RFA Signalers

My grandfather, Captain Fred G. Coxen served as a Signaller in the 40th Battery, 43rd Brigade RFA during the early battles of the war. For those who are not familiar with this hazardous occupation, often they were called suicide squads. They were responsible for maintaining open communications between forward observation posts, trenches, and artillery batteries.

Early in the war field telephones were used, which were connected by wire and often wire between phones would be cut during a bombardment. Those Signallers on repair duty would be responsible for repairing the broken line by following the wire by crawling along the ground until they found and repaired the break.

Most of the time they traveled in pairs while shells were bursting all around them and the enemy used them for target practice.

Being a signaller was an important job for without open communication the guns were not allowed to fire. If it was too dangerous, they would resort to using semaphore flags to pass information, which was also quite dangerous if you can visualize an enemy sniper peering through a rifle scope at a person standing in the open swinging around a flag on a long pole.

If wires were cut during the night, they would following the line until they found the break. One signaller would tie a white rag to one end of the wire while they searched for the other end. When it was found, they would crawl back to the white rag and splice the two wires together. They would have to make sure that their repair opened the line by hooking their field telephone instrument to the line and using the buzzer or Morse Code key they would key in "OK" and wait for the return "OK". If it wasn't returned, it meant that there was a second break to be found and repaired.

Lights could not be used for obvious reasons so in the ink of night they would have to do the repairs by feel. During heavy shelling it was common for lines to be broken several times thus making it an unhealthy endeavor.

On one occasion my grandfather and his chum George were repairing a wire near a wooden fence post and a bullet pasted between their noses and logged into the post. Later my grandfather returned to the spot and dug out the bullet for a souvenir.

Most people think that being in the trenches would be the more hazardous than being in the artillery, and for the most part it was, especially when men would have to climb out of the trenches and run across "no man's land" while being shot at and shelled. However, the field artillery batteries were positioned not far behind the trenches to support them during an attack or when they were being attacked. For that reason, German artillery units would try and knock out the Allied artillery and of course the reverse was also true.

Read more about these courageous men in the "World War 1 - An Unkept Promise" now available on Kindle.