Gen. Miles Assumes Command of the MID

Photo By Erin Thompson | On 30 April 1940, Brig. Gen. Sherman Miles assumed the position of assistant chief of staff G-2, War Department General Staff (Life Magazine)  

UNITED STATES

05.01.2023

Story by Erin Thompson 

U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence

By Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian

30 APRIL 1940
On 30 April 1940, Brig. Gen. Sherman Miles assumed the position of assistant chief of staff (ACofS) G-2, War Department General Staff (WDGS). This placed him in charge of the Military Intelligence Division (MID), overseeing all Army intelligence responsibilities in the lead-up to the Pearl Harbor attack and America’s entrance into World War II.

Miles was born in 1882 to Lt. Gen. Nelson A. Miles, Civil War Medal of Honor recipient and General-in-Chief of the Army from 1895–1903, and Mary Hoyt Sherman, the niece of Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, for whom Sherman Miles was named. Like his great uncle, Miles attended the U.S. Military Academy and graduated in 1905 as a second lieutenant assigned to the 11th Cavalry. Over many years of service, he served as a military attaché in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece during the Balkan Wars, and later, Russia, Turkey, England, and Ireland. He attended the General Staff College in Langres, France; Army War College in Washington, D.C.; Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; and Chemical Warfare School at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland. He also participated in occupation duties with the Army of Cuban Pacification in Havana [see This Week in MI History #179 31 March 1913], and fought in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives of World War I.

In April 1940, Miles returned to the U.S. from attaché duties in London and, on 30 April, assumed the position of ACofS G-2, WDGS. Shortly after his appointment, Miles began moving the MID away from the public relations operations it had been tasked with during the interwar period. He also desired to open an Army training school for MID personnel, something which came to pass in 1942. [See This Week in MI History #45 19 June 1942]

Gen. Miles went on to establish a military intelligence branch office in New York City in July 1940. He also oversaw the preparation of the Delimitations Agreement between the MID, Office of Naval Intelligence, and Federal Bureau of Investigation alongside Rear Adm. Walter S. Anderson and J. Edgar Hoover. This agreement sought to organize the often-overlapping investigations performed by their departments and granted each jurisdiction over separate areas of operation. Following this, Miles further expanded investigative operations into the Panama Canal Zone and across the Canadian border. Around this time, he also procured an agreement with British intelligence services in the Far East to share information between them, and he began expanding military attaché offices in key positions across Southeast Asia.

Despite some warnings of a potential attack on American targets in the Pacific, most were discounted by Miles and his advisers. He received news of the incoming attack on Pearl Harbor early on 7 December 1941, though a variety of circumstances made it impossible to warn ground troops in time. In an article written for The Atlantic Monthly in 1948, the general explained the failure of Army intelligence to prevent the attacks as resulting from an underestimation of Japanese military power based on limited information gained by attachés, ambassadors, and intelligence officers in the Far East. This caused his office to rely heavily on outdated knowledge of Japanese military tactics.

The result of the intelligence failures and the need to hold officials responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor led to General Miles’ removal as ACofS G-2, WDGS. On 9 December, the secretary of war ordered Miles to proceed to the Panama Canal to investigate intelligence matters. After touring areas of South America, he was promoted to major general and, in late January 1942, reassigned as commanding general of the First Corps Service Area (later designated First Service Command) in Boston, where he served with distinction for the remainder of the war.

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• Date Taken: 05.01.2023
• Date Posted: 05.01.2023 10:55
• Story ID: 443721
• Location: US