and waiters were by far the largest occupational group of German migrants:
Panikos Panayi, German Immigrants in Britain during the Nineteenth Century, 1815–1914 (Oxford: Berg, 1995), 120.
63
This is consistent with the distribution of German migrants in the late nineteenth century: Panayi, German Immigrants,
92–3, 102–7.
64
246048 Sapper AP Cabinil; 198162 Sapper EA Deal.
65
244034 Sapper E Sanina; 246021 Sapper CM Sztencel.
66
198145 Corporal FV Schürhoff: Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 1; 108152 Corporal BEP Nienhaus, born in Britain to an
unnaturalised German father and became Newcroft by deed poll in 1919.
the IOs.67 For example, William Von Ahn and Martin Albrecht made no adjustment.
Presumably, as solidly middle-class Britons who had inherited German surnames from
families naturalised in the mid-1800s, they felt no need to prove their Britishness.68
Because of registration regulations enacted in 1914, alien IOs were unable to make any
adjustments when joining the army because their names had already been formally
recorded.69
The IOs’ military profiles are also interesting and indirectly reinforce previous observa-
tions regarding their backgrounds. Putting aside one who had pre-war service in the Black
Watch,70 none of the IO sample were regular soldiers. One had served with the Imperial
Yeomanry in South Africa,71 and Roberts’ service in the German army has already been
noted. Additionally, only one was a Territorial on the outbreak of war.72 They were thus
almost exclusively wartime volunteers or conscripts who were recruited to IO duties while
serving in the wartime army. Before the introduction of conscription, men enlisting in the
infantry tended to join their local regiment and it is possible to see location, and to some
extent class, carrying forward into the IOs’ initial military service. Just over half (53%) the
IOs were drawn from the infantry and, in line with earlier residence analysis, 43% of these
came from regiments associated with London and the South East. There was also a marked
tendency for enlistment into battalions with a middle-class recruiting ethos. In this context,
many future IOs joined Territorial ‘class corps’ such as the London Rifle Brigade, which had
a long association with the City of London, Britain’s financial hub.73 It was a similar story
for those who joined war-raised, ‘New Army’ battalions, with men enlisting in the ‘Bankers’
and ‘Public Schools’ battalions of the Royal Fusiliers and the Middlesex Regiment.74 Nor
was this just a Home Counties phenomenon. Some IOs started their military life in class-
based units such as the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce battalion and the ‘non-manual’
battalions raised in Birmingham.75 Finally, regimental affiliations noted on a rare visual
source provide a snapshot of thirty-seven unnamed IOs departing Britain for their training
in France.76 Although undated, the photograph was probably taken in early 1917 by which
time the army was identifying suitable men at an early stage in their conscripted service.
Twelve of the men (32%) are from the army’s large corps, and therefore provide no easily
discernible class or geographic markers.77 But the remainder indicate a clear geographic
67
For the political debate on naturalised Germans changing their names, see: Panayi, Enemy in our Midst, 66–9.
68
206936 Sapper WG Von Ahn; 244983 Sapper MH Albrecht.
69
Panayi, Enemy in our Midst, 54.
70
244945 Sapper J Hazell.
71
358113 Sapper WEG Cameron.
72
206948 Sapper R Lederer. For distinctions between regulars, Territorials, the ‘New Armies’, and conscripts, see: Peter
Simkins, “The Four Armies,” in The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army, eds. David Chandler & Ian Beckett
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 241–262; Beckett et al, British Army, 86–134.
73
5/Londons. Highlighted as an exemplar of a middle-class unit in: Adrian Gregory, The Last Great War: British Society
and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 290. For class dynamics within Territorial
units, see: McCartney, Citizen Soldiers, 25–36. See also: Gary Sheffield, Leadership in the Trenches: Officer-Man Relations,
Morale and Discipline in the British Army in the Era of the First World War (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 2000), 14–5.
74
Four IOs began their service in ‘public schools’ battalion, one each in 18, 20 and 21/Royal Fusiliers and 16/Middlesex,
and two in the 26/Royal Fusiliers (Bankers): For context, see: Peter Simkins, Kitchener’s Army: The Raising of the New
Armies, 1914–16 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), 92–3.
75
17/Highland Light Infantry: John Arthur and Ion Munro, eds., The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow
Chamber of Commerce Battalion) Record of War Service, 1914–1918 (Glasgow: David Clark, 1920), 14–15, 22; 15 & 16/
Warwicks: Simkins, Kitchener’s Army, 86–7.
76
“Draft 158: Interpreters” from the private collection of Paul Biddle. We are grateful to him for providing a copy.
77
Royal Engineers (6); Royal Army Medical Corps (2); Royal Garrison Artillery (1); Machine Gun Corps (1); Royal Flying
Corps (1); Cavalry (1).
bias with fifteen men (60%) from units associated with London and its environs.78
Additionally, there is also a class bias with twelve (48%) coming from middle-class
Territorial battalions or yeomanry regiments.79
Given the IOs’ predominantly middle-class origins and prior membership of class-con-
scious units, it is not surprising that eleven men in the sample were commissioned.80 Two are
special cases; Church of Scotland ministers who enlisted as other ranks, served as IOs, and
were then appointed as army chaplains in 1917.81 Of the remainder, only one was commis-
sioned into the Intelligence Corps, and for censorship not intelligence duties.82 This is odd.
The IOs comprised a pool of generally well-educated German speakers with frontline
experience and should, therefore, have been an obvious recruiting ground for Intelligence
Corps junior officers. However, German heritage sometimes acted as a barrier to commis-
sioned service in that corps.83 In fact, all of those commissioned were of ‘British’ descent, in
that both parents were natural born British subjects, although one (Albrecht) was the
grandson of German immigrants.
II. The trade

