Military Intelligence Division
Branch Insignia
Active1917-1942
CountryUnited States
BranchU.S. Army

The Military Intelligence Division was the military intelligence branch of the United States Army and United States Department of War from May 1917 (as the Military Intelligence Section, then Military Intelligence Branch in February 1918, then Military Intelligence Division in June 1918) to March 1942. It was preceded by the Military Information Division and the General Staff Second Division and in 1942 was reorganised as the Military Intelligence Service.[1]

History

World War One

[2]

Inter-War Years

Army G2 Black Chamber MI Officer Reserve Corps Signal Intelligence Service Devolution to G2 and S2

In the first half of 1941, Sherman Miles became a senior member of Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall's general staff. Miles was assigned as "Assistant Chief of Staff G-2", i.e., the head of the Military Intelligence Division.[3]

The MID greatly expanded during his time as G-2, but, as Miles put it, "always in a piecemeal manner".[4] Qualified cryptography personnel were scarce, and Japanese-speaking personnel were also hard to come by. Miles' suggestions to set up an espionage service were ignored until June 1941,[4][5] when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed William J. Donovan as Coordinator of Information. Donovan's unit would eventually become the OSS, but it was independent from the MID and needed time to mature, which made for a difficult collaboration (if not to say a rivalry) between the MID and the OSS from the beginning and continuing throughout the war.[4]

The attack on Pearl Harbor ended Miles' career in the General Staff.[6] MID very much relied on intercepted Japanese radio messages. The decoded "Magic" messages were top-secret and circulated only in a very select circle of ten people comprising the General Staffs of the Army and the Navy, the Secretary of War, and the President.[7] No coherent analysis of these messages was done.[4] The warnings that the General Staff sent to Hawaii failed to stress the urgency because MID themselves did not consider the contents of the "Magic" intercepts received prior to the attack as particularly significant at that time.[8] In addition, communication channels in the U.S. military were convoluted due to the split commands of Army and Navy, each with their own intelligence branch,[9] and the last message to Hawaii before the attack was delayed and was decoded at Hawaii only after the attack had already begun.[7][10]

Ten days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Miles was sent on an inspection tour through South America to survey installations there and to make recommendations for military assistance to the Latin American countries;[11] Brigadier General Raymond E. Lee became Acting Assistant Chief of Staff G-2 .[12]

World War Two

In March 1942, the Military Intelligence Division was reorganized as the Military Intelligence Service (MIS). It was tasked with collecting, analyzing, and disseminating intelligence, and absorbed the Fourth Army Intelligence School. Originally comprising just 26 people, 16 of them officers, it was quickly expanded to include 342 officers and 1,000 enlisted men and civilians garrisoned at Camp Savage in Minnesota.[13]

Initially, the MID included:

  • an Administrative Group
  • an Intelligence Group
  • a Counterintelligence Group
  • an Operations Group

In May 1942, Colonel Alfred McCormack, established the Special Branch of MIS which specialised in COMINT.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bigelow 2012: 13
  2. ↑ Bigelow 2012: 14
  3. ↑ Cullum, George Washington: "Biographical register of the officers and graduates of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. since its establishment in 1802. Supplement vol. 9 (1940–1950) Archived 2011-07-20 at the Wayback Machine". URL retrieved 2011-01-12.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Finnegan, John Patrick: Military Intelligence, Center for Military History, U.S. Army 1998, CMH pub 60-13, here "Chapter 4: Military Intelligence in Crisis". URLs retrieved 2011-01-14.
  5. ↑ Life, 2 Dec 1940 issue, p. 94: "These are U.S. Army's six foremost Generals", wrote even that "spies are considered un-American". URL retrieved 2011-01-14.
  6. ↑ Casey, Richard Gardiner: A delicate mission: the Washington diaries of R.G. Casey, 1940–42, ISBN 0-642-27662-5, p. 214: "25 December 1941 ... Amongst the various heads that have been rolled in the dust has been that of General Sherman Miles (U.S. Military Intelligence)... General Raymond Lee (late U.S. Military Attaché in London) has taken Sherman Miles' place."
  7. 1 2 U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, U.S. GPO, 1946, here "Chapter IV: Responsibilities in Washington, p. 180, "Policy with respect to dissemination of Magic". URLs retrieved 2011-01-18.
  8. ↑ Congress of the United States, 79th Congress, 1st session: Pearl Harbor attack: Hearings before the Joint Committee on the investigation of the Pearl Harbor attack, U.S. GPO 1946; testimony of Gen. Miles on November 29, 1945: p. 794ff.
  9. ↑ Congress of the United States, 79th Congress, 2nd session: Investigation of the Pearl Harbor attack: Report the Joint Committee on the investigation of the Pearl Harbor attack, U.S. GPO 1946; here in particular Part V: Conclusion and recommendations, p. 253.
  10. ↑ U.S. Army Pearl Harbor Board:Report of the Army Pearl Harbor Board, U.A. Army, 1944, here Chapter 3C: Critical Period: October 1 to December 7, 1941", p. 138ff, "December 7, 1941 Message". URLs retrieved 2011-01-18.
  11. ↑ Conn, Stetson; Fairchild, Byron: The Framework of Hemisphere Defense, Center of Military History, U.S. Army 1960, CMH pub 4-1; "Chapter VIII: General Military Relations With Latin America", p. 200ff. URL retrieved 2011-01-17.
  12. ↑ Mercado, Stephen C.: "FBIS Against the Axis, 1941–1945 (U)", Studies in Intelligence Fall/Winter 2001, issue 11, pp. 33–43. CIA, 2001. Mentions on page 40 and in footnote 25 that Raymond E. Lee was Acting ACoS G-2 on 26 December 1941. URL retrieved 2011-01-17.
  13. ↑ Bradsher, Greg (19 December 2017). "The Beginnings of the United States Army's Japanese Language Training". The National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
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