Page 183 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

CHAPTER NINE

The hard transition

9.1 FIRST SIGNS OF ELECTRONIC WARFARE

radIo dIrecTIon fIndIng and InTercePTIons

Captain Sacco signed monthly or bi-monthly reports summing up the results of radio goniometric
findings and of interceptions carried out by the Office in Codroipo .
1
In early 1916, the radiotelegraphic network designed for this purpose included some Armies’ field
stations that would intercept messages in the free time from other tasks , as well as posts designed
2
to exclusively listen to enemy stations operating on the front, on a 24h basis, located in Bertiolo
(Codroipo), Udine, Rivolto, San Valentino (Monte Altissimo), Medea and Mantua. In addition, the
fixed stations in Bologna, Ravenna, Vlora and Rhodes were listening to enemy stations operating
in the Adriatic-Balkan region.
Direction finding systems remained in Padua, Latisana, San Daniele. Later, a new station was
implemented in Lecce to cover the Adriatic-Balkan region more effectively, in cooperation with
the French direction-finding stations of Thessaloniki and Florina in Greece.
The Radiotelegraphic Office periodically distributed tables analogous to the one shown in picture
9.1 reporting, amongst other things, the names of the stations to be intercepted, the frequencies used
3
and the types of emissions (continuous wave, damped wave, etc.) . It also assigned to each group
4
of Italian stations the control of a cluster of enemy stations, set up according to their geographic
location and to similarity of transmission criteria .
5
The vastness of the operations theatre controlled by the RT Office is impressive. The analysis
of radio traffic was extended quite beyond the Italian-Austrian front, including the Adriatic and
Danubian areas, the Bulgarian and Turkish networks, and some distant Middle Eastern stations.
The interception and radio location activities concerned Austrian and German army and navy
communications as well as long and medium distance enemy international traffic especially
between Germany, Austria - Hungary and some neutral countries such as Spain.
Results thus obtained were represented in maps, included in monthly reports, like the one shown
in picture 9.2. Other maps of the same reports exposed the number of intercepted dispatches

rd
1 3 Regiment of the Engineer Corps, Radiotelegraphic Office of Codroipo, Relazioni sul servizio radiogoniometrico e di
ascolto (Report on Radio goniometric and listening service), January, Februarv - March, April - May, June, July - Aug.,
etc. 1916, ISCAG, Coll. 220. Similar reports written in 1915 that are mentioned in the January 1916’s report have not been
recovered.
2 These include very active stations for field interception in Tolmezzo, Arsiero, Primolano (Cismon del Grappa), Villa
D’Allegno and Treviso.
3 Chief Inspector of the STM, Military History Journal, Letter no.1093, 24 April 1916, Radiotelegraphic Listening Service,
AUSSME, Series B1,105 S, Vol. 88. The letter mentions other tables that had been communicated earlier.
4 The letters identifying the type of spark-gap emission correspond to a pre-ordered ranking: B stands for Marconi spark-gap
kind like the one in the Bologna station; M stands for Marconi and Telefunken of the ‘sharp tone’; P stands for ‘low tone’
Telefunken like the one in Pola; R stands for ‘low frequency spark’, etc.
5 Bertiolo, Ravenna, Valona and some field stations were tasked to listen to communications of Austrian naval and Danubian
networks. Udine and Bologna were dealing with some transmitters of the Austrian army, etc.

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