As unpacked in the companion article, IToc in the BEF underwent fitful development
from April 1915 until, in the spring of 1916, a meaningful organisation was established.
To exploit German voice communications required German speakers and, more parti-
cularly, ones capable of ‘live logging’ German telephone conversations.84 This section
therefore advances the proposographical analysis by examining the IOs’ selection,
training, and military status.
Initially, German speakers were found by trawling the BEF. The survival of a
Canadian Corps document illustrates how the requirement was articulated in May 1916:
The names are desired of four [non-commissioned officers] or men from each Division
who can be spared for special service to operate with telephone apparatus of a secret
character. All must be so familiar with the German language as to readily understand it
both written and spoken. It would be an advantage if one or more are telephone operators
although such qualification is not essential.85
78
London Regiment (10); Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment (2); King’s Royal Rifle Corps (2), Royal West Kent Regiment (1).
79
5/Londons (6); Yeomanry (4); 9/Londons (1); 9/Highland Light Infantry (1): Frederick Maurice, The History of the
London Rifle Brigade, 1859–1919 (London: Constable, 1921), 52–4; Cuthbert Keeson, The History & Records of Queen
Victoria’s Rifles, 1792–1922 (London: Constable, 1923), 520–1, 571–2; Alec Weir, Come on Highlanders! Glasgow
Territorials in the Great War (Stroud: Sutton, 2005), 10, 14, 22; For the Yeomanry’s social profile, see: George Hay,
The Yeomanry Cavalry and Military Identities in Rural Britain, 1815–1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), 247–
8.
80
Sheffield, Leadership in the Trenches, 32–40. See also: McCartney, Citizen Soldiers, 49, 55.
81
199033 Sapper DM Grant and 199044 Sapper CM Kerr. For the wartime expansion of the army’s chaplaincy, see:
Michael Snape, God & the British Soldier: Religion and the British Army in the First and Second World Wars (London:
Routledge, 2005), 88–90; Edward Madigan, Faith Under Fire: Anglican Army Chaplains and the Great War (Basingstoke:
Palgrave, 2011), 48–56.
82
244982 Sapper MA Albrecht (commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers); 199042 Sapper SF Blackwell (Royal Air Force);
199037 Corporal EH Ferris (Labour Corps); 207372 Sapper TH Gregory-Gould (Machine Gun Corps); 198113 Sapper E
Hamilton (West Yorkshire); 206941 Sapper CEC Hanbury (Intelligence Corps); 244396 Sapper RD Martlew (Royal Tank
Corps); 207357 Sapper GCP McGill (Royal Garrison Artillery); 198143 Sapper AR Vine (King’s Royal Rifle Corps).
83
Beach, Haig’s Intelligence, 76–9.
84
We are grateful to Tony Comer, the GCHQ Historian, for suggesting the term ‘live logging’.
85
IG225, Canadian Corps to 2nd Canadian Division, 16 May 1916, RG9 III C3, Vol. 4104, Folder 16, File 3, Library &
Archives Canada.
Candidates’ language proficiency was confirmed by an interview with an officer from

