How Old are We

How Old are We

Maj Gen VK Singh

Can a son be older than his father? Impossible. But this is true only of living creatures for whom   birth is a tangible occurrence. What about organisations, which are inanimate and ethereal. Obviously, it is difficult to decide the exact time and date of birth in such cases. The example of our own Corps will prove the point. Not many Signallers know that the Corps of Signals in India is almost ten years older than the Royal Signals in Britain, our progenitors. The official date of birth of the Indian Signal Corps is 15th February 1911, while that of the Royal Signals is 28th June 1920. As a matter of interest, the US Army Signal Corps was formed in 1862.

How did this come about? To find the answer, we will have to delve into our past. Up to the end of the 19th Century, there were three armies in India, belonging to the Presidencies of Bengal, Bombay and Madras. Each had its own Corps of Sappers and Miners, which were responsible for signalling. Lord Kitchener, the Commander-in-Chief, India, having reorganised the cavalry and infantry, turned to signals and proposed the formation of four telegraph companies, each of 120 men. The proposals were approved in 1908, but never implemented. In 1909, a committee was set up in England to co-ordinate methods of communication, and based on its report, a similar committee was formed in India, which recommended the raising of four divisional signal companies and a wireless section. The Viceroy accepted the proposals and forwarded them to London on 4th August 1910, requesting sanction of the Secretary of State for India 'by telegram'. The Secretary of State for India responded with commendable alacrity and economy on 21st September: "Your confidential despatch 87, dated 4th August last. Signal companies. I sanction scheme.”

In October 1910, Lieut. Colonel S.H. Powell, R.E., was posted to Army HQ to organise a Signal Service for India. Though his designation was GSO 1 in the Staff Duties Directorate, Powell in effect became the first head of the Indian Signal Service, which later became the Indian Signal Corps. By November 1910, the schedule of raising of the four divisional signal companies and the wireless company had been finalised. 31 and 32 Companies were raised on 15th February 1911 at Fatehgarh, followed by 33 and 34 Companies and the nucleus of 41 Wireless Company on 1st March at Roorkee.

The organisation of the Signal companies was issued as a Special Army Order dated 3rd February 1911. The companies were to be Sappers & Miners units, and their sepoys were to have rank as sappers. However, each company was to be a Corps for the purposes of enrolment, enlistment and discharge of Indian personnel.  This was perhaps done as a matter of administrative expedience, since signalling was a highly specialised activity. The Signal units were collectively not given the designation of a Corps. They were units of the Corps of Sappers & Miners, as the Engineers were then called.

Signals in the British Army were reorganised almost at the same time as in the Indian Army. Telegraph companies of the Royal Engineers were responsible for all forms of signalling till 1910 when the term 'telegraph' was replaced by 'signal' in unit titles. In 1912, motor cyclists were added to their establishment, for operating the signal despatch service. With this, the Signal Service became responsible for all types of signalling in the British army including electric telegraph, telephone, visual signalling, wireless and signal despatch. The proposal to create a separate Signal Corps to replace the Signal Service was initiated by the War Office in London in September 1918. After considerable discussion and deliberation, the proposal was accepted, and a Royal Warrant was issued on 28th June 1920, conveying the approval for the formation of the Corps of Signals as a separate entity in the British Army. On 5th August, the King conferred on the new corps the title of 'Royal'.

The date of birth of the Corps of Signals has been debated many times in the past. Brigadier Tery Barreto headed the Corps History Cell for several years. He was responsible for writing the draft history of the Corps, volume I of which was finally published in 1975. In the January 1961 issue of The Signalman, he wrote, "During the Great War the rapidly expanded signal units came to be referred collectively as the Indian Signal Service and were authorised a Signal Service Depot at Poona. Its independence of the Corps of Sappers & Miners was even more marked as a result of the war. Strangely enough, we can find no Gazette Notifications or Army Orders which notified the break-away from the Sappers & Miners and the formation of the Indian Signal Corps. As late as 1922, the staff had to be reminded in an Army Order that an Indian Signal Corps existed. The Indian Signal Corps had been included as a Corps in the Indian Army Act Rule 161 by an Army Department Notification published in 1920, and from this fact it has been deduced that it existed before the publication of these rules. This anomaly has never been resolved."

In his book, SONS OF JOHN COMPANY - The Indian and Pakistan Armies 1903-91, John Gaylor writes,  "Somewhat surprisingly, therefore, the   Indian Signal Corps had pre-dated the formation of the Corps of Signals in the British army which took place on 28 Jun 20."

Major General RFH Nalder was a Royal Signals officer who spent almost his entire service with Indian Signals, retiring in 1947 as the SO-in-C. He is the author of several books, including 'British Army Signals in the Second World War' and 'The Royal Corps of Signals - A History of its Antecedents and Development (Circa 1800-1955)'. In the Appendix dealing with Signals in India in the later book, he writes, "The Indian Signal Corps did not come into being in one clearly defined step. It was designated as a separate corps for the purposes of the Indian Army Act in an Army Department Notification of 17th April 1920, and the Indian ranks were then transferred or enlisted into that corps."

In 1947, when India achieved independence from British rule, the country was partitioned into India and Pakistan. The Army was also partitioned, and officers were asked to choose between the Indian and Pakistan armies. A number of officers chose to go to Pakistan, including several from the Corps of Signals. In October 1947, a farewell function was held at the Signal Training Centre in Jubbulpore, as it was then called. A copy of the farewell address, preserved in the Corps Museum, is reproduced at the end of this piece. The first line of the second paragraph reads, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the age of our erstwhile Indian Signal Corps is well over a quarter of a Century." Since these words were written in 1947, apparently at that time the date of birth of the Corps was generally accepted as 1920.

          So, when were we born? Was it in 1911 or in 1920? It is apparent that the date of birth was generally taken to be 1920 or whereabouts, right up to 1947. In any case it appears incongruous that the Indian Signal Corps should have been born earlier than the Royal Signals. Perhaps the simplest explanation for this conundrum is the one given by General Nalder, who wrote that the Indian Signal Corps did not come into being in one clearly defined step. It was this absence of a specific date that probably led to the decision taken after 1947 to consider 15th February 1911 as the official date of birth of the Corps. The word 'corps' used in the Special Army Order of 3rd February 1911 may also have buttressed our claims to have been born on the date when the first two Signal companies were raised, even if they were units of the Sappers and Miners. As Brigadier Tery Barreto had concluded   almost forty years ago, this anomaly has never been resolved, and perhaps never will be.

(Published in the Signalman, Jan 2001)