If a person were to require the police in 1938. On the telephone would they dial them or require an

Answer:

You would have had to go through an operator the same as they do now(UK)the telephone operators (now) are trained BT employees or agency employees that stay on the line during the entire time you are talking to the emergency units.They listen in and ensure the line is not broken the call is also recorded.they use computers now as the old plug in wire system is long dead. Didn%26#39;t they just turn the handle around really fast and yell into the mouth piece %26#39;Quick operator - get me the police!%26#39;?

That%26#39;s how they do it in black and white movies anyway. Require an operator - look at those old Looney Tunes cartoon and anything to do with the 1930s and 1940s They would ask the operator, certainly in the United Kingdom direct dialling didn%26#39;t really start until after the war. it would depend a lot on the locale. city or rural, and how advanced the phone company was in that area. Dont be silly...no one would%26#39; be able to phone police or operator because the german agents would have cut the lines down and the only way was to get on your bike and go to the cop shop. By 1938, automated telephone switching was well established. In major cities, they could have dialed the police. In more rural areas they still may have had to talk to the operator. I have some key landmarks below and a link with more details.

Within a year, the Connolly and McTighe "girl-less" telephone system was patented. The first patent on the Strowger step-by-step system was issued in 1891. By 1892, the first commercial installation of automatic switching equipment using step-by-step mechanism was made at La Porte, Indiana.