More Than A New Year's Resolution Is Needed

 

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 Building A Signal Radio Intelligence Company

A Signal Corps Success: Six Army Signal Corps OCS Graduates Do The Impossible

This author built five companies in his civilian business career. Two were exceptional successes, which this young-at-the-time businessman eventually took public on Wall Street, NASDAQ. Before those two successes however came three failures. Civilian communication companies all, building them proved to be less than an optimal experience. Of the three failures, the first two didn’t make it due to lack of money. But the third was the real killer. It fully tested this author’s mettle. By the time It was put to bed it had taken a marriage with it, and left behind over $350,000 in personal IRS tax obligations to be paid.

Building a company ain’t easy… not a successful one, anyway. To build a successful company what you need is money, equipment, talent and a purpose (read: product) that the rest of the world believes is impossible to attain. After all, if just anyone can achieve the purpose (read: mission) your new company sets for itself, then that “anyone” would have already done it and taken the market’s profits along with them in the process.

In many ways, living the life of a Junior Grade Officer in the Signal Corps is much the same. It’s all about building a Company.

Look at it this way: One day you’re sitting in your BOQ in lovely Nha Trang, getting ready to go down to the Duy Tan Hotel (Khách sạn Duy Tân Nha Trang) and have a beer, and the Colonel comes in and says “Lt. Ski, we need a Signal Site up on top of Lang Bien Mountain, outside of Dalat. Get a team together and go out there and build one… and Ski, get it done or don’t come back.”

Of course, he doesn’t tell you that up on that mountain sits a V.C. encampment that needs to be pushed off, 40 acres of trees that need to be cleared, a 360 degree, 500 meter deep free-fire zone that needs to be created, two in depth sets of perimeter trenches that need to be dug to encircle the entire 5 acre site, three single-story barracks to house the Signalmen that will run the new site, another two to house the Infantry boys that will man the perimeter defense bunkers (and run the search and clear patrols that will have to be mounted every third day), a mess hall, an HQ building, a bunch of “communication shacks” to hold the microwave, VHF and tropo gear that will be set up, and of course, a mission to accomplish. That, plus a “team” of some 120 odd men all dressed in olive drab and armed to the hilt, and what you will have at your disposal is a Company… one that applies money, talent and equipment to the task of accomplishing its purpose… that is, its mission.

When you look at it this way, it’s really not that much different than what is done in civilian life when one sets out to build a company, except that with the Army the tough part involving finding the funds to build a Company does not exist. Neither does the problem of paying taxes, or of finding the equipment needed to do the job, be it backhoes to dig trenches, bulldozers (or C4) to level the trees, or any of the equipment needed to erect half a dozen AB-577/GRC Antenna Masts to get your commo equipment up and running.

An example of building a "Communications Company"
– Vietnam War Style –

US Army Communications – Vietnam 1966
US Army Staff Film Report 66-43B

Nope, the tough part in building an Army Company, like in civilian life, is finding qualified people able to do the job—to achieve the mission. Qualified people is what it is all about, and whereas in civilian life if you can’t find the people you need you can simply raise the salaries you’re offering until they come along, in military life that isn’t the case. In the military you take what they give you, or train your own.

Looking back on World War II, that’s exactly what most Junior Grade Signal Corps Officers ended up doing. Back in those days—in 1942 especially—Signal Companies were few and far between, which as a result caused the War Department to order them to be stood up at the rate of a dozen or so a week when the war started. To command these new Companies, fresh out of school 2nd Lieutenants were finding themselves being assigned to do something they had absolutely no training in… putting together a fully staffed U.S. Army Signal Corps Company, in record time. Their purpose: organize the Company, train its men, and take them to war... all under your command, Lieutenant.

If you think your tour in Vietnam was tough, figure out how you would have handled that mission: you, a well meaning but still wet behind the ears 2nd Lieutenant Signal OCS graduate, being ordered to bring online a newly formed Company of 250 or so Signaleers, ready and able to take to the field in Guadalcanal or New Guinea, or someplace else, and accomplish its mission.

