The year 1993 marked the end of an era. Just over half a century earlier the Signal School was bombed out of its home in Pompey and moved to sunny Leydene, while a few years later, in 1946, the Electrical branch had been formed. This incorporated the Radio Mechanic Branch which had been introduced in the war primarily to cope with the new radar systems, but was also to take over all radio maintenance. Many of the founder members were signal officers and Telegraphists who had a bent for the technical as well as the operational aspects of radio.

By 1992 things had come full circle. With the reliability of modern equipment and their 'repair by replacement', it was decided that the time had come to adopt or, as far as 'Communicators were concerned, to revert to, the User/Maintainer concept. This would be done by merging the Operations and Weapons Engineering Branches into a new Warfare Branch, thus complementing the change in the officer structure that had already taken place with the introduction of the Warfare Officer in 1974.

The new Warfare Branch was to be introduced from 1993 mainly from the new entry stage, although there was some cross training of existing junior rates, it was projected that it would take some 8 years for the change over to be complete. Ratings are now known as 'Operator Mechanics', the various groups having distinguishing letters; thus OM(C) for Communications, OM(UW) for Underwater (the old TAS rating), and so on. The submarine Radio Operator became an OM(CSM), and the electronic warfare specialist (The old RO(W)), who had already been in the seaman branch for some years, now became an OM(EW). The only Communicators unaffected by all the changes are the Communications Technicians who are to continue their role in the Signit and 'Y' field. As the new system worked its way up the Communications Yeoman and Radio Supervisor will eventually disappear and merge as Petty Officer (Communications) or PO(C).

The new Warfare Branch has adopted the old WEM (Weapons Electrical Mechanic) badge, which has become the common badge to all specialisations, but with the appropriate distinguishing letters below. There may be some logic to this and having the same badge must make life easier for the manufacturer but it is a pity that the various specs now have nothing more than a few letters to give them a visible identity.

The Communications facilities provided by the Branch have now been overtaken by others, enormous amount of information can now be passed over high-speed data links. The days when information and instructions all came by clearly defined messages reproduced and distributed on hard copy have long since gone.

The last paragraph was found in the book "Signal" and credited to Captain Mike Caswell, CNS RN:

For a period yet, ships will have two Petty Officers (C), and no doubt one will be referred to as 'Yeoman'; but the evolution of technology has already changed the Communicator's role from an equipment operator to a systems manager. For the foreseeable future, it will be vitally important that a warfare trained Communications Officer acts as the 'C3' systems manager, with a staff capable of fully understanding and operating the complex computerised Communications and Command Support Systems, together with the data, message and voice information exchanged through these systems.

This is a far cry from the gentler days of the flag-hoist and the morse key, but the ability of the Royal Navy to continue to conduct its warfare tasks effectively through the year 2000 and beyond will depend even more than in the past on the Communicator's management of the new high-tech means of information exchange