Signal Corps (United States Army) - World War II

World War II

Under the major reorganization of the War Department, effective 9 March 1942, the Signal Corps was one of the technical services in the Services of Supply (later Army Service Forces). Its organized components served both the Army Ground Forces and the Army Air Forces.

The Army Chief Signal Officer (CSO) was responsible for establishing and maintaining communications service schools for officers and enlisted soldiers, ranging in qualifications from those holding doctorates to functional illiterates. The single pre-war Signal training site was Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. To keep up with the demand for more signalleers, the CSO opened more training facilities: Camp Crowder, Missouri, Camp Kohler, California, and Camp Murphy, Florida.

The Eastern Signal Corps Training Center at Fort Monmouth consisted of an officers' school, an officer candidate school, an enlisted school and a basic training center at subpost Camp Wood. During its operation from 1941 to 1946, the officer candidate school graduated 21,033 Signal Corps second lieutenants.

The term "RADAR" was first coined by the Navy in 1940 and agreed to by the Army in 1941. The definition given in the first Signal Corps Field Manual on Aircraft Warning Service stated, "RADAR is a term used to designate radio sets SCR (Signal Corps Radio)-268 and SCR-270 and similar equipment".

The SCR-268 and 270 were not radios at all, but for top security reasons were designated as such. Although important offensive applications have since been developed, radar emerged historically from the defensive need to counter the possibility of massive aerial bombardment.

In 1941 the laboratories at Fort Monmouth developed the SCR-300. This was the first FM backpack radio. This development was an early pioneer in frequency modulation circuits, providing front line troops with reliable, static free communications. They also fielded multichannel FM radio relay sets (e.g., AN/TRC-1) in the European Theater of Operations as early as 1943. Multichannel radio broadcasting allowed several different channels of communications to be broadcast over a single radio signal. This allows for more security, signal boosting for increased range and less crowding of the frequency spectrum. FM radio relay and radar, both products of the labs at Fort Monmouth, are typically rated among the four of five "weapon systems" that made a difference in World War II.

In December 1942, the laboratories had a personnel strength of 14,518 military and civilian personnel. The Signal Corps Ground Service was directed by the War Department, however, to cut the total military and civilian personnel to 8,879 by August 1943. In June 1944, “Signees”, former Italian prisoners of war, arrived at Fort Monmouth to perform housekeeping duties. A lieutenant colonel and 500 enlisted men became hospital, mess, and repair shop attendants, relieving American soldiers from these duties. Also in December 1942, the War Department directed the Signal Corps General Development Laboratories and the Camp Evans Signal Lab to combine into the Signal Corps Ground Service (SCGS) with head-quarters at Bradley Beach, New Jersey (Hotel Grossman).

One of the more unusual units of the Signal Corps were the Joint Assault Signals Companies (JASCOs). These companies were Signal Corps units that were made up of several hundred Army, Air Corps, and United States Navy communications specialists specially trained to link land, sea and air operational elements. They saw combat throughout the Pacific and European theaters during World War II in late 1943. JASCOs were much larger than normal signal companies. The Joint Assault Signals Companies were the predecessor to the Air-Naval Gunfire Liaison Company that exists today. JASCOs represented but one of many unprecedented Signal Corps' activities in the Pacific theater. Shipboard fighting was a new kind of combat for Signal Corps soldiers. Army communicators sometimes plied their trade aboard Navy and civilian ships. They also served on Army communications ships such as the Army schooners Geoanna, Volador, Harold and Argosy Lemal.

Many film industry personalities served in the Signal Corps, including Tony Randall, the actor, and Jean Shepherd, radio storyteller, author and narrator of A Christmas Story.

In 1942 General George C. Marshall ordered the creation of the Army Pictorial Service (APS) to produce motion pictures for the training, indoctrination, and entertainment of the American forces and their Allies. The APS took over Kaufman Astoria Studios in 1942 and produced over 2,500 films during the war with over 1,000 redubbed in other languages. The Army left Astoria studios and film production in 1971.

Julius Rosenberg worked for the Signal Corps Labs from 1940 to 1945. He was dismissed early in 1945 when it was learned he had been a member of the Communist Party USA secret apparatus, and had passed to the Soviet Union the secret of the proximity fuze.