the intelligence staff of their division or corps. Not all the men proposed were volun-
teers; at least one was surprised to be nominated and sought, successfully, to convince
the interviewing officer that his language skills were insufficient. Those who were
considered to have an adequate command of German were sent straight to listening
sets with no training.86 Initially, they also remained on the strength of their parent unit
and were ‘attached’ to the RE(SS). Putting aside larger issues of administrative efficiency
and group identity, this meant that, in contrast to the signallers within the IToc
stations, they received no extra pay for their specialised work.87
The companion article has explained that these ad hoc arrangements lasted until July
1916 when the extent of German signals intelligence success against the BEF’s trench
communications was revealed. This prompted General Headquarters (GHQ) to initiate
an overhaul of the IToc system. Up to this point the intelligence staff appears to shown
limited interest in IToc. In modern parlance, they seem to have been perceived
primarily as a communications security capability, which was best left within the
remit of the signals staff. That changed suddenly in early July when Lieutenant-
Colonel Walter Kirke of the GHQ intelligence staff effectively took temporary owner-
ship of the problem.88 Within a month Kirke had agreed with the signallers that IToc
apparatus and personnel would be continue to be controlled by the Director of Army
Signals, but his section would assume responsibility for the intelligence aspects. By then
he had also written to the War Office regarding a new manpower establishment for the
listening sets, initiated a fresh trawl for German speakers, and had begun to design a
training course for them.89 Although no direct archival evidence has yet been found, it
would be logical that the decision to create a new trade for IOs within the RE was part
of this general overhaul of IToc in the summer of 1916.
GHQ’s intelligence staff sharing bureaucratic responsibility for a technical means of
intelligence collection has parallels with other areas.90 For example, in 1916 they took
over the management of air photography while the Royal Flying Corps retained control of
camera development and the process of taking the pictures. Similarly, as wireless intelli-
gence came to the fore, the RE signallers intercepting German messages were managed by
Intelligence Corps officers. Although this model generated occasional friction, in the case
of IToc it seems to have been the most sensible way to proceed given that the RE(SS) had
an existing infrastructure that could equip and administer an expanded organisation, and
also manage a new trade group of specialised other ranks. This shared responsibility was
reflected in the training arrangements for IOs. The first course began on 22 August at the
BEF’s Wireless School in Campagne-lès-Hesdin.91 The IToc component at the school
fulfilled more than just a training requirement. Until a reorganisation in the spring of
1917, it also provided a focal point for the development of IToc equipment, organisation,
86
Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 72, 77, 101–10; Oswald Croft interview (1979), Reel 2, IWM Sound Archive 4440; David Winder
Laws, War on Two Wheels, (privately published, 2010).
87
For signallers’ additional pay, see: Hall, Communications, 76.
88
Kirke ran the I(b) sub-section which, amongst other duties, had responsibility for counter-intelligence. For the internal
organisation of GHQ Intelligence, see: Beach, Haig’s Intelligence, 28–30.
89
Diary, 25, 27, 31 July, 7 August 1916, Kirke Papers, 82/28/1, IWM.
90
Beach, Haig’s Intelligence, 151, 160–1.
91
Diary, 21 August 1916, Kirke Papers, 82/28/1, IWM. For contexts of the army’s ‘schools’ and RE(SS) training, see: Fox,
Learning to Fight, 85–94; Hall, Communications, 80–7.
doctrine, and the collation of intelligence from the sets.92 Captain William Rathbone
from the RE(SS) was the ‘Inspecting Officer of Listening Sets’, holding the post from July
1916 until its abolition in March 1917.93 He and an assistant were responsible for the
operational development of listening sets, visiting deployed stations, and for making
recommendations ‘regarding the employment of personnel’.94 The language and intelli-
gence components of training were dealt with by three lieutenants from the Intelligence
Corps; Stanley Griffin, a commercial secretary who Kirke rated as ‘excellent’, Herbert
Class, a music professor, and James Roy, a literature academic.95 As well as teaching on
the courses, these three produced a monthly summary showing the disposition of the
IToc stations, along with ‘a summary of their work from an intelligence point of view’.96
This shared responsibility between RE(SS) and Intelligence Corps personnel seems to
have caused Kirke some concern. In September he recorded that Griffin’s ‘position [is]
not well defined and rather difficult’.97
The early courses at Campagne-lès-Hesdin were only four weeks long and some
parts were compressed for veteran IOs. Towards the end of his re-training, Schürhoff
commented that ‘these days, so full of concentrated work, are making us “loony”. We
are almost expected to cram our heads in a fortnight what others will take eight weeks
to absorb’.98 By January 1918 what had become known as Course ‘I’ was six weeks in
length.99 Because the students were already competent German speakers, the linguistic
element of the training was limited to military vocabulary and jargon. To develop their
ability to ‘live log’ German voice communications, messages were dictated to trainees
over telephones and sometimes by native German speakers.100 Similar techniques were
used to develop the trainees’ ability to record Morse code messages. Here there was no
assumption of prior knowledge or skill, although some men may have had some
experience with Morse during their previous military service. For example, Schürhoff
had undertaken a ‘signalling course’ while serving in the infantry and he therefore set
his sights on fifteen words-a-minute.101 The final component of the course was the use
and care of the intercept equipment.
Until the end of 1916, the trainees were men already employed as interpreters in
IToc stations who, in order to maintain a collection capability in the frontline, were
92
DAS, Circular Memorandum No.154, “Army Wireless Companies and Listening Set Organisation”, 1 November 1916,
WO95/57, TNA.
93
Diary, 16 July 1916, Kirke Papers, 82/28/1, IWM; MO5(a) 1914 application form, [undated], WO339/27556,TNA.
Priestley, Signal Service, 110.
94
DAS, Circular Memorandum No.154, “Army Wireless Companies and Listening Set Organisation”, 1 November 1916,
WO95/57. Schürhoff records Rathbone visiting his station three times between September 1916 and February 1917:
Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 118, 144, 148.
95
Diary, 19, 20, 31 August, 11, 13 October, 2 November 1916, Kirke Papers, 82/28/1, IWM. DAS, Circular Memorandum
No.154, “Army Wireless Companies and Listening Set Organisation,” 1 November 1916, WO95/57; Protection
certificates, 3 December 1919, WO339/87701, 18 February 1920, WO374/14123, TNA; Letter of Application from
and Testimonials in favour of James Alexander Roy MA’, [1920], James Roy personnel file, Locator 2400 Box 7, Queen’s
University Archives.
96
DAS, Circular Memorandum No.154, “Army Wireless Companies and Listening Set Organisation,” 1 November 1916,
WO95/57, TNA.
97
Diary, 25 September 1916, Kirke Papers, 82/28/1, IWM.
98
99
SS152, Instructions for the Training of the British Armies in France’, January 1918, Appendix 20,
www.army.gov.au/our-history/primary-materials/world-war-one-1914-to-1918/training-materials (accessed 16 April
2018); Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 132–8; Oswald Croft interview (1979), Reel 2, IWM Sound Archive 4440.
100
For the primacy of listening skills in this type of signals intelligence work, see: Footitt, “Languages,” 22.
101
presumably withdrawn in batches from the trenches. But as the system matured,
suitable candidates were increasingly taken from units in Britain and concentrated at
RE(SS) depots in Britain.102 Considered to be ‘on probation’ until successful completion
of the IToc course, from December 1916 these men were then formed into groups,
known as drafts, to be taken to France for the final stage of their training.103 Many of
these men would have been compelled into the army by the Military Service Acts.104
The staff and existing students at Campagne-lès-Hesdin looked somewhat askance at a
draft of them who arrived in December 1916. Dubbed ‘the conscripts’, the sergeant-
major was ‘greatly down on them’ and their veteran colleagues also sought to ‘[put] the
wind [. . .] up them’.105 However, some may have actually been 1914 and 1915 volun-
teers who were serving with home units when recruited into IToc; and at least one was
a veteran of Gallipoli.106 This conscious delineation by the trench veterans also marked
a generational shift between the two groups of interpreters. Whereas those who had
been detached in 1916 from regiments on the Western Front had been trained in an ad
hoc way, newcomers with no prior interception experience required a more structured
training journey.
Successful completion of the course and subsequent transfer to the RE(SS) resulted
in cosmetic changes for many; a new cap badge, different trousers and equipment, as
well as a signaller’s blue and white armband.107 But there were also tangible financial
rewards to becoming a ‘Sapper’ in the RE.108 Sappers were entitled to ‘engineer pay’
plus an additional amount based on a man’s competence within his trade, which was
defined on a rising scale from ‘proficient’, through ‘skilled’ and ‘superior’, to ‘very
superior’. Looking at the sample, the majority of men left Campagne-lès-Hesdin as
‘proficient’ IOs and most advanced subsequently to ‘skilled’ after a serving in IToc
stations. None ever achieved ‘superior’ or ‘very superior’. This meant for an ordinary
infantry private that passing the IToc course would lead to an immediate doubling of
his daily pay.109 Prior to the new IO trade being officially approved in the late summer
of 1916, men were transferred temporarily to the RE as Telegraphist (Wireless
Operator) at the end of their course.110 They were later remustered as IOs and, from
September 1916, almost all Campagne-lès-Hesdin graduates became IOs on completion
of the course. However, a small number became Telegraphist (Field Line) at the end of
their training even though they were employed as IOs and subsequently remustered as
such.111 This seems to have been an administrative sleight-of-hand to allow the transfer
of men to an RE trade, with its pay benefits, even though they had failed to meet some
of the standards required of IOs. From Croft and Schürhoffs’ accounts, some men
102
For the evolution of RE(SS) depots in Britain, see: War Office, “Directorate of Organisation,” 501, WO162/6, TNA.
103
The records of 244945 Sapper J Hazell, 360581 Lance Corporal J Slater, and 547652 Sapper CH Tetley show that the
‘probationary’ status of potential IOs on arrival in France was a cause of later administrative confusion.
104
For the introduction of conscription in Britain, see: Jim McDermott, British Military Service Tribunals, 1916–1918
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), 11–14.
105
106
199037 Corporal EH Ferris.
107
Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 138; 246042 Sapper P Hellinger family photographs. Our thanks to Keith Hellinger.
108
Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 103, 138; .
109
Charles Messenger, Call-to-Arms, The British Army 1914–18, (London: Cassell, 2006), 451; Royal Warrant for the Pay,
Appointment, Promotion and Non-Effective Pay of the Army (London: HMSO,1914), 190–196.
110
For example, 198162 Lance Corporal EA Deal and 198113 Sapper E Hamilton.
111
For example, 244943 Sapper P Fishel and 246041 Sapper WL Holden.
struggled particularly in meeting the required Morse speeds so it seems likely that this,
rather than poor language skills, created the barrier.112 Given that some were subse-
quently remustered as ‘skilled’ IOs, experience in the stations seems to have helped
them reach the required level.
Following their training, IOs were posted to an army-level Wireless Company where,
along with other flavours of IToc station personnel, they were then allocated to
subordinate corps headquarters. In June 1917, as part of wider changes, the BEF’s
wireless organisation, which had existed as a semi-independent fiefdom within the RE
(SS), was subsumed into the wider signals organisation. Army Wireless Companies
were disbanded and their personnel dispersed to form wireless sections within signal
companies at all levels. The IToc personnel therefore found themselves in the listening
sub-sections of new wireless sections at corps-level.113
The number of IOs needed to man the BEF’s listening sets was laid down by the War
Office in signal unit establishment tables.114 These manning levels also applied to the
ANZAC Corps and, subsequently, to the British forces in Italy. However, the Canadian
Corps had twenty-seven IOs, which is consistent with their generous resourcing of all types
of intelligence work.115 In 1917, enough IOs to man four stations were also authorised for
the Egyptian Expeditionary Force but none could be identified during the research.116 As
Table 4 shows, the authorised number of IOs grew noticeably in the winter of 1916/1917 to
over 160 where it remained until a dramatic fall in the autumn of 1918. This conforms to
the known general decline of IToc collection in 1918, as explained more fully in the
companion article, and specifically with a decrease in German use of telephones and a
corresponding increase in their use of ‘buzzer’ which saw the replacement of IOs with
Telegraphists (Wireless Operator) who were generally better able to intercept Morse.117
Table 4. Authorised number of interpreter operators in the BEF.

