I believe US Navy was using wire recorders
I remember as a kid having a wire recorder that my father had salvaged from the scrap pile at a Navel Research Laboratory that he worked at during and after the war. It was a massively heavy unit designed for ship board use with a large complex system for winding the wire onto 3" spools. It was vary similar to the attached photo. Only problem with these is if the wire broke or the end got away you had a mess of small diameter wire to untangle.
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