313th Military Intelligence Battalion (United States)
The 313th Military Intelligence Battalion was an active duty Airborne Military Intelligence Battalion of the United States Army.
Unit history
Background
Before World War II, the United States Intelligence Community was fragmented and ad hoc, comprising numerous government and military entities who were reluctant to share information with each other. President Roosevelt directed the Joint Board to form the Office of the Coordinator of Information in mid-1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbor later that year prompted the War Department to expand the Army's existing entities into the Military Intelligence Service, the Counterintelligence Corps, and the Signal Security Agency. The Joint board also formed Office of Strategic Services from elements of the COI as America entered World War II.During the first decades of the Cold War, Army intelligence departments maintained compartmentalization by discipline for security purposes. Their missions and assignments were classified, organizations utilized deception, while personnel operated in and out of cover to protect their missions first and themselves second. Seemingly divergent organizations like the Army Security Agency, the Army Intelligence Agency, and numerous intelligence production units would eventually merge forming the Intelligence and Security Command. During the decades leading up to the formation of the modern Military Intelligence Corps, these agencies and their personnel were laying the groundwork for what would become ''"The Army's Most Decorated MI Battalion."''
World War II
215th Signal Depot Company
The lineage of the 313th Military Intelligence Battalion is traced to the 215th Signal Depot Company, which was activated on 25 September 1942 at Camp Livingston, Louisiana. The 215th, composed of approximately 190 personnel, arrived in Liverpool, England in October 1943 and moved en masse by train to Taunton, Somerset. From there, the unit detached to perform various support activities, mostly repairing, maintaining, and issuing communications equipment to field units marshaled there.In April 1944, the 215th was attached to First Army and moved to Hindon, Wiltshire in southern England anticipating the invasion of mainland Europe. The unit planned and made laborious efforts to prepare for amphibious operations before sending three detachments to the southwestern English port towns of Paignton, Pencalenick, and Swanage in mid-May.
''Normandy''
''Northern France''
''Battle of the Bulge''
''Central Europe''
82nd Counterintelligence Corps Detachment
The provisional Counterintelligence Corps attached personnel to the 82nd Airborne Division who accompanied the division into combat on all major operations from Sicily to Germany; conducting interrogations of captured enemy personnel and performing counterintelligence activities in occupied areas. Human Intelligence attachments included what would later become the 82nd CIC Detachment, four Interrogator Prisoner of War teams, and a Military Intelligence Interpreter team.Before dawn on D-Day, the CIC personnel attached to the American airborne forces parachuted or landed by glider into Normandy. The initial D-Day mission of CIC troops was to locate, seize, and control all important communications centers and take charge of civilian traffic. Some CIC detachments contacted resistance groups to facilitate their mission, but no specific mention of the 82nd doing so was found. Additionally, of the eight agents who parachuted in with the 101st Airborne, three were killed in action and two were wounded and captured, showing the inherent perils the airborne faced that day; though there were no reports of significant casualties amongst the CIC personnel accompanying the 82nd.
On 12 July 1944, a month after landing on Normandy, the 82nd Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment was formally constituted by the United States Army, after having already accompanied the 82nd into combat for the better part of a year. Constitute in this context merely means to place the designation of the new unit on the official rolls of the Army, and the unit was formally activated the next month in England on 20 August 1944, no doubt while the unit prepared for the impending airborne assault into Holland.
Records are spotty regarding the 82nd CIC Detachment, likely due to the sensitive nature of their work, but based on their official military honors, they went on to participate in Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, and the final push into Germany across the Ruhr River then finishing in Ludwigslust after crossing the Elbe.
3191st Signal Service Company
Four days after D-Day, the 3191st Signal Service Company was constituted before being officially activated on 20 June 1944 at Camp Crowder, Missouri, the home of the Central Signal Corps Replacement Training Center.The unit likely consisted of a cadre of some seasoned, along with newly appointed, Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers leading soldiers who recently completed their initial training at Camp Crowder.
