Courtesy Photo | Col. Elliott Thorpe, commandant of the MIS Language School at Presidio of Monterey,...... read more read more
Subscribe
by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
On June 11, 1946, the War Department moved the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) from Fort Snelling, Minnesota, to Presidio of Monterey, California. There, it would evolve into the multi-language school known today as the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center.
The MISLS began as the Fourth Army Intelligence School at Presidio of San Francisco in November 1941. The school, commanded by Capt. Kai Rasmussen, was established to teach the Japanese language primarily to second-generation Japanese American soldiers. By May 1942, when Presidential Executive Order 9066 directed the relocation of all persons of Japanese descent away from U.S. coastal areas, the school relocated to Camp Savage and then to Fort Snelling, both in Minnesota. During World War II, under the command of now Colonel Rasmussen, the MISLS trained roughly 6,000 personnel to serve as translators/interpreters for American armed forces in the Pacific Theater.
After the war, the MISLS continued to train Japanese linguists for occupation duties in Japan. By early 1946, however, the Army needed to vacate Fort Snelling. After unsuccessfully entreating General Douglas MacArthur’s Far East Command to assume responsibility for the school, Colonel Rasmussen searched for another suitable location within the United States. He settled on Presidio of Monterey, established in 1770 by the Spanish and used intermittently by the U.S. Army since 1847. It seemed the ideal location for the language school. Not only was the weather more pleasant than the bitter cold Minnesota winters, it was closer to Japan, where most MISLS graduates would be assigned. Additionally, most of the school’s students and instructors had family returning to the West Coast after being interned at relocation centers during the war.
On May 22, 1946, the Army announced the move of the MISLS to Presidio of Monterey on June 11, 1946 with the first class beginning on July 15. Colonel Rasmussen, who would soon take an assignment as military attaché to Norway, issued MISLS Travel Circular No. 1 beginning the transfer to what he called, “one of the most beautiful posts in the army.” On 8 June, the last class of 207 students graduated at the Fort Snelling facility. Shortly thereafter, the school’s 15 officers, 925 enlisted personnel and students and its remaining civilian instructors boarded trains for California.
Upon arriving at the Presidio, Shigeya Kihara, who had been one of the original civilian instructors at the Fourth Army Intelligence School, recalled, “The Presidio was abandoned as an empty army post, and the summer grass was three feet high. And in the summer there's fog here in Monterey, and the foghorns were blaring away. The buildings were all peeling with old, old paint. There was no building suitable for conducting classes. We were told to set up classes in abandoned mess halls….”
Despite the need for repairs and renovations, the MISLS resumed its Japanese language classes at the Presidio on July 15, 1946. Ten days later, Col. Elliott R. Thorpe, who had served as MacArthur’s chief of counterintelligence during the war, took command. Recognizing the realities of the beginning Cold War, Thorpe reoriented the school—renamed the Army Language School in September 1947—to teach a variety of languages, including Russian, Chinese, and Korean.
| Date Taken: | 06.07.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 06.07.2022 11:23 |
| Story ID: | 422350 |
| Location: | FORT HUACHUCA, ARIZONA, US |
| Web Views: | 239 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, MIS language school moves to Presidio of Monterey, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
