In trench warfare communication was always a problem. Field communication systems were crude and there was always the very real possibility that vital messages from the front would never get back to headquarters or vice versa.

Dogs were the obvious solution to this serious problem. Dogs were faster than human runners, presented less of a target to a sniper and could travel over difficult terrain. Overall, dogs proved to be extremely reliable when well trained.

The animals were fast, in one Division averaging a mile in seven minutes. But their eyes were badly affected by gas and they were somewhat unreliable under heavy shelling. On the other hand they frequently played an invaluable role in situations where runners would have been exposed to great risk.

They had two advantages over pigeons: they could be used at night, and their training to a new area took only one week as opposed to the three or four weeks required to habituate pigeons to a new district.

Portable radios or wireless radios came into use towards the end of the war. These devices had a collapsible telescopic mast so that the antenna could be raised or taken down at a moment’s notice. When the troops were entrenched in dugouts, the radio men installed their apparatus in a well protected underground cavern and lead their antenna wires from the apparatus up through dark passageways and out to the aerial itself. In trench warfare the antenna extended no more than three to four feet above the trenches, so as not to be detected by enemy forces. When the army made a rapid advance, the radio crews moved forward with the troops and carried their wireless apparatus and aerial paraphernalia on mules or horses.

Radio communication played a vital role for all combatants during World War I. Messages were sometimes transmitted by wire, and one of those methods was the field phone. The military importance of radio was immediately apparent. Operators with portable transmitters proved invaluable, for “If a gas attack is coming, it is he who sends the warning to the men behind to put their gas helmets on.” The Germans also used radio transmissions to help airships navigate to their bombing run targets.

Signallers were responsible for sending messages. In previous wars signallers communicated information by flags, lamps and heliographs. But none of these methods could be used in trench warfare and so Morse code and field telephones were employed

In the early part of the war, signallers began laying cables along the floor of the trenches. When it was discovered that the soldiers’ boots were constantly breaking the cables, the lines were attached to the trench walls with staples. Although this was an improvement, the cables were still vulnerable to enemy shellfire. It was then decided to bury the cables under the ground. But sheathed in steel and three feet below the surface the, cable could still be damaged byshellfire.

Signallers were trained to encode and decode messages. They also had the responsibility of repairing any damaged cable. As this usually happened during heavy bombardment, the casualty-rate among signallers was fairly high.

The pigeon’s great strength was its exceptional homing instinct and its speed. The average speed was approximately 30 miles per hour but they could reach bursts of up to 60 miles per hour. Shooting down a pigeon was almost impossible which is evidenced by their 95 percent success rate.

Carrier pigeons carried out an important role as messengers but they were also sometimes fitted with cameras for taking pictures of enemy positions. Messages were written on paper, folded and secured in a small canister attached to a pigeon’s leg. Once released, the pigeon would try to return to its home back behind the lines, where the message was read and transmitted to the proper military planners. If the enemy was nearby when a pigeon was released, they tried their utmost to shoot the pigeon down to prevent the message being delivered.

Some of these pigeons became quite famous. One pigeon named The Mocker, flew 52 missions before being wounded. Another, named President Wilson, sustained an injury that lost him his foot but did not prevent him from reaching his destination to deliver the message that was to save a large group of surrounded American infantrymen.

Perhaps the most famous, Cher Ami, was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government. In October 1918, an American infantry division were surrounded and down to 200 men from 500 in one day. Their last pigeon, Cher Ami managed to fly 25 miles in 25 minutes arriving at its destination blind in one eye, with a bullet wound the size of a 25-cent piece and an almost-severed leg. The message was received and the remainder of the division was saved. Cher Ami was patched up by the medics and returned to the U.S where he died of his wounds in June 1919.