This article originally published on our Home Page in December 2011
Going into
World War II it wasn’t that obvious, but by the time
the war ended everyone around the world knew it: the
United States was the most powerful nation in the
world. By 1945 the US had literally half of the world's
wealth, incomparable military power and security,
and it was in a position to reorganize much of the
world so that it would finally function properly.
Whether it wanted to or not, the country would never
again return to the isolationist mindset that its
people held prior to WWII.
More than just a
desire to stick our noses into everyone else's
business, the US was mandated, in part by the rest
of the world, to help get things back to normal. In
particular, the US had entered into what was called
the “four powers agreement,” an accord between the
Allies that required US troops to maintain an
ongoing presence in Europe. This, plus
the Marshall
Plan, involvement in the new United Nations, an
obligation to administer Japan, Korea, Austria, and
Germany, an obligation to help the Jews settle into
and form a state of their own, along with a bunch of
other international commitments that flowed from
WWII, all served to tie the US down like Gulliver
being bound to the ground with thousands of
Lilliputian strings. Powerful as America was, within
a few months of the end of WWII it found
itself tied
to the Lilliputs of the world, every one of them—whether it wanted to be or not—from
the ones decimated by the war itself and in true
need of America’s help, to the ones who still
thought of themselves as powerful nations, but whose
place and position in time had forever slipped to
that of a third rate country.
As to how the US was going to go
about meeting its increased world responsibilities,
strangely, that fell to the military… and the Army
in particular. If one wonders today why the State
Department didn’t step into Afghanistan and take
over responsibility for the “nation building” that
was, and still is, needed in that country … leaving
it instead to Rumsfeld and his Defense Department
people to do… or why in Viet Nam the effort to win
the hearts and minds of the people was conducted by
the Army instead of State Department specialists
with the skills needed to guide a nation’s
development (where in this author’s view, all of
these types of tasks rightly belong), one need only
look at what happened after WWII.
After World War II McArthur ran Japan… more like a
War Lord than a civilian administrator, while other
leaders throughout the Army policed and administered
Korea, Germany, Austria, the rebuilding of the
Philippines, and many other countries. To round
matters off, US leaders used the military, helped at
later stages
by the CIA, to undertake an
effort to create a 'philosophy of new nationalism'
in Latin America (one byproduct of which was the
advent of a US-backed military coup in Brazil),
while at the same time other US military ‘groups’
worked to bring Marshall Plan
benefits to the 16 countries that asked for Marshall
Plan help, supported Chiang Kai-shek against the
Communists, ‘assisted’ in the elections in Italy to
prevent the Communist Party from coming to power in
1947-48, changed governments in Guatemala, placed
benevolent dictators in power throughout the many
islands in the Pacific, helped Burma get back on its
feet, influenced what happened in Palestine and
trans-Jordan, intervened in the Greek civil war
(taking the side of the neo-fascists against the
Greek left which had fought the Nazis courageously),
helped overthrow Prime Minister Mossadegh in Iran (in a joint U.S./British
operation), and on, and on. On the heels of WWII the
precedent was set: when needed, the US military
will do the fighting, and when the conflict ends,
the military will then go about rebuilding or
reorienting the country so that it supports US
ideals.
With the military taking such a front
role seat in this global game of ‘let’s rebuild the world in
our image,’ it was only natural for the Signal Corps to have
to step up its support for these efforts and make sure that
US military and government administrators around the world could communicate with
each other. Unfortunately, it didn’t.
In spite of the critical
position the US held in overseeing most of the world’s
post-war international affairs, and the central role the
Army played in all of this, the Signal Corps was ordered to
begin
dismantling its post-WWII global military communication
system. Whether part of the normal demobilization process
that takes place at the end of most wars, or simply an
oversight on someone’s part, it’s hard to say why the Signal
Corp was directed to break down its infrastructure and head
home—but it did.
