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By the summer of 1943 the most important element of the Signal Corps’ training program, that portion that pertained to specialist training activities, took in their highest quota of men: 47,000 men were enrolled in Signal Corps training schools, plus another 10,000 Army Air Forces (AAF) students, with an additional 10,000 from other arms and services such as the medical corps, engineers, tank corps, infantry, and more. That was on June 30, 1943. By the end of July all-time peak enrollment in the Officer school programs also reached their high, with 2,817 officers studying advanced communication subjects.

As for Army Signal OCS itself, by the middle of 1943 its enrollment was already in decline. The peak had been reached in October 1942 when the school graduated 1,605 Second Lieutenants in OCS Class 42-09. Noting that the Army’s fiscal year ends on June 30, for the fiscal year 1943 (which includes the last 6 months of 1942) Signal Corps courses across the board graduated 134,359 EM as well as 16,087 Officers that completed specialized training, plus another 10,270 Signal OCS graduates.

Those of you who are regular readers know that we have often written of soldiers from other service arms that went through Signal Corps OCS and other training. Between 1942 and 1944 the number of students who cross trained in other service arms totaled about 75,000. Of these 14,000 completed Signal Corps replacement training, making them eligible to fill Signal Corps slots that had become open. An additional 2,100 officers and 33,000 enlisted men from other services completed courses in Signal Corps schools and then returned to their own branch. And to round it all off, about 1,050 officers and 25,000 enlisted men studied in civilian schools teaching Signal Corps courses… sometimes because there were not enough slots in the regular Signal Corps schools on base to accommodate them, and sometimes because the subject matter was so advanced that the Signal Corps did not have a training program to cover it.

All of this leads us to what started this article in the first place: listing the numerous Signal Corps camps and forts that were needed to support this massive training program. By mid-1943 replacement training centers and specialist schools were operating at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey; Camp Crowder, Missouri; and Camp Kohler, California. Among these Camp Crowder provided unit training rather than individual training. Further away, radar training was concentrated at what became known as the Southern Signal Corps School, at Camp Murphy, Florida. Photographic training on the other hand was handled at the Signal Corps Photographic Center at Long Island City, New York.

Technical training was not the only thing the Signal Corps needed to accomplish in order to meet its mission. All of the materials and supplies that kept the Signal Corps operating had to be acquired, packaged, shipped, tracked, inventoried, and maintained… everywhere on earth from the cold of Alaska and Russia to the jungles of Luzon and Borneo. Because of this the Signal Corps found itself in the depot supply business, setting up training programs to match. These supply courses led to one of the largest inventory and material management systems operated by one organization, anywhere on earth. While perhaps not the intention, the fact was that the Signal Corps developed the first working model of JIT (Just In Time) inventory management, a concept that is classified today as a world class form of materials management.

But that wasn’t the end, while training radio carriers to run alongside of the Infantry, and developing a new supplies management process took a priority, training Signal Corps Officers in advanced subjects dealing with leading edge technologies was also an imperative. This latter need drove the Signal Corps to send dozens of Signal Officers to advanced radar courses at Harvard University and MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Cryptographic training was provided to Signal Officers at Arlington Hall and Vint Hill Farms Station in Virginia. Still other courses too numerous to list were held in dozens of vocational schools, schools run by corporations, and colleges spread throughout the U. S. Finally, dozens of Signal Corps Officers went through training in the British military school system too, to be sure that joint operational coordination between the U.S. and England went smoothly from a combined communication standpoint.

 

Among the logistic and planning nightmares that challenged those who wrote the Signal Corps’ training syllabus was the never ending need to constantly alter course material to reflect content that matched the constantly changing onslaught of new communication devices, tactical doctrines, and the lessons streaming in from the field… lessons learned firsthand via the Signal Corps’ increasing combat experience. Over time these lessons caused a shift in the pedagogy of Signal Corps training, moving it away from an emphasis on individual instruction towards training centered around teamwork. Not surprisingly this took place for both enlisted men and Officer training. If one thinks about it, this shift marked the first time the U.S. military began to focus on the overwhelming advantage combined arms operations provided during combat. And as every good Signal Officer knows, teamwork provides the corner stone of effective combined arms operations.  

As 1943 dragged on and preparations were made for the invasion of Italy and Normandy, and MacArthur’s island hopping campaign began to pick up speed the requirements coming back from the field began to change. Up until this point most division Signal Companies were staffed by Signal Officers. By the late summer of 1943 these Signal Officers, who earlier had been in high demand, were now a dime a dozen. At the same time the Army Ground Forces (AGF) found itself generally over-strength in terms of Officers, with the result that they began to assign their own Officers to division level staff positions that used to be filled by Signal Corps Officers.

