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by Michael E. Bigelow, INSCOM Command Historian
On March 2, 1942, War Department Circular #59 established the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) as the operational arm of the Military Intelligence Division (MID), or Army G-2. This action was undertaken to separate operational elements from the planning and policy functions within the G-2.
Soon after America entered World War II, the Army leadership realized its staff organization was unsuitable to oversee combat operations effectively. As Gen. George C. Marshall, the Army chief of staff, noted, “We must face the fact the War Department is a poor command post.” With this in mind, in January 1942, Marshall appointed Maj. Gen. Joseph McNarney to head an effort to better organize the Army Staff. Yet, even before that, staff officers were looking for ways to restructure their sections to work more effectively.
The day before Pearl Harbor, the G-3’s Col. William Harrison and the G-2’s Col. Haynes Kroner discussed ways to coordinate their respective staffs better. In the process, Kroner recognized the need to think about the G-2’s own organization. Several weeks later, and in line with the concepts of McNarney’s committee, Kroner expressed his belief that the G-2 could create a separate agency to conduct Army intelligence operations with relative ease.
On 18 February, Brig. Gen. Raymond Lee, the Army G-2, told General McNarney his staff could not be totally divorced from its operational functions. He suggested a compromise where senior officers of the “directing” G-2 staff be retained as the divisional chiefs of the proposed operating agency. The assistant chiefs, however, would supervise and administer the actual functioning of these divisions. McNarney generally agreed. While he did not want General Staff officers to be assigned or considered a part of the operating agency, they could work as closely with it as necessary. He noted, “The officers who are now required to consult on the interpretation and application of intelligence [and] meet daily in the G-2 situation room…should be dissociated from the physical running of sections and branches.”
On 2 March, the Army issued Circular #59. In concept, the circular made a clear distinction between staff and operating functions. The G-2’s General Staff officers would accomplish the former while the MIS’s officers would achieve the latter. The G-2 staff was charged with those duties “relating to the collection, evaluation and dissemination of military information.” Meanwhile, the MIS was established under the G-2’s direction “to operate and administer the service of the collection, compilation and dissemination of military intelligence.”
Using a series of office memoranda, General Lee implemented the reorganization. The MIS received more than 97 percent of the G-2’s personnel; only twenty-six officers and clerks remained on the G-2’s staff. Lee selected Colonel Kroner to head the new organization. Kroner’s agency had four groups: Administrative, Intelligence, Counterintelligence, and Operations. The Intelligence and Counterintelligence groups had parallel ground and air sections. The Operations Group included psychological warfare, training, and dissemination branches. The Foreign Liaison Branch and the Military Attaché Section reported directly to Colonel Kroner. By April 1942, the MIS included more than 340 officers and 1,000 enlisted or civilian personnel.
Although the G-2 continued to tinker with the MIS organization throughout the war, for the most part, it remained the only General Staff division with its own operating agency.
| Date Taken: | 03.02.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 03.02.2022 10:06 |
| Story ID: | 415592 |
| Location: | FORT HUACHUCA, ARIZONA, US |
| Web Views: | 488 |
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