'Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine 1936' [‎41v] (87/294)

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The use of Fullerphones and Teleprinters .
The extensive use of wireless as an alternative means of communicat'
The monitors were operators of the R. Signals and their ■nresence f
the exchanges probably made the interception of military messages more
difficult, though it must be admitted that they never succeeded in brW
ing any culprits to book, and this is certainly a difficult thing to do"
The minitor system was also useful as a means of familiarizing military'
operators with the civil installations, while at the same time it afford
some protection to the exchanges and loyal workers,
Fullerphones and Teleprinters were not widely used and suffered fro
some drawbacks. The Fullerphone was not easy to work in conjunction wit
a highly pliantomed civil telegraph system: to be satisfactory it require
metallic lines, and the civil authorities had difficulty in providing sue:
circuits. There was a further complication in connection with the
handling of messages in signal offices, since messages sent in clear by
Fullerphone might have to be enciphered for re-transmission by ordinary
line. There was thus the risk of clear and cipher messages meeting in
the signal office, and strict supervision was necessary to prevent this,
The Teleprinter, although practically non-susceptible to interception
also suffered from this latter disadvantage, and furthermore was too *
cumbersome and expensive for employment on any but the main trunk lines,
It was used chiefly for the transmission between Corps and Div. HQ of
lengthy documents such as Rail Movement Orders and Intelligence Summaries,
most of which were sent during the night.
Though the Fullerphone and Teleprinter did offep a certain degree
of security xor telegrams, the telephone always remained the greatest
danger. Apart from deliberate interception, the system was subject to
extensive inauction from which even n 10 x 00 ^’ lines were by no means
immune. It was necessary to limit the use of telephones to occasions
when it '..as absolutely certain that an unofficial listener could not make
use of the information gained in time to do any harm. The result of thi
vao to divert the greater bulk of military traffic to the wireless system,
which remained throughout the only reliable means of transmitting secret
messages.
Wireless messages
ally speaking w/l messages in clear which related to immediat
operations were found to be safe, but it is doubtful if this will alway
K ' ^°* passages relating to policy or future operations had always to
^ ±l . L cil w lur * _ Some wireless interception work would have been
UQe } Ul, smee certain police posts etc. with W/T were manned by native
personne a on^, 1 hough this is not part of the normal duties of sign
done had Personnel with the reserve sets been
^ 0 0 '' policing and interception work when required.
Codes
were qi+t? p W ^ C j A - C1 -o dn ’ tcndeci - ^ or secrecy rather than for mere brevil
was reavl rWW ^ f alestlne for tv'O reasons. In the first place tt
fore no'Weat lWV° r secrec y regarding the Order of Battle, and the
was reas^ablv Wl 111 ein - plo y in S code names for units. Secondly
of an ^rat4: The° iTofa 'TT* “ ^ the
have been an -m^ i 1 a . slrn P de rna P“reference code might at tm
enemy hardly called "for suchl^ef ^ of efficiency of
was never g^raral^ueed! 0 did not meet with much success
* I dxd not sebm to be sufficiently underst