Bibliographical Note
The sources of this volume lie principally in the massive collection of Signal Corps files, classified and unclassified, within the Departmental Records Branch of the Adjutant General’s Office and the Office of the Chief Signal Officer. By laboriously searching through thousands of these file folders, the historians obtained the documents upon which the major portion of this book is built. The files of the Office of the Chief of Staff and of the Army Service Forces provided numbers of pertinent papers, as did also certain files of the Army Air Forces, notably their electronic equipment files and the histories of Signal Corps units which served under the AAF. A wide range of other sources was employed as well. The extent of that range has been adequately marked out in the Bibliographical Note of Volume I of the Signal Corps subseries.
The sources employed for Volume I were put to use in the preparation of this volume whenever they applied to the limited time, December 1941-June 1943, to which Volume II is restricted. Some Volume I sources ceased publication before the opening date of Volume II, for example, the Signal Corps Bulletin. Its place was partly taken by the Signal Corps Information Letter, issued monthly throughout the war (it was renamed the Signal Corps Technical Information Letter in December 1942). A complete set is in the Signal Corps Historical Section File.*
Of general use to the historians in preparing Volume II were the unpublished Annual Reports of the Chief Signal Officer for fiscal years 1942, 1943, and 1944, existing in a few typed copies only So too were the weekly reports, variously called Progress Reports and Digest of Progress and Problems. General Olmstead initiated this system of weekly reporting by all his headquarters divisions in September 1941. The reports continued to be maintained throughout the war, constituting a running record of contemporary activity. A complete set is extant in the care of the Signal Corps Central Files, where there remains also a unique and valuable file, collected during World War II, known as the Code File or the File of the Deputy Chief Signal Officer. Another useful general file was the Signal Corps Administrative Log, 1939-1945, a collection of Office of the Chief Signal Officer organizational charts and changes. This last, and the Chief Signal Officer’s unpublished Annual Reports, are maintained in the Signal Corps Historical Section File, where also are collections of the many interviews which the historians have had over a period of years with Signal Corps personnel and which have provided a mine of information, both general and specific. An especially valuable general file of Signal Corps activities and problems within the
*This often-cited file is a collection of all the heterogeneous historical material—diaries, interviews, reports, analyses, miscellaneous working papers, and the like, and completed monograph studies—which the Signal Corps historical office began collecting in 1943 and is still adding to. The file is a permanent collection in the Departmental Records Branch of the Adjutant General’s Office.
time span of this volume was the Proceedings of Board to Investigate Communications, AG 311 (5-10-43) (1) Bulky Pkg, Army RG 207.03.
An extensive collection of great general value was the Signal Corps Intelligence Agency (SCIA) files. They include intelligence reports, observers’ report, and other important documents which accumulated in the Plans and Operations Division, Office of the Chief Signal Officer, and which were turned over to the Signal Corps Intelligence Agency after World War II. They are preserved in the Departmental Records Branch, Adjutant General’s Office, under job lot A51-135, with SCIA file numbers and titles added. Each SCIA item cited in this volume is designated as a SCIA File with appropriate number and title.
The Signal Corps files or studies that were prepared specifically for the historical record are small in number, but they seem of sufficient worth to list here. Although the following lists of titles may appear impressive, the several dozen compilations they represent were few by comparison with the great number of varied office files which provided the primary sources for the volume, as has been pointed out. Some of these specifically historical records, such as those of the Alaska Communication System and certain development and supply installations, were the result of Signal Corps field activities. The largest group of these specifically historical studies are the monographs prepared by the wartime Signal Corps Historical Section (1943-1947). They are on file both in the Office of the Chief of Military History and in the Signal Corps Historical Section. A list of these secondary sources which contributed in varying degree to the preparation of this volume appears at the. end of this note under Monographs.
Of particular concern to the historian of Signal Corps research and development activity was the History of Signal Corps Research and Development in World War II, the R&D History, which was prepared in the Engineering and Technical Division at the end of the war. It is a compilation of laboratory reports and of Signal Corps actions on hundreds of new equipment items. The compilation runs to fifteen monograph volumes and parts, the ribbon copy of which is in the Signal Corps Historical Section File. In the same file a monograph entitled Historical Report of the Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories, the SCEL History, covering the period from 1930 through 1943, proved helpful. The retired files of the wartime Communications Coordination and Equipment Division in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer provided numbers of so-called C&E cases, dealing with various equipment items and with problems relating to their use. Of particular value in the treatment of radar were Dr. James Phinney Baxter’s Scientists Against Time (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946) and Dr. Henry E. Guerlac’s extensive monograph history of the Radiation Laboratory (under the National Defense Research Committee) entitled Radar, prepared in the Historical Division of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. A photostat copy of the entire monograph in its several parts, each separately paginated, was obtained for the Signal Corps Historical Section File. The pages were renumbered consecutively from beginning to end, and it is to this particular copy of Dr. Guerlac’s work that the many references in this volume are made.