Fortunately, Maj. Gen. Frank E. Stoner,
wartime administrator of the Army Command and Administrative
Network of the Signal Corps, fought the policy, and while he
was criticized for it, he threw as many road blocks and
speed bumps in the way of the deconstruction of the US’ only
global commo network as he could. And while breaking down the
Army’s worldwide communication system continued apace
despite his efforts, of equal importance, technology moved
forward faster than the breakdown process did. The result
was that by the early 50s revolutionary technological
changes in how communication was handled help to usher in an
even better system than the one that was being scrapped. Of
equal interest, along with these technological improvements
in the means and methods of communication came more
responsibility for the Signal Corps. Between 1950 and 1965
the Signal Corps’ domain of responsibility was expanded to
include all sorts of new areas… both around the world, as
well as up into the heavens.
During this time things like the
following were perfected, all through Signal Corps led
efforts:
Parabolic
Antennas: As a former Signal Officer, you should know
what a parabolic antenna is… an antenna consisting of a
parabolic reflector and a radiating or receiving element at
or near its focus. If the reflector is in the shape of a
paraboloid, it is called a paraboloidal reflector.
Parasitic
Array. Neat name, even neater use. The Signal Corps
perfected the form and structure of Parasitic Arrays. An
antenna of this type is an array containing one or
more elements not connected to the transmission line.
Basically, it’s an antenna with a driven element, and one or
more parasitic elements. Makes sense, right?
Tracking Radar:
Tracking Radar was a form of radar that provided continuous
range, bearing, and elevation data by keeping the RF beam on
the target. Tracking radar had its greatest impact in the
then upcoming Korean war… when an early form of it was used
to determine where incoming mortar and artillery fire was
coming from, not to
mention in Vietnam, where in places like Nha Trang and
Camranh Bay it allowed EMs and Officers to sit out the
usually fortnight mortar attack in comfortable hooches and
bars until the enemy was disposed of by outgoing artillery
fire.
Other things perfected by
the Signal Corps during this period included:
Uniform Linear Arrays: An
antenna composed of a relatively large number of usually
identical elements arranged in a single line or in a plane
with uniform spacing and usually with a uniform feed system.
Varactor Diodes: A P-N
junction employing an external bias to create a depletion
layer containing very few charge carriers. The diode
effectively acts as a variable capacitor.
Varactor Tuned
Oscillators: Once the varactor diode was invented, it
was a natural next step to use it as a voltage-controlled capacitor in a tuned
circuit, to control the frequency of a negative resistance
oscillator. The major feature of this oscillator was its
extremely fast tuning speed. A limiting factor was the
ability of the external voltage driver circuit to change the
voltage across the varactor diode, which is primarily
controlled by the driver impedance and the bypass capacitors
in the tuning circuit.
Voltage Standing Wave
Ratio [VSWR]: More a matter of defining what a VSWR was than
anything else, the Signal Corps determined that in a
waveguide, the ratio of the electric field (at a maximum
point) to that of an adjacent minimum point would henceforth
be called a VSWR.
Whip Antenna: Ah yes... who
can forget these? The Signal Corps defined a whip antenna as
a vertical monopole. Gosh, that definition leaves me
speechless... I thought a whip antenna was that thing you
tied a squirrel tail to.
XCO:
Considering that you knew that the Signal Corp developed the
first viable way to grow large structure quartz crystals,
you should have expected them to define many of the things
these crystals were used in. One of them was the Crystal
controlled oscillator, aka an XCO. An XCO is an oscillator
which uses a crystal to control the oscillation frequency.
The Early Cold War Period -
From WWII to
Korea: 1946-1950
During the period between the end of WWII and
the beginning of the Korean War, while the Signal Corps was busy breaking down its old WWII
network, the War department was busy rebuilding and
reorganizing itself to command a newer, more modern
military, befitting a world at peace. Expecting there not
to be a new war for eons to come, the War Department
revamped its internal organization so that all of the
service branches could live harmoniously under one tent,
smiling, laughing, and back slapping each other in never
ending camaraderie. Sarcasm aside, what resulted was the
creation of what we know today as the ‘unified’ Department
of Defense.
