About

This project explores the overlooked contributions of British telecommunications during World War II (WWII), focusing on corporations such as the Post Office and Cable & Wireless, investigating the deep entanglement between military operations and telecommunications. Additionally, aims to produce accessible knowledge to enhance public understanding and memory of WWII, utilising under-researched collections from The BT Group Archives and PK Porthcurno: Museum of Global Communications.

By examining the involvement of telecommunications corporations, their workers, technologies and infrastructures, the project aims to uncover how these entities shaped military strategies and communications. The research will address three main questions: the role of telecommunications in military innovation and strategy, the impact of WWII on telecommunications design and labour, and the contributions of women in this field.

Adopting a ‘bottom-up’ approach, the project will focus on the lived experiences of the workers, including the critical role of women, who developed and operated wartime telecommunications systems. By bridging telecommunications history with labour, gender, and military studies, the project will deepen understanding of how advances in telecommunications technology were driven by wartime needs, and the extent to which employees and their expertise were instrumental in innovating communication technologies. At its broadest, therefore, the project will connect the military history of telecommunications with the social history of wartime labour policy, and in doing so will add new layers to the public history of WWII. 

Qualitative and archival research will be utilised, including photographs, newspaper articles, oral histories, engineer journals and recently declassified war diaries. This interdisciplinary study will contribute to a multi-faceted public history of WWII, shedding light on the human side of military communications and expanding knowledge in media, military, memory and gender studies. The research will culminate in a doctoral thesis, scholarly articles, and public exhibitions, fostering broader engagement with this neglected aspect of WWII history.