Date Unit Allocation BEF Corps BEF Armies Total
September 1916 Army Wireless Company 6 per corps 16 96
April 1917 8 per corps 18 5 164
+ 4 per army HQ
June 1917 Corps Signal Company 9 18 162
February 1918 9 19 171
October 1918 3 19 57
Sources: War Office Establishments 355 (11 September 1916), 501/77 (3 April 1917), 553 (15 June 1917), 1019 (27 February
1918), 1801/67 (31 October 1918), WO24/908, 911, 912, 918, 926, TNA; Becke, Order of Battle, Part 4, 131–263.
112
Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 137; Oswald Croft interview (1979), Reel 2, IWM Sound Archive 4440.
113
Hall, Communications, 43–4.
114
Delays in their formal authorisation meant that establishment tables always lagged behind the reality at the front.
Therefore the manning levels in Fig.4 were probably introduced in advance of the dates cited.
115
116
Geology and the nature of Ottoman forward communications may have limited IToc’s employment in Palestine.
However, it is possible that the British used the physical ‘tapping’ of cables. Furthermore, the absence of IOs from this
theatre within the sample might be explained if linguists were selected and trained locally, as was the case with the
EEF’s wireless interception capability: DAS EEF war diary, 8 August, 6 September, 20 October 1917, WO95/4387; XX
Corps Signal Company war diary, 29 June, 1 July 1918, WO95/4487, TNA; War Office Establishment 931 (21 January
1918), WO24/917, TNA; “Record of work done in AG7 Branch of War Office during War, August 1914 to December
1918”, [undated], 503, WO162/6, TNA; Yigal Sheffy, British Military Intelligence in the Palestine Campaign, 1914–1918
(London: Frank Cass, 1998), 245. Lycett to Tozer, 2 May 1948, HW3/88, TNA.
117
Priestley, Signal Service, 111; Third Army wireless intelligence summaries, 5, 12, 19 March 1918, WO157/160, TNA;
War Office Establishment 1801/67 (31 October 1918), WO24/926, TNA.
The question arises as to whether the actual manning matched the establishment? As
collated in Table 5, by using known dates of IOs’ transfers to the RE, and assuming the
allocation of RE service numbers was generally sequential, it is possible to estimate
cumulative numbers of trained IOs. Although the pattern of the service numbers is not
exact, by aligning this data to what is known about the courses at Campagne-lès-Hesdin, it
would appear that the training evolved over three distinct phases.118 The first, through to
the end of 1916, was of around fifty men already employed on listening sets. The second,
lasting until June 1917, produced about sixty new men. Presumably because of the
summer offensives, training then paused which, given a course length of four to six
weeks, means that fresh recruits stopped entering the training system between late May
and July. The pipeline then reopened in late September or early October for a third phase
of training that produced another forty or so men in the winter of 1917/1918. This was
sufficient to almost fill the establishment. However, beyond that point, only a handful
passed through training in 1918. The last man identified did so in September and, rather
strangely, he is recorded as being ‘somewhat deaf in both ears’.119 Hesdin also trained
Table 5. Probable number of interpreter operators in the BEF.

IOs identified by RE transfer date IOs identified as %
Date (cumulative) Establishment of establishment
1916
September 23 96 24
October 32 33
November 50 52
December 50 52
1917
January 50 52
February 68 71
March 87 91
April 87 164 53
May 112 68
June 112 162 69
July 112 69
August 112 69
September 112 69
October 112 69
November 112 69
December 136 84
1918
January 136 84
February 136 171 80
March 145 85
April 145 85
May 156 91
June 156 91
July 156 91
August 156 91
September 158 92
October 158 57 277
November 158 277
Sources: Service records of IOs; Table 4.
118
Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 132–8; “Record of work done in AG7 Branch of War Office during War, August 1914 to
December 1918”, [undated], 467, 474, WO162/6, TNA; “Draft 158: Interpreters” from private collection.
119
362981 Sapper R Klopfenstein.
Australian and Canadian IOs for service with their national corps. The throughput of the
latter generally confirms the phasing described above.120
As noted in the introduction, in July 1918 the BEF’s Intelligence Corps sought to
regularise its personnel administration by transferring its other ranks to a notional 10
(B) battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. Almost half (49%) of IOs transferred, mostly in two
distinct groups, the first of 42 men in July 1918 on the initial formation of 10(B) Royal
Fusiliers, followed by a further 39 in late 1918 and early 1919. This second tranche was
part of larger group of about 100 transferees probably extending their wartime enlist-
ments in response to the army’s need for men to serve in peacetime army.121 Transfer
appears to have been voluntary and there was some element of selection which resulted
in at least one volunteer being rejected, perhaps on security grounds.122 The War Office
sought to lay down nationality rules for enlistment/re-enlistment in the post-war army,
but as with earlier War Office policy on this subject, there is no evidence that these were
systematically applied to IOs.123
A number of these transferees served in the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR), the
occupation force in Germany. There are strong suggestions of signals intelligence
activity in that force, given that it included a wireless intercept unit until late 1919
and a ‘Special Wireless Section’ was established in Cologne.124 Furthermore, in 1920 the
GHQ intelligence section included a ‘Signal Security Section’ which may have had also
been a cover name.125 These indications are corroborated by the War Office official who
managed intelligence manpower. After visiting Cologne in 1919, he recorded that ‘men
are employed in listening on all telephone lines, principally trunk lines into unoccupied
territory’.126 This work may have involved former IOs, but it seems likely that their
language skills were also used on counter-intelligence and interpreter duties with the
army or other inter-allied organisations.127
III. The life