Recognize… we’re not talking here of being sent from Signal OCS to some already existing Signal Corps Company with a seasoned Major in charge, a staff of Officers to support him, and an existing complement of trained men. Instead, we’re talking of you, a fresh Second Lieutenant, being tasked to build such a company yourself—from scratch.

That’s what happened with a Company called the 138th Signal Radio Intelligence Company. For those of you who have forgotten, during WWII Signal Radio Intelligence Companies had the task of intercepting messages sent by both our side and the enemy and locating the sending apparatus through the use of direction finding equipment. Mostly, this was done through triangulation of the signals being intercepted.

Once a signal was intercepted, its strength measured, direction and source identified and station identifiers either determined or assigned, the message was analyzed, and the info gleaned reported to those branches of service and units likely to need the info. This might be ships at sea, local friendly ground forces or armored units, or—as in the case of the 138th Signal Radio Intelligence Company—the Army Air Corps unit they were assigned to support.

Typically, units like this were organized to operate as individual, fully self-supportive Companies in the field… under combat conditions. As a result, they maintained their own motorized equipment, mess and field kitchens, as well as headquarters and service platoons.

The Company we are talking of, the 138th, was a classic radio intelligence company of the type one would have seen during the early WWII period. It was constituted on 7 Feb 1942, at Fort George Wright, near Spokane, Washington. Of interest to us is that it’s first Officer, as well as nearly all of the Officers that eventually commanded it, were no more than lowly little Army Signal Corps 2nd Lieutenants at the time; most fresh out of Army Signal OCS, with no command experience to speak of. While newly formed, the 138th Signal Radio Intelligence Company went on to earn Campaign Streamers for its work in World War II. They included streamers for the Asiatic-Pacific Theater, New Guinea from 1943-1944, Leyte from 1944-1945, and Luzon during 1944-1945.

It’s very first Officer was 2nd Lieutenant Felix M. Marshall. A regular Army soldier of some thirteen years before coming to the 138th, he had served with the engineers in Panama for three years and received intensive training in communication in the Coast Artillery Corps. He gained his commission in the Signal Corps Reserve in 1941, prior to which he had been a radio operator in fixed stations and a member of combat crews in the Army Air Corps. This, the Department of War thought, qualified him to set up a radio intelligence company.

Fortunately for Lieutenant Marshall, he didn’t have to do it alone. On 1 May, 1942, only three months after he was assigned command of the then newly formed 138th, he found himself welcoming the first of many Army Signal OCS graduate helpers to come.

This first to arrive was 2nd Lieutenant Harold G. Harbin, from Army Signal OCS Class 42-03. Having graduated from Signal OCS on February 27th, less than 3 months earlier, Harbin originally hailed from Arizona. His addition to the company proved critical, as although his time with the unit was to be short, during his time there he defined for Lt. Marshall the training programs the Company would need to set up if it was to bring its as yet mostly unassigned men up to speed.

Training in a constituted field unit, you ask? Doesn’t training come before you are assigned to your field unit and sent into combat?

Usually, yes. But at this time, at the beginning of WWII, there were more Signal Companies in existence and staffed with untrained men than there were Companies with trained men. So, while the 138th had a defined mission—radio intelligence gathering—the men being assigned to it had no training in doing that kind of work. Just as in civilian life, where running a company with unqualified personnel means failing at the company’s mission, so too in the Army. The only difference is that in civilian life a company’s failure means bankruptcy (and likely tax debts too…), while in war it means your side loses the war.

2nd Lieutenant Harbin understood this, and readily took to his task of quickly training the men that were beginning to be assigned to the unit to do their job.

