Lee Wireless -- its Evolution from AWA Review Mysterious Wonder to Weapon of War, 1902 to 1905 2012 Bartholomew Lee ABSTRACT This is a Story in The second part of this Four Parts, Culminat- note discusses Lee de The following four ing in the First Use of Forest’s failed reach events are covered. Wireless Telegraphy for the brass rings of 1) Wireless Spying in Warfare, but Start- a British government on Marconi at Porth- ing, Naturally Enough, contract, and a deal curno, Cornwall, UK with Marconi in Corn- for his wireless system – A First wall. with the cable com- 2) Lee de Forest L e e d e F o r e s t panies in 1904. But Fails in Ireland and bearded the young that commercial de- Wales in 1903 –’04: wireless lion – Gug- feat enabled the public One Door Closes, an- lielmo Marconi – in relations victory of the other Door Opens … his den, Britain, in success of exactly the 3) Rejection and 1903. Others also same De Forest Wire- Renaissance: concerned themselves less System on the oth- A. Lee de Forest with Marconi’s ambi- er side of the world, in Sails Away From “Per- tions, as early as 1902, the 1904 Russo -Japa- fidious Albion,” but as the fi rst part of this nese War. That same Makes a Deal note will discuss. But equipment, particu- B. Lionel James -- both the British gov- larly de Forest’s elec- Naval Spying on Rus- ernment and the cable trolytic detector, and sians and Reporting monopoly rejected the de Forest’s crack op- at Sea De Forest System. Yet erators, got the news 4 ) C o m m a n d e r a courageous foreign of the war out to Eu- Kurakichi Tonami’s correspondent saw rope and America. The Wireless Wins the a future for the De third part of this note Russo -Japanese War, Forest System in war discusses that remark- 1905. reporting, as Japan able turn of events. In the midst of this, challenged Russia in Japan integrated a Japanese master spy the Far East. wireless telegraphy enables Lee de Forest This is the story with a web of cables to snatch renown from first of commercial and other means of the jaws of rejection, intrigue, in the first communication and with a little help from part of this note: spy- command, a then Fessenden’s electro- ing on Marconi. Many -unique network. With lytic detector. saw that knowledge its integrated war mak- about this mysterious ing approach, Japan wireless telegraphy sank most of Russia’s could be important in two battle fl eets in the business and in war. Russo -Japanese War But they had to find of 1904 and 1905, as out how it worked, discussed in the fourth and what it could do. part of this note. Volume 25, 2012 1 Lee de Forest and Wireless in War Japan’s defeat of the Russian ternational diplomatic experience. Navy killed Russia’s far-eastern Much of what is known about him ambitions, especially for a Far East- (in English) comes by way of Japa- ern (relatively) warm water port, nese naval historian Admiral Kazuo open all year round – Port Arthur, Itoh.4 Admiral Itoh also explains on the south coast of Manchuria. how Japan (unburdened by any Lee de Forest wrote a detailed old ways of doings things) early on autobiography that covers some integrated its command, control, of this ground.1 The now long communications and intelligence. -forgotten electrolytic detector he It created a novel and successful employed materially advanced the network to manage warfare. Com- nascent wireless art circa 1903, mander Tonami had mastered the because it enabled long-distance new technology of communications high-speed traffi c for the fi rst time. on behalf of the Japanese Navy. Much of what is known about In the unforgiving world of war, the earliest wireless spying at Tonami stands out as an offi cer’s Porthcurno results from research offi cer, a spy’s spy, and a very brave and writing2 by John E. Packer, a man. His work, before and after Fellow of the Royal Geographical sailing with James, helped Japan Society. He is a Curator of the Cable win its war against Russia. & Wireless Museum at Porthcurno. The techniques of interception of W I R E L E S S S P Y I N G A T wireless messages first emerged PORTHCURNO, CORNWALL, with spying there on Marconi, whose system de Forest also chal- UK – A FIRST lenged. Marconi’s new technology fas- The research and writing of the cinated the world, and especially Irish historian Peter Slattery on the cable operators. It excited the career of journalist and spy much curiosity in them, and in Lionel James provide much of armies and navies, and in busi- what is known of the events in the nesses. Wireless telegraphy, te- Far East. Lee de Forest never got legraphy without cables, long or west of Palo