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Tactical signals intelligence originates in World War I
by LORI TAGG
FORT HUACHUCA
— After the invention of the radio in the 1890s, the first widespread use of the technology for military communications occurred during World War I, when
the ease of intercepting radio messages quickly spurred advances in encryption and decryption of codes and ciphers.
The Military Intelligence Division in Washington, D.C. recognized the impor- tance of this discipline and quickly estab- lished Herbert Yardley’s Code and Cipher Section. Likewise, shortly after arriving in France, Brig. Gen. Dennis Nolan, the Ameri- can Expeditionary Forces G-2 intelligence officer, was forced to acknowledge that the United States was woefully unprepared to exploit signals intelligence.
When British intelligence informed him that it had identified two-thirds of the en- emy’s divisions through the intercepting and decoding of Germany’s radio messages, Nolan acted immediately. On July 28, 1917, he tasked Capt. Frank Moorman to form the AEF’s Radio Intelligence Section, also known as G-2 A6.
Moorman, a 40-year-old coastal artillery officer serving as the acting director of the Signal School at Fort Leavenworth, had
served in the Military Information Division in the Philippines and had temporarily worked with Parker Hitt, the Army’s fore- most authority on codes and ciphers.
When Moorman arrived in France, how- ever, he understood little more than his mission: to read and decipher German radio messages. Starting from scratch, Moorman soon built a successful collaborative net- work that provided the AEF with reliable intelligence throughout the war.
The U.S. Army’s Signal Corps, which had responsibility for Army code compila- tion and communications security, figured prominently in Moorman’s network.
The Signal Corps’ own Radio Intelligence Service, later renamed the Radio Section, established, operated and maintained listening stations close to the front lines. Personnel manning these stations inter- cepted and copied enemy radio messages around the clock.
The Signal Corps turned recorded mes- sages over to RIS personnel at each Army headquarters for deciphering and analysis using keys provided by the G-2 A6. The most difficult codes and ciphers and potentially important messages were passed further up the chain to Moorman’s section.
The U.S. Army’s first foray into tactical signals intelligence quickly surpassed the efforts of its Allies. Its eight listening sta- tions intercepted more than 72,000 mes-
Courtesy photo
Lt. Col. Frank Moorman and his staff of the Radio Intelligence Section, American Ex- peditionary Forces Headquarters.
sages and 238,000 telephone calls. Addition- ally, personnel located enemy radio stations, constructed net diagrams, intercepted and located radio signals from airplanes ranging for hostile artillery, policed U.S. Army tele- phone lines near the front for operational security, and distributed American trench codes. They also helped develop enemy order of battle through traffic analysis by using call signs and knowledge of German communication protocols.
One early success occurred in December 1917, when the RIS intercepted a transmis- sion indicating the enemy planned a bar- rage in an area where a U.S. division was co-located with the French. The RIS passed this intelligence to front line headquarters just in time to allow the Allies to unleash a counter-battery attack that effectively prevented the Germans from carrying out their plan.
See WWI, Page 7