Manpower wise, from its inception in February 1942 to the day Signal OCS graduate Lieutenant Harbin arrived on May 1st, the Company had grown with fits and starts. It seemed that no matter how many men were assigned to it, nearly as many men were transferred out of it to other active units already in combat.

When Lt. Harbin arrived he brought with him 93 additional men, and for a while it looked like things would settling down. By the end of May, the Company’s total strength stood at 202 Enlisted Men and 2 Officers.

Yet that wasn’t to be the case. By August of 1942 the Signal Corps’ need for trained men—Officers included—had increased even more. Across the entire Signal Corps, the need for more men now greatly exceeded the available supply, no matter what the MOS.

In part this need was driven by the rapid growth of the Army Air Force, which in those days fell under the jurisdiction of the Signal Corps. The result of this was that all signals work required to keep the Air Force in the air and both finding and fighting the enemy fell to Signal Corps support units. These units, normally a constituted part of the Signal Corps itself, ended up being assigned to the Army Air Force. In terms of type, they included everything from communication Companies to radar tracking, plotting and signals intelligence units. It was this need that forced the formation of the 138th in the first place.

As said above, the problem was that for the 138th, as fast as men could be brought into the unit they were being pulled out and reassigned to other companies located in the actual theaters of war, where they were needed—whether adequately trained or not—to do the fighting.

This is what happened to 2nd Lt Harbin. Within a few short weeks of his arriving in the 138th on May 1st, he found himself being promoted—on 11 August—to the rank of 1st Lt., at which point, within two more weeks—25 August, to be exact—he found himself receiving orders to report to duty at the 955th Radio Intelligence Company.

Just like that, the first Army Signal OCS graduate to join the 138th found himself being reassigned, albeit this time to a unit already in combat in the Pacific Theatre. The sad fact is that in this capacity he eventually gave his life for our country. Within little over a year after he graduated from OCS. 1st Lieutenant Harold G. Harbin was KIA.

And the war went on…

For the 138th Signal Radio Intelligence Company, the men arriving still needed training, and the Company formed, organized and structured to accomplish its mission. To that end, on 26 September, 2nd Lieutenants Gilmore, Turner and Belth joined the company. All graduates of Army Signal OCS Class 42-08, each must have felt some comfort in taking on his first command with a couple of trusted friends at his side.

2nd Lt George W. Gilmore was given charge of the Wire Platoon, while 2nd Lt Francis J. Turner was given charge of the Intercept Platoon, and 2nd Lt Ira Belth assigned to the Finding Platoon. Along with these new Officers also came 12 enlisted men, some of whom were immediately sent out to the National Schools, Los Angeles, for urgent signal intercept training. The remainder were sent along to the Headquarters Infantry RTC, at Camp Roberts, California, for basic weapons training, before being returned to the 138th.

For the most part, up to this point the enlisted men coming in were fresh Army recruits, with only the most basic of military training, and little to no Signal training. In most cases they were assigned to the Signal Corps as Enlisted Men because they had some sort of radio experience in their civilian life… usually as Hams.

At the same time as this was happening the Signal Corps was furiously building out its training programs at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. It was at about this time then that the Signal Corps enlisted men training programs began to spit out results. On 27 September 1942 the first small contingent of properly trained enlisted men arrived from the SCRTC facility in Fort Monmouth. While only 5 men, their arrival nevertheless signaled that the U.S. Army Signal Corps was beginning to catch up with its demand.

Work wise, in these early days of the Company’s existence, the men were kept busy with typical military “make work.” When not learning what an Army Signal Radio Intelligence company did, and what their role within it was, they found themselves marching around the parade field. As an example, on 13 May, the company participated in a Post Parade, in competition with other units. Proudly the unit’s history files tell today of the fact that the Post Adjutant at the time announced that the First Platoon of the 138th Signal Radio Intelligence Company took honors for the parade, and “that the organization as a whole made an excellent appearance.”

Little did they know how easy this life would turn out to be when compared to the combat they would later face in the Pacific