UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II

The Technical Services

THE SIGNAL CORPS: THE TEST

(December 1941 toJul y 1943)

by George Raynor Tlwmpson

Dixie R. Harris

Pauline M. Oakes

Dulany T errett

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF MILITARY HISTORY DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY

WASHINGTON, D. C., 1957

Foreword

The methods of modern warfare and its wide deployment of forces make effec-tive communications one of the vital elements of victory. In the higher levels ofcommand in the Army this is the responsibility of the Signal Corps. Actually, warlaid far greater demands on Signal troops and equipment than the War Depart-ment had anticipated, and the rapid development of electronic devices continuedto multiply these demands. For this reason, rather than through any fault of itsown, the Signal Corps was perhaps the least ready of the technical services for themissions assigned to it after Pearl Harbor. That the Corps managed as well as itdid to meet the demands of war was a tribute to the preparations described in thepreceding volume of this subseries. The Corps' burgeoning activities during 1942and the first half of 1943 are the theme of this second volume.

Based for the most part on War Department records, especially those of theChief Signal Officer, the present history generally reflects his point of view. AfterMarch 1942 each of the technical services had its special problems within the foldof the Army Service Forces. Those of the Signal Corps were in some respectsunique, and led to a partial decentralization of its functions from 1943 onwardrather than to the centralized and autonomous control of Army communicationsthat many Signal officers, including the Chief Signal Officer, wanted. The presentvolume shows how effectively, despite its organizational problems, the Corps man-aged in the period under review to prepare for its intricate and world-wide missionin the final war years.

Washington, D. C.3 December 1954

ALBERT C. SMITHMaj. Gen., U. S. A.Chief of Military History

The Authors

George R. Thompson has an A.B. degree from Harvard College and a Ph.D.degree from Princeton University. In 1942 he was a Carnegie Research Fellow ofthe Johns Hopkins University in the history of Graeco-Roman science. From1943 to 1946 he was an officer in the office of the Chief of Naval Communications.Since 1947 he has been a member of the historical office of the Signal Corps, andsince 1952 its chief.

Dixie R. Harris received an A.B. degree from Ohio State University in 1933.After studying law for four years, she was admitted to the bar of Ohio in 1938.From 1942 to 1944 she was employed by the Signal Corps Publications Agency atWright Field, Ohio. From 1945 to 1947 she was with the historical section of theOffice of the Chief Signal Officer, and in 1949 she joined the staff of the SignalCorps section of the Office of the Chief of Military History. Since 1952 she hasbeen assistant chief of the Signal Corps historical office.

Pauline M. Oakes entered the employment of the Signal Corps during WorldWar I. In World War II she acted as a consultant on the administration of per-sonnel in the executive office of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer. She thenjoined the historical staff, from which she retired in 1952.

Dulany Terrett was chief of the Signal Corps historical office from 1946 to1952 and was responsible for the planning of the Signal Corps subseries. He has aPh.B. from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in English literature fromNorthwestern University, where he taught from 1936 to 1942. He was a historicalofficer of the Army Air Forces in World War II. He is the author of the firstvolume of the Signal Corps subseries in the UNITED STATES ARMY INWORLD WAR IL

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Preface

The scope of this, the second Volume devoted to the history of the Signal Corpsduring World War II, covers the events of 1942 and the first six months of 1943.Like the first volume in the subseries, The Emergency, by Dr. Dulany Terrett,this book presents a broad, panoramic view of the progress and problems, thedefeats and triumphs, of a technical service in wartime. Since the time span coversonly eighteen months, it has been possible to examine certain operations in con-siderable detail. Such emphasis on particular matters should not be taken to meanthat they are necessarily more important than others which are touched uponlightly or omitted altogether, but only that they are illustrative or typical of thethree main streams of Signal Corps effort. Research and development, training,and supply each swelled so quickly to proportions so vast that they almost engulfedthe Signal Corps in the first year of war. How the Corps met the test is the subjectmatter of this volume.

The treatment is in general chronological. The story opens with an account ofthe beginning, for the United States, of the war itself: those tense moments onthe Hawaiian Island of Oahu when two young Signal Corps men at their radarpicked up and tracked the Japanese bombers winging in to attack Pearl Harbor.Succeeding chapters carry the account forward on a broad front through the fol-lowing months of severe shortages, worried production efforts, and feverish prepa-rations for the first tests in combat with the enemy. They present the confusionsand frustrations that attended the Army's call for signal specialists and items ofsignal equipment in incredible numbers. The story is told from the viewpoint of theOffice of the Chief Signal Officer in Washington, where the important decisionswere made that laid the groundwork for the eventually triumphant outcome. Thisviewpoint permits only side glances at Signal Corps activity in the theaters aroundthe world until mid-1943, detailed theater accounts being reserved for the thirdand last volume in the Signal Corps' World War II subseries. Finally, this volumetouches upon two problems riot unlike those experienced by some other technicalservices: how the Signal Corps fared within the framework of the conglomerateArmy Service Forces, and how a conflict between development and procurement,and between operations and both, reached a crisis. The book ends with this crisisbrought into focus in a conflict which led to the retirement of the Chief SignalOfficer, but which brought forth no solid solution.

This book is a product of truly collaborative effort. Four writers working to-gether produced the first draft, often two or more having labored over the samechapter. The chronological arrangement is owed to Dr. Terrett, until mid-1952the chief of the Signal Corps historical office when it was located in the Office ofthe Chief of Military History. The contents of the book are in general handledaccording to subject in time segments: first, through the early months of the war,then through the second half of 1942, and finally through the first half of 1943.Only one subject receives strictly topical treatment. It is Signal Corps photography,or the story of the Army Pictorial Service, which Chapter XIII covers for the entire18-month period. The research and writing on the procurement and supplychapters are principally the work of Mrs. Harris, the training chapters the work ofMiss Oakes, and the equipment studies the work of Dr. Thompson. The finalreworking and revision of the first draft, together with much additional researchand writing, were accomplished by Dr. Thompson and Mrs. Harris after this officewas reorganized within the Signal Corps in August 1952.

The authors are indebted to the Historical Section which existed in the SignalCorps from 1943 to early 1947 and whose members compiled a number of usefulmonograph studies, recorded many interviews, and collected a considerablequantity of valuable historical files. A large debt is owed to Mrs. Helen Sawka forher faithful and meticulous care and accuracy in checking and typing the manu-script throughout its several drafts and revisions. The authors are grateful for thecorrections and comments of the many Signal Corps officers and personnel whoreviewed the manuscript. They recognize, too, the invaluable advice and sugges-tions of those in the Office of the Chief of Military History who supervised andedited the text, especially Lt. Col. Leo J. Meyer, the Deputy Chief Historian,Dr. Stetson Conn, his successor, and Miss Ruth Stout, the editor of the subseries.Many thanks are due likewise to others who aided the editorial process: Mr.David Jaffe, Mrs. Loretto Stevens, and the photographic editor, Maj. Arthur T.Lawry, who searched out and prepared the illustrations.

Washington, D. C.3 December 1954

GEORGE RAYNOR THOMPSONChief, Historical Division Signal Corps

Contents

Chapter Page

I . DECEMBER 1941 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

" This Is Not Drill" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3War in the Philippines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10The First Month of War in the Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15The Impact of War in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer . . . . . . 21

II. THE CALL FOR TROOPS (JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1942) . . 34

The Source of the Demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34The Limitations Imposed by Tables of Organization . . . . . . . . . 35Plans for Getting Enlisted Men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Plans f o r Getting Officers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Getting Civilians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 9Shaping the Response: Wide-Scale Training . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

III. THE CALL FOR EQUIPMENT (JANUARY-MAY 1942) ... 58

Supply Dominating Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 8Wire, t h e Basic Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3Radio for Mobile Armies and for World Communication . . . . . . . . 70Radio Airborne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 8Radar Into the Air for Interception and Search . . . . . . . . . . . . 83Ground Radar: the Continuing Exigencies of Coastal Defense . . . . . . 93

IV. THE FIRST MONTHS OF THE WAR OVERSEAS (JANUARY-M A Y 1942) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 0 3

Toward Eastern Bastions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 0 3Toward Pacific Outposts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 0 8China-Burma-India Vicissitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 3Last Weeks in the Philippines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

V. ALASKA COMMUNICATIONS (JANUARY-JULY 1942) . . . 123

T h e Command Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 3Kodiak, Otter Point, Dutch Harbor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126The Attack on Dutch Harbor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129The Repercussions o f Dutch Harbor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130T h e Alcan Highway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 6Canol and the Northwest Ferry Route . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141Communications for Ground and Air Warning Systems . . . . . . . . 142

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Chapter Page

VI. THE FIRST BILLION DOLLAR SIGNAL CORPS (JANUARY-JULY 1942) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 4 7

T h e Headquarters Supply Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 4 7The Soaring Signal Corps Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147Basic Organization a n d Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 4 9Facilities Expansion and the Problem of Components . . . . . . . . 151Material Shortages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 5 4Production Expediting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 6 5

T h e Field Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 7 3T h e Procurement Districts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 7 3Difficulties Within the Signal Corps Inspection Service . . . . . . . . 176The Expansion of Signal Corps Depots . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178Procurement Growth in the First Six Months of War . . . . . . . . 184

VII. SIGNAL SCHOOLING (JANUARY-JULY 1942) . . . . . . . 186

T h e Training Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 8 6Camp Crowder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 8 9Camp Kohler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 9 6Fort Monmouth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 9 7Camp Murphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1 2

VIII. SIGNAL EQUIPMENT: WIRE AND RADIO (JUNE-OCTOBER1942) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1 8

Toward Automatic Teletype and Tape Relay . . . . . . . . . . . . 218Carrier Equipment and Spiral-Four Readied for Use in War . . . . . . 225Ground Radio and Radio Link or Relay, Transformed by FM . . . . . 229Signal Corps Provides VHF Command Radio for Army Airplanes . . . . 237

