1st Australian Wireless Signal Squadron The 1st Australian Wireless Signal Squadron was a unit of the Australian Imperial Force ( AIF ) which served in Mesopotamia ( modern - day Iraq ) during World War I . It took part in the Mesopotamian Campaign , providing communications to British forces . In total , 558 Australian signallers were sent to Mesopotamia , however only a small fraction of that number were ever in country at one time . Although the squadron did not suffer any deaths from enemy fire , disease was responsible for the deaths of 20 soldiers from the wireless squadrons . The unit was also known as the 1st Wireless Signal Squadron and 1st Australian and New Zealand Signal Squadron . Formation . At the outbreak of World War I , the British Indian Army had a severe shortage of wireless equipment and trained operators . On 27 December 1915 , the Australian government received a request for a troop of wireless signallers ( approximately 50 soldiers ) to be sent to Mesopotamia . The operators were raised from the Marconi school of wireless in Sydney and the Broadmeadows depot in Victoria , while the drivers , who made up half of the unit , were raised from the Army Service Corps at Moore Park in Sydney . The troop , which became known as the 1st Australian Pack Wireless Signal Troop , sailed from Melbourne on 5 February 1916 and after stops at Bombay and Columbo , arrived in Basra on 19 March 1916 . The New Zealand government sent an equivalent unit which , together with the Australians , formed " C " Troop of the 1st Wireless Squadron . Mesopotamian Campaign . On 25 April 1916 ( the second Anzac Day ) , the first of the Australian wireless stations set off from Basra on a march north with the British 15th Indian Division . A month later the second station was sent by boat across Lake Hammar to Nasiriyah . Two New Zealand stations were sent to important locations on the Tigris . In March 1916 , the Indian government requested that a third troop and headquarters unit be sent to reinforce these two Anzac troops to form a squadron . This squadron became known as the 1st ( ANZAC ) Wireless Signal Squadron and consisted of two Australian troops and one New Zealand troop . Each troop consisted of four stations . About half of these stations were more powerful transmitters carried on six - horse limbered wagons , while the other half remained pack stations . Two of the Australian stations were charged with intercepting all enemy wireless communications , while a cipher expert , Captain Clauson of the Somerset Light Infantry decoded the messages and passed them onto Intelligence Branch . Maude ' s offensive . In October 1916 , the squadron was moved to the front in preparation for the British advance . Stations " A " through to " H " were Australian , while Stations " I " to " L " were New Zealand . The mobile Anzac stations allowed the commander of the British forces , General Frederick Stanley Maude , direct control over columns of cavalry out on operations . The column commanders were required to report via the wireless stations , to Maude every hour . The stations achieved reliable communications by using a series of relays , in which the rear most station would dismantle the moment the foremost station began to transmit . Although the rear station usually had a cavalry escort while it caught up with the main column , sometimes it had to depend on itself for protection . Stations " A " and " F " were on interception duties , while stations " B " and " E " were at the headquarters of the two British corps . The British offensive began on the night of 13 December with a short thrust across the desert to the Shatt al - Hayy , a channel connecting the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers . The cavalry reached the channel by dawn and began advancing towards the Tigris . During this advance ' G ' station came under fire from a Turkish monitor on the river and it and the cavalry were forced to withdraw back to the channel . Between January and February , a series of infantry attacks cleared the Turks from the right bank of the Tigris river . During this period , the wireless stations supported the cavalry , who conducted raids , screened artillery movements and tried to outflank the Suwaikiya marshes , a wide flanking maneuver which failed due to torrential rains . Kut fell on 23 February and the cavalry was ordered to cross the Tigris and cut off the retreating Turks . The Turkish rear - guard managed to check the pursuit of the cavalry , who were now too tired to cut off the Turks . However , British gunboats on the Tigris caught up with the retreat on the 26th and forced the Turks to abandon many gunboats , barges , land transport , ammunition and money . The cavalry entered Aziziyeh , north of Kut on 29 February , where it was forced to break off the pursuit for a week while it waited for supplies . Fall of Baghdad . On 5 March , Maude moved on Baghdad , but was checked on the Diyala River . Maude shifted a column to try to turn the Turkish left . The commander of the Turkish forces , Khalil Pasha , shifted his forces away from Diyala to mirror this move , allowing the 13th Division to cross the Diyala river on 10 March . Following his defeat , Khalil Pasha abandoned Baghdad the next day , destroying the German wireless station . The Anzac signallers were amongst the first Allied troops to enter the city and were able to establish communications with Basra . In the afternoon of the 11th they were able to relay the King ' s congratulations on Maude ' s success .