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Training materials

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Training materials collects Camp Ritchie / MITC documents that apply to the camp as a whole — training manuals, course outlines, circulars, maps, and similar files — not papers about one soldier.

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Featured: List of Directives[edit | edit source]

A short Personnel Section sheet (marked Pers. Sec. 214) summed up what trainees were to remember about information and security:

  1. Good information wins wars.
  2. Without information an army bogs down.
  3. To get information, I must keep my eyes and ears open.
  4. Once obtained, information must be passed on.
  5. Information must be received in time to be of value.
  6. Reports must be clear and complete, telling: What—Where—and When.
  7. The enemy is always looking for facts.
  8. Everyone who asks for facts outside of duty is suspicious.
  9. Enemy prisoners, papers and equipment are valuable.
  10. I must keep mum about military matters except for name, rank and serial number.

Source scan: Camp Ritchie List of Directives (archival credit not yet confirmed).

Featured: Enemy Equipment Intelligence Service (EEIS)[edit | edit source]

Signal Section monograph A Typical Enemy Equipment Intelligence Service, based on Enemy Equipment Intelligence Service Detachment Number 9 (Signal Section, Headquarters 9th U.S. Army, A.P.O. 339).

An Enemy Equipment Identification Team of five officers and six enlisted men formed at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, then took a condensed two-week intelligence course at Camp Ritchie beginning 13 April 1944 (enemy signal equipment and weapons, enemy order of battle, map reading, and familiarization with IPW and photo-interpretation teams). After further Signal Corps preparation in New Jersey and the United Kingdom, the detachment entered the Continent in late August 1944 and operated under Ninth Army / Signal channels recovering and studying German electronic and signal equipment (including radar and crashed-aircraft material).

Full scan (8 pages, combined from Fold3 JPGs): A Typical Enemy Equipment Intelligence Service (EEIS Detachment No. 9, Signal Section, 9th U.S. Army).

Source: Fold3 — Signal Section Monographs / Histories (U.S. WWII European Theater Army Records).

Featured: Early ETOUSA G-2 organization (Settle, 1944)[edit | edit source]

Appendix from the G-2 History / ETOUSA monograph recording an interview with Lt. Col. Henry C. Settle (Chief of Administration, G-2 ETO, May 1942 – October 1943), dated 27 October 1944.

Camp Ritchie–relevant points from the account:

  • Settle states that most early Theater G-2 officers were C and GSS graduates of the 6th Special Class at Camp Ritchie (a three-month course he dates from March 1942)—an early pipeline of MITC-trained officers into Hq ETOUSA intelligence work.
  • Under Colonel Conrad (Intelligence Field Units / Training), Colonel J. R. Elyachar organized Mobile Intelligence Training Units that toured troop areas demonstrating captured German equipment and techniques (Elyachar later received the Legion of Merit). These European-theater demonstration units are a different program from the mid-1945 Nisei / Pacific redeployment MITUs described on Nisei and Pacific.
  • Field intelligence units were reorganized as MIS, ETOUSA (Colonel D'Alary Fechet named chief in early October 1943).
  • After FUSAG stood up (16 October 1943), G-2 reorganized under figures including General Sibert (G-2 FUSAG); Operations Branch functions listed IPW among Escape & Evasion, PW & X, training, and photo interpretation.
  • G-2 sought to overcome peacetime neglect of intelligence training and shortages of trained personnel; one plan, with the CG of the 29th Infantry Division, aimed to replace about 50% of that division’s intelligence personnel with Camp Ritchie graduates (and rotate others through American School Center courses).

Full scan (6 pages): Lt. Col. Henry C. Settle — Account of Early G-2 Branch Organization (ETOUSA), 27 October 1944.

Source: Fold3 — G-2 History, ETOUSA Monograph, 1941–44 (U.S. WWII European Theater Army Records).

Featured: 1st Mobile Radio Broadcasting Company roster[edit | edit source]

Printed Unit History cover and Consolidated Roster (original pages 46–51) for the 1st Mobile Radio Broadcasting Company — a psychological-warfare radio company whose linguists often trained at Camp Ritchie / Camp Sharpe.

Full scan: Unit History cover + Consolidated Roster (PDF). Linked name transcription: 1st Mobile Radio Broadcasting Company.

Source: RB Archive packet (probable Fold3 / U.S. WWII unit-history scan; archival ID not yet confirmed).

Featured: Ardennes battle participation awards (USFET, 7 July 1945)[edit | edit source]

Headquarters, United States Forces, European Theater letter-order (AG 200.6 OpGA; formerly “RESTRICTED”), 7 July 1945, announcing additional units awarded Ardennes campaign battle credit under AR 260-10 and War Department General Orders No. 40 (1945). Eligibility supported wearing a bronze service star on the theater ribbon.

Among many support and combat units, the order names Military Intelligence Service–related detachments, including:

Full scan (3 pages): HQ USFET — Battle Participation Awards, Ardennes Campaign, 7 July 1945.

See also Secret Heroes/Battle of the Bulge. Source: RB Archive packet (U.S. WWII European Theater awards correspondence; likely Fold3 / NARA RG 498; image ID not yet confirmed). Filename on the packet: “38 - Awards and Decorations”.

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See also[edit | edit source]