Notable sources in procurement and distribution matters were the Weekly Statistical Reports, or Summaries, which were issued first by the Office of the
Under Secretary of War and later by SOS headquarters. A number of industrial summaries, prepared at the Philadelphia Signal Corps Procurement District office, were helpful, such as H. C. Shute’s Industrial Summary: Signal Corps Procurement of Dry Batteries and W. P. Worrell’s Industrial Summary: Signal Corps Materials and Resources. Further sources were several monograph histories, not included in the letter-number series prepared by the wartime Signal Corps Historical Section, such as accounts of the big Signal Corps depots at Philadelphia, Lexington, Chicago, Seattle, and elsewhere. In the same category fall still other Signal Corps historical efforts, such as Morton H. Ullery’s typescript two-volume History of the Storage and Issue Agency, 1946, and James J. Cerruti’s four-volume Historical Narrative of the Philadelphia Signal Corps Procurement District, 1945. All are in the Signal Corps Historical Section File, except the statistical reports.
Of value to photographic studies was The Summary Report on Photographic Activities of the Signal Corps Since August 4, 1941, in the Fields of Motion Pictures and Visual Aids, an extensive report dated 26 February 1943, which is referred to in this volume as the APS Summary Reports. Another useful source for the later months of the photographic story were the so-called Harrison files in AGO Departmental Records Branch. They comprise a collection of over one hundred personal file folders maintained by Maj. Gen. William H. Harrison, chief of the Army Pictorial Service, while it was on the Army Service Forces level. Valuable to the historian of Signal Corps’ Alaskan responsibilities was the History of the Alaska Communication System, 1945. The bound manuscript copy entitled First Draft [Part I], Alaskan Communication System History, contains 17 chapters, 263 pages, and covers the period 1900 to 1 January 1943. Parts II and III are titled History of the Alaska Communication System and cover the period 1 January 1942 to August 1945. Part II is in 3 volumes and contains 18 chapters, 339 pages. Part III, in 8 volumes, contains 39 chapters, 913 pages. The ribbon copy is in the Signal Corps Historical Section File. In this volume Part I is cited as First Draft, History of ACS, with appropriate page numbers, and Parts II and III as Hist of ACS, with appropriate part and chapter.
Noteworthy among sources for theater studies were Sgts. John and Ward Hawkins’ History of the 835th Signal Service Battalion 1942-1945 in the China-Burma-India theater; the reports and papers of Col. T. T. Teague, Signal Officer, U.S. Forces in the Philippines, for the account of communications at the time of the fall of the Philippines; the many SCI A reports; and the History of the Signal Section AFHQ, 24 July 1942-10 November 1945. All are located in the Signal Corps Historical Section File, except the SCIA reports, which are in the retired files of the Signal Corps Intelligence Agency.
Finally, note must be made of the records of Congressional investigations, which provided useful sources. In photographic studies, the Truman Committee Report (Sen. Spec. Committee, 78th Cong., 1st Sess., Hearings, Investigation of the National Defense Program, Pt. 17, Army Commissions and Military Activities of Motion Picture Personnel, Jan-Apr 43) was used. Particularly valuable to any study of the Hawaiian theater at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack is the printed report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack (which is printed
elsewhere as well and is also included in the MS File of the Pearl Harbor Hearings in the Departmental Records Branch of the Adjutant General’s Office). The printed report constitutes 40 volumes, generally known by the short title, Pearl Harbor Attack. Of these, the first—unnumbered—volume is devoted to the reports of the Joint [Congressional] Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack that brought the whole series to official publication. The other parts, numbered 1 through 39, comprise the hearings, exhibits, and reports of the eight several investigations to which the Japanese war action gave rise.
The complete description of the series is as follows:
Joint Committee, 79th Cong, 1st and 2nd Sess, Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack (Reports of the Joint Committee), Sen Doc 244 (Washington, 1946), 580 pp.
–––– , Pearl Harbor Attack, Pts. 1-11 (Hearings of the Joint Committee, 15 Nov 45-31 May 46), 5,560 pp.
–––– , Ibid., Pts. 12-21 (Exhibits of the Joint Committee Hearings), 4,780 pp.
–––– , Ibid., Pts. 22-25, Proceedings of Roberts Commission [Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts, U. S. Supreme Court, Chairman] to Investigate the Japanese Attack of December 7, 1941, on Hawaii, 2,173 pp.
–––– , Ibid., Pt. 26, Proceedings of [Admiral Thomas C.] Hart [USN, Ret] Inquiry, 565 pp.
–––– , Ibid., Pts. 27-31, Proceedings of Army Pearl Harbor Board, 3,357 pp.
–––– , Ibid., Pts. 32-33, Proceedings of Navy Court of Inquiry, 1,397 pp.
–––– , Ibid., Pt. 34, Proceedings of [Colonel Carter W.] Clarke [USA] Investigation . . . Pursuant to Oral Instructions of the Chief Staff, U. S. Army, Testimony and Findings Concerning Handling of Certain Top Secret Documents, 225 pp.