The IOs’ military life was rather different to that experienced by other British soldiers,
especially those in larger units such as infantry battalions.128 To fully understand the
group, this point-of-difference needs to be properly explored. This section therefore
120
Australian Corps HQ Signals Wireless Section, Australian War Memorial, AWM4 22/25/1, AWM; Steel, “Wireless
Telegraphy,” 373.
121
Army Order 4/1919 of 10 December 1918, WO123/61, TNA.
122
123
”Directorate of Organisation,” 645, WO162/6, TNA.
124
General Staff, “Orders of Battle of Army of the Rhine, 1919”, WO95/5470, TNA. The latter nomenclature had been
used for intercept units in the Middle East: “Special Wireless Section Egypt, April 1916 to October 1916”, W0001/381,
Royal Engineers Museum; 4 Wireless Observation Group war diary, WO95/5001, TNA.
125
GHQ BAOR, “Memorandum on the work of the Section of Civil Affairs & Security,” 12 December 1929, Acc.1346,
Military Intelligence Museum.
126
Robert Page’s wartime scrapbook was auctioned in 2014 and the sale description included quotes from his
manuscript annotations: https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/21999/lot/38/ (accessed 24 November 2018).
127
For example, 251857 Sapper B Rabin was serving in the Intelligence Police on counter-intelligence duties with the
Security Section of the Military Governor, BAOR in January 1920: HO144/1613/394514, TNA. Similarly, 207386 Sapper
JJ Friederick was discharged from GHQ BAOR in March 1920 to join the Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission.
Furthermore, 251857 Sapper B Rabin and 198142 Sapper VW Watt both married German women, suggesting the
nature of their duties allowed them to interact with the local populace.
128
Other members of the RE(SS) were more closely integrated with other soldiers because they operated communica-
tion systems within headquarters: Hall, Communications, 77–80.
unpacks the IOs’ military duties, physical environment, exposure to danger, relation-
ship with authority, and social interactions.
The location and activities demanded by the IOs’ military role shaped their relation-
ship with the wider military environment. Like other specialist intelligence collectors,
such as flash-spotters, sound-rangers, and the Lovat Scouts, they were deployed to
dispersed and static locations where they remained for lengthy periods of time.129 These
IToc stations were usually located in dug-outs or the cellars of destroyed buildings
towards the rear of the British trench system.130
According to the army’s 1917 guidelines, IOs should have been rotated out of the
stations every third week.131 Analysing the only IO for whom useable data is available,
Table 6 shows this theory to be consistent with practice, although early 1917 was
noticeably more arduous. This may be explained by the aforementioned peak in the
training system causing a temporary shortage of IOs. Comparing this with recent
crowdsourced research on war diaries, the IOs’ tours of duty were comparable with
those of the artillery.132 However, as has already been noted, the IOs were also detached
sometimes to intelligence duties in the rear for extended periods and this would have
reduced their ‘trench time’ overall.
Assuming enemy messages could be intercepted, the May 1917 guidance for IToc
stations gives us some insight into the core work of the IOs.133 First of all, the IO on
duty had to record which wire loop or earth had detected the message, along with the
details of the enemy call signs and their Morse equivalent. Then, ‘every conversation [was]
written down in conversational form and, wherever possible, a separate line and number
given to each speaker’. Space was to be preserved for subsequent, side-by-side translation.
Similarly, Morse messages had to be noted along with remarks on the strength of the
enemy buzzers. Any cipher messages were to be recorded verbatim, including details of
how the speaker had chosen to pronounce any four-number groups. And all of this was to
be done at speed and probably by candlelight. Given a ‘noisy’ signals environment and that
many messages would have been barely audible, even after amplification, this ‘live logging’
would have been very challenging. Clearly this role demanded considerable mental focus
when working on the amplifier during a busy period. The IOs also experienced all the
Table 6. Vince Schürhoff’s tours of duty in IToc stations.

Dates Total days Days at station (%)
9 June to 29 November 1916 173 112 65
5 January to 4 April 1917 89 76 85
16 August to 21 March 1918 217 139 65
Source: Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 101–132, 140–161, 199–245.
129
130
131
SS165, “Listening Set Posts,” May 1917, reproduced in Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 302.
132
Artillery units spent around 60% of their time in the line: Richard Grayson, “A Life in the Trenches? The use of
Operation War Diary and crowdsourcing methods to provide an understanding of the British army’s day-to-day life on
the Western Front”, British Journal of Military History, 2:2 (2016), 160–85.
133
Appendix A, “Main Points to be observed in entering up Listening Forms,” SS165, “Listening Set Posts,” May 1917,
reproduced in Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 314–6. The difficulties of achieving interceptions have already been dealt with by
the companion article.
Table 7. Identified interpreter operators (wireless).