IX. SIGNAL EQUIPMENT: RADAR (JUNE-OCTOBER 1942) . . 242

Airborne Radars on the Increase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242IFFIdentification: Friend or Foe Radar . . . . . . . . . . . . 242Signal Corps Altimeters; Secretary Patterson's Objections . . . . . . . 243AlAirborne Interception Radar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 4 7ASVAir-to-Surf'ace-Vessel Microwave Radar . . . . . . . . . . 2 4 9

Ground Radar Potentialities Multiplied by Microwave Techniques . 256SCR-296, Seacoast Artillery Fire Control Radar . . . . . . . . . . 256SCR582, Harbor Surveillance Radar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257SCR-615, Microwave Radar for GCI, Ground-Controlled Interception . . . 260SCR-602, Lightweight Warning Radar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261SCR-584, Microwave Tracking or GL, Gun-Laying Radar . . . . . . 265MEW, Microwave Early Warning Radar . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

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Chapter Page

X. ACCUMULATING STRENGTH OVER THE WORLD (JUNE-OCTOBER 1942) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 7 7

Bolstering the Army Airways Communications System . . . . . . . . . 277Build-up for the Air Forces in the Northeast . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287Radars f o r Aircraft Warning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 9 0Defense to Offense in the West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296Holding Action i n C B I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 0 3Strengthening Eastern Outposts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 0 5

XI. PREPARING FOR THE FIRST MAJOR TEST (JUNE-NOVEM-B E R 1942) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1 5

Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1 5Problems o f Procurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2 2Plans and Preparations, at Home and Overseas . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

XII. THE TEST AT ISSUE IN NORTH AFRICA (NOVEMBER 1942-M A Y 1943) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5 3

Communications, Assault Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5 3Stabilizing TORCH Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 6 3New Developments in Combat Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . 367Signal Corps Radars Meet the Test of War . . . . . . . . . . . . 374"This Is a Signals War" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

XIII. PHOTO BY U.S. ARMY SIGNAL CORPS (JANUARY 1942-MID-1943) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 8 7

Organization a n d Facilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 8 8Training Cameramen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 9 4Combat Photography: Early Units and Problems . . . . . . . . . . . 396The Widening Range of Photographic Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . 407T h e Training Film Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1 8Summary: The Status of APS at Mid-Year 1943 . . . . . . . . . . 425

XIV. GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS (LATE 1942-MID-l943) . . . . 427The Design f o r ACAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427Organizing and Implementing ACAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435From the Caribbean to the Middle East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447From India t o Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6 0Island Hopping Networks in the South Pacific . . . . . . . . . . . . 468Alaska and the Aleutians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

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Chapter Page

XV. THE TECHNICAL SERVICE A SUPPLY SERVICE (LATE 1942-MID-1943) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 9 1

Technical Specialization vs . Mass Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491T h e Shrinking Labor Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 9 3International A i d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 0 0The Shifting Emphasis in Procurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502The Increasing Importance of the Distribution System . . . . . . . . . 513Overseas Complaints of Distribution Deficiences . . . . . . . . . . . . 520T h e Fiscal Tear Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3 2

XVI. SIGNAL CORPS POSITION IN MID-1943 (MAY-JUNE 1943) . 536

The Situation at Home and Overseas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536Headquarters Crisis over Supply and Control Problems . . . . . . . . . 541The Signal Corps Swaps Horses in Midstream . . . . . . . . . . . 560

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 6 6

LIST O F ABBREVIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 7 0

GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 8 0

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 8 9

Illustrations

Original Radar Plot of Station Opana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Maj. Gen. Dawson Olmstead Arriving at Panama . . . . . . . . . . . 21New Developments in Signal Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65Signal Corps Switchboard BD-72 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 9The SCR-300 and the SCR-536 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74The SCR-578, Gibson Girl Radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82Airborne AI-10 Radar, SCR-520 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 8Air Attack on a Submarine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92SCR-268 a t Pacora, Panama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 9Signal Line Crew Checking Cable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105Cable-Laying Operations i n Alaska . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 2Open-Wire Line i n Alaska . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 4 0Hand-Finishing a Crystal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 6 1A Section of the Philadelphia Signal Depot, August 1942 . . . . . . . . . 176Training a t Camp Crowder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192, 193Training a t Fort Monmouth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202, 2 0 3Radiotype Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 0Vehicular Mounting of Radio Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230, 231

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Page

The SCR-718, Radio Altimeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244Coast Artillery Fire Control Radars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259The SCR-602 Type 8 Lightweight Warning Radar . . . . . . . . . . . 264Radar Sets SCR-545 and SCR-584 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269Aircraft Warning Radars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 9 2Section of the Radio Room, Fort Shafter, Honolulu . . . . . . . . . . . 297Installation and Maintenance of Signal Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . 301Antenna Towers of Radio Marina, Asmara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311Communications on the Beach in North Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355The SCR-299 in North Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364Restoration of Communications Facilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366The SCR-268 Searchlight Control Radar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376Men of the 53d Signal Battalion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383A Wounded Signal Corps Cameraman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388The Signal Corps Photographic Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391Signal Corps Cameramen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 0 0V-Mail Being Processed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 0 9A Class in Projector Repair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414A Motion Picture Set at SCPC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420Signal Communications From Forward to Rear Areas . . . . . . . . . . 428AACS Station on Ascension Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451Communications i n C B I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6 2Wire Lines in New Guinea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469Boehme High-Speed Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 7 4Lend-Lease to the French . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503General Olmstead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4 2

All photographs in this volume are from U.S. Department of Defense files.

THE SIGNAL CORPS: THE TEST

CHAPTER I

December 1941

"This Is Not Drill"

At four o'clock on the morning of 7December 1941, two U. S. Army signalmenswitched on the radar at their station nearthe northernmost point of Oahu. Theywould be on duty until seven, when a truckwould call to take them back to the postfor breakfast. The rest of the day would betheirs, for it was Sunday, and the bigSCR-270 radar would be closed down untilthe next early morning shift. Along withfive other mobile stations spotted aroundthe perimeter of the island until the per-manent sites could be made ready, theOpana radar was intended to operate fortwo hours before dawn and one afterward,according to the latest operating scheduleagreed upon under the past week's alert.1

Throughout the Hawaiian Departmentthe alert had been ordered rather suddenlyon Thanksgiving Day, and instructed alltroops to be on guard against acts of sabo-tage. The Honolulu Advertiser had printed

a story on the Saturday after Thanksgivingthat had carried the headline "JapaneseMay Strike over Weekend," and certainlyit was difficult not to see how ominous theinternational situation was; yet nothinghad happened, after all, and the round-the-clock operating schedule which thealert had brought about had been relaxed.Another week of menacing headlines hadreached a climax just the day before, on6 December, with a warning, "JapaneseNavy Moving South," on the first page ofthe Advertiser.2 Many persons felt that itwould be well, in view of the large popula-tion of Japanese origin in the HawaiianIslands, to prepare for the possibility thata Japanese power drive into the richAsiatic Indies might be accompanied bytrouble stirred up locally.

The officers charged with aircraft warn-ing saw no reason to anticipate troublebeyond that possibility. The operation ofthe radars and the control of the SignalAircraft Warning Company, Hawaii (13officers and 348 enlisted men) were cur-rently responsibilities of the signal officer ofthe Hawaiian Department, although whenthe training phase was completed they wereto be turned over to the Air Forces, whichcontrolled the information center and theother elements comprising the aircraft

1 Pearl Harbor Attack: Hearings Before the JointCommittee on the Investigation of the Pearl Har-bor Attack (Washington, 1946), Pt. 18, pp.3013-14. (Hereafter, Parts 1 through 39 will bereferred to by the short title Pearl Harbor Attack.See Bibliographical Note.) Accounts of events inWashington, including War Department warningmessages to the field commanders, may be foundin this report. See also Mark Skinner Watson, Chiefof Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations, UNITEDSTATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II (Washing-ton, 1950), especially pp. 494-520. 2 Pearl Harbor Attack, Pt. 7, p. 3080.

4 THE SIGNAL CORPS

warning system.3 The alert which the com-manding general, Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short,had ordered into effect upon receipt ofsecret messages from his superiors in theWar Department was the lowest of threegrades, an alert against sabotage. Accord-ingly, in order not to risk burning out theradars, for which there were few spareparts, the acting signal officer of theHawaiian Department (in the absence ofthe signal officer, who was on a trip tothe United States) had instituted a shortbut intensive schedule calling for radarsearch during the three hours consideredto be the most dangerous each day. More-over, the platoon lieutenant of the SignalAircraft Warning Company, Hawaii, whohad the Opana crew under his responsi-bility, had agreed that two men would beenough for the Sunday operation and hadlet the third, normally on the roster for thatduty, off with a pass to Honolulu. Pvt.Joseph L. Lockard and Pvt. George A. El-liott drew the duty, went up to the stationSaturday afternoon, and woke themselvesup at four to begin their stint.

The radio aircraft-detection device, theSCR-270, was very new and very secret.It generated a powerful pulse of electricitywhich its antenna threw out into the sur-rounding sky, and it caught upon the lu-minous face of its oscilloscope the reflectionof the interrupted electric beams in case

anything got in the way. Some of theseechoes were steadfast, caused by nearbycliffs and hills beyond which the radar wasblind. Others were temporaryand thesewere the ones to watch for. They indicatedand tracked airplanes in the sky reflectingthe invisible beams of the radar transmitter.

For the entire three hours of their sched-uled watch, Privates Lockard and Elliottsaw nothing out of the ordinary. Elliottwas new to the device, but it was as ap-parent to him as to Lockard that the oscil-loscope showed a normal early dawn sky,with an occasional airplane from one ofthe military or naval fields on the island.At 0700 they prepared to close down. Thetruck was late. The radar hut was warmerthan the out-of-doors and there were placesto sit down, so Elliott urged that they keepthe equipment on while they were waiting.He could then take advantage of a goodopportunity to practice with it under Lock-ard's supervision. At 0702 an echo appearedon their oscilloscope such as neither of themhad ever seen before. It was very large andluminous. They reasoned that somethingmust be wrong with the equipment. Lock-ard checked it, found it in good workingorder, and observed that the echo was aslarge as ever. He took over the dial con-trols, and Elliott moved over to the plot-ting board. By their calculations, a largeflight of airplanes was 132 miles off KahukuPoint and approaching at a speed of threemiles a minute.