To bring the DoD into existence, a board
of Officers was appointed, and fortunately for the signal
Corps, Chief Signal Officer Harry C. Ingles was appointed as
one of the members. From 1945 through 1947… and even into
1949… the US military went through all sorts of
reorganizations, on its way to becoming the DoD that we all know
and love
today.
From functional decentralization of the War
Department, to the dissolution of the Army Service Forces,
the return of the technical services (such as the Signal
Corps) to their prewar independent status, through to the
passage in Congress in 1947 of the National Security Act
(that created a unified National Military Establishment
headed by a civilian Secretary of Defense), to the creation
of a new Air Force, to the alteration of the duties of the
old Secretary of War position into a newly named Secretary
of the Army role, on to still another realignment in
1949 to
make the recently created National Military Establishment a
department within the Department of Defense, to giving the
new Secretary of Defense a level of control over the all of
the services, to the final loss of their cabinet status by
the Joint Chiefs… the US military bounced from one side of
the pool table to the other like a drunken cue ball.
Overarching all of these
changes was the mantra that the new military would be a
peacetime military. And in this regard, General Ingles,
while he may have disagreed with it personally, got the
message and began in earnest to oversee conversion of the
Signal Corps to take on a different role than the one it was
leaving behind—and
do so with far fewer troops. By the end of June 1946, the
Signal Corps had shrunk in size from over 336,000 a year
earlier, to just over 56,000 Officers and men. Of greater
damage however was the fact that the Joint Chiefs felt that
postwar activities would not require the training of an
endless supply of new recruits.
With this in mind, the Signal Corps saw
the consolidation, and in most cases dissolution, of many of
its training facilities. One of the first to go was the
Central Signal Corps School at what was then called Camp
Crowder (Neosho, Missouri). With Camp Crowder’s Signal Corps
training programs closed, the little bit of training that was left was
relocated to Fort Monmouth, with the small supply school
that supported the Signal Corps’ task of running unit supply
being relocated to Fort Holabird, Maryland. It was at this
time too that the Signal Corps lost many of its old
functions… like control over air corps operations and
military intelligence, to the newly formed Air Force and the Army
Security Agency.
But this wasn’t the worst of it. As we
all know, the Army Signal Corps develops, tests, provides,
and manages communication and information systems for the
command and control function and information systems for the
command and control of all the U.S. armed forces.
It does this by connecting military posts around the world
with each other, and with the continental US.
Back
at the end of WWII this system was known as the ACAN system
(Army Command and Administrative Net-work, a network of radio
stations that made up a thin thread of Army strategic
communications binding the U.S. military missions and
outposts around the world). In 1946
Eisenhower, believing that such a system should not be left
in the hands of the military, ordered that ACAN be turned
over to a syndicate of commercial companies (think: Ma
Bell). The intent was that it be operated as a diplomatic
and government network, and as such, if the military ran it,
they would be able to know and read the traffic that it was
carrying. Eisenhower thought this was too much of a risk—for the military to know what was going on throughout
the entire government—this even though the US military
had always deferred to civilian leadership since its
inception, when the Continental Congress created the
Continental Army in 1775, and named General George
Washington as its commander. Even so, with Eisenhower
thinking that the US military should not be eves-dropping on
the civilian side of government, ACAN was dismantled and
sold off.
The plan was that in the
event of war the system would be returned to the Army, but
in the mean time, civilians would oversee and run it.
Impractical as this was, the program was put in place, and
the Army soon found itself stripped of its most strategic
network. In the process, stations in places like Korea and
Vietnam were dismantled, effectively isolating these places
from communication with the US.
That is, isolating both the
civilian side of US government operations in these
countries, as well as the military side. Little did
anyone know that within a few short years this
shortsightedness would bite us in the pants.
Of lesser impact, the
Signal Corps suffered other setbacks during what we today
call the Cold War period. The Army Pictorial Service was
severely reduced in size, as it most likely should have been
since, without an active war going on, the need for
propaganda films and photojournalism was much less.