108152 Bernard EP Neinhaus 207373 Robert WB Pugh 251768 Reginald S Stanleigh
148149 David C Griffiths 207375 George CP McGill 251769 John KR Frey
148302 Joseph Diamond 207377 George E Hay 251857 Ben Rabin
172621 Charles J Dalton 207378 Stewart F Ramsay 254447 Norman R Crute
176014 Herbert S Dymond 207380 James A Milne 254448 Maurice Griffe
196023 John L Hampson 207384 Arthur WW Coton 312350 Constantin Sartinsky
197899 Otto J Wallis-Stolzle 207385 Joseph EE Shore 341134 Frederick BV Illingworth
197901 Harry WJ Boyce 207386 John J Friederick 357731 Wilfred H Pitcher
197902 Ulrich Koch 236799 Frederick JL Chick 357732 Allan Stewart
197905 William A Smith 236800 Robert P Jones 357733 Dennis L Nash
197914 Herbert J Benoly 236801 Francis L Calver 357734 Lionel HW Saunders
197916 Thomas C Baines 236901 Alfred H De Swarte 357735 James Taylor
198109 Joseph CW Eoll 236905 Carl F Juulman 357736 Edwin NDV Dawson
198110 Richard H Linder 236906 Alan F Jackson 357738 Clifford Fuller
198113 Edward Hamilton 236907 Isaac I Mazzier 357739 William F Hoyle
198142 Victor W Watt 236937 Adolph Goldberg 357740 Jack Finkel
198143 Arthur R Vine 244934 Elcanon Sanina 357741 Lawrence A Bisson
198144 William Roberts 244936 Raymend D Martlew 358105 Movcha M Slaweit
198145 Fritz V Schürhoff 244937 Charles Rudy 358106 Robert E Brown
198153 George N Borrow 244938 Jacob Grobsztein 358107 Fredrick C Redemann
198162 Evererd A Deal 244939 Herbert V Bush 358108 Percy EG Phillips
198163 George L McLaren 244940 Frederick W Cox 358109 John Patten
198164 Richard R Short 244941 Henry W Willcox 358110 Nathan Jacobwicy
198165 Oswald H Cohen 244942 Joseph Glass 358111 John T Stone
198166 Archibald LP Mason 244943 Paul Fishel 358113 William EG Cameron
199032 James R Cripps 244945 John Hazell 358116 John G Lloyd
199033 Donald M Grant 244946 Henry Madsen 359805 Jules Meurs
199037 Ernest H Ferris 244948 Charles HM Hillier 360138 Wilfred N Falding
199042 Edward E Walker 244949 Edward Treufeldt 360139 Charles F Laxton
199043 Sydney F Blackwell 244950 Sydney Sippert 360420 Halfdan W Haines
199044 Colin M Kerr 244979 Nicol K Kempton 360421 Norman Bray
199048 Forester Mills 244981 Janno Brande 360423 Charles Hennion
199049 Robert H Beach 244982 Martin H Albrecht 360578 Cecil H Todd
199050 David G Larg 244984 Sydney G Baines 360579 Frank EH Dearle
206928 Robert Liddell 245351 Curtis Black 360580 Leonard MB Waite
206929 Harold E Loveday 245478 Clifford Ogden 360581 James Slater
206934 Ernest EG Tucker 245907 John Behrens 360582 William NP Hill
206935 Walter Breakey 246021 Czeslas M Sztencel 360583 Richard H Swinglehurst
206936 William G Von Ahn 246038 Clarence C Lowden 361554 Archibald HT Mirrielees
206937 Robert Dewhurst 246039 Herbert O Crisp 361626 Andrew Stand
206938 William F Auckenthaler 246041 Walter L Holden 362428 Bindon CAW Lydiard
206941 Cecil EC Hanbury 246042 Percy Hellinger 362981 Robert Klopfenstein
206943 Charles C Edwards 246044 Stanislas Souque 423193 James Anderson
206945 Andrew Pahl 246046 William J Fortune 458983 John HV Sutcliffe
206946 Oliver P Benkert 246048 Alfred P Cabinil 471920 Jacob Grenbaum
206947 Charles Delafield 246053 Marc Rosenberg 547652 Charles H Tetley
206948 Richard Lederer 250947 Ronald Smith 547902 Rene A Sewell
206949 William A Deakin 250948 James Cracknell 547905 Aron Juwiler
206950 Arthur F Barnard 250950 Herbert W Needs 547907 Paul Sherard
206951 Roland U South 250951 Walter W Hilliger 549614 Richard G Coates
206952 Ernest White 250966 John Vincent Palmer 553901 Rafael D Fermo
206987 William H Morris 251766 Alfred J Cheyne 553902 Lazar D Fermo
207372 Thomas H Gregory-Gould 251767 Ferdinand Friedenthal 562410 Albert J Salomon
normal stress and danger of a troglodyte life in the trenches. Additionally, the continual
need to manhandle sixty-pound batteries to and from the trenches was a particular
irritation for the IToc stations’ personnel.134 Understandably, some suffered from health
difficulties, both physical and mental. For example, one man’s subsequent claim for a
134
Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 88, 147–8, 159–61, 232.
disability pension blamed his ‘heart and lung trouble’ explicitly on ‘too long periods in
dug-outs’.135 One IO ‘broke down with strenuous work at a listening post’, while another
developed ‘nervous, suicidal thoughts’.136 It is also possible that IO service was a factor in
the post-war suicide of a third man.137
Theoretically, the IToc stations were manned by nine men with a corporal in com-
mand, but Schürhoff’s diary confirms they often operated with fewer personnel due to
leave, sickness, or other mundane reasons.138 Significantly, the stations were usually some
distance from the headquarters of their parent signals unit.139 Their officers made near-
daily visits to the stations, but they did not stay for long periods and almost certainly not
overnight. This contact was augmented by station personnel, particularly the commander,
making trips to the rear to rendezvous with officers or senior non-commissioned officers
to replenish the amplifier’s batteries or pick up rations. Additionally, there were occa-
sional visits by local sector commanders and their intelligence officers, or technical checks
made by Rathbone during his tenure as Inspector of Listening Sets.140 The disciplinary
context is also important. Again, Schürhoff’s diary provides considerable insight. He
paints a picture of commanding his team as much by negotiation as by the formal
authority of his rank.141 His account also suggests that disciplinary matters were usually
resolved internally. Within the IO sample, this suggestion is corroborated by very few
instances of formal disciplinary action being taken against IOs whilst serving in IToc.142
Schürhoff also indicates a rather consensual command relationship between their wireless
officer superiors and the IToc station commanders. Discussion and negotiation over tasks
appears to have been quite normal in his case and, in one instance, Schürhoff was
blatantly insubordinate in challenging one junior officer for perceived incompetence.143
The primary explanation for this blurring of the rank hierarchy probably lies in the IOs’
backgrounds. As explained earlier, two-thirds had professional or commercial
occupations.144 This is significantly greater than the thirteen percent of wartime other
ranks who had the same ‘white collar’ employment.145 In these circumstances it is
perhaps unsurprising that one wireless officer annoyed his superiors when he admitted
treating the IOs ‘as equals’ because of their ‘superior education’ in comparison to other
135
206928 Sapper R Liddell. He was awarded a 20% disability pension.
136
246041 Sapper WL Holden; 357731 Sapper WH Pitcher.
137
199033 Sapper DM Grant. A Church of Scotland minister, he served as an IO in France from October 1916 until June
1917 when he became a military chaplain. He saw no active service in that role and was admitted to Craiglockhart in
November 1917 suffering from ‘morbid worries’ and insomnia caused by his service in France. Discharged in 1920, he
drowned himself in 1929.
138
Beach, ed., Schürhoff, passim.
139
During his time in IToc, Schürhoff’s superior officer was normally based three or four miles from the station: Beach,
ed., Schürhoff, passim.
140
Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 118, 144, 148.
141
Ibid., 81–2.
142
