Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/811

 �The author of this article, Capt. A. P. Corcoran, has just returned from France, where he served with the British army. Hts miUtary work included the installation of signaling apparatus. The following contribution from his pen, therefore, will give our wireless readers some first-hand information on the war-time usage of radio apparatus. — Editor.

TO the public at large there is little that The position of the wireless man is now

is romantic in the performance of the quite definite. There is no scrap in which wireless man in warfare. He does he does not have his share, no division of

��not charge with bayonet fixed to rush an

enemy trench. He does

not kill or conquer. And

the popular imagination

finds it hard to see a hero

in a man whose duty is the

mere recording of others'

exploits.

Like the dispatch-rider, indeed, the wireless oper- ator is likely to become conspicuous only when he fails in the task assigned him. Then he has an op- portunity to judge his im- portance by the measure of the opprobrium poured on him. When he fails, of course, he never fails alone.

Yet technical and un- heroic as his task may seem, it calls for gallantry equal to that of any. Not only does he share in all the risks run by the Tommies, but he lacks all their means of defence. Though he stands side by side with them in the front line trench, ready to join in the attack, his sole weapon is his wireless apparatus. He carries neither rifle nor bayonet.

��the army in which he does not have his

���The first set was placed loosely on a board, but it soon be- came apparent that a different outfit was needed and one more easily transported; hence the box set came into use

place, whether it be infantry, artillery, air- service or cavalry. That he is absolutely indispensable in achieving results has been conclusively proved in the battles along

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