Hi Daphne, If you don't get a reply from the Essex list about radio operators and their training period, then ask on the Mariners list. Mariners has many very knowledgeable and helpful subscribers and one of them may know how long the training took to become a radio operator. You will find the link for subbing to the Mariners list via the Mariners website at http://www.mariners-L.co.uk Regards Jenny DeAngelis. Spain. <<Can anybody tell me where and for how long radio operators would have been > trained in about 1918 before being posted to a ship, a Merchant Navy ship in the North Alantic.>>