Semaphore No Longer To Be Taught In R.N.

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30979, 8 February 1966, Page 12

Semaphore No Longer To Be Taught In R.N.

Semaphore signalling in the modern navies of the world is fast diminishing. Semaphore is no longer to be taught in the Royal Navy, according to a Defence Council instruction, as the old Admiralty Fleet orders are now called. With it passes a form of naval signalling used for more than 150 years. But New Zealand Navy authorities say the Royal Navy has not stopped teaching semaphore. They say that only the standard has been lowered —to about eight words a minute. Semaphore is still being taught in the New Zealand Navy as an integral part of early training. 1886 Introduction Signal flags were introduced in the Eoyal Navy in 1886 after experiments in small ships from 1880 onward. This period of trial and error satisfied authorities there was a future for the method. Before sailors began waving signal flags, the Royal Navy had long used woodenarm semaphore. Admiral Sir Home Popham was responsible for the early invention —an upright base

with two movable arms. He •devised an alphabet, or group of words, to be identified with the arms when they were in certain positions and the apparatus was operated with pedals, chains, and pieces of string. On a clear day messages could be sent from Admiralty House, Whitehall, to Portsmouth in seven minutes using a chain of signal stations. The first overland chain of semaphore stations was to Chatham. It was set up in 1816 along a line which went south of Shooters Hill to the Kent port. This proved so successful that a similar method of communication was set up with Portsmouth. 11 In Chain In 1845 messages were being relayed from Whitehall to Portsmouth through 11 intermediary signallers. Semaphore Hill, Guildford, provides a reminder today of the part played in the line of communications. Admiral Popham's wooden signals, like giant robots, were first seen in ships in 1853. By that time they had been discontinued as a means of overland signalling for six years because the electric telegraph, it was said, was doing the job better and quicker. Gradually the wooden signals also disappeared from the ships as the electric telegraph took over—as today the waving flats are giving way to transistor signalling and more advanced communications.