Communications and Electronics Branch

History[edit]

Major Wallace Bruce Matthews Carruthers (13 February 1863–21 October 1910) was the founder of the Canadian Signalling Corps, forerunner of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals and the Communications and Electronics Branch. In the 1968 unification of the Canadian Forces, functional similar components of the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army and Royal Canadian Air Force were combined into the new Communications and Electronics Branch.


During the Boer War, Carruthers noted the importance of tactical signalling in a successful campaign. Observing the employment of heliographs, semaphore flags and lamps, he realized there was a need for a unit to provide proper training in the use of these systems. Upon his return to Canada in 1902, he wrote a paper on signalling for the Royal Military College Club and championed an establishment of a signalling corps. In 1903, the formation of the Canadian Signal Corps was authorized by General Order 167. It was the first signal corps in the British Empire and is the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals.


On 3 February 1903, now Major Carruthers was appointed as one of two inspectors of signalling. Setting up his headquarters in Kingston, Ontario, he was responsible to the Militia Council for the supervision of instruction and practice of signalling and the inspection of signallers and their equipment. In 1904, the Provisional School of Signalling was established, with schools held in Kingston, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Montreal, Halifax, London, Quebec and Toronto over the next 2 years.


Training began in earnest in 1905 in summer militia instructional camps or in provisional schools set up in those eight cities. 546 officers and men from the rural corps were trained in semaphore at the summer camps and 68 of those had qualified as signallers over the next few years.


A reorganization of the corps in 1906 made Carruthers the Canadian Corps of Signal's commanding officer. He received the title of Assistant Adjutant General for Signalling


In April 2013, the army component of the branch was officially designated with its historic title, the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, but it remains a part of the C&E Branch.^[2]