Courtesy Photo | Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers, whose Sixth Army Group was never surprised by any German...... read more read more
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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
On November 5, 1944, Capt. Warner W. Gardner instituted daily morning meetings to disseminate close-hold high-level ULTRA intelligence to Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers and his Sixth Army Group staff. Preceded by nearly two months of general disinterest, thereafter, the meetings ensured ULTRA constituted a key source of intelligence for decision making throughout the command.
Captain Gardner arrived at General Devers’ Sixth Army Group headquarters on August 25, 1944. Then thirty-five years old, the Indiana native had graduated Columbia Law School in 1934 and was employed as a solicitor in the U.S. Department of Interior when the war began. In 1943, wanting to do his part for the war, he accepted a commission to work with the Special Branch of the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Service.
After graduating from the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, and working a few months for the Special Branch in the Pentagon, Gardner learned the intricacies of handling ULTRA at Bletchley Park near London. There, cryptanalysts intercepted and decrypted high-level German radio and electromagnetic communications, including those from the Enigma machine. The messages were then disseminated to special security officers (SSOs) assigned to field commands at Army level and higher. The SSO’s job was “to evaluate ULTRA intelligence, present it in useable form to the commanding general…, assist in fusing ULTRA intelligence with intelligence derived from other sources, and give advice in connection with making operational use of ULTRA intelligence in such fashion that the security of the source is not endangered.”
As General Devers’ SSO, Captain Gardner initially lamented that his commander and staff showed little interest in ULTRA intelligence. Irregularly held briefings were rushed and the significance of the intelligence not understood. For nearly two months, Gardner insistently recommended the G-2, Col. Eugene L. Harrison, schedule a daily dedicated ULTRA briefing. While noting the situation was unsatisfactory, Colonel Harrison did not broach the subject with General Devers until November 4, 1944. When the Twelfth Army Group’s G-2, Brig. Gen. Edwin Sibert, casually mentioned to General Devers that his own commander, General Omar Bradley, placed great trust in ULTRA intelligence, Colonel Harrison offered Gardner’s proposal for a daily ULTRA briefing. General Devers immediately accepted.
The first such meeting was held in a closely guarded and secure room the very next morning. Six months later, then Maj. Gardner reported, “neither General Devers nor any member of his [authorized] staff has, when at headquarters, ever missed the 8:45 a.m. ULTRA briefing.” In addition to General Devers, attendees included his chief of staff, G-3, G-4, and two members of the G-2 section. After Lt. Col. Leslie Rood presented an ULTRA update on the enemy’s air and supply status, Gardner briefed ULTRA intelligence related to the ground situation using a large map covered in sticky tabs (blue for open intelligence and red for ULTRA) to show German and Allied positions. The ULTRA briefing was followed by a G-2 brief in which other open sources of intelligence—aerial reconnaissance, interrogations, secret agent reports, etc.—were covered.
In retrospect, Gardner estimated ULTRA proved operationally significant in a handful of situations at the army group level. He felt, however, the greatest contribution of ULTRA and the ULTRA briefings was to “make the C.G. aware of the value and perhaps of the existence of intelligence” and, when assimilated over time, it “lent to command decisions a confidence which otherwise would have been lacking.”
After the war, Gardner returned to the Department of Interior as assistant secretary until 1947. He then co-founded the Shea and Gardner law firm in Washington, D.C. He later recalled his SSO duty as “the most important job that I ever had, as thousands of lives could well turn on a conclusion that I had developed.”
| Date Taken: | 11.02.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 11.02.2022 16:25 |
| Story ID: | 432524 |
| Location: | FORT HUACHUCA, ARIZONA, US |
| Web Views: | 75 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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