As with the 82nd CIC Detachment, little information is available about the 3191st, likely due to the sensitive nature of their work. What is available indicates that the company moved to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey sometime after activation, ostensibly to deploy to the European theater if needed. Based on their unit awards, the 3191st was not needed in Europe and instead deployed to the Asiatic-Pacific Theater taking part in the liberation of the Philippines in the Battle of Luzon. The unit was deactivated in the Philippines on 25 October 1945, two months after Japan accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration.
Post-World War II/Early Cold War
215th Signal Depot Company
In 1955 the 215th was reactivated, converted and redesignated the 313th Communications Research Battalion, absorbing the 358th Communications Research Company as A Company and the 337th Communications Research Company as B Company; the 337th was first activated in 1952. On July 1, 1956, the 313th was redesignated as an Army Security Agency Battalion, and the subordinate companies designated as ASA Companies. Ultimately, the battalion would be deactivated December 15, 1957 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as part of a reorganization by the ASA.82nd Counterintelligence Corps Detachment
The detachment returned to Fort Bragg with the 82nd after occupation duty and was allotted to the Regular Army shortly after the division itself was saved from deactivation and allotted to the Regular Army. The CIC Detachment was further redesignated as the 82nd Military Intelligence Detachment in 1958.3191st Signal Service Company
As cold war tensions rose and the Americans bolstered their intelligence apparatus, the Army reactivated the 3191st Signal Service Detachment in mid-1951 at Fort Devens, redesignating the unit the 358th Communications Reconnaissance Company. The 358th would fall under the 313th in 1955 before being deactivated again in late-1957.Vietnam
313th Army Security Agency Battalion
The 313th was activated again on May 25, 1962, at Fort Bragg, with A Company and B Company maintaining their previous lineages of the 358th and 337th Communication Reconnaissance Companies. The battalion was reactivated in anticipation of the structured implementation of ASA OPLAN 7-61, designed to "increase U.S. COMINT/DF capability against guerrilla communications of Communist forces in South Vietnam, North Vietnam and Laos."When the 313th was slotted to deploy to Vietnam in 1966, the ASA removed its organic companies with A Company redesignated the 358th, B Company reflagged as the 337th ASA Company, and C Company becoming the 10th Radio Research Unit and later, the 371st ASA. The reason for the reorganization was the impending deployment of numerous ASA Direct Support Units as the war in Vietnam escalated. A DSU was an ASA company supporting an army division; the company would further organize detachments to support the brigades or regiments of that division and independent brigades were allotted their own ASA detachments. Once in-country, the 313th's anticipated mission would be to oversee DSU activities; while there were four DSUs operating in Vietnam in 1965, by 1968 the number exploded to sixteen.
In February 1966, with only about 60 percent of its authorized strength, the 313th ASA Battalion deployed to Nha Trang using the cover name 13th Radio Research Unit, and was assigned to the 509th Radio Research Group. Charged with supporting I Field Force, the battalion oversaw DSUs deployed in the II Corps Tactical Zone. All collection, processing, and reporting efforts from the DSUs and stations in II Corps were coordinated through the 313th, making them responsible for monitoring all communist communications in the Central Highlands from Quảng Nam Province south to Đắk Lắk Province. The 313th also concentrated on FFV I headquarters telephone switchboards and radio circuits, ostensibly seeking to ferret out hostile agents amongst the local employees and partner force personnel working at FFV-I.
The battalion would see her previous companies again in-country, with operational control over the 371st supporting the 1st Cavalry Division. Also, the 358th deployed for a short time with the 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division in response to the Tet Offensive of 1968, before returning stateside to support the 82nd's global contingency mission. Additionally, the 337th deployed in support of the 1st Infantry Division in the I Corps Tactical Zone, falling under control the 303rd ASA Battalion.
Personnel would be reassigned and some would return, but the 313th would stay in-country until July 1971, earning five Meritorious Unit Commendations, the Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm, and 12 campaign streamers.