21 April 2006

By Josh Davidson

The technology that the Army now provides to the warfighter has grown by leaps and bounds since World War II.

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

So, when laying telephone 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 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.

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 (JNN-N), and in the future, Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T), 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 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 units from a remote location.

Still in its research and development phase, WIN-T provides a robust, redundant and dynamically adaptive network for communications and functions.

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

He received his schooling here 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.”

Soldiers would talk with other troops to learn the whereabouts of their units, he said.

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

Japanese Soldiers were not very visible during the day, because they hid in caves and in outlying woods, Cochrane said.

Today’s warfighter uses a system called Force XXI Battle Command, Brigade & Below Blue Force Tracking (FBCB2-BFT) to spot 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 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 the other FBCB2 users on the battlefield.

Other capabilities include creating, sending and displaying graphics such as bridges, minefields, obstacles, supply points and battlefield hazards.

Users can also send messages to each other similar to e-mail on the Internet.

The system is “ruggedized” to survive in a battlefield environment and is used in tanks, rotary winged aircraft, Humvees and command posts.

Its network capability connects all of the FBCB2-BFT users 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 because his unit specialized in telephones.

Company headquarters officers used a crank and battery operated telephone 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 information in support of command and control operations.

Cochrane was in charge of a group that set up wires to allow American Soldiers to hear a broadcast of the armistice being signed.

Soldiers developed a way to monitor the broadcast and provided an alternate means of communication, in case the Japanese cut the connection cables, Cochrane said. That way, only a minor disruption would be experienced during the broadcast.

“Communications have improved drastically. Now when you can get on a radio set to give directions on how to drop a bomb or torpedo without interference from the enemy, you’re doing pretty good,” he said.