Brief History of Army MI - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

A BRIEF HISTORY OF U.S. ARMY MILITARY INTELLIGENCEofficers as his G2, a practice he continuedfrom the campaign in NorthAfrica to war’s end. General OmarN. Bradley expressed the problem thisway:The American Army’s longneglect of intelligence training wassoon reflected by the ineptness of ourinitial undertakings. For too manyyears in the preparation of officers forcommand assignments, we had overlookedthe need for specialization insuch activities as intelligence.... Insome stations, the G2 became thedumping ground for officers ill-suitedfor command. I recall how scrupulouslyI avoided the branding thatcame with an intelligence assignmentin my own career. Had it not beenfor the uniquely qualified reservistswho so capably filled so many of ourintelligence jobs throughout the war,the Army would have been pressed....Talking about both the Army andNavy, Secretary of War Henry L.Stimson concluded at the end of 1943that the “intelligence services are prettybum.”The G-2 in the War Departmentwas the largest element of the GeneralStaff. Because of the McNarneyreorganization of the Army staff, theG-2 was reduced to 16 officers and10 others, with 342 officers and1,005 enlisted and civilian personnelmoved to a newly created Military IntelligenceService. The Military IntelligenceService was formed inMarch 1942 as part of a general Armyreorganization that relegated generalstaff sections to just planning functions.This created the need for anoperating agency of G2 that couldcontrol intelligence work in the Zoneof the Interior, such as training forcombat-bound soldiers in escape andevasion and the interrogation of highlevelenemy prisoners in U.S. prisoncamps. The Military Intelligence Servicecoordinated the activities of intelligenceproduction both overseasand in the United States. It was madeup of men who were specialists in avariety of fields, including languagestudents and language experts, scholarsin areas like history, geography andeconomics, world travelers, journalists,and professional investigators.At first, the transfer of MID’soperational functions to MIS waslargely a paper exercise, since the G-2, Maj. Gen. George V. Strong,wished to maintain control over allintelligence assets so as to be in thebest position to advise the Chief ofStaff on intelligence matters.Months after the creation of theMilitary Intelligence Service, a newSpecial Branch was formed to processcommunications intelligence, an outgrowthof the Army’s inability to putMAGIC intercepts in the hands of theproper commanders before the PearlHarbor tragedy. It was headed byBrig. Gen. Carter W. Clarke.Other added missions to affect theMIS were some inherited field officesin New York, San Francisco and NewOrleans. In April 1942 a fourthbranch office was set up in Miami tocounter Axis operations in LatinAmerica, which grew to become asemi-independent intelligence agencywith extensive operations in Centraland South America. It was knownsuccessively as the American HemisphereIntelligence Command, theAmerican Intelligence Command, andthe American Intelligence Service.The MIS opened offices in Londonand Washington to analyze captureddocuments under its MilitaryIntelligence Research Section. ThePsychological Warfare Branch assumedthe duties its name impliesuntil the Office of Strategic Servicespicked up this mission in December1942.In April 1943 the Military InformationDivision was given the taskof managing the Army’s World WarII history program. The HistoricalBranch was formed in August 1943with Lt. Col. John M. Kemper as itsfirst chief. It was removed from G-2responsibility in 1945.Under G2 was the Corps of IntelligencePolice, which was renamedthe Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC)in 1942. With the mission of recruiting,training and administering Armycounterintelligence personnel, theCorps performed security investigationsin the United States and sent 17-man detachments to combat divisionsoverseas. One of its first and mostinfluential chiefs was Colonel H.Gordon Sheen.When the CIC was established in1942, it had an authorized strengthof 1,026. When Germany surrenderedin May 1945, that figure hadrisen to 7,500. In Washington, D.C.,the headquarters would be located ina single room in the Munitions Buildinguntil they were evicted to a seriesof other accommodations in the city.They eventually settled into a privatehome on North Charles Street in Baltimore.Their activities were far-rangingand diverse, calling upon aresourcefulness that would characterizetheir efforts in all theaters.In the United States during thewar, over 13,000 members of theCIC “pushed nearly a billion doorbells,making more than two and a quartermillion background investigationsand running down leads for thousandsof complaint cases [against suspectedsubversives].” In the U.S. the CICWrite Fort Huachuca Museums; U.S. Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca; ATTN: ATZS-PAM; Fort Huachuca, AZ 85613-6000.27