Alto or Los Angeles, short, directly threatened the cable nor until 1904, west of New York. industry. But this technology also But James, at his own suggestion promised much: the opportunity to and de Forest’s urgings, took over extend as well as overlay and paral- the wireless telegraphy equipment lel cable communications. Wireless that de Forest had used in his promised redundancy, and hence experimental stations in Ireland reliability, in long distance commu- and Wales in 1903. A great deal of nications. An enormous amount of what is in this note about London cable traffi c, requiring the utmost Times war correspondent James’s reliability, passed, for example, dangerous work derives from Slat- between London and New York. tery’s book: Reporting The Russo But an undersea cable break could -Japanese War, 1904-5 – Lionel end communications in an instant. James’s first wireless transmis- (The fi rst cable had indeed broken sions to the Times.3 after only a month underwater, and The Japanese Navy’s Com- an undersea earthquake in 1929 did mander Kurakichi Tonami sailed break ten of the 21 Atlantic cables. with James aboard the reporter’s Also, cables could be cut, and would steamship at an even sharper risk soon be, in times of war). Wireless of his life. Tonami already had in- also promised extension of commu- nication from cableheads around 2 AWA Review Lee the world to interiors of Empire, anybody could listen. Encryption to armies in the fi eld and nearby or cipher, if used despite its own navy vessels and to vast, unserved challenges, could mask the text of a coastal populations in cities, towns, message, but not the fact of a mes- businesses and plantations. sage. Transmission characteristics Western Cornwall hosted the also gave away sources and rela- competing U.K. interests of cables tionships among them. Commer- and wireless. Marconi set up at cial claims of privacy and reliability Poldhu for its proximity to the could be tested, and were often Atlantic and the North American found wanting if not false. It was continent. The cable companies very important to many interests to had long centered on Porthcurno understand wireless telegraphy in (Port Cornwall), just a few miles practice, not just in patent theory. south of Poldhu. At Porthcurno, the At the time, the cable compa- cables of the British Empire, as well nies’ wireless expert was Nevil as its former colonies, in particular Maskelyne, who had been an early the United States, made landfall. experimenter.5 Maskelyne devoted From Porthcurno, one could see himself to debunking Marconi’s Marconi’s big Poldhu antenna of claims, particularly with respect to 1901 – and thereby hangs a tale the security of wireless messaging. of wireless spying by the cable Mr. Packer writes, in his Porth- companies, a prologue to the fi rst curno Museum publication The use of radio, wireless telegraphy, Spies at Wireless Point,6 excerpted for intelligence and command in a here by his kind permission: great war. “The Eastern Telegraph Com- Marconi had fi rst revolutionized pany and Marconi’s early wire- and then monopolized the English less experiments. On the cliffs maritime industry’s communica- near Porthcurno in West Cornwall tions. But a well-capitalized and stands a curious structure of iron politically well -connected cable in- hoops that looks like some medi- dustry could take up supplemental aeval instrument of torture. It is maritime wireless operations. Such all that remains of a little known an initiative could turn the tables episode in the history of wireless. on the Marconi company. There is scant published informa- Yet in 1902 almost no one knew tion about the venture, partly for anything about radio or wireless reasons that will become clear. beyond press accounts. Within Little crumbs of information are three years, partly as a result of scattered through the literature; determined efforts to master the in isolation they tell little but put technology including interception together like pieces of a jigsaw of messages, wireless helped win they reveal early wireless spying, the fi rst war of the 20th Century. industrial espionage. John E. Packer tells the story of “Cornwall’s early cables. The the Porthcurno cable companies’ fi rst international submarine cable interest in, and spying on, Marconi. laid into Cornwall was landed at Marconi’s company had its big sta- Porthcurno near Lands End in tion at nearby Poldhu. It sited its 1870. It formed part of a chain of working maritime station nearby cable systems that spanned the at “The Lizard,” a peninsula jut- globe, linking Europe with the Far ting south.