Because such a large formation was sounusual, Private Elliott suggested that theyreport it to the information center. Aftersome discussion, Lockard agreed, and El-liott made the call at 0720.4 At the informa-

3 (1) History of Subsection G-2, HUSAFMID-PAC, United States Army Forces, Middle Pacificand Predecessor Commands, I, 1-2, 25. (Hereaftercited as Hist of Subsec G-2, HUSAFMIDPAC.)OCMH. (2) Pearl Harbor Attack, Pt. 31, APHBExhibit 58, Report on the Establishment of AWSin Hawaii, with Incls 1-181. (3) Testimony ofMaj Gen Howard C. Davidson, APHB, pp. 4125-51. MS File, Pearl Harbor, DRB AGO. (4) SigAW Co, Hawaii, History of the Aircraft Warn-ing System in Hawaii. AF Archives SIG-(HA-WAII )-HI, 7896-54.

4 (1) Pearl Harbor Attack, Pt. 22, p. 221, andPt. 29, p. 2121ff ; Pt. 27, pp. 517-26; Pt. 36, p. 561.(2) Testimony of Pvts George A. Elliott and JosephL. Lockard, APHB, pp. 994-1014, 1014-34. MSFile, Pearl Harbor, DRB AGO.

DECEMBER 1941 5

tion center at Fort Shafter, atop a smallconcrete building used as a signal ware-house, only Pvt. Joseph P. McDonald,580th Aircraft Warning Company, Oahu,and a young Air Corps lieutenant, KermitTyler, were present in the building. Theplotters had left at 0700 to enjoy their firstoff-duty day in a month. McDonald hadbeen on duty at the private branch ex-change switchboard since 1700 the previousevening, and was waiting out the last tenminutes until he, too, would leave at 0730.So far as he knew at the moment he wasalone in the building. There was no one atthe Navy positionno one had been ap-pointed. Tyler would not have been in thecenter, either, except that he was new, andthe air control officer had thought it a goodidea for him to take a four-hour tour of dutyto become acquainted with the routine.Thus it was only an accident that Lockardand Elliott happened to be on hand at thedetector station after 0700, and part of noformal schedule that McDonald and Tylerhappened to be on hand after that time atthe information center.

When McDonald answered Elliott's call,Elliott told him that a large number ofplanes was coming in from the north, threepoints east, and asked him to get in touchwith somebody who could do somethingabout it. McDonald agreed, hung up,looked around and saw Lieutenant Tylersitting at the plotting board. McDonaldgave him the message. Tyler showed no in-terest. McDonald then called back theOpana unit, and got Lockard on the wire.By this time Lockard was excited, too. Mc-Donald, leaving Lockard on the wire, wentback and asked Tyler if he wouldn't pleasetalk to the Opana men. Tyler did, spoke toLockard, and said, in effect, "Forget it."Tyler had heard that a flight of Army bomb-

ers was coming in from the mainland thatmorning, and he had heard Hawaiian musicplayed through the night over the radio, acommon practice for providing a guidebeam to incoming pilots flying in from themainland. He assumed that the airplanesthe radar was reporting were either theB-17's expected from the west coast, orbombers from Hickam Field, or Navy patrolplanes.5

Back at the Opana station after talkingwith Tyler, Lockard wanted to shut theunit down, but Elliott insisted on followingthe flight. They followed its reflection towithin twenty miles, where it was lost ina permanent echo created by the surround-ing mountains. By then it was 0739.6 A littlelater the truck came, and they started backto the camp at Lawailoa for breakfast. Onthe way, they met a truck headed awayfrom camp, bearing the rest of the crewwith all their field equipment. The driverfor Lockard and Elliott blew the horn tosignal the other truck to stop, but the driverpaid no attention and kept on going.

The Japanese air attack on Pearl Har-bor began at 0755, with almost simul-taneous strikes at the Naval Air Station atFord Island and at Hickam Field, followedby attacks on strategic points all over theisland of Oahu. The residents of Oahu wereaccustomed to the sight and sound of bombsused in military practice maneuvers; theydid not realize immediately that this timeit was no practice drill. Some of the SignalCorps officers on the island were on duty;others were alerted by the first wave ofbombings; still others knew nothing of ituntil notified officially.

5 Pearl Harbor Attack, Pt. 27, p. 569, and Pt. 32,pp. 343-44. See also Pt. 10, pp. 5027-33; Pt. 27,pp. 520-22, 531-33; Pt. 29, pp. 2121-26.

6 Ibid., Pt. 21, Item 38, Original Radar PlotOpana Station 7 Dec 41.

6 THE SIGNAL CORPS

Lt. Col. Carroll A. Powell, the Hawai-ian Department signal officer, had just re-turned from a trip to the mainland. Lt. Col.Maurice P. Chadwick had been appointedonly a month before as signal officer of the25th Infantry Division, which was chargedwith the defense of the beaches, the har-bor, and the city of Honolulu. He was in hisquarters at Hickam Field when the firstbomb dropped on the battleships in the har-bor. A few minutes later Japanese planeswinged in low over his house as they at-tacked the nearby hangars. Hastily thecolonel piled mattresses around a steel din-ing table and gathered his children underits shelter. Then he hurried off to direct thecommunication activities of the signal com-pany as the troops moved into position.7

The officer in charge of the wire con-struction section of the department signaloffice, 1st Lt. William Scandrett, was re-sponsible for installing and maintaining allpermanent wire communication systemsthroughout the islandscommand and firecontrol cables, post base distribution facili-ties, and the trunking circuits from majorinstallations. By one of the quirks of fatethat determine the course of events, the En-gineers had been remodeling the tunnels atthe battle command post, and the SignalCorps had removed the switchboard anddistribution cables to preserve them fromthe blasting and construction. Thus the com-mand post was virtually without telephonecommunication when the Japanese struck.At once Scandrett's Signal Corps crewsrushed to the command post and restoredthe switchboard and cables in record time.8

At Schofield Barracks, men from the com-munications section of the 98th AntiaircraftRegiment were frantically setting up switch-boards and connecting telephones at theregimental command post at Wahiawa forthe gun positions around Wheeler Field andSchofield Barracks. The communicationslines had been strung to each gun position,and at the command post itself all the wireswere in and tagged. But under the Novem-ber alert the telephones and switchboardsremained in the supply room at SchofieldBarracks as a precaution against theft andsabotage. About 0830 2d Lt. Stephen G.Saltzman and S. Sgt. Lowell V. Klatt sawtwo pursuit planes pull out of a dive overWheeler Field and head directly towardthem. Each of the men seized an automaticrifle and began firing. One of the two planes,trapped by high tension wires, crashed onthe far side of the command post building.Running around to look at it, the men feltworriedto use Saltzman's wordsat see-ing an American engine, an American pro-peller, and an American parachute. "And,well, that's about all there was to it"ex-cept that Air Corps Intelligence later de-cided that the plane was Japanese"andwe went back and finished setting up ourcommunications." 9 Within twenty-five min-utes the equipment was connected. In fact,communications were set up hours beforethe guns were in place and ready to fire, inlate afternoon.

Within a half hour after the first bombsfell in Hawaii, the Signal Aircraft Warning

7 Interv, SigC Hist Sec with Col Chadwick (for-merly Sig Officer, 25th Inf Div, Hawaiian Dept),16 Oct 43. SigC Hist Sec File. (See BibliographicalNote.)

8 Warrant Officer John E. Carney later receiveda Legion of Merit for his work that morning. Interv,

SigC Hist Sec with Lt Col William Scandrett (for-merly O/C Wire Const Sec, Hawaiian Dept SigOff) , 28 Jul 44.

9 (1) Pearl Harbor Attack, Pt. 22, pp. 273-74,278-79. (2) Hist of Subsec G-2, HUSAFMIDPAC,I, 48-49, citing Ltr, Hq 98th AA, Schofield Bar-racks, to CG 53d Brigade AA, Ft. Shafter, 15 Dec41, sub: Narrative rpt of initial opn of 98th CAto meet Japanese attack on Oahu, 7 Dec 41.

DECEMBER 1941 7

Company, Hawaii, had manned all sixradar stations and the information center.10

About 1000 a bomb blast cut the telephonewires leading from the Waianae radar to theinformation center. The Waianae stationcommander at once sent a detail of his mento the nearest town where they confiscateda small 40-watt transmitter and antenna, to-gether with the Japanese operator, who wasprevailed upon to help install the set in thestation. By 1100 the Waianae radar sta-tion was communicating with the informa-tion center by radio, thus establishing thefirst radio link in what became within thenext few weeks an extensive aircraft warn-ing radio net covering both Oahu and theprincipal islands nearby.11

The attacking Japanese planes withdrewto the northwest, the earliest returning to

the carriers by 1030, the latest by 1330.12

The Opana station, reopened after the firstwave of Japanese planes attacked, trackedthat flight or some other flight back fromOahu in the same northerly direction from1002 to 1039. In the confusion and turmoil,amid numerous false reports from both ci-vilian and military sources, the Navy sentits ships and planes out to search for theJapanese carriers, centering the search tothe southwest. The Air Corps also sentplanes in that direction. There was muchbitterness afterward over the question ofwhy there was no search to the north, andwhy the radar information of the outgoingflights, apparently headed back to rendez-vous, was not given to the searchers at thetime.13 The reasons for this failure are muchthe same as those that underlay other mis-haps of that day: the information center,and indeed the entire aircraft warning sys-tem, was still in a training status, and if anyone in authority saw the radar plot, he wastoo inexperienced to realize its possible sig-nificance at the time.14

Except for one major cable put out of

10 The six 270's were set up on Oahu at Ka-wailea, Waianae, Koko Head, Kaaawa, Ft. Shafter,and Opana. Hist of AWS Hawaii cited n. 3(4) .

