Technical writing in World War Two

While technical writing has arguably been with us since the Roman Empire (see my previous post, Empires, Wars, and Revolutions here), many agree that the Second World War was a watershed moment in which technical writing turned into the profession we know today.

So, what happened between 1939 and 1945 that caused this change? Well, the Second World War was, in a way, a huge technological race between the Axis powers and the Allies, driven by the need of both sides to gain an advantage over each other. This wasn’t purely in terms of tanks or guns – many different scientific and technological disciplines saw breakthroughs as part of the war effort. A couple of examples include:

• The world’s first computer, Colossus, was constructed to break the German Enigma code in Bletchley Park in February 1944.
• Superglue was accidentally invented in 1942 by Dr Harry Coover, while he was attempting to make clear sights for rifles.
• The Jeep, a classic utilitarian vehicle still used to this day, was an amalgamation of designs received from several manufacturers to a US Army tender, and was first commissioned in 1941.

Now, all this new technology being invented at a breakneck pace is all well and good, but it needs to be used by people – people who are enduring the stresses and strains of being involved in a World War. If you can’t explain what the new tech is, how it works, and how they can use it quickly and efficiently, those people aren’t going to be able to take full advantage of it. So, how do you make sure that all this new technology is used correctly by those that need it?

If you guessed ‘Great technical writing’, you are 100% correct. To prove my point, I’m going to go through a few examples of new technologies introduced in the Second World War, why they made an impact, and why great technical writing helped them do so.

The Supermarine Spitfire

One of the most iconic aircraft ever created, the Supermarine Spitfire is widely praised for its manoeuvrability and capability as a fighter plane, and was instrumental in the defence of Britain after the evacuation of Dunkirk. While the Hurricane was arguble the workhorse of the RAF at this point, the Spitfire is fondly remembered by those that piloted them, and has become the iconic plane of World War Two. Famously, in the film ‘The Battle of Britain’, one scene depicts Hermann Goring asking his pilots what he can do to help them win air superiority, with one cheekily replying, ‘Give me a squadron of Spitfires’ (this is partially true, as in his autobiography, German Pilot Adolf Galland claims to have said this to Goring in an unguarded moment, before backtracking and explaining that he believed the Messerschmitt Bf 109 to be the better aircraft).

First entering service in the RAF in August 1938, the fighter plane was still relatively new at the outbreak of the Second World War. Not only this, but the aircraft would have been completely new to freshly conscripted British pilots, as well as the host of French, Polish, Canadian, New Zealand, and Czech pilots who had recently joined the RAF, having previously flown completely different aircraft. With the threat of invasion looming, and the Luftwaffe filling the skies over Britain, there was precious little time for training new pilots. So, if you were the head of the RAF, how would you ensure that your new pilots, all with different levels of experience, and some speaking English as a second language, get the most out of your cutting-edge aircraft? The correct answer is by making a fantastic user guide, complete with annotated diagrams, which you can read here.

While the ‘Pilot’s notes for a Spitfire’ does have some instances of being overly descriptive (one passage describes the flying qualities of an unladen Spitfire as ‘easy and pleasant’, but with an extra 90 gallon fuel tank it becomes ‘extremely difficult and tiring to fly’), it is, for the most part, a good example of making a complex subject easy to understand. The annotated diagrams of the instrument panel and cockpit, as well as the detailed operating data on the performance of the aircraft, give even the most novice aviators a good grasp of the capability of a Spitfire.

This example highlights how complex equipment needs clear, simple technical writing that makes using high-tech gear easy and intuitive. The use of direct language and illustrations to make complicated concepts easy to grasp is something that is still used by technical writers to this day (for example, when writing about complex robotics products, such as ANYBotics ANYMal).

Radar

While radar has a long and complicated history – being first theorized by Scottish physicist James Maxwell Clark in 1862, with various scientists from Germany, Italy, and Britain experimenting with different forms and applications up until the mid-1930s – it wasn’t until early 1936 when Britain’s MOD started construction of the ‘Chain Home’ system, covering much of the south and east of England, that radar got its first large-scale practical application.

And it couldn’t have been better timed by the MOD. As mentioned previously, after the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force and the fall of France in 1940, the situation in the UK looked grim. With most of the army’s tanks, artillery, and heavy weapons abandoned in Dunkirk, and shipping from allied nations being hunted by German U-boats, all that stood between a full invasion of the British Isles was the RAF. Despite being bolstered by the Royal Canadian Airforce, as well as New Zealand, Czechoslovakian, and free French and Polish pilots, the RAF was still largely outnumbered by the German Luftwaffe and Italian Corpo Aereo Italiano.