Of the five charged with military offences whilst serving as IOs, three (244940 Sapper FW Cox, 360582 Sapper WNP
Hill, and 246038 Sapper CC Lowden) were charged with single instances of being late for or absent from parades. This
suggests their offences were committed whilst out of the line. A fourth (244943 Sapper P Fishel) was found guilty of
insolence to an NCO. The heaviest sentence was Lowden’s loss of four days pay. The fifth case (244981 Sapper JN
Brande) was sentenced to fourteen days Field Punishment No.2 for accidentally shooting himself in the thigh,
although there was no suggestion of his action being deliberate. For general context on military discipline, see: Clive
Emsley, Soldier, Sailor, Beggarman, Thief: Crime and the British Armed Services since 1914 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2013), 16–83.
143
Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 82, 160–1. Kirke noted concerns about the wireless officers being their early twenties: Diary, 25
October 1916, Kirke Papers, 82/28/1, IWM.
144
For disconnects between ‘civilian standing’ and ‘military authority’, see: McCartney, Citizen Soldiers, 48–9.
145
War Office, Statistics, 706–7.
signallers.146 Similarly, underlying class-based resentment towards the IOs might explain
them being seen as ‘odd men out’ and apparently ‘disliked by all’ within one frontline
signals unit.147 A secondary factor may have been that IOs as a group were generally
older than the junior wireless officers who directly supervised them. However, it should
be noted that a differential in officers/other ranks’ maturity was not unique to IOs and
quite normal within the wider RE(SS), where signals officers were predominantly in their
twenties while most signallers were mostly divided evenly between their twenties and
thirties.148 This rather light-touch supervision also helped the IOs make the most of their
off-duty time. When combined with special ‘intelligence’ status and passes, long periods
in one area, and often French language skills, they were able to take full advantage of the
relaxation opportunities available behind the lines.149
Although the IToc stations were formally subordinated to the RE(SS) and relied
upon that organisation for tasking and technical support, they also interacted with local
infantry units; the latter helping to provide suitable accommodation and sometimes
rations.150 Given they could provide warnings of enemy intentions and other forms of
intelligence support, the IToc stations were presumably welcomed by local
commanders.151 But, as explained fully in the companion article, their communications
security function required them to report any breaches of signalling regulations. One
signals historian suggested that these ‘police activities often brought wrath from above
on their infantry hosts, [and] the unfortunate detachments usually met with an
unfriendly reception’.152 That said, a pragmatic relationship between the stations and
their neighbours could emerge. As one battalion history noted, in June 1917:
We [. . .] received a rather futile complaint from the authorities, so to prevent a repetition
of similar rebukes we made a suitable arrangement with the Listening Set personnel, who
were [re]located [to] a dug-out they had long coveted, and after that our conversations,
when picked up, were treated with more discretion.153
Although not positioned at the front of the British trench system, the IOs experienced
daily dangers. The continual requirement to leave their dug-out to maintain the loops,
earths, and lines of the interception equipment put them at risk, particularly from
bombardments.154 But they were in most danger when British positions came under
infantry attack. Trench raids were a potential problem, but the stations’ locations meant
the enemy would have to penetrate very deeply to kill, wound, or capture an IO. That
said, in March 1917 a successful German raid came close to reaching Schürhoff’s station
where, being underground, they remained ignorant of its proximity.155 More serious
was the threat from a more general offensive. As the companion article has highlighted,
because the IToc stations could produce vital tactical intelligence they had to remain in
146
147
Ibid., 296.
148
Hall, Communications, 65, 73.
149
This aspect is unpacked at length in: Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 95–7. For the broader context, see: Craig Gibson, Behind
the Front: British Soldiers and French Civilians, 1914–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
150
151
For example, Schürhoff was used to question a prisoner captured in a raid: Beach, ed., Schürhoff, 213–5.
152
Nalder, Royal Corps of Signals, 108.
153
CE Wurtzburg, The History of the 2/6th (Rifle) Battalion ‘The King’s’ (Liverpool Regiment), (Aldershot: Gale & Polden,
1920), 103–4.
154
155
situ until the last safe moment before withdrawing. On the Italian front one IToc
station was overrun during the Austro-Hungarian offensive in June 1918. Although the
team managed to destroy the amplifier and set their station alight, they left it too late as
the surrounding infantry had already pulled back. Most evaded capture and made it
back to the British lines ‘through [an] intense barrage’. Of the station’s five IOs, one was
killed in action, another later died from his wounds, and a third was subsequently
found ‘several miles behind the line suffering from shell shock’.156 Looking at the
sample, at least six IOs were captured on the Western Front; four in March 1918 and
two in May 1918.157 Although direct evidence regarding their captivity has not been
found, their German language skills would presumably have been useful in a prison
camp. That said, while Charles Delafield (born Karl Auguste Dellschaft) may have
passed unnoticed through the German screening process, William Gottfried Von Ahn
would have presumably piqued the interest of his interrogators.158
Because of their language skills, the IOs were also employed in a variety of intelli-
gence tasks beyond the IToc stations. As the companion article has noted, these
included prisoner handling and interrogation, document translation, and eavesdrop-
ping on officer prisoners.159 Additionally, some IOs were used in two specialised signals
intelligence roles. The first was to intercept air/ground communications. All armies
used aircraft to direct artillery fire and, from late 1915, the British sought to intercept
these coded Morse messages to provide warnings, locate German artillery positions, and
direct their own aircraft against the aerial ‘spotters’.160 By 1918 the Germans were using
wireless voice messages which were difficult to ‘live log’ except by ‘interpreters familiar
with shorthand. These were difficult to get and eventually modified “Dictaphones” were
used with considerable success’. It seems this work only used one or two IOs per
army.161 The second specialised role was cryptanalysis. Within the BEF, German codes
and ciphers were attacked by the intelligence section at GHQ. In the spring of 1917 a
separate cryptanalysis organisation, designated as I(e), was formed at Saint Omer.
Smaller I(e) sections also existed at army-level but appear to have been primarily
focused on traffic analysis.162 At least one IO was employed on cryptanalysis in GHQ
from October 1916,163 and a later draft establishment for I(e) called for ten ‘interpreter
and wireless operators’ in the ‘Wireless Section’. However, this was amended at the
