The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1918-06-15

idSuLIb CNtIO 1hC
Chamber out of dugouts into the slush and the
freezing wind Of a winter night to feel their way
along a broken wire, sometimes over the shell-pit-
ted open ground behind the trenches until they
find the break, then sitting in ice water under fire
they repair it as carefully and ~skillfully as If they
we're at work in the shop at home. 1t often takes
three or four men 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 sipshod bit of work. For
the signal system of the army is what the nerv-
Gus system is to the human body.
Without it the modern army covering 100 miles
Of front ca mot see, feel or move. The army COM
mander wishing to move a portion of his line 30
miles away or to change the rapidity of his artil-
lery fire or to receive information of enemy move
ments is as helpless without the slender threads Of
copper as he would be If he wished to move his
right arm and found the nerves paralyzed.
There are still people of intelligence who think
that the transmission of military thought is summed
up In the use of the notebook, the orderly and his
horse" writes Brig. Gen. George p. Scriven. But
these are passing, and the trained soldier and the
educated volunteer understand the vital impor-
lance Of information.
Hence the necessity for a 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
out of reach of his s%uperiors or those under his au-
thority upon whom he depends for the execution of
his plans. The brain lacks the power to control
because the nerves are lacking.
"Time is the main factor in war; to arrive first
with the greatest number of men and with the
clearest understanding of the situation is to sue
coed. The last, and often the first, of these condi-
tions depends upon the lines of information of the
army"
And these lines in turn depend upon the obscure
hnf DARING work of tho rppairnnan tha urIuoy
mucky, hard-6sted mechanic who crawls on his
belly through shell fire calculated to appall 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
are broken for only short intervals, and the con-
slant tending of them has made possible In France
a system of wire communication that is a marvel
of efficiency. Indeed so perfect is it 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. A wire could be put straight through so
that Lloyd George If he wished could hear the
bursting of high explosives and ~shrapnel on the
Amiens front.
This tremendous use of the telephone and tele-
graph in warfare is partly the result of the Inn
petus arising from the American application of
electrical communication on a large scale in the
Spanish war. The signal corps as 1t now exists is
a comparatively recent evolution.
In the American army the idea first arose In
the mind of a young army surgeon, Albert James
Myer. The office of signal officer of the army was
created in June, 1860, 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 at once demon
strated its worth.
When the Civil war began he was ordered East
end opened a school for signalers, and In that was
the definite beginning of the present signal corps.
Wires were carried on horse or muleback then, the
instruments were imperfect and Geographic COM
munication was a rare and precious thing. The
service took on tremendous Importance in the
Spanish war and followed the troops through Cuba
and the Philippines, and In China was the only