A Wartime Telephone Network.

US Army Telephone Network.

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In the summer of 1942 the whole of the district was invaded by an American Field Communications Engineering group. There must have been at least two to three hundred of them with each a job to do. The poles ran from somewhere in London I believe. They came into my notice when they arrived on Widbrook Common and cut across to Strand Water, down the slip out to the Moor, skirting around the bottom of Rowborough, over the railway line along and along the top of Winter Hill, down through Quarry Woods and on to Bisham. I know that it went down in the West Country.

This remained up until after D-Day when once again they turned up and removed all the poles and wire. The wire by the way was 14swg hard drawn copper.

There was another shorter phone line installed using a covered twisted pair cable used to communicate between Battlemead in Maidenhead Court and St. Georges and the Odney Club, which housed by the way both British and American Troops at different times during the war.