Infantry Unit Tactics, Tasks, Weapons, and Organization

[Ken White]

PT person?

(Actually he's a messenger to cope with periods of radio silence, comm failure and such. We used to have 'em on the TOE as well. one or two per walking infantry Platoon, two to four per company. They came out post Korea because the Comm equipment had gotten more reliable [true] and our egos said we'd never have to resort to radio silence again 'cause we're so big and good -- or something [myth])

[Norfolk]

When I was in, the main role of the Runners was to immediately break and run back to Company HQ as soon as Contact or an Ambush took place. The general idea was that hopefully at least one might make it alive to Coy HQ to tell them what had just happened if the Platoon or its Sections for whatever reason could not radio Company HQ. They were, as Ken mentioned, also useful for mantaining radio silence. We also used to tap into landlines to avoid using radio at Company, Battalion, and Brigade levels until we absolutely had to use radio, or because the ruse was up anyway.

[Norfolk]

Lionel Wigrams' Letter on Lessons of the Sicilian Campaign, 16 October, 1943.

Stumbling on this piece sometime last year, I rather imprudently dismissed it as an historical eccentricity. Wilf drew my attention back to it not long ago, and I realized just how careless I had been in ignoring it. This ties well into Wilf's own articles "Patrol-Based Infantry Doctrine" and "Organising Infantry". For that matter, Wilf's own article on Lionel Wigram was just published last month in British Army Review.

In short, without giving away the specific contents of Wigram's letter, the organization and TTP's that Wigram proposed for Infantry Sub-Units and Minor-Units were (and to a certain extent still are) radical and eye-opening. It's reasonably short in length, but may lead to a fair bit of contemplation.