Report of the Chief Signal Officer, United States Army, to the Secretary of WarU.S. Government Printing Office, 1904 |
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Common terms and phrases
aggregating Alaska Alaskan cable ALASKAN LINES Alaskan telegraph Alaskan waters American antennæ archipelago arduous Ariz Artillery Corps August Benicia Barracks Bureau cableship Capt Captain Wildman Cebu charge Chief Signal Officer Cipher Bureau civil government coast Colonel Allen commanding Company connection Constabulary construction division Duty in Alaska Duty in Cuba Edgar Russel efficient electrical engineers enlisted force entire field fire-control installations fire-control system fiscal Fort Egbert Fort William H George Gibbon important instruction instruments interruptions July June 30 land lines Leyte Lieut lieutenants Liscum Luzon maintenance Major Maxfield Major Russel maneuvers Manila ment messages methods military Mindanao Norton Sound operations Panay Philippine Islands practically recognized repair Safety Harbor Seattle Secretary Secretary of War Signal Corps Signal Corps Post Sitka stations submarine cables supervision Tanana tariffs telautograph tele telegraph telegraph lines telegraph service telegraph system telegraphic communication tion transferred United Valdez visual signaling winter wire wireless section wireless telegraphy
Popular passages
Page 37 - That the maintenance of a complete coastwise system of wireless telegraphy by the Navy Department is necessary for the efficient and economical management of the fleets of the United States in time of peace and their efficient maneuvering in time of war; That the best results can be obtained from stations under the jurisdiction of one Department of the Government only, and that representatives of more than one Department should not be quartered at any station; And finally the Board concludes that...
Page 41 - ... a time. Senator HARRIS. That is an entirely different matter. General BRIDGES. That is an entirely different thing. We would have to have more money, if we are going to establish additional ROTC units, but so far as officers on duty at the existing ROTC units is concerned, that policy was initiated by the Chief of Staff and approved by the Secretary of War, and we were given so many officers, and we could not assign any more than that number. Senator COPELAND. General, do these graduates from...
Page 3 - The United States has brought southeastern Alaska, the Yukon Valley, and the Bering Straits region into telegraphic communication with the rest of the civilized world. There yet lacks to complete the dream of a half-century since, of telegraphically uniting America and Asia via Bering Strait, a cable to the Asiatic shore and a Russian land line of about 1,500 miles to Nikolaevisk.
Page 3 - It will be admitted that the undertaking is unique in the annals of telegraphic engineering, whether one considers the immense extent of territory, its remoteness from the United States, the winter inaccessibility of the regions, the severity of the climate, the uninhabited and trackless districts, or the adverse physical conditions. If plotted on a map of the United States this system would reach from Wyoming to the Bahamas, off the coast of Florida. The cables used would reach from Newfoundland...
Page 4 - It is important to note that the completion of the Alaskan lines perfects the military intercommunicating system of the United States. The President or the Secretary of War can now reach, over strictly American lines of telegraph and cable, every important military command from the icy waters of Bering Strait to the tropical seas of the Sulu. Archipelago, with the exception of the legation guard at Pekin.
Page 24 - Important militan* events were sometimes a month old in the Visayan Islands, Mindanao, and the Sulu group before the information reached Manila. General MacArthur, by cablegrams, urged upon the War Department the necessity of at once completing the comprehensive cable system initiated by the Chief Signal Officer, which would bring within telegraphic reach every important military garrison in the Philippines. In his official report he says: The wire service of the Signal Corps is simply indispensable....
Page 41 - ... AUTOMOBILES. In view of the prospective value of auto-propelled vehicles to telegraph and balloon trains the Chief Signal Officer of the Army has continued experiments with automobiles. The Signal Corps' experiences have demonstrated the practicability of self-propelled vehicles for such military purposes. While the good points of electric and steam vehicles are thoroughly recognized, yet the internal combustion type, using kerosene or other oil, seems preferable for war purposes. This type has...
Page 8 - ... miles to Seattle. The land-line system of 1,497 miles was scarcely completed in June, 1903, when extensive forest fires in the valley of the Tanana, ranging for a distance of 250 miles along the line, destroyed various portions aggregating 100 miles in length. By arduous effort this line was rebuilt, and the system thrown open as a whole to the general public for commercial business before winter commenced. It has since been operated with unusual success, although interruptions here or there...
Page 23 - ... miles in one year. These two officers built, during active operations in northern Luzon alone, 2,770 miles of field line, of which more than 800 miles were recovered, destroyed, or abandoned. The administrative needs of an army in a tropical country were not overlooked. In Manila a modern telephone system, operated by power from dynamos and storage batteries, was installed with aerial cables aggregating 186 miles in single linear conductors and having 21 separate lines with 211 phones centering...
Page 25 - ... this period I have sent and received nearly ten thousand telegrams and cable messages, many of them at great length and a large proportion of them in the Spanish language. With the exception of a few errors — due, no doubt, to idiomatic and obscure phrases, requiring occasional repetition — the work has been carried on with such skill and dispatch as to merit special commendation; and before leaving Manila I wish to express to the members of the Signal Corps performing the duties of telegraph...