Signal AW Company, Hawaii, was the largestsingle Signal Corps unit in the territory on 7 De-cember. The following is a strength report by unitsand stations on Oahu at that date:

Enlisted OfficerTotal ___________ 1,283 38

Ft. Shafter9th Signal Service Co__ 327 1

Hickam Field12th Signal Plat AB__ 27 1324th Signal Co Avn

(later 400th SigCAvn) __________ 73 4

407th Sig Co Avn___ 72 3428th Sig Co Avn____ 73 3

Schofield Barracks24th Sig Co________ 133 425th Sig Co________ 136 5Sig AW Co_______ 348 13

Wheeler Field45th Sig Plat_______ 23 1307th Sig Co Avn____ 71 3

Source: Pearl Harbor Attack, Pt. 12, pp.318-20.

11 Hist of AWS Hawaii cited n. 3 (4) .

12 Joint Committee, 79th Cong, 1st and 2ndSess, Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack(Reports of the Joint Committee), Sen Doc 244(Washington, 1946), p. 63. (Hereafter referredto by the short title Investigation.)

13 (1)Pearl Harbor Attack, Pt. 1, pp. 139-42,145-46; Pt. 7, pp. 2952, 3176-80; Pt. 23, p. 999;Pt. 32, pp. 394-95, 464. See also Opana plottingrecords, Pt. 21, Items 1, 18, 38. (2) Wesley FrankCraven and James Lea Cate, eds., The Army AirForces in World War II: I, Plans and Early Op-erations, January 1939 to August 1942 (Chicago:The University of Chicago Press, 1948), 200. (3)Investigation, p. 69.

14 For example, Lt. Comdr. W. E. R. Taylor,USNR, testified later that, although he was themost experienced controller on the island at thetime, the Opana plot of the incoming Japaneseplanes would not have meant anything to him hadhe seen it when it came in on the board. PearlHarbor Attack, Pt. 23, pp. 757-58.

ORIGINAL RADAR PLOT OF STATION OPANA

DECEMBER 1941 9

commission at Hickam Field, the Japaneseattack did little damage to signal installa-tions. Soldiers and civilians workingthrough the second phase of the bombingsquickly patched all the important circuitsin the Hickam cable. Two hours beforemidnight a third of the damaged HickamField circuits were back in the originalroute, and by two o'clock on the morningof 8 December the whole cable was re-stored.15

Word of the attack reached the Navycommunications center in Washington at1350 Sunday, Washington time, over thedirect Boehme circuit from the Pearl Har-bor radio station.16 In an action messageover the name of Admiral Husband E.Kimmel, the commander in chief of thePacific Fleet, the broadcaster was saying"Air attack on Pearl Harbor. This is notdrill." 17 Thus he was correcting the firstincredulous reaction to the falling bombs.

As word spread through the militaryestablishment in Washington, GeneralGeorge C. Marshall, the Chief of Staff,wanted to know why the warning messagehe had sought to send that morning had notarrived in time to avert disaster.18 Atmos-pheric disturbances in the vicinities of SanFrancisco and Honolulu that morning hadrendered the Army radio circuits unusable.For that reason, Lt. Col. Edward F. French,the Signal Corps officer in charge of the

War Department Message Center, hadturned to the commercial facilities of West-ern Union and the Radio Corporation ofAmerica (RCA).19 When he had sent Mar-shall's message from the Center (at 0647Hawaiian time) he had told Western Unionthat he desired an immediate report on itsdelivery. Now he perspired at the telephonetrying to get it. "I was very much con-cerned; General Marshall was very muchconcerned; we wanted to know whosehands it got into. This went on late intothe night; I personally talked to the signaloffice over there." 20 French was not ableto talk to Colonel Powell, the HawaiianDepartment signal officer, who was busy inthe field, but he did talk to the Hawaiianoperator, and told him that it was impera-tive to be able to tell Marshall who got thatmessage.

It was not until the following day thatWashington received a definite answer, andlearned that the RCA office in Honoluluhad delivered the message to the signal cen-ter at Fort Shafter in a routine manner.The warning message had arrived in Hono-lulu at 0733, twenty-two minutes before theattack, and a messenger boy on a motor-cycle was carrying it out to the Army postwhen the bombs started falling. The boy de-livered the message at Fort Shafter at 1145,long after the main attacking groups ofJapanese planes had retired.21 About an

15 Interv, SigC Hist Sec with Capt Robert Danser(formerly O/C Switchboard Instl Sec, HawaiianDept Sig Off) , 7 Oct 44.

16 U.S. Office of Naval Opns, Office of the Chiefof Naval Operations: Naval Communications(1947). First draft narrative, Hist Sec, Office CNC.

17 (1)Pearl Harbor Attack, Pt. 10, p. 4737; Pt.11, p. 5351; Pt. 23, pp. 608, 935. (2) Hist ofSubsec G-2, HUSAFMIDPAC, I, 55.

18 See account in Watson, Chief of Staff, and inPearl Harbor Attack, Pt. 9, pp. 4517-19; Pt. 2, pp.915-16 and 933; Pt. 3, pp. 1111-12.

19 Pearl Harbor Attack, Pt. 22, pp. 237-39; Pt.27, pp. 105-15.

20 Ibid., Pt. 23, pp. 1102-05.21 (1) Memo for Record, Col W. B. Smith, Secy

General Staff, 15 Dec 41, p. 474 of Resume ofPapers in War Department Bearing Significantlyon Events at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941,prepared by Current Group, OPD, WDGS, 11 Nov44. Copy in OCMH. (2) According to the Hono-lulu office of RCA, the message arrived at FortShafter between 0900 and 0930, Honolulu time,and not 1145. The receipt for the message was

10 THE SIGNAL CORPS

hour was spent in decoding it; it had to beprocessed through the cipher machine andthen played back to make sure of its ac-curacy. At 1458 it was placed in the handsof the adjutant general of the department,who delivered it to General Short's aide,who gave it to Short at 1500. The warningwas in Short's hands, then, 8 hours and 13minutes after it had left the War Depart-ment Message Center, 7 hours and 5 min-utes after the attack had begun.22

War in the Philippines

Meanwhile, farther west, the Philippines,a focus of Army and Navy power for fortyyears, came under attack.23 The one o'clockwarning message which General Marshallhad sought to send to General Short inHawaii had gone also to General DouglasMacArthur, commanding general of theUnited States Army Forces in the Far East(USAFFE). In fact, it had been trans-mitted, in the signal sense of the term, asnumber two in the series of four which wentout to Panama, the Philippines, the Western

Defense Command, and Hawaii. It had leftthe War Department Message Center at1205, Washington time.24 But before itreached the Philippines, word of the attackon Pearl Harbor had arrived more or lessunofficially. About 0300 on 8 December(it was then 0830, 7 December, in Hawaii)a Navy radio operator picked up AdmiralKimmel's message to the fleet units at PearlHarbor. About the same time a commercialradio station on Luzon picked up word ofthe attack.25

Thus the military forces in the Philip-pines were on combat alert several hours be-fore sunrise and before hostile actionoccurred. With the Pacific Fleet crippledby the attack at Pearl Harbor, the primetarget in the Philippines became the FarEast Air Force (FEAF).26 The Japanesecould be expected to launch their initialattacks against the major airfields. Of these,Clark was the only big first-class airfield forB-17's in the islands.27 Maj. Gen. Lewis H.Brereton, commander of FEAF, had es-tablished his headquarters at Neilson Field,which had been taken over from a commer-cial owner. Nichols Field was of less thantop rank. A scattering of others, all the waydown to Del Monte on Mindanao, were butemerging. Clark Field was the only onecomparable to Hickam Field in Hawaii,

initialed by the receiving clerk, but not time-stamped, as was customary. The teletype circuitbetween the RCA office in Honolulu and the mes-sage center at Fort Shafter, which would havemade messenger service unnecessary, was set upand mechanically completed on 6 December, butwas not in operation pending final tests to becompleted on Monday, 8 December. Ltr, W. A.Winterbottom, Vice Pres and Gen Manager, RCACommunications, Inc. [Honolulu], to David Sar-noff, Pres RCA, N.Y., 23 Dec 41; and Ltr, DavidSarnoff to Col O. K. Sadtler, OCSigO, 23 Dec 41.SigC AC 381 Jap Attack. SigC Hist Sec File.

22 Pearl Harbor Attack, Pt. 7, pp. 2930-40, 3163-64; Pt. 11, p. 5297; Pt. 22, pp. 46-47, 217-18; Pt.23, pp. 1102-05.

23 For a detailed account of prewar planning, theJapanese attack, and the siege of the Philippines,see Louis Morton, The Fall of the Philippines,UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II(Washington, 1953).

24 Resume of Papers in War Department BearingSignificantly on Events at Pearl Harbor, December7, 1941, p. 62.

25 (1) Samuel Eliot Morison, History of UnitedStates Naval Operations in World War II, III, TheRising Sun in the Pacific, 1931-April 1942 (Bos-ton: Little, Brown and Company, 1948), 168-69.(2) Craven and Cate, The Army Air Forces, I, 203.

26 Japanese Monograph 11, Philippine Air Op-erations Record, Phase One, passim. OCMH.

27Terrain Study 94, Philippine Series: CentralLuzon, I, prepared by the Allied Geographical Sec,GHQ SWPA, 18 Oct 44. OCMH.

