Listening In: Intercepting German Trench Communications in WW1

[Robert Dunlop]

(ISBN 0942597788). An interesting book that is very readable. It covers the last few months of the war from the perspective of an AEF soldier. Ernest Hinrichs was of German descent, living in America when war broke out. Because he was fluent in German, he was selected to be a listening station intercept operator. Hinrichs describes his training with French equivalents and then his experiences of the battles of St Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne. This is a very different perspective on the war from someone who wrote detailed diary notes at the time. He talks about the interception of German telephone conversations in the trenches opposite, the German wireless transmissions that were akin to the BBC World Service, wireless station location finding, and the American use of wireless and telephone transmissions for deception purposes.

Robert

[centurion]

I believe that the magazine of the Old Crows (an association of ex ELINT operatives) once did something on this. Unfortunately (for me) the Old Crow I used to borrow copies from has now retired to a ranch somewhere in Wyoming and I've lost contact.