Similarly V-Mail services (victory mail)were discontinued. And, while Signal Corps cameramen
continued on with their job of documenting war crimes trials,
atomic bomb testing, and various occupation activities, the
Army War College photographic laboratory was closed, along
with the Pictorial Service's Western Division.
On the positive side, while
operationally the Signal Corps was scaled back in some
areas, in other areas it was expanded. In 1946 the Signal
Corps' undertook Project Diana, successfully bouncing radar
signals off of the moon. While seemingly a self indulgent bit
of technical wizardry at the time, today we recognize this
as an important first step in staging the way for space
communication.
Similarly, in 1948, Fort Monmouth
researchers grew the first synthetically produced large
quartz crystals (see comments above). Used in the
manufacture of electronic components, they quickly made the
US independent from the foreign import of quartz, leading to
both an improved sense of national security, as well as the
first mass production of printed circuits (in 1949).
This in turn spurred Ft. Monmouth
engineers to pioneer a technique for assembling electronic
parts on a printed circuit board, rather than via the old
hard wiring method. And this in turn led to means to
fabricate miniature circuits for both military and civilian
use. By the time the Signal boys at Monmouth were done, the
world was ready for the transistor.
About this time world tensions began to
increase. The Berlin Airlift made it clear that the Soviet
Union was not going to roll over and play dead every time
America barked. And so just like that, where the Signal
Corps only a few years earlier seemed like an ancillary arm
of the service that had no place in a peacetime Army, now it
was back in vogue. As US diplomats around the world quickly
began to realize, when incidents occurred, without the Army
Signal Corps, there simply was no way for them to timely
communicate with those back in Washington… either to report
on events, or receive instructions and guidance on how to
handle them. Just like that, the government realized that it
needed to rebuild the Signal Corps to sustain both the
Army's and the government’s worldwide commitments. And so
the race was on to enlarge Signal Corps capacities, across
the board.
In November 1948 the Signal Corps
marched back into Georgia, taking over its old facilities in what was then
being called Camp Gordon. Originally begun as a Signal Corps winter flying
school over 40 years earlier, it was now to become the home of the
Southeastern Signal School. With Fort Monmouth as the Signal Corps Center,
and its supportive training facilities at Camp Gordon, the Signal Corps was
the new darling in the Army. Able to provide everything from training to a
governing board, Signal Patent Agency, Signal Corps Publications Agency,
Signal Corps Intelligence Unit, photojournalism group, movie making center,
and even a Pigeon Breeding Center, the Signal Corps was readying itself for
anything and everything that the US government and military could throw at
it. One can clearly see that those who led the Signal Corps back to the
forefront saw their opportunity and moved to capitalize on it. After all,
they named their Camp Gordon school the Southeastern Signal School.
Why would they do that, if they didn’t have plans for a southwestern
signal school… or a central, or even south-central signal school?
Tactically, the changes that did occur to the Signal
Corps during the early Cold War period proved to be beneficial for its own operation. New
tables of organization that came out in 1948 reaffirmed and strengthened the
Signal Corps’ duty to provide signal companies for infantry, airborne, and
armored divisions, thus assuring that the Signal Corps became even more
central to everything that the Army did. Like today’s modern I.T. department
that has its hands in the operation of
every department in a
company, most businesses can not survive without I.T.'s support, and the
same was proving to be the case with the Signal Corps of old. Without the Army Signal Corps
no one in any branch of service, as well as most of the government, would
have any idea what was going on. .. simply because they couldn't
communicate with each other.
Proof of this can be seen in the 1st Cavalry Division
of that time. Reorganized as infantry, but still holding on to its historic
designation, it found itself in 1950 with its own signal company assigned to
it, instead of a troop. And as in this author’s case, whose first assignment
out of Signal OCS in 1967 was as a platoon leader in the famous Old
Ironsides (1st Armored Division), everyone in every tank unit I
ran across wanted to be my friend, because without me and my men they had no
way to communicate with the rest of the division.