DECEMBER 1941 11

and there were no others like them inbetween.28

At Clark Field the Signal Corps had pro-vided telephone and teletype connectionwith Neilson and Nichols. SCR-197's hadrecently arrived to give tactical radio com-munications to each of the fields.29 ThePhilippine Long Distance Telephone Com-pany brought commercial telephone in toBrereton's headquarters from all parts ofLuzon, where local aircraft spotters hadbeen appointed to telephone reports ofwhat they saw. The spotters' reports, tele-phoned to the communication center atNeilson, were supposed to be relayed byteletype to Clark.30

In time, this primitive arrangement ofspotters was expected to yield to the mech-anized and infinitely more accurate report-

ing information supplied by the Army'snew aircraft detection devices, the long-range radars SCR-270 and SCR-271. Asyet, however, very few sets had been manu-factured, and of those few only a half-dozenhad been shipped to the Philippines underthe strict priorities established by the WarDepartment. Of the half-dozen, only onewas set up and in satisfactory operatingcondition when war came.31

The Signal Company Aircraft Warning,Philippine Department, had arrived inManila on 1 August 1941 with about 200men, but with no aircraft warning equip-ment.32 The first SCR-270 allotted to thePhilippines arrived two months later, about1 October. At once the men uncrated andassembled it. The SCR-270's were themobile versions. They required less time toerect than did the fixed SCR-271's, but forall that they were massive and complicatedmechanisms, and it was necessary to spendmany hours testing and adjusting the sets atFort William McKinley, and more hoursinstructing and training the men who op-erated them. No test equipment of any sortaccompanied the set (or, indeed, any of theothers which subsequently arrived). Fortu-nately, this first set gave so little troublethat Lt. C. J. Wimer and a detachment ofthirty men shortly were able to take theradar to Iba, an airstrip on the coast abouta hundred miles to the northwest of ClarkField. By the end of October the Iba radarwas in operation. At about the same time,

28 (1) Craven and Cate, The Army Air Forces,I, 175-93, passim. (2) Morton, The Fall of thePhilippines, p. 43.

29 A typographical error appears in the Historyof the Fifth Air Force (and Its Predecessors), Pt.1, December 1941-August 1942, December 1941installment, page 6, in the Air Historical DivisionFile, and has been perpetuated in Craven and Cate,The Army Air Forces, I, Pearl Harbor Attack, andnumerous other accounts using the History of theFifth Air Force as source material. This sourcedocument states that each of the major airfields inthe Philippines had "an SCR-297." Obviously,"SCR-297" should read "SCR-197." The SCR-197 was the standard point-to-point and ground-to-air radio which the Signal Corps furnished for suchpurposes at this period. No production radio everbore the nomenclature "SCR-297"; the experi-mental navigation system bearing that nomenclaturewas incorporated into the shoran system in 1943.OCSigO Engineering and Tech Sv, History ofSignal Corps Research and Development in WorldWar II, Vol. II, Pt. 4, Proj. 208-A. SigC Hist SecFile.

30 (1) Ltr, Col Alexander H. Campbell (for-merly AWS officer, Hq FEAF) to Maj Gen Or-lando Ward, Chief of Mil Hist, 4 Dec 51. OCMH.(2) Craven and Cate, The Army Air Forces, I,175-93, passim. (3) Hist of Fifth Air Force, Pt. I,Dec 41-Aug 42, Dec 41 installment, passim. AirHist Div File (Copy also in Pearl Harbor Attack,Pt. 11, pp. 5317-30.)

31 History of Signal Corps Radar Units in thePhilippine Islands, 1 Aug 41-6 May 42, passim.Folder, Radar-Philippine-Capt C. J. Wimer, SigCHist Sec File. This history and the Report onEnemy Air Activities, cited in note 40 below, werecompiled in 1946 by Capt. C. J. Wimer, a SignalCorps officer of the Signal Company Aircraft Warn-ing, Philippine Department.

32 History of Signal Corps Radar Units in thePhilippine Islands, 1 Aug 41-6 May 42, p. 1.

12 THE SIGNAL CORPS

Lt. Col. Alexander H. Campbell, the officerin charge of aircraft warning activities, setup a central plotting board at Neilson Fieldto co-ordinate the activities of all types ofair warning.33

Within the next two weeks three moreSCR-270 sets arrived at Manila, as well astwo SCR-271's in crates. The 271's werethe fixed radars, which had to be mountedon high towers. It took months to preparethe sites,34 so for the time being the SCR-271's, still in their crates, were put intostorage. Of the mobile sets, two appeared totest satisfactorily, but nothing the mencould do would coax the third to operateefficiently. Within a few days LieutenantRodgers set out by boat for Paracale,Camerines Norte Province, Luzon, about125 miles southeast of Manila on the coastof the Philippine Sea. He took with him oneof the better mobile sets and one of thecrated SCR-271's, planning to use themobile set until the permanent site for thefixed radar could be made ready. Rodgersand his men got their 270 set up, andstarted preliminary test operation by 1December.35

Meanwhile, Col. Spencer B. Akin hadarrived in the Philippines to become Gen-eral MacArthur's signal officer. Unlike thesituation in Hawaii, where the aircraftwarning company and the operation of theradars were Signal Corps responsibilities atthe outbreak of war, in the Philippines theAir Forces controlled the entire air warningservice. Although it was not one of his re-sponsibilities, Colonel Akin felt impelled to

recommend strongly that all radar sets andaircraft warning personnel allocated for thePhilippines be shipped at once, without ref-erence to the established priority schedulesof shipment.36 Doling out the remainingradars in the closing days of NovemberColonel Campbell sent Lieutenant Wedenof the Signal Company Aircraft Warningto a site some forty-five miles south ofManila on Tagaytay Ridge. Weden drewthe damaged set. Any hope that it mightwork better in this location soon faded; theset could not be made to operate satisfac-torily, although it was still useful for train-ing. About 3 December another SignalCorps officer, Lt. Robert H. Arnold, rushedthe last remaining SCR-270 to BurgosPoint on the extreme northern tip of Luzon.Arnold arrived at his location on the nightof 7 December.37 A few days earlier, theMarine Corps unit at Cavite had informedColonel Campbell that it had just receiveda radar set, but that no one knew how tooperate it. This was an SCR-268 radar, ashort-range searchlight-control set devel-oped for the Coast Artillery and not in-tended as an aircraft warning set, althoughit was sometimes used as such. A SignalCorps crew hurried to Cavite and helpedthe marines take the set to Nasugbu, belowCorregidor, and on the southwest coast ofLuzon.38

33 Ibid.34 For Corps of Engineers difficulties and delays

in readying sites, see Karl C. Dod and G. L. Marr,The Engineers in the War Against Japan, forth-coming volume in the series UNITED STATESARMY IN WORLD WAR II, Ch. II.

35 History of Signal Corps Radar Units in thePhilippine Islands, 1 Aug 41-6 May 42, p. 1.

36 Ltr, Maj Gen Spencer Akin, Ret., to SigC HistSec, 16 Apr 54. SigC Hist Sec File.

37 After northern Luzon was overrun, Arnolddestroyed his radar set, worked his way to the IlocosNorte district, and joined the guerrillas. He com-manded the 15th Infantry Regiment, USAFIP,N.L. (guerrilla), which captured the Gabu airfieldand other important objectives in the 1945 returnto the Philippines. R. W. Volckmann, Colonel,United States Army, We Remained: Three YearsBehind the Enemy Lines in the Philippines (NewYork: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1954), pp.153-54, 200-202.

38 History of Signal Corps Radar Units in thePhilippine Islands, p. 2.

DECEMBER 1941 13

To sum up, then, this was the tally ofaircraft warning radars in the Philippineson the morning of the Japanese attack: anSCR-270 at Paracale, with tuning andtesting just being completed, and an SCR-271 in crates; a faulty SCR-270 at Tagay-tay Ridge, still giving trouble but able tobe used for training; an SCR-270 atBurgos Point, not yet assembled for op-eration; an SCR-268 at Nasugbu in thecare of an untrained crew; one SCR-271still in its crate in a Manila storeroom; andfinally, at Iba, the one radar fully com-petent and able to perform its role.39

The prime purpose of the Iba radar in-stallation, according to the young officer incharge of it, was to demonstrate to com-manders and troops alike what radar was,what it could do, and how it operated.40 Agrimmer mission emerged in the closingdays of November when Colonel Campbellordered Lieutenant Wimer to go immedi-

ately on a 24-hour alert until further no-tice. On the nights of 3 and 4 Decemberthe Iba radar tracked unidentified aircraftnorth of Lingayen Gulf, and Wimer radioedthe reports to Neilson Field. Single "hos-tile" planes had been sighted visually thatweek over Clark Field, as well, but attemptsto intercept them had failed.41

Sometime in the early morning hours of8 December (it was 7 December in Hawaii)the Iba radar plotted a formation of air-craft offshore over Lingayen Gulf, headedtoward Corregidor. The Air Forces recordsput the time as within a half hour afterthe first unofficial word of Pearl Harborreached the Philippines, and state that theplanes were seventy-five miles offshore whendetected. The Signal Corps officer in chargeof the Iba radar remembers the time as be-fore midnight, and the distance as 110 milesoffshore. He states that the first news of thePearl Harbor attack had not yet reachedIba.42 The 3d Pursuit Squadron at Iba sentout planes for an interception. But the long-range radars of that period could not showthe elevation of targets, and in the darknessthe pilots did not know at what altitude toseek the enemy. Poor air-ground radio con-ditions prevented contact with the Ameri-can planes, although the Iba station waskeeping in touch with aircraft warningheadquarters at Neilson, point by point.As the American pursuit planes neared thecalculated point of interception abouttwenty miles west of Subic Bay, the radartracks of both groups of planes merged,showing a successful interception. Actually,the pursuits did not see the Japanese air-

39 Ibid. All sources available to date agree thatthe Iba radar was in operation, and several statethat it was the only one. See, for example, Hist ofFifth Air Force, 24th Pursuit Gp; Lt. Gen. LewisH. Brereton, The Brereton Diaries, 3 October1941-8 May 1945 (New York: W i l l i a mMorrow & Company, Inc, 1946), p. 65;Walter D. Edmonds, They Fought With WhatThey Had (Boston: Little, Brown and Company,1951), p. 59. On the evidence of Col. AlexanderH. Campbell, aircraft warning officer of the VInterceptor Command, two sets, one at Iba andthe other outside Manila, were in operation.Craven and Cate, The Army Air Forces, I, 186,and Morton, The Fall of the Philippines, p. 44,accept this view. From the Signal Corps point ofview, no set could be considered "operational" un-less it was fully tuned, aligned, and sited, and inthe hands of a trained crew able to operate it.Similarly, the SLC set SCR-268 could not properlybe regarded as an aircraft warning radar. By thesestandards, only the Iba radar could qualify.

