The Human Wire: Communication at Vimy Ridge
In April nineteen seventeen, the Canadian Corps launched a massive assault on Vimy Ridge. While history remembers the victory, the battle's success rested on a fragile human chain of runners and messengers who carried orders across a landscape where artillery had shredded every telephone line.
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Heavy bombardment on Easter Monday nineteen seventeen severed telephone lines buried six feet deep.
Commanders relied on a seven-layered communication network including pigeons and power buzzers.
The Canadian Cyclist Corps performed reconnaissance and stretcher-bearing when electronic systems failed.
High-tech wireless sets were often useless because their long antennas attracted enemy fire.
Human runners like Private Joseph Fairholm became the most reliable link across no man's land.
The Vimy Ridge victory depended on physical message delivery through knee-deep mud and debris.
- 01Intro1 min
- 02The Easter Monday Assault2 min
- 03The Layered Network3 min
- 04The Last Mile: The Trench Runner3 min
- 05Outro1 min
- Farlie, George Herbert Diary: 1917 April - Canadian Letters |
- Long lost diary of Edmonton soldier sheds light on Battle ...
- Full text of "The great war as I saw it"
- [PDF] Vimy Diaries - Electric Canadian
- Vimy Ridge
- Pedal Power - Legion Magazine
- Connecting the Dots and Dashes: Wireless Telegraphy Communication in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914â•fi1918
- Communications in the Canadian Corps, 1915–1918
- The Signal Service in the European War of 1914 to 1918 – Chapter 13
- Communications and British Operation on the Western Front ...
- The Wireless War on Land - Marconi Heritage
- Signallers
- Military communication - WWI, 1940, Technology
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