Intended Audience
College Audience
Reviews
[A] splendid book . . . Simon Godfrey has given us a thorough explanation of the work of the British Army's communicators during the Second World War.
Dewey Edition
23
Dewey Decimal
358.24094109044
Table Of Content
1. Introduction \ 2. The Pre-War Period \ 3. The Phoney War and Dunkirk, 1939-1940 \ 1940-1943: Home Forces - The Army in the UK \ 5. The Western Desert, 1939-1942 \ 6. Operation TORCH and Tunisia, 1942-1943 \ 7. Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 \ 8. North-West Europe, 1944-1945 \ 9. Conclusions \ Technical Appendix \ Bibliography \ Index
Synopsis
Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence form the backbone of the Army's operating system. But while much attention has been given in the literature to the other three elements, Communications in the British Army during World War II have been widely ignored. This book rectifies the omission. It shows that failures in front line communications contributed to several of the set backs suffered by the Army but also that ultimate victory was only achieved after a successful communications system was in place. It explains how the outcome of the main campaigns in Europe and North Africa depended on communications, how the system operated and how it evolved from a relatively primitive and inadequately supplied state at Dunkirk to a generally effective system at the time of the Rhine crossings. Problems still occurred however, for example at infantry platoon level and famously with paratrooper communications at Arnhem, often simply due to the shortcomings of existing technology. The book concludes that it is only very recently that advances in technology have allowed those problems to be solved.
LC Classification Number
UA945
