The American Expeditionary Forces, Communications and the First World War: A Case Study in Inter-Allied Learning

By adopting an inter-organisational learning model to the case study of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) Signal Corps during the First World War, this article seeks to position the neglected subject of inter-allied learning within the broader context of the contentious debates surrounding the AEF’s training and military operations. Employing American, British, and French sources, the article examines the experiences of the AEF Signal Corps, an organisation whose role and influence historians of the AEF have largely overlooked and failed to fully appreciate. It argues that although recent interpretations of the AEF’s receptivity to certain British and French methods are generally correct, they underestimate the varied and interconnected nature of the driving influences that shaped the AEF’s learning processes, as well as the collaborative and reciprocal characteristics of inter-allied learning more broadly.

The Mark A. Freeman collection of World War II photographs at George Eastman House

This thesis project is based on a collection of approximately 3000 World War II photographs, negatives, and supporting artefacts, which were donated to George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film (GEH) in 2007. The material was made and collected by Lieutenant Mark Anthony Freeman (1912-2005), a combat photographer for the US Army Signal Corps. The objectives for this project included organizing the collection and accessioning in into GEH's permanent collection as well as conducting preliminary research into Freeman and the Signal Corps in order to provide future researchers and user of the collection with an understanding of its context and scope. The thesis is divided into two parts, an analytical paper and a finding aid. The analytical paper includes a discussion of the decisions made while organizing, inventorying, accessioning, and re-housing the donation. The finding aid comprises a biography of Mark Anthony Freeman, an overview of the US Army Signal Corps with particular emphasis on the Army Pictorial Service, a map that traces the WWII route Mark Freeman, an inventory of the donation, and an annotated bibliography of relevant resources. The finding aid is conceived as a self-contained document that would be available to researchers in the Study Center at GEH.

The Mark A. Freeman collection of World War II photographs at George Eastman House

This thesis project is based on a collection of approximately 3000 World War II photographs, negatives, and supporting artefacts, which were donated to George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film (GEH) in 2007. The material was made and collected by Lieutenant Mark Anthony Freeman (1912-2005), a combat photographer for the US Army Signal Corps. The objectives for this project included organizing the collection and accessioning in into GEH's permanent collection as well as conducting preliminary research into Freeman and the Signal Corps in order to provide future researchers and user of the collection with an understanding of its context and scope. The thesis is divided into two parts, an analytical paper and a finding aid. The analytical paper includes a discussion of the decisions made while organizing, inventorying, accessioning, and re-housing the donation. The finding aid comprises a biography of Mark Anthony Freeman, an overview of the US Army Signal Corps with particular emphasis on the Army Pictorial Service, a map that traces the WWII route Mark Freeman, an inventory of the donation, and an annotated bibliography of relevant resources. The finding aid is conceived as a self-contained document that would be available to researchers in the Study Center at GEH.

SERVICE OF BRITISH AND SOVIET WOMEN IN SIGNAL CORPS DURING WORLD WAR II

Comparison of the peculiarities of the service of the representatives of the countries of the world in different branches of the military has not found a comprehensive coverage in both domestic and foreign historiography. In the available comparisons, their authors rather briefly dwell on the general features of the policy of states with different regimes of government on the organization of women’s service in 1939-1945. However, they do not study in more detail the common and different in experiences of representatives of different states in the service of one or another branch of the military. The article examines the peculiarities of the service and life of Soviet and British women who served in signal corps during World War II. The countries were chosen not by chance, because they represent democracy and totalitarianism, respectively, and studying the experiences of women serving in their armies can deepen our knowledge of these regimes. The author concludes that the women of the USSR and Great Britain in the signal corps during World War II held positions with the same or similar responsibilities, but the everyday life of Soviet women at the front was mostly much stricter, due to the high intensity fighting. At the same time, it should not be forgotten that, despite the fact that the enemy was never able to invade Great Britain by land, its territories were subjected to massive air attacks, which posed a constant danger to the country’s inhabitants, both civilian and military. Therefore, the service of British women in the signal corps in the homeland was also associated with significant risk. Among other things, British female signals officers took part in the top-secret and extremely important for Allied troops operation “Enigma”, which resulted in the decryption of the code of the famous cipher machine of Nazi Germany. According to various estimates, the success of the operation significantly precipitated the end of World War II.

Graphic materials of history of the Chevalier Guard Regiment

Characteristics of graphic sources on the history of the Church of Zechariah and Elizabeth are given, a collection of graphic materials on the history of the Church of the Cavalry Regiment in St. Petersburg from the archives of the Military-Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps (MHMAEandSC) is described and attributed. The purpose of the research is to identify and study a complex of pictorial sources on the history of the chevalier guard church from the collection of the Military-Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps archive. The iconography of the Church of the Chevalier Guard Regiment has 40 items, 36 of which are graphic materials, and the rest is fragmentary photographs. Graphic materials on the history of the Church of Zechariah and Elizabeth of the Chevalier Guard Regiment in the amount of 32 units are kept in the archives of Military-Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps. The methodological basis of the research is based on the principles of objectivity, historicism, systematic scientific analysis based on the scientific method of cognition, includes general historical research methods, the iconographic method is applied. The research is devoted to the description of the materials of the Military-Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps archive collection. Part of the collection of drawings and plans are pencil plans without attribution or dating, and some, copied and supplemented, refer to an earlier construction. Attribution of such graphic materials is rather difficult and is possible only with the involvement of the entire complex of graphic and written sources. The collection of graphic materials on the history of the Church of the Cavalry Regiment from the Military-Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps archive is unique. Thanks to the so-called “L. Benois collection”, which contains drawings of the regimental church for 1897–1898, we can reconstruct in detail the features of the internal and external interior.

