Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

History calling: RAF veteran Denis Willis and Geoff Varrall parade a Pye wireless set. Pictures: Bruce Robertson, Cameo Commercial Photography

Despite the grim warnings that had echoed around Europe for years previously, in 1939 the British sent desperately unprepared forces to war to fulfil the pact it had made allying itself to France and Poland.

With the dutiful embarkation of the BEF to the continent, British troops soon found  they were woefully under equipped – outclassed by the enemy in terms of weaponry, machinery and equipment. One such disparity was in communications.

Tommies on the field of battle not only found themselves facing far superior tanks, in terms of armour, firepower and numbers, but also in terms of communication capabilities.

“This was an example of the British Army thinking being stuck in the past and not understanding the rate of change in the technology,” said Geoff Varrall, a director of commercial interest group Cambridge Wireless.
“If the British Army General Staff had monitored technology evolution, they would have known that VHF was coming to be possible in the late 1930s and should not have been surprised at how the German forces used it to their advantage.”

The Ministry of Supply was forced to counter this huge disadvantage – a result of a major oversight and false assumptions – and looked around the country for a solution. They found the answer in Cambridge, with the wireless pioneer which had helped it develop scientific instrument and gun-sight technology employed 20 years previously in the First World War.

In a display of classic British ingenuity under pressure, Pye Radio Ltd rose to the challenge and developed the Infantry man-pack portable Wireless Set No 18 for the Army in about six weeks; over the next four years it built on its reputation for speed and innovation by designing a string of famous equipment.

Notable among these were the Wireless Sets No.19 (WS19), a mobile transmitter receiver designed for Armoured Fighting Vehicles that allowed the vehicles to communicate with headquarters on HF and with one another in battle on VHF, partly emulating the successful German concept of Blitzkrieg – fast moving mechanised and co-ordinated warfare.

Wireless Sets No.19 involved two separate transmitter-receivers and a crew intercommunications amplifier in the one box, giving the tank crew the ability to communicate with one another just as the air crew did in the Lancaster Bomber.

Varrall and a group of enthusiasts are working towards showcasing the Pye Telecom Historic Collection – an assortment of Pye, Philips and Simoco radio equipment, documents and photographs, spanning 1940 to 2000, collected over a 25-year period and managed by ex-Simoco director, Richard Howes.