Not surprisingly, while surplus Officers began to appear in these areas, in other areas Officer shortages materialized. One of them was in the area of supply assignments. Here Officers were badly needed to manage the mounting production line problems that accompanied the rapidly filling warehouses and depots being built around the world. The problem for supply management was simple: there weren’t enough properly trained supply staff to handle the escalating stock control and inventory management issues that a country fighting in every corner of the world needed managed. Not surprisingly, by that time the Signal Corps had the best training infrastructure of all of the services, one that could easily adapt itself to the training of almost any support service needed. Because of this it was asked to get into the business of training supply staff. Immediately a supply course was set up at Ft. Monmouth and scheduled to begin training students on 1 July 1943. However, war is war and while the planning and student assignments for this training course proceeded, the demands of war came first. In this case it resulted in the students scheduled for that course being hurried off to Europe without any training, rather than to Ft. Monmouth. When they hit the ground in Europe they were immediately assigned to the Signal Corps and reposted to fill the urgent supply needs that existed there. As a result the 1 July supply training program got underway a month later… with the same class designation, but a different roster of recruits.[1]

 

Other problems like this popped up along the way. Problems like determining where and how Army Air Forces training would be integrated with general Signal Corps training. Clearly, aviators needed training that was different than signalmen. But then again, the signalmen running the Signal Corps were responsible for assuring that the training the AAF received met the mission’s needs. In the end, if the AAF failed in its mission, being a part of the Signal Corps it was the Signal Corps’ brass that was going to get the blame. As a result AAF and Signal Corps Officers drew together and collaborated to assure that the training programs the AAF mounted used what we would call today best of breed practices… techniques born of the results of the Signal Corps’ own training programs. The success of this approach was proven out when the new Aircraft Warning Service (AWS) was launched. Operationally, the AWS integrated AAF flight programs with Signal Corps communication networks to provide advanced warning of attack. To assure that both sides knew what they were doing, and that the result of this ”combined arms operation” was the achievement of the goal of delivering early warning of attack, the Signal Corps trained AAF men and the AAF trained Signal Corps men. Not surprisingly, it worked.[2]

All in all, what 1943 taught the Signal Corps was that more than anything it had to accept the fact that the war then underway was dynamic and constantly changing. From a training standpoint this meant that the Signal Corps needed to build a training infrastructure that allowed for quick changes to what otherwise had to be stable school programs that were intensive in instruction and broad in scale. Without a training template of this type it would not be possible to provide the massive number of Signal Corps men needed for duty throughout the U.S. military. In the end, that was the goal: ready as many men as possible for shipment overseas as quickly as possible.

As 1943 drew to a close, the seriousness of this mission came home to roost: The planning for the invasion of Sicily, Italy and Normandy soon began to drain Signal Corps people from all over the world towards the English countryside. The Alaskan Department and the Northwest Service Command soon became no more than a military backwater. Across the vast Pacific orders went out sending every available Signal Corps man and then some to Europe. And at every Signal School from Ft. Monmouth to Pinedale, California, teachers and students buckled down to the task of preparing signaleers for combat.

The remarkable thing is that they did it better than it had ever been done before. Even until today, nowhere will you find a university or other advanced education institution that graduates over 160,000 students a year, as the United States Army Signal Corps did in 1943.

 

 

    

 

Footnotes

 

[1] Facts stated sourced from: R&W Action: 1,  Major James A. Wadsworth, Signal Supply Service to Military Training Brigade, 24 Jun 1943, subject: Training Signal  Supply Officers for Overseas Assignment. (2)  Lieutenant Colonel Louis Cansler, Acting Director Signal Troops Division, Officers' Advanced Program,  both in Signal Corps publication 353, Ft. Monmouth 2 (RTC), Jun-Jul 1943. - To return to your place in the text click here:  

 

[2] The Signal Corps School at Camp Murphy devoted itself to individual training of radarmen for the AAF. The AAF's three signal aviation unit training centers at Drew Field, Tampa, Florida, Pinedale, California, and Langley Field, Virginia, were established in co-operation with the Signal Corps to prepare Signal Corps units for field service with the AAF. - To return to your place in the text click here:  

Additional Sources Used In The Writing Of This Article

George Raynor Thompson and Dixie R. Harris, The United States Army in WWII, the Technical Services, Center of Military History, Washington, D.C., 1991.

For a general discussion of training of non-divisional units 1942-45, see Robert R. Palmer, Bell I. Wiley, and William R. Keast, The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops, United States Army in World War II (Washington, 1948), pp. 499-560.

 

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