Once rebuilding Signal Corps strength began again in
earnest, it seemed like everything was going its way. In 1952 revisions to
the TOE authorized helicopters for Signal Companies. Where only a few years
earlier it had lost them, now the Signal Corps had regained its wings.
In part this was because during World War II the Signal
Corps had used planes belonging to the Field Artillery to lay wire and
deliver messages. Recognizing a good opportunity when they saw it, Signal
corps DoD staff used this fact in the late 40s to lobby for planes to be
allocated as a standard part of the Signal Corps' Table of Organization and
Equipment. It took a while, but eventually in 1949 the Signal Corps was
authorized to take control over what were called “liaison planes,” with
helicopters eventually being added in 1952.
About the only negative thing to occur to the Signal
Corps in those early years of the Cold War was that in June 1950 the Army
Reorganization Act supplanted the Defense Acts of 1916 and 1920. The
original Defense Acts provided the statutory basis for the technical
services. The 1950 revisions changed how this was done by giving the
Secretary of the Army authority to determine the size and strength of the
Army's combat arms, as well as the Army technical services, such as the
Signal Corps and Corps of Engineers.
Shortly after approval of the Army Reorganization Act
the Secretary of Defense, now almost omnipotent, decided to reorganize things
again, this time to match his own view of how things should be structured
and what everyone should be doing. Three branches—Infantry,
Armor, and Artillery—received
statutory recognition as combat arms… but the Signal Corps lost this
designation. The Signal Corps thus having officially lost the combat status
originally conferred on it in 1920, was little more than one of the
fourteen service branches the Army maintained. Yet while the Signal Corps
felt slighted, worst was to come for the entire Army… by June,1950 the U.S.
Army's size had shriveled to less than 600,000.
One wonders if this downsizing of the entire U.S. Army alone
wasn’t all the temptation Kim Il-sung needed when on June 25, 1950, he ordered
his North Korean forces to invade South Korea.
No longer a combat arm, one could be forgiven for
wondering what would become of the Signal Corps. Little did anyone know, the
Korean War would help answer that question, and give the U. S. Army Signal
Corps a purpose and value that would stick with it even
until today.
In The Next Article: The Signal Corps During The Korean War.
Advertisement As Originally Posted in December 2011
READ MORE - -
Go to Part II: The Signal Corps During The
Korean War
READ MORE - -
Go to Part III: The Signal Corps During The Vietnam
War
- - - - -
Reference Materials Used In This Article Came
From The Following Sources:
Power in The Global Arena,
Noam Chomsky, Amiel Lecture, London, May 1998
Mueller, J.,E. (2004). The Remnants of War.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Chojnacki, S. (2006). Anything new or more of the same?
Wars and military interventions in the international system, 1946–2003.
Global Society 20: 25–46
Dobra, A. (2010). Thucydides: An Author Still Relevant
for the Contemporary Analysis of International Relations? Alternatives:
Turkish Journal of International Relations, 9 (2), 91.
Dobra, A. (2010). New Wars, Old Wars: Is
the Distinction Valid? November 16, 2011;
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About this time world tensions began to
increase. The Berlin Airlift made it clear that the Soviet
Union was not going to roll over and play dead every time
America barked. And so just like that, where the Signal
Corps only a few years earlier seemed like an ancillary arm
of the service that had no place in a peacetime Army, now it
was back in vogue. As US diplomats around the world quickly
began to realize, when incidents occurred, without the Army
Signal Corps, there simply was no way for them to timely
communicate with those back in Washington… either to report
on events, or receive instructions and guidance on how to
handle them. Just like that, the government realized that it
needed to rebuild the Signal Corps to sustain both the
Army's and the government’s worldwide commitments. And so
the race was on to enlarge Signal Corps capacities, across
the board. 
every department in a
company, most businesses can not survive without I.T.'s support, and the
same was proving to be the case with the Signal Corps of old. Without the Army Signal Corps
no one in any branch of service, as well as most of the government, would
have any idea what was going on. .. simply because they couldn't
communicate with each other. 