–––– , Ibid., Pt. 35, Report of Investigation by Lt. Colonel Henry C. Clausen, JAGD [AUS] for the Secretary of War, Supplementary to Proceedings of the Army Pearl Harbor Board, 695 pp.
–––– , Ibid., Pts. 36-38, Proceedings of Inquiry ... Conducted by Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt, U. S. Navy, in Accordance with a Precept Dated 2 May 1945, from the Secretary of the Navy, 1,341 pp.
–––– , Ibid., Pt. 39, Reports, Findings and Conclusion of Roberts Commission, Army Pearl Harbor Board, Navy Court of Inquiry, and Hewitt Inquiry, with Indorsements,
527 pp.
Monographs
| Letter-number designation | Author(s) | Title |
| A-2 | Capt Harry M. Davis | Signal Corps Development of U.S. Army Radar Equipment, Pt II, 1937-1941 |
| A-3 | Pt III, Long Range Radar, SCR-270-271 | |
| B-1 | Andre E. Gerard | The Story of Supply in the Signal Corps in World War II, Pt I, Requirements |
| B-1b | Pt II, Procurement | |
| B-1c | Pt III, Production | |
| B-1d | Capt Charles R. Novick | The Story of Supply in the Signal Corps in World War II, Pt IV, Distribution |
| B-3 | James V. Clarke | Contract Adjustment in the Signal Corps, 1 July 1939-15 August 1945 |
| B-5 | André E. Gerard | Activity and Participation of the Signal Corps in Foreign Procurement and Lend-Lease |
| B-14 | Ralph H. Clark | Expediting Activities of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, August 1941-June 1944 |
| B-15 | Mary-Louise Melia | The Quartz Crystal Program of the Signal Corps, 1941-1945 |
| B-16 | Capt Charles R. Novick | The Signal Corps Policy of the Conservation of Critical and Strategic Materials |
| C-1 | Capt Frederick Reinstein | Signal Corps Training in World War II: Background and First Six Months of War, 1917-1942 |
| C-3 | Marvin L. Ingram | The Civilian Training Program of the Signal Corps in World War II: Pt I, Pre-Service Training on the Vocational Level |
| C-3a | Pt II, Pre-Service Training on the College Level | |
| C-4 | Ruth F. Sadler | History of the Signal Corps Affiliated Plan |
| C-5 | History of the Electronics Training Group in the United Kingdom | |
| C-6 | Capt Frederick Reinstein | Training Study of the Signal Corps Officer Candidate School, 1939-1944 |
| C-8 | Study of Signal Corps Enlisted Schooling, 1939-1944 | |
| C-9 | Study of Signal Corps Replacement and Filler Training, 1941-1944 | |
| D-1 | Dr. Courtney R. Hall | Development of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer |
| D-2 | Signal Corps Participation in Boards and Committees | |
| E-1 | Capt Sidney L. Jackson | Stringing Wire Toward Tokyo: A Brief History of the Alaska Military Highway Telephone Line |
| E-1a | Fixed Wire, NATOUSA: Chapter I of Theater Fixed Networks | |
| E-1d | Communications in the Persian Gulf Command: Chapter IV of the Theater Fixed Networks | |
| E-2b | Radnese “100”: Chapter II of International Radio Circuits |
| Letter-number designation | Author(s) | Title |
| E-3a | Capt Sidney L. Jackson | Tactical Communication in World War II, Pt I, Signal Communication in the North African Campaigns |
| E-4a | 1st Lt Charles R. Novick | A Story of Signal Communications in Iceland |
| E-5a | Mary E. Boswell | The 17th Signal Service Company, A Component of the War Department Signal Center from World War I through World War II |
| E-5b | Pauline M. Oakes | The Army Command and Administrative Communications System, Pt II, Signal Corps Domestic Communications Network as Extended to Overseas Terminals FY 1941-15 August 1945 |
| E-6 | Dr. Donald O. Wagner | Army Command and Administrative Network, 1941-1945: Pt I, The Pacific; Pt II, China-Burma-India |
| E-7 | Capt Frederick Reinstein | Signal Corps Fixed Communications in the European and Africa-Middle Eastern Theaters |
| E-10 | Mary-louise Melia | Signal Corps Fixed Communications in World War II: Special Assignments and Techniques |
| F-1 | Jacqueline M. Quadow | Training Films in the Second World War |
| F-2a | James V. Clarke | Signal Corps Army Pictorial Service in World War II (1 Sep 39-16 Aug 45) |
| F-2b | Robert L. Eichberg and Jacqueline M. Quadow | Combat Photography |
| F-4 | Mary E. Boswell | A Study of Signal Corps Contributions to V-Mail through 1943 |
| F-5 | A Study of Signal Corps Contribution to V-Mail Through 1943, Suppl. Dec 43-Aug 45. |