Veteran reflects how technology has evolved since WWII

Army Communicator, Fall, 2006 by Josh Davidson

It's safe to say that the technology that the Army provides to the Warfighter has grown by leaps and bounds since World War II.

Just ask Warren Cochrane, who served with Army's Signal Corps 85th Signal Operation Battalion during that war. Cochrane who worked mainly with telephones beginning in 1945, recalled how enemy Soldiers from Japan use to cut the telephone cables Americans set up for communications.

So, when laying wire Cochrane and his fellow troops would make sure they were placed between eight to 10 feet above the ground. If the wires were not placed high in the air, the Japanese would cut them and communications would be lost, he said.

Lacking the presence of telephone poles, Cochrane said he and his fellow Soldiers went to a Navy unit that had "four-by-four" boards. The boards were used to hang the cables in the air, to prevent the Japanese from cutting them, he said. The "four-by fours" were too slippery for the Japanese to climb, he said.

"We didn't even try to put (wires) on trees, because the Japanese would climb a tree and cut them," said Cochrane, 82, of Spring Lake Heights, N.J.

To climb a pole in those days, a Soldier didn't use the belts that are used by telephone company wiring experts today, he said. Instead, a Soldier would wrap his legs around it, so they could immediately jump down if they heard a shot, he said.

That's quite a difference from the communications equipment Team Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance provides today.

The satellite capabilities provided by the Joint Network Node-Network have made the wiring problems Cochrane faced a thing of the past. Through JNN-N, today's small platoon on the ground now has Internet capability at the quick halt and the ability to communicate with the rest of the world. The network capability it provides allows a commander to view the progress of his or her units from a far away location.

Cochrane's first World War II deployment was to Okinawa, Japan, in about 1945. He then traveled to Korea.

Cochrane received his schooling at Fort Monmouth, N.J., and was shipped overseas from Fort Bragg, N.C., after basic training. While overseas, Cochrane worked with the Army's 101st Airborne Division to support their maneuvers. Cochrane left the service in April 1946.

Maneuvering and finding one's way over seas was very tough, Cochrane said.

"When we arrived in Okinawa we didn't have any maps really, because we landed at the same time as the Navy and we (stayed) with the landing boats," Cochrane said. "My outfit was about three or four miles apart on the beach. It was probably about two days before we all got together."

Often Soldiers would have to gather their information from other friendly troops, he said.

A Soldier mainly used his intuition to get from one location to the next, Cochrane said. Many times the Soldier would rely on the advice of other Soldiers and service men to decide which roads to take, he said.

Japanese Soldiers were not very visible during the day, because they hid in caves and in outlining woods, Cochrane said. Americans could tell the difference between friendlies and the enemy because the Japanese wore their own traditional Army uniforms, he said.

Today's Warfighter uses a system called Force XXI Battle Command, Brigade and Below to spot the whereabouts of other Soldiers on a map. FBCB2-BFT uses satellite technology to track and display friendly vehicles and aircraft that appear on a computer screen as blue icons over a topographical map or satellite image of the ground. Users can manually add red icons that show up as enemy on the screen and are simultaneously broadcast to all the other FBCB2 users on the battlefield. Other capabilities include creating, sending and displaying graphics such as bridges, minefields, obstacles, supply points and other battlefield hazards. Users can also send messages to each other similar to e-mail on the Internet.

The system is "ruggedized" to survive in any known battlefield environment and is used in platforms such as tanks, rotary wing aircraft, humvees, and command posts. Its network capability connects all of the FBCB2-BFT users together and tracks the locations of other platforms.

Cochrane said that the few radios fielded to his unit were small walkie-talkies. The lack of radios was due to the fact that his unit specialized in telephones. Company headquarters officers used EE8A crank and battery operated telephones much like those seen in Hollywood World War II movies.

Today, The Single-Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System provides commanders with a highly reliable, secure and easily maintained Combat Net Radio that includes the capability to handle both voice and data in support of command and control operations.

SINCGARS and Product Manager JNN-N are both within Project Manager Tactical Radio Communications Systems. PM TRCS and FBCB2-BFT are all within the Army's Program Executive Office for Command, Control, and Communications Tactical.

Cochrane was in charge of a group that set up wires to allow American Soldiers to hear a broadcast of the armistice being signed. An armistice is signed when warring parties agree to the effective end to a war. In this case, the Soldiers developed a way to monitor the broadcast and provide an alternate means of communication, in case the Japanese cut the connection cables, Cochrane said. This way, only a minor disruption would be experienced during the broadcast.