40 Report on Enemy Air Activities Over thePhilippines up to and Including the First Day ofWar, as Observed by Signal Corps Radar. Folder,Radar-Philippine-Capt C. J. Wimer. SigC Hist SecFile.

41 (1) Ibid. (2) Craven and Cate, The Army AirForces, I, 191. (3) Hist of Fifth Air Force.

42 (1) Report on Enemy Air Activities Over thePhilippines. (2) Craven and Cate, The Army AirForces, I, 203. (3) Hist of Fifth Air Force.

14 THE SIGNAL CORPS

craft and apparently passed beneath them,missing them altogether as the Japaneseturned and headed back out to sea.

This failure to come to grips with theenemy was the first of a series of tragic mis-chances which spelled disaster for the FarEast Air Force. The events of the next fewhours have become clouded by dispute andcannot be reported with accuracy.43 At anyrate it appears that the Japanese made sev-eral strikes at lesser targets before launchingtheir main attack on Clark Field. All of theinitial enemy flights were reported faith-fully by the aircraft warning service, boththrough calls from aircraft spotters andthrough radar reports. The Iba radar beganpicking up enemy flights due north over Lin-gayen Gulf about 1120, at a distance ofapproximately 112 miles. During the nexthour the Iba crewmen were franticallybusy, checking and plotting enemy flights,radioing the reports to Neilson Field and tosubsequent points along the enemy flightpath until the planes were lost by inter-ference from mountain echoes as the Jap-anese, flew down Lingayen valley. Newflights were appearing before the old oneswere out of sight, twelve of them in all, inwaves of three flights each. The radar wasstill picking up new flights, still reportingthem, when enemy bombers struck Iba atabout 1220, silencing the station and com-pletely destroying it.44

Waiting and watching in the Neilsonheadquarters communications center as thereports started coming in that morning wereCol. Harold H. George, chief of staff of the

V Interceptor Command; his executiveofficer, Capt. A. F. Sprague; his aircraftwarning officer, Colonel Campbell; andCampbell's executive officer, Maj. HaroldJ. Coyle.45 Listening to the reports comingin, Colonel George predicted that "the ob-jective of this formidable formation is ClarkField." A message was prepared warningall units of the FEAF of the incoming flight.Sgt. Alfred H. Eckles, on duty with theFEAF headquarters communication detail,carried the message to the Neilson teletypeoperator. There he waited while he saw themessage sent, and the acknowledgment ofthe Clark Field operator that it had beenreceived by him. The time was about 1145.

For the next half hour or so, George,Campbell, Coyle, and Sprague watched theplotting board, where the indications of theapproaching flight were being charted.Campbell was apprehensive; he kept ask-ing the others to do something about it, butthe air officers were waiting for the enemyto approach close enough to permit the mosteffective use of the outnumbered Americandefending aircraft. When they decided thatthe Japanese were within fifteen minutes'flying time of their target, Captain Spraguewrote a message. He showed it to Georgeand Campbell. "What does the word 'Kick-apoo' mean?" asked Campbell. They toldhim, "It means 'Go get 'em.' " Captain

43 See account in Craven and Cate, The ArmyAir Forces, I, 20313. To date the most exhaustivesearch of available records has been made by Mor-ton, The Fall of the Philippines.

44 Report on Enemy Air Activities Over thePhilippines.

45 The account given here was supplied by Colo-nel Campbell to Dr. Morton, who made the in-formation available to the authors. It is based onColonel Campbell's recollection of the day's events,documented by a page from his notebook whichhe prepared soon after the event, and which hekept with him during his confinement in prisoncamps. Ltr, Col Campbell to Gen Ward, 4 Dec51. and Incl, page from Notebook of Col AlexanderH. Campbell, Aircraft Warning Officer, USAFFE.OCMH. See also Morton, The Fall of the Philip-pines, pp. 85ff.

DECEMBER 1941 15

Sprague took the message into the teletyperoom for transmission.

At this point the record dissolves in a massof contradictions. Most Air Forces accountsstate that no warning message was receivedat Clark Field, and place the blame vari-ously on "a communications breakdown," 46

"cutting of communications to Clark Fieldby saboteurs, and jamming of radio com-munications by radio interference," 47 andthe allegation that "the radio operator hadleft his station to go to lunch," and that"radio reception was drowned by staticwhich the Japanese probably caused by sys-tematic jamming of the frequencies."48

Colonel Campbell states that he and theothers assumed that the "Go get 'em" mes-sage had been sent and received properly,since they had had perfect communicationwith Clark, and since neither CaptainSprague nor anyone else mentioned anydifficulty at the time.49 If the teletypecircuit was out of order, there were directradio circuits to Clark, as well as long-dis-tance telephone and telegraph lines avail-able in the Neilson headquarters, whichcould have been used. Campbell believesthat "if the Bomber Command was notnotified [as its former commander, Brig.Gen. Eugene L. Eubank, insists] internaladministration was at fault." 50

Whatever the facts, the strike at ClarkField, plus the other lesser attacks duringthe day, rendered the Far East Air Force

ineffective as an offensive force. There re-mained no more than seventeen of the origi-nal thirty-five B-17's, the long-distancebombers which it had been hoped could al-ter the entire strategy of defense in the area.The military forces in the Philippines mustrevert to the prewar concept, and resist aslong as it was humanly possible to do so.

The First Month of War in the Field

The reverberations of Pearl Harborbrought additional duties to the SignalCorps organization in Hawaii. The biggestsingle item of Signal Corps responsibilitywas radar: to get sets in place, get themoperating and co-ordinated with the in-formation center and an effective intercep-tor system. In the first hours after the attack,the Air Corps had taken over responsibilityfor continuous operation of the aircraftwarning service. Crews of the Signal Air-craft Warning Company, Hawaii, went on24-hour duty, working in three shifts: 4hours of operation, then 4 hours of guardduty, then 4 hours off, then repeating thecycle. Thanks to the Japanese attack, Colo-nel Powell, the department signal officer,could get equipment, men, and militarypowers as never before. He no longer had tocontend with the peacetime obstacles whichhad hindered his efforts to put up the severalSCR-271 long-range fixed radar stationsallotted to him. The station at Red Hill,Haleakala, Maui, had been slated for com-pletion on 8 December. The attack on 7December intervened, but the project wasrushed to completion a few days later. AtKokee, on Kauai, where heavy rains hadheld up installation of a communicationscable late in November, the entire stationwas completed a few days after the attack.

46 Hist of Fifth Air Force, especially 24th PursuitGroup account.

47 Ibid., Maj William P. Fisher, Rpt of Philip-pine and Java Opns.

48 Morton, The Fall of the Philippines, p. 85.49 Ibid, p. 85, n. 36. The three officers with

Campbell that morning were all killed not longafter: Colonel George in Australia; Colonel Coylein Davao; Captain Sprague in the NetherlandsIndies.

50 Ltr cited n. 45.

16 THE SIGNAL CORPS

and its radar went into operation early in January.

The installation of the fixed 271 stations with their towers atop mountain peaks had been thought to be of primary importance because current opinion among radar en- gineers held that for the best long-range de- tection, a radar must be located as high as possible. Fortunately, the mobile SCR- 270's proved quite good enough for long- range detection, even at lower sites, as the radar at Opana had demonstrated on 7 December. As Signal Corps units acquired more men and equipment, they quickly put up other radars and extended communica- tion nets. Immediately after the attack, they installed two more radars on Oahu. One at Puu Manawahua was borrowed from the Marine Corps; the other was a Navy set, salvaged from the battleship California and set up in the hills behind Fort Shatter. On 18 December the Lexington Signal Depot shipped two SCR-270's and these Colonel Powell put on Maui and Kauai when they arrived. Next, an SCR-271, complete with three gasoline power units, communication radio equipment, and other attachments, which had been in San Francisco labeled for Alaska, went to Hawaii instead. Three other sets due for delivery in January and originally intended for installation on the continental coasts were similarly diverted, and a mobile information center from Drew Field was shipped by rail and the first avail- able water transportation. Unfortunately the difficulties of shipping so delayed the equipment that it did not arrive in port in

" APHB Investigation Exhibit 58, Report on the Establishment of an AWS in Hawaii. MS File, Pearl Harbor, DRB AGO. For a full account of efforts to establish long-range radar in prewar Hawaii, see Dulany Terrett, T h e Signal Corps: The Emergency ( T o December 1941), UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR I1 (Wash- ington, 1956), pp. 301ff.

Honolulu until 28 March 1942. In the meantime the temporary information center carried on as best it could, in the quarters it had occupied for training before the Pearl Harbor attack, and with such makeshift equipment as it could beg, borrow, or steal."

All sections of the Hawaiian Department Signal Office under Colonel Powell worked around the clock for several weeks follow- ing the attack. For about a week, the ci- vilian employees of the Signal Office lived right on the job. After that they were per- mitted to go home each night, but many preferred the safety of the signal area to the unknown hazards of the streets outside. The stringent blackout, with armed volun- teer guards patrolling the streets, presented its own dangers. There were stories of trigger-happy guards, and of unauthorized lights shot out or smashed with gun butts. Before long, life settled down to a fairly even tempo, although the amount of signal construction sharply in~reased.'~

Communications among the islands, pro- vided by a system which was partly Army, partly Mutual Telephone Company, had been unsatisfactory. To the islands of Kauai, Maui, Molokai, and Hawaii, there was also a radiotelephone service. Powell took over all the amateur radio stations on the islands immediately after the attack."*

The limited telephone facilities at once clogged with a rush of civilian and military calls. The situation, in particular the traffic on the interisland lines, seriously endan- gered the Army's and Navy's means of com- " ( I ) Ibid. (2 ) Hist of AWS Hawaii cited n.