However, by this time the RAF had perfected its home defence radar and had implemented ‘The Dowding System.’ This system combined data gathered from radar stations and relayed it through a dedicated telephone service to the RAF’s Fighter Command Headquarters. This allowed the RAF to detect and respond to threats more efficiently than before, with over 90% of the Luftwaffe raids into the UK being intercepted.

However, in order to work effectively, this complex, and at the time, completely unprecedented network of radar stations and infrastructure, needed an army of technicians, engineers, and observation staff to install, maintain, and repair the infrastructure – and these staff needed to be brought up to speed on this cutting edge technology quickly so that the RAF could maintain its advantage over the invading forces. Many examples of technical writing were produced to help with this effort, such as the ‘Summary of operational, technical and general data concerning shore radar services’.

This manual is a great example of technical writing, as it covers a wide array of devices that made up the early radar system and separates them into distinctive groups. Each device or installation is then given a ‘function’, ‘description’, and even a manufacturing status at the time of writing – providing readers with advanced warning of what new apparatus would be appearing across the country soon. This kind of structured writing means readers can quickly get an idea of what each device does, how it fits into the overall network, and even how widespread the device currently is. Of course, things have developed since the early days of radar, but the practice of structuring information so it is easily parsed by readers is something we still do in our modern radar projects, such as for Raymarine and Sperry Marine (Link TBC).

Blood transfusions

If you’ve ever suffered a serious injury, you’ve probably been one of the 2.5 million people who received a blood transfusion each year in the UK. It’s a technology that helps people survive traumatic injuries and has saved countless lives. While the technology for live blood transfusions has existed since the late 19^th century, the practice of drawing and storing ‘whole’ live blood for later use wasn’t put into use until the early stages of the Second World War mainly due to the efforts of the British Army Transfusion Service.

While other armed services relied on live or plasma transfusions, the British Army’s adoption of whole blood transfusions gave it an edge over its adversaries. To receive a live transfusion in an Axis field hospital would take three people a number of hours; the wounded soldier, a healthy volunteer to donate the blood, and a medical professional to oversee the operation. In the same situation for British forces, anyone with some basic training could set up a transfusion, using a blood pack, in a short space of time, eliminating the need for a donor to be found, and saving the medical teams precious time that could be used saving other patients. While this might sound like a very slight advantage, with the number of traumatic injuries sustained by both sides in battles, such as the second battle of El Alamein, the British Army’s use of blood transfusion with blood packs is often cited as a key advantage that they had over Axis forces.

However, while this new technology worked well and saved many lives, it did pose a problem. To be effective, blood transfusion packs have to be drawn correctly, handled and packaged in a specific manner, and kept refrigerated – not an easy task when you are working from a battlefield in North Africa. To aid with this, the British Army Transfusion Service had to set up a long logistical supply chain and train many of its staff to use this new technology. To this end, they produced many manuals, including the ‘Surgical Instruments Indirect Blood Transfusion Apparatus and Miscellaneous Surgical Supplies: Care and Maintenance’ which covers how to properly identify, store, and maintain medical equipment.

While some of the language used is overly descriptive and can be difficult to parse (passages such as ‘Surgical instruments usually grouped into general or specialty instruments without regard to the character of care or maintenance each should receive’ takes some digesting), the information in this manual has been clearly designed so that it is easy for the reader to find the relevant information quickly. It also includes practical descriptions of what different surgical tools and apparatus look like, as well as clear instructions on how they are stored, and why it is important to store them correctly, which would help a novice easily distinguish between medical equipment and quickly learn the correct method for handling them. While writing for medical devices has evolved over the last 80 years, the importance of providing clear instructions has stayed the same, such as in our work for Roche and Oxford Immunotec. 

Good technical writing doesn’t change

I hope you have enjoyed this look at some examples of technical manuals from the Second World War. One lesson I’ve taken from writing this article is that while the delivery methods and the way users access and consume information might change, the basic principles of technical writing; information being easy to find, access, and understand, have stayed the same – much the same as my more qualified colleague, Rachel Potts, points out in her article ‘Why the skill of writing well matters’.

If you are looking for help creating some great technical documentation, or are wondering how technical writing has changed has changed since the Second World War, why not get in contact with us? We’d be more than happy to help.