A Brief History
Reliable communications and the swift accurate passage of important information has always been vital to the conduct of successful military operations.
The Greek armies had the Torch Telegraph and the Water Telegraph, and the Roman Army used coloured smoke as a means of communication. In England, during the 16th century, beacons were used and, in 1796, the Admiralty adopted a shutter-type machine, known as the 'Murray Lettering Telegraph'. Morse Code and electric telegraph were used for the first time in the Crimean War (1835-1837) and, following the Abyssinian War of 1867, a Signal Wing was formed by the Royal Engineers at Chatham.
In 1884, the Telegraph Battalion Royal Engineers was formed and took part in the Nile Campaign, later playing a prominent role in the Ashanti Campaign of 1895-1896. It was during this campaign that men of the telegraph Battalion hacked a path for an overhead line from the Cape coast to Prahsu, covering 72 miles through jungle. It was in this campaign that as members of the Telegraph Battalion staggered out of the jungle then confronted King Prempeh who so surprised by their action then offered the surrender of his Army. King Prempeh's throne is now displayed in the Royal Signals Museum at Blandford.
Signalling remained the responsibility of the Telegraph Battalion during the Boer War and until 1908, when the Royal Engineer Signals Service was formed and provided communications during World War One. At this time, the Despatch Rider came into prominence and 'wireless sets' were introduced into service. Wireless communications were provided in France and Flanders and also in the campaigns in Salonika, Palestine and Mesopotamia.
The first official agreement to form a separate Signal Corps was made in 1918, before the end of World War One. Due to various policy delays, the formation of the 'Corps' was delayed until 1920. A Royal Warrant was signed by the Secretary of State for War, the Rt. Hon Winston S Churchill, who gave the Sovereign's approval for the formation of a 'Corps of Signals' on 28th June 1920. Six weeks later, His Majesty the King conferred the title 'Royal Corps of Signals'.
During the 1920s and 1930s, the Corps increased its strength and had personnel serving in overseas stations such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Ceylon, Egypt, Jamaica and many other 'out-posts of the Empire'. The largest portion of the Corps was overseas, one third being concentrated in India. Throughout World War Two, members of the Corps served in every theatre of war and, at the end, the Corps had a serving strength of 8,518 officers and 142,472 soldiers. In the immediate post-war period, the Corps played a full and active part in numerous campaigns including: Palestine (1945-1948); the long campaign in Malaya (1949-1960); the Korean War (1950-1953); the various operations in Cyprus, Borneo, Aden, the Arabian Peninsula, Kenya and Belize. Throughout this time, until the end of the Cold War, the main body of the Corps was deployed with the British Army of the Rhine confronting the former Communist Bloc forces, providing the British Forces' contribution to NATO with its communications infrastructure.
Most recently, members of the Corps have spearheaded operations, including: the Falkland Island campaign; the peace-keeping force in the Lebanon; supervising the peaceful transition of Namibia to independence; and 3,000 members of the Corps joined Operation Granby in the Persian Gulf. Since then, members of the Corps have been deployed to East Timor, Kurdistan, to the states of Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, the Western Sahara, Cambodia, Rwanda, Angola Zaire and Sierra Leone.
Today's Corps, built on a fine tradition, now moves into the developing Information Warfare era of the future. It strives to live up to its motto, 'Certa Cito', which freely translated means 'Swift and Sure'.