3(4). Within a year of Pearl Harbor, the Signal Aircraft Warning Company, Hawaii, expanded into a regiment, eventually to be redesignated the 5 15th Signal Aircraft Warning Regiment.

Intervs, SigC Hist Sec with Capt Danser, 7 Oct 44, and with Col Scandrett, 28 Jul 44.

' Pearl Harbor Attack, Pt. 22, pp. 237-49.

DECEMBER 1941

munication, especially since it seemed possible that the islands might be block- aded. Some means of control had to be found. Two days after the attack, General Short gave Powell supervision over the local activity of the Mutual Telephone Company in order to limit business to essentials if necessary (it turned out unnecessary) and in order to distribute the limited stock of commercial telephone equipment where it was most needed. Another task added to Powell's growing burdens was the un- wanted but inevitable business of censoring telephone traffic."

On Oahu a network complex of cable supplemented by much field wire served both tactical and administrative. needs." Eventually, after 7 December, cable re- placed much of the field wire, the latter being retained only where bad terrain made trenching difficult. The network operated through a series of huts located in each of the sectors into which the island of Oahu was divided. These huts contained BD-74 switchboards through which, if one cable became inoperative, another could be con- nected to reach the desired destination by an alternate route.57

In the Philippines, communications were sorely taxed. At the outbreak of war, Colo- nel Akin was the signal officer of USAFFE. His assistant, executive, and radio commu-

" (1) Office of Internal Security, T. H., Wartime Security Controls i n Hawaii, 1941-1943, Pt. 2. OCMH. (2 ) Hist of Signal Sec, Appended to Hist of Subsec G-2, HUSAFMIDPAC, I, Pt. 2, Sec. X, pp. 1-2.

"Ltr, SigO Hawaiian Dept, to CSigO, 11 Aug 41, sub: Const and maint of telephone systems. SigC 676.1 Gen 12.

"Dr. Donald 0. Wagner, Army Command and Administrative Network, 1941-1945 : Pt. 1, The Pacific. SigC historical monograph E-6, pp. 13-14. SigC Hist Sec File. (For a discussion and list of the Signal Corps historical monographs, see Biblio- graphical Note.)

nications officer was Col. Theodore T. "Tiger" Teague, a man who, Maj. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright declared, "could make any kind of radio work." '* In the next seventeen days after 8 December, Akin and Teague arranged the orderly transfer of communications as the forward echelon of Headquarters, USAFFE, prepared to with- draw from Manila to Corregidor. Akin would accompany MacArthur, Teague would remain in the rear echelon with Gen- eral Wainwright.

Akin and Teague could not count on re- plenishment of supplies from the United States; they would have to improvise. True, USAFFE had a signal depot, taken over from the Philippine Department, and wire, cable, and radio communications were os- tensibly available. So long as the atmosphere of a peacetime Army installation endured, the signal service was adequate, but, like all the other services of the Army, it faltered under the pressures of war. The depot, lo- cated in the port area of Manila, became a regular target, and its supplies had to be removed to a less conspicuous building on the outskirts of the city.59 Headquarters telephone service to the three subordinate elements-the South Luzon Force, the North Luzon Force, and the USAFFE re+ serve-was almost immediately imperiled,

" General Jonathan M. Wainwright, General Wainwright's Story, the Account of Four Years of Humiliating Defeat, Surrender, and Captivity (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1946), p. 261.

"Report of Operations of USAFFE and USFIP in the Philippine Islands, 1941-1942, Annex XVII: Col Theodore T. Teague, Report of Operations, Signal Corps, United States Army, 8 December 1941-6 May 1942. 26447 98-USE 1-0.3, DRB AGO. Copy in OCMH. The account which follows is based on this document, supplemented by MS comment by Colonel Teague, contained in a series of letters to Dulany Terrett, from 24 September 1949 to 14 April 1950. SigC Hist Sec File.

18 THE SIGNAL CORPS

even though the Philippine CommonwealthTelephone Company, which owned thefacilities and employed the operators, gavethe Army priority service.

The control station for the Army's tacti-cal radio network occupied a room insidethe old wall of Manila, at the Santa Luciagate, but could not occupy it for long afterthe invasion. On the day before Christmas,when General MacArthur and his staff leftManila for Corregidor, Teague sent one ofhis assistants along to set up another tem-porary control station there. During Christ-mas week, the new station went up despiteunceasing heavy air attacks, and one by onethe subordinate stations signed out from theold control station and into the new net onCorregidor. On 1 January 1942 Teaguesigned off the Manila station permanently,dismantled it, and shipped the equipmentby water to Corregidor.

The administrative radio network wasalso vulnerable. Its transmitter stood nearthe signal depot and was therefore near thefirst bombings. Its control room station hadto be shifted to an old building, which latercrumbled under attack, and then into avaulted room in the fortress, which stillcould not save it. So swift was the Japaneseadvance that the network's subordinate sta-tions in the north and south, Camp JohnHay at Baguio, Mountain Province, onLuzon, and Pettit Barracks in Zamboangaon Mindanao, signed out within threeweeks. It was obvious that soon the Manilastation, too, would be silenced, and thatonly the one at Fort Mills on Corregidorwould remain.

Although the two ten-kilowatt installa-tions of the Corregidor station made it thestrongest in the network, the increasing traf-fic soon showed that it was hardly qualifiedto be the sole eastbound channel between

Corregidor and the War Department. Itwas designed to work with Fort Shafter, onOahu, which in turn relayed to the Presidioin San Francisco. Knowing the system to beslow and inadequate for the demands sud-denly placed upon it, Akin, now a brigadiergeneral, got authority to lease the MackayRadio high-speed machine-operated chan-nel between Manila and San Francisco, andto operate it with Signal Corps personnel.For a time while USAFFE still occupiedManila, traffic to the United States im-proved; then the Mackay facilities, too, hadto be destroyed to keep them from theenemy. The War Department had con-tinued in any case to send all of its mes-sages to USAFFE over the Army channel.

Communications to the northwest, south-west, and south had suddenly and simul-taneously increased in importance, for theBritish, Dutch, and Australian Allies wereisolated along with American forces in theFar East. For two weeks, an excellent RCAhigh-speed channel provided the connec-tion with the British in Hong Kong and,by relay, with the Straits Settlements andSingapore. As the only fully mechanizedmeans of communication in the Manilaregion, where any operators, let aloneskilled ones, were hard to get and almostimpossible to replace, the RCA facilitywas thankfully put into use. Then HongKong surrendered, and another outlet waslost. For keeping in touch with the Neth-erlands Indies, the theater rented GlobeRadio facilities. They were less satisfactory,because the Bandoeng, Java, station, al-though operating with adequate power, wasnot to be counted upon to adhere to broad-casting and receiving schedules. Most hope-fully of all, the signal office set up a radio-telegraph channel between Manila andDarwin, Australia. This channel was cru-

DECEMBER 1941 19

cial; in those early stages the Americansin the Philippines were hoping to hold outuntil reinforcements assembled to the south.But this circuit, too, was a disappointmentand frustration. The USAFFE signal sta-tions were aggrieved at the Australian useof student operators at Darwin, who werealmost impossible to "read"-as if, itwas said afterward, "the fact that there wasa war in progress and that they and wewere combatants and allies [was] merelya topic of academic interest." 60

Meanwhile, the troops were withdrawingto the Bataan peninsula and to Corregidor.Colonel Teague, as signal officer of therear echelon of the staff, remained behindfor a week with a skeleton crew of signal-men to assist in destroying the radio sta-tions still in operation. Day by day duringthat week, the men worked at their melan-choly duty. In the closing days of December, Colonel Teague ordered the receivingequipment of the Manila station dismantledto save it from the enemy. The fixed trans-mitting equipment and antenna were blownup to keep them from falling into the handsof the Japanese. On 26 December the plantof the Press Radio Company, both trans-mitting and receiving, was demolished; on27 December crews dismantled the inter-

island radio equipment of the PhilippineCommonwealth Telephone Company, crat-ing it and shipping it to Corregidor; on 28December they destroyed the Manila radiobroadcast station; on 29 December theMackay station; on 30 December that ofthe Globe Radio Company; and on 31 De-cember the RCA station. On New Year'sEve, trucks carrying troops and suppliesheaded from the capital to Bataan, andTeague with others crossed to Corregidorfrom a flaming port at 0330. Signal Corpscommunications now withdrew to the"Rock" to carry on the fight.

Meanwhile, in the gloomy succession ofdefeats, disaster came to tiny Wake Islandand its small American garrison, whichincluded a handful of Signal Corps men.Only the month before, Capt. Henry S.Wilson with "five cream [of the] crop radiopeople" from the 407th Signal Company,Aviation, in Hawaii had been sent to WakeIsland in order to establish an Army Air-ways Communications System station therefor the Air Corps.61 Previously Air Corpsmessages handled by the Navy had some-times been delayed as long as twenty-fourhours and the local Pan-American stationhad not been able to operate the homingbeam successfully. Both circumstances hadseriously interfered with the prompt routingof airplanes to the Philippine Islands. TheSignal Corps detachment, two days afterits arrival, had put into operation an SCR-197 radio truck and trailer which the Navyhad transported to the island.

60 Similarly, Sgt Eustace M. Messer, one of thesignalmen on Corregidor, recorded bitterly thatWTA's most vital outletthe channel to Darwin,thence by relay to Melbourne, Honolulu, andhomewas somewhat lightly regarded by the Dar-win operators "who would not keep schedules andmade no apparent effort to indicate that they weretaking the war seriously. To us," said Messer,"those schedules were serious. We could not informthem that we were undergoing constant bombraids and that we were also being shelled by ten-inch mortars." Keeping the antennas up in orderto meet agreed-on transmission schedules was for-midable business. Interv, SigC Hist Sec with Ser-geant Messer (formerly radio operator in the P. I.),17 May 44.