Evaluation of the correctness of the German military intelligence’s findings concerning armament and equipment of the Polish Army in 1939. Part II. Aviation, Navy, radio communication, means of transport and logistics of the Polish Army

The presented article constitutes the second part of the publication and is devoted to the current knowledge of the German military intelligence concerning the armament and equipment of land forces, Navy, radio communication, means of transport and logistics of the Polish Army in 1939. The article also attempts to assess the correctness of these findings. The presented article is one of several articles written by the author to present the knowledge of German military intelligence about the Polish Army in 1939, together with the assessment of the correctness of these findings. The article is based on archival materials of the 12th Foreign Armies East Intelligence Section of the General Staff of the High Command of the Land Forces of 1939, which developed synthetic elaborations for the top military commanders of the German army, based on the analysis and collective materials from the individual Abwehstelle. For years, the documents analysed were classified and delivered exclusively to the top commanders of the German army and Hitler’s Chancellery. At present, they are entirely non-confidential and available to researchers at the Bundesarchiv-Militaerarchiv in Freiburg. Copies of parts of these documents, in the form of microfilms, can be found, among others, in the Archive of New Files in Warsaw. According to the author, working out both – the Polish aviation and fleet – was carried out at a high and correct level. Nevertheless, it does not mean that no mistakes were made, even very serious – for example as regards the assessment of the number of submarines. The greatest negligence of the German Military Intelligence’s findings on armament and equipment of the Polish Army concerns the equipment of signal corps. As the German Intelligence overlooked modernisation of communication equipment which took place in the years 1937-1939, there was no knowledge of, among the other things, the “N” type radio stations, which were used in almost every regiment. Scarcity of the Polish Army equipment as regards mechanical means of transport was well known. The shortages in the above scope were enormous. What is interesting, is the fact that logistics of the Polish Army was completely overlooked by the German Intelligence. It should be assumed that the German Military Intelligence’s figuring out of armament and equipment of the Polish Army was carried out on a high and correct level. Nevertheless, it does not mean that all the findings were appropriate and true. The accuracy of the correctness of the German Military Intelligence’s findings concerning figuring out of organisation and composition of the Polish Army, and dislocation of the Polish units in time of peace, should also be highly assessed. Nevertheless, the Intelligence’s findings, as regards signal mobilization process, figuring out the mobilization and operational plans of the Polish Army and organisation and the composition of the Polish Army during war should be evaluated differently. It results from the fact that the German Intelligence was not aware of, among the other things: number of divisions Poland would engage at war, names and composition of the Polish military units, very strong reserve of the High Commander, as well as it was not able to localize the Polish divisions developed over the borders just before the outbreak of war. Knowledge of the Polish economy was also on a very basic level. Therefore, the aforementioned negligence in the German Military Intelligence’s findings on the Polish Army and Poland itself during the period directly preceding the war, should be regarded as major. Taking the above into consideration, the conclusion is that the German agency did not exist among the people holding high positions in the Polish Army; in the Central Staff, General Inspector of Training, Corps District Commands. Nevertheless, the overall view of the Polish Army recorded by the German Military Intelligence was correct. It was noticed that the army is weak, poorly equipped and badly managed and it would not be able to fight the enemy. It was a correct assessment.

Introduction

This chapter establishes a genealogy of the concept of ‘connectivity’ from the foundation of the US Army Signal Corps in 1860 (motto: ‘Getting the message through’) via cybernetics and information theory to the first stirrings of the World Wide Web in the 1990s (motto: ‘What matters is in the connections’). Three key terms are defined and briefly illustrated: signal, medium, interface. The book’s primary concern is with literature’s ability to illuminate from within the complex, vivid, unpredictable romance the principle of connectivity has woven through the enduring human desire and need for remote intimacy. It offers, in its first part, an alternative view of canonical ‘British’ writing from the Victorian era to modernism; and, in its second, case studies of European and African-American fiction, and of interwar British cinema, designed to open the topic up for further enquiry.

The Imperial Russian Military Historical Society and studies of monuments of Old Rus. 1908–1914

The activities of the Office of Military Archaeology and Archaeography (VAiA) of the Imperial Russian Military Historical Society (IRVIO) until now have not been sufficiently studied and are not comprehensively covered by historical investigations. This paper is devoted to the activities of members of IRVIO concerned with research of places of old-time battles and early Russian fortresses. The study is based on documents from the Scientific Archives of the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps.

“Nobody Asked You to Go to America”

This chapter focuses on Milestone’s early life: his childhood and family life in Moldova, his identity as a Jew and early experience of anti-Semitism, his love for the theater, his decision to immigrate to America and his difficult voyage to New York. It continues with his early work as a society photographer in New York, and his enlistment in the Photographic Division of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, where he edited documentary film footage sent from the front. Known as a practical joker with a fine sense of humor, Milestone made friends and useful connections easily. When the War ended, he took the advice of some Hollywood veterans and moved to Los Angeles in 1919 to break into the film industry.