insistence of the RE to ten ‘interpreter clerks’ on the grounds that an ‘interpreter
operator’ was a specific RE trade. This would suggest that perhaps not all German-
156
AD Signals GHQ Italy war diary, WO95/4200. 197916 Sapper TC Baines & 341134 Pioneer F Illingworth were killed.
Baines’ brother, 224984 Sapper SG Baines was serving as an IO on the Western Front.
157
March 1918: 206947 Sapper C Delafield, 207377 Sapper GE Hay, 207378 Sapper SF Ramsay and 206936 Sapper WG
Von Ahn; May 1918: 246038 Sapper CC Lowden and 197905 Sapper WA Smith.
158
For German handling of BEF prisoners, see: Aaron Pegram, “Informing the Enemy: Australian Prisoners and German
Intelligence on the Western Front, 1916–1918,” First World War Studies 4, no. 2 (2013): 167–84.
159
Their intelligence duties aside, French-speaking IOs were also used as bi-lingual telephone operators in XXII Corps
when operating under French command in July 1918: Priestley, Signal Service, 305.
160
Ia/22963, GHQ I(a), “Interception of Hostile Artillery Aeroplane Wireless Messages,” 3 December 1916, AIR1/209/1/52,
TNA.
161
GCHQ, “Draft, History of Military SIGINT, 1914–1935” (1950), 7, HW3/90; GHQ(I) IC/7084, 7 December 1917, WO158/
962, TNA; “Organisation of Intelligence, HQ British [Fifth] Army” [undated], Arthur Conger Papers, United States Army
Military History Institute.
162
James Bruce, “‘A shadowy entity’: M.I.1(b) and British Communications Intelligence, 1914–1922,” Intelligence and
National Security 32, no. 3 (2017): 321.
163
250191 Sapper WW Hilliger. Diary, 5 October 1916, Kirke Papers, 82/28/1, IWM. Corroborated by: Olivia Chevallier
memoir, 169, privately held. Our thanks to Deidre Farrar for providing a copy.
speaking other ranks employed in signals intelligence were IOs.164 But, sadly, the
fragmentary nature of the evidence does not allow a clear conclusion.
***
Within an army of three-and-a-half million, a couple of hundred IOs were but a tiny
fraction of Britain’s war effort.165 But the intelligence capability they provided was, as
the companion article has concluded, much greater than their small numbers might
imply. Their core work and everyday life in the trenches was captured by one of their
number in September 1917:
A sleep after my 2 am to 8 am spell [on the amplifier] did me some good and after dinner a
walk [. . .] to fetch water did me still more good [. . .] During my 4 pm to 8 pm spell came
to the conclusion that the Bosches had been relieved and, advising Battalion HQ, found my
conclusion was justified.166
This snapshot is, on one level, utterly unremarkable; there is no great intelligence
‘coup’, nor any other form of military drama. But the context is important. The IO
in question was, at that point, three weeks into his tour of duty in the trenches and it
would be another week before he would be relieved.167 Therefore, on another level it
reveals the individual stoicism needed to spend long periods living underground in
order to wear a headset for up to six hours at a time, so as to listen to enemy messages.
As the quote implies, the intelligence snippets gathered were rarely in themselves
significant but, when built up incrementally, they could offer a significant contribution
to the all-source tactical intelligence picture. This article has provided a comprehensive
understanding of the men who undertook this difficult, mundane, and yet still impor-
tant work. And by adopting a prosopographical approach it has illuminated the
personnel dimension of the tactical signals intelligence system that was examined
within the companion article. This was more than just a supplement; its findings also
imply that human resources underpinned the system’s performance. Oswald Croft’s
1979 suggestion was therefore correct; the linguists were rather important.
Reflecting upon its content, this article has also done three broader things. It has
closely examined a process by which an army identified, trained, and managed a group
of specialist personnel. Because their work grew out of the communications context, the
framework created for them was determined, to a great extent, by the signals service’s
prior experience in managing its skilled manpower. However, their direct connection
with the army’s intelligence system gave them a semi-independent status which, on the
ground, gave these small groups of specialists some considerable latitude to determine
the pattern of their daily lives. Second, the article has explored the connections between
class, familial heritage, and language skills. And in so doing it has offered, in micro-
cosm, a fascinating case study of how military intelligence harnessed those skills to
support their operations. Moving beyond anecdotes and extrapolation from individual
examples, this approach has broken new ground methodologically. It shows how
prosopographical techniques might, in future, be applied to other military intelligence
164
GHQ(I) IC/7084, 19 August 1917; GHQ(I) IC 1/1, 30 May 1918, WO185/962, TNA.
165
War Office, Statistics, 29.
166
167
Ibid., 199–207.
organisations. Finally, although the exact investigative processes adopted for this article
may not have wider applicability, it is hoped that the general methodology may be a
helpful exemplar for other military historians. Systematic detective work using digitised
Other Ranks’ records could unlock other fresh insights into the British army during the
First World War.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Jim Beach is Senior Lecturer in Twentieth Century History at the University of Northampton.
His research focuses upon British military intelligence during the First World War. He is the
author of Haig’s Intelligence: GHQ and the German Army, 1916-1918 (2013).
James Bruce is a former civil servant. He was research assistant to Professor John Ferris, author
of the forthcoming centenary history of GCHQ. His personal research interest is pre-1939
British signals intelligence.
ORCID
Jim Beach http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4782-6809
James Bruce http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9101-9211

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Journal of Intelligence History

ISSN: 1616-1262 (Print) 2169-5601 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjih20

British signals intelligence in the trenches,

Jim Beach & James Bruce

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/16161262.2019.1659581

© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa

Published online: 23 Sep 2019.

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British signals intelligence in the trenches, 1915–1918: part 2,

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

CONTACT Jim Beach jim.beach@northampton.ac.uk

biography’.6 Rather than people being selected arbitrarily to illustrate a biographical

Table 1. Interpreter operators’ nationality and familial descent.

Table 2. Interpreter operators’ occupations.

Table 3. Interpreter operators’ occupations by familial descent.

II. The trade

Candidates’ language proficiency was confirmed by an interview with an officer from

Table 4. Authorised number of interpreter operators in the BEF.

Table 5. Probable number of interpreter operators in the BEF.

III. The life

Table 6. Vince Schürhoﬀ’s tours of duty in IToc stations.

Table 7. Identiﬁed interpreter operators (wireless).

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