61 The 407th Signal Company, Aviation, had beenactivated as the 328th Signal Company Aviationon 5 October 1940 at Fort Shafter, T. H. It hadinstalled and maintained communications for Head-quarters, Hawaiian Air Force, at Fort Shafter andlater at Hickam Field. On 1 October 1941 the328th Signal Company, Aviation, was redesignatedthe 407th Signal Company, Aviation.

20 THE SIGNAL CORPS

On Sunday morning, 7 December, Wil-son was expecting a flight of planes fromHawaii. On awakening he picked up histelephone to check with the sergeant onduty in the radio station, as was his custom.Immediately, the sergeant pulled his radioreceiver close to the telephone mouthpieceand Wilson heard the radioed dah dits com-ing in from Fort Shafter, "This is the realthing! No mistake!" Wilson recognized Lt.Col. Clay I. Hoppough's "fist" as hepounded out the alarm again and again.62

In the next few hours of preparation themen moved the radio truck into the brushnear the half-finished powder magazine. Inthe meantime Sergeant Rex had tried towarn the garrisons in Darwin, Australia,and in Port Moresby, New Guinea, that theJapanese had launched a war, but theywould not believe him.

A few minutes before noon the war brokeover Wake Island. On the tail of a rainsquall a wave of Japanese bombers glidedin, engines cut off, undetected. The islandhad no radar; clouds obscured the raiders."They just opened their bomb bays and laidtheir eggs in my face," Wilson recalled indescribing the attack. Then they circled andcame back to machine gun. Two bulletspenetrated the walls of the SCR-197 trailerand a thick safe (borrowed from the ma-rines ), went on through the radio receivingposition, but failed to wreck the set. Boththe marines' radio station, near the originallocation of the Army's installation, and thePan-American radio station w e r e de-stroyed.63 In that first raid the Japanese

transformed the three islands of the atollinto a bomb-pitted shambles, and for thenext few days they repeated their attacks.Daily they strafed the position of the Sig-nal Corps radio station, and each night themen changed its location.

On 11 December the Japanese tookGuam. On 12 December they landed onsouthern Luzon. At about the same time theenemy attempted a landing on Wake, butthe small force successfully repulsed thisinitial effort. That night the signalmendragged the transmitter out of the radiotruck and moved it into the concrete maga-zine, with the help of a civilian contractor'semployees who had been caught on the is-land. They bolstered the hasty installationwith spare bits of equipment salvaged fromthe Pan-American radio station. They fur-ther protected the shelter both by reinforc-ing it with concrete bars intended for struc-tural work and by piling about eight feetof dirt on top, covering the whole withbrush. A day later the naval commandermoved his command post into the radioshelter. By this time all naval communica-tion installations had been demolished, ex-cept a small transmitter limited in rangeto about 100 miles. By now the six SignalCorps men constituting the Army AirwaysCommunications System detachment pro-vided the only communication with the out-side world. They installed and operated linecommunication for the Navy as well. Dur-ing the constant raids they were out underfire chasing down breaks in telephone linesand in receiver positions. Finally, the endcame on 22 December when the enemylanded, overwhelmed the small force despitestrong resistance, captured the island andbagged the Navy and Marine forces there,together with the little Signal Corps unit.By Christmas Eve the Americans on Wake

62 Each radio operator, transmitting in Morsecode by means of a hand-key, develops a charac-teristic rhythm and manner, known as his fist, bywhich listeners can identify the sender.

63 The commercial employees of Pan-Americantook off an hour later on a Clipper, which hadarrived the day before. It had been hit but not badlyharmed.

DECEMBER 1941 21

MAJ. GEN. DAWSON OLMSTEAD ARRIVING AT PANAMA. From left:Lt. Col. Harry L. Bennett, Brig. Gen. Harry C. Ingles, Lt. Gen. Frank M. Andrews, GeneralOlmstead, and Col. Carroll O. Bickelhaupt.

lay entirely at the mercy of the Japanese,who used the communications wire lyingabout to bind their captives.64

The closing days of December broughtonly a sharpening of the bleak pattern ofdefeat. On Christmas Day Hong Kong fell.The next day the capital of the Philippineswas declared an open city, and GeneralMacArthur prepared to withdraw his troopsto Bataan. By the end of the month, Cor-regidor was undergoing its ordeal of heavybombing. The Japanese entered Manila onthe second day of the new year, and newspa-

per headlines bespoke the coming loss of theislands. Against this grim background, theSignal Corps entered its second month ofwar, not yet ready, not yet equipped withenough of anything.

The Impact of War in the Office of theChief Signal Officer

The opening of hostilities found the ChiefSignal Officer, Maj. Gen. Dawson Olm-stead, in the Caribbean. He had left Wash-ington on 2 December, heading into whatappeared to be one of the most likely stormcenters, with intent to appraise, stimulate,and strengthen the Signal Corps installa-tions there. While word of the attack spreadthrough Washington by radio and telephonethat Sunday afternoon, Signal Corps of-

64 (1) History of the 407th Signal Company,Aviation (formerly 328th Signal Company, Avia-tion), Seventh Air Force. AF Archives SIG-407-HI, 5074-9. (2) Interv, SigC Hist Sec with MajHenry S. Wilson, n.d. (3) James P. S. Devereux,The Story of Wake Island (Philadelphia: J. B.Lippincott Company, 1947), passim.

22 THE SIGNAL CORPS

ficers not already on duty hurried to theirdesks.65 There were scores of emergencyactions to be put into effect at once as theSignal Corps went on a full war basis.

In Quarry Heights in the Canal Zone,General Olmstead was inspecting defenseinstallations in the company of Maj. Gen.Frank M. Andrews, commanding generalof the Caribbean Defense Command, andhis signal officer, Brig. Gen. Harry C.Ingles, when word came of the Japaneseattack.66 For the next few days Olmsteadremained in the Caribbean, making note ofthe most urgent needs for communicationtroops and equipment.

When he returned to Washington on 16December, he at once found himself in thecenter of enormous pressures generated bythe sudden onset of conflict: pressureswhich assumed an infinite variety of forms.The communications industry clamored forinstructions and help. Swarms of smallmanufacturers of electronic items de-scended upon the Office of the Chief SignalOfficer, wrote letters, sent telegrams, andasked their congressmen for assistance.Hollywood, too, sent messages and assur-ances. Many high-ranking officials in thehuge moving picture industry held SignalCorps reserve commissions. With Armyphotographic needs in mind, they soughtways of assuring their personnel of mostuseful placement, and at the same time aid-ing in the war effort. Amateur radio opera-

tors wanted assignments. The FederalCommunications Commission, intimatelyconcerned with matters of frequencies andradio broadcasting and monitoring in gen-eral, needed conferences to map out areasof authority. Other agencies and warboards had to be consulted. The matter ofpriorities for materials and tools was urgent.There were budgets to prepare, appropria-tions to distribute, new troop allotments toparcel out.

There was the matter of lend-lease to con-sider. Equipment which had been rathertoo confidently allotted to other nationsnow was ardently desired for this country'suse and defense. Following the attack onPearl Harbor, orders sent out by the Warand Navy Departments virtually stoppedall lend-lease shipments. Trains were side-tracked, ships held at docks, and manu-facturers were instructed to hold shipmentsfrom their factories. The Chief Signal Offi-cer wired the Philadelphia and LexingtonSignal Depots to stop all shipments of lend-lease materials, and to attempt to call backall equipment then en route, while a rapidsurvey took place to determine whetherany lend-lease supplies should be divertedto American forces on the west coast,Hawaii, and in the Far East. Consequently,some materiel intended for lend-lease coun-tries was sent to American forces, such as1,100 miles of Signal Corps wire W-l10-Bdiverted from the British and sent to Ameri-can military units, mostly in the Pacific, butthe balance was released to move asplanned. Shipments actually were delayedonly a few days. The Axis had propagan-dized that lend-lease would cease entirelyas soon as the United States needed all itsresources for self-defense. But in his reportto Congress on 12 December, the President

65 Log entries for 7-8 Dec 41. Deputy CSigOfolder, pp. 171a-71b, SigC Hist Sec File. (SeeBibliographical Note.)

66 (1) Interv, SigC Hist Sec with Brig Gen Car-roll O. Bickelhaupt, SigC Res, Vice-PresidentAT&T Co., 16 Feb 50. (2) Memo, CSigO for allBrs and Divs OCSigO, 22 Dec 41, sub: Inspec tripby CSigO to Caribbean Defense Comd, 417 Dec41. SigC OT 320.3 AWS.

DECEMBER 1941 23

removed all fear that lend-lease might notcontinue.67

Most of all, the demand for equipmentwas bitter, pressing, and confused. Olm-stead was beset on all sides: from Brig. Gen.Simon B. Buckner, Jr., in Alaska and Lt.Gen. John L. DeWitt of the Western De-fense Command, whose long-standing andvociferous complaints concerning the inade-quacy of defenses in their areas now seemedwholly justified; from Maj. Gen. Henry H.Arnold of the Army Air Forces whose needswere obviously urgent; from the GeneralStaff; from the Allied missions in this coun-try. From every outpost requests poured infor more air warning equipment, higherpowered transmitters, and radios bettersuited to the locality. Commanders overseasbecame more critical of what they had, andmore impatient at delays or omissions infilling requisitions. Often the items theyasked for had not gone into production.

Basically, all demands centered aroundthe three essential ingredients for the brewof war: money, men, and materials. Money,it could be assumed, would be forthcomingin adequate supply. But funds alone couldnot be converted immediately into fullytrained and fully equipped armies. All theadvance planning had been predicated upona theoretical mobilization day (M Day)which would perm