The Oakley herald. [volume] (Oakley, Idaho) 1908-1961, 1918-07-26

Chamber out of dugouts into the slush and the
freezing wind of winter night to feel their way
along broken wire, sometimes over the she-pit-
ted open ground behind the trenches until they
find the break then sitting in ice water under fire
they repair 1t carefully and skillfully as II they
at work In the shop at home. 1t often takes
three or four to repair one Of these breaks;
the first men sent out may never come back
Repaired at all costs the wire must be. and dan
ger does not excuse a slipshod bit Of work. For
the signal system of the army Is what the nerv-
Ms system is to the human body.
without 1t the modern army covering 100 miles
Of front ca mot see, feel or move. The army COM
mander wishing to move portion Of his line oO
miles away to change the rapidly Of his artil-
lery fire to receive information OF enemy move
ments is helpless without the slender threads OF
copper as he Would be If he wished to move his
right and found the nerves parayzed.
There are still people Of intelligence who think
that the transmission Of military thought is summed
up In the Of the notebook the orderly and his
horse" writes Brig. Gen. George P. Scriven. but
these passing, and the trained soldier and the
educated volunteer understand the vital mpor-
lance Of information.
Hence the necessity for signal corps or its
equivalent, for without Its aid modern armies can
no more be controlled than can great railway sys-
TENS; the commander In the field remains blind
and deaf to the events occurring around him, In
capable of maintaining touch with conditions and
thority upon whom he depends for the execution Of
his plans. The brain lacks the power to control
because the nerves are lacking.
thine is the main factor In war; to arrive first
with the greatest number of men and with the
cearest understanding of the situation is to sue
ceed The last and often the first. OF these condi-
tons depends upon the lines of information of the
army"
And these lines in turn depend upon the obscure
but daring work of the repairman, the grimy,
mucky hard listed mechanic who crawls on his
belly through shell fire calculated to appau the
stoutest heart and connects the break between the
commander and the point he wishes to reach.
Somehow the lines are kept open all the time or
ore broken for only short intervals, and the
slant tending of them has made possible in France
n system of wire communication that Is marvel
OF efficiency. Indeed perfect Is 1t that London
and Paris are In direct connection with general
headquarters on the British front which in turn is
in touch with every division and brigade staff on
the line. wire could be put straight through so
that Lloyd George If he wished could hear the
bursting of high explosives and shrapnel on the
Amens front
This tremendous use of the telephone and tele
graph in warfare is partly the result of the In
petus arising from the American application of
electrical communication on large scale in the
Spanish war. The signal corps it now exists is
9 comparatively recent evolution.
In the American army the idea first arose in
the mind of young army surgeon Albert James
Myer. The office of signal officer OF the army was
created in June, 1850, the first of its kind and
Myer was appointed. He was at once sent with
an expedition against Navajo Indians In New Mex
leo. and his crude apparatus once demon
strated its worth.
! When the Civil war began he was ordered East
and opened school for signalers and in that was
the definite beginning of the present signal corps
Wires were carried on horse muehack then the
| tell
munication and precious thing The
service took tremendous Importance in the
| Spanish and followed the troops through Cuha
and the Philippines and in China was the only