The despatch rider or Dog Roger, in the phonetic alphabet of the time, was a crucial part of the British Army during World War Two
If World War One saw the very dawn of mechanised warfare, World War Two, with its blitzkriegs, massive tank battles on the Russian steppes, and vast seaborne invasions culminating in D-Day, brought it to full fruition.
Motorcycles played their part. Their primary World War One function as messengers had been mainly usurped by improved wireless communications. But the troops’ portable radios were always unreliable, especially, as at Arnhem, in wooded terrain, and radio telephone (R/T) lines were vulnerable to shelling and bombing. So along with convoy duties for motorcycle outriders, there were often still despatches to be delivered in war zones.
On the Home Front, as well as all of the above, there was the unobtrusive but massive traffic resulting from the Ultra code-breaking operation. Bletchley Park took delivery of 3,000 messages a day, chiefly from the listening-stations like RAF Chicksands Priory near Bedford: its vital, top-secret decrypted ‘product’ was too valuable to commit to the air-waves. Though mainly communicated by tele-printer, sometimes they had to be deli…
