Tactical CI in Italy (NOV 1944)

Photo By Lori Stewart | A CIC checkpoint near Colle Salvetti, Italy  

UNITED STATES

11.17.2023

Courtesy Story

U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence

by Michael E. Bigelow, INSCOM Command Historian

NOVEMBER 1944
In November 1944, the Military Intelligence Division published an article on the Army’s counterintelligence operations in Italy. While the five-page report included the whole range of CI activities from Rome to the front lines, it concentrated on the operations of Maj. Stephen J. Spingarn’s CI efforts within the U.S. Fifth Army.

The 36-year-old Spingarn commanded the 305th Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) Detachment attached to the Fifth Army. Besides working closely with Col. Edwin B. Howard, the army’s G-2, Major Spingarn, a lawyer and public servant by profession, was “primarily responsible for the prevention of subversive activity in the tactical area and for the gathering of counterintelligence information.” In addition to his own detachment, he coordinated the operations of the corps and division CIC detachments within the Fifth Army’s area of responsibility. His two primary deputies to accomplish this were Capt. Crosby Lewis of the 202d CIC Detachment, supporting II Corps, and Maj. John C. Crystal of the 204th CIC Detachment supporting the IV Corps. All three of the CIC officers had experience in North Africa and Sicily; they had worked together since the start of the Italian campaign almost two years earlier.

By the time American forces had reached a line just south of Bologna, Spingarn and his detachments had established an effective modus operandi. When one of the Fifth Army’s divisions seized a town, the divisional CIC detachment sent at least two men into the town to start a CI survey. Usually, the town would remain in the division area long enough for the divisional detachment to accomplish its mission. When the American divisions surged forward, this method kept the CI teams on the move. During one four-week period, one divisional CIC unit worked twenty-six towns, while another trekked more than one hundred miles.

As the divisional rear areas moved forward, agents from Lewis’s or Crystal’s larger detachments took over to carry on the mission. As the boundaries moved forward, Spingarn’s army-level detachment took over, if needed. Spingarn orchestrated the detachments so “that continuous and effective coverage be maintained in…the large or important towns.”

In the towns, the CI teams made surveys of both physical installations and the population’s attitudes. The physical targets included vital civilian buildings such as the post office, police stations, and railroad stations as well as military headquarters or billets. The agents always searched for important documents and other materiel. When necessary, they arranged for guards for vital buildings. After their initial survey, the agents worked to establish an informant system to identity “the capabilities, popularity, and loyalty of each individual holding a responsible position.” The informants also helped ferret out fascists and suspected enemy agents. The teams collected this information, as well as that on food, water, and health conditions, to create a CIC town file. This file remained with the CI teams in the town, who shared it with the Allied Military Government team.

Within their respective areas, the army, corps, and divisional teams established travel-control systems to regulate civilian travel and bar unwelcome eyes from certain areas. This was largely accomplished through a system of roadblocks manned twenty-four hours a day by cleared Carabinieri, Italy’s national police force, under CIC supervision. At the roadblocks, the Carabinieri stopped all civilians. Those without an official travel permit were not allowed to proceed.

Meanwhile, the CIC interrogated suspicious travelers, often with the assistance of Italian intelligence officers. These roadblocks were essential to picking up German or pro-fascist agents that had been left behind or crossed through the lines. The CIC arrested and interrogated all these agents before placing them in prisoner-of-war channels.

By late 1944, the CIC teams of Spingarn, Lewis, and Crystal had become particularly effective at rounding up enemy agents. At one point, their detachments averaged finding more than one agent daily.

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• Date Taken: 11.17.2023
• Date Posted: 11.17.2023 12:24
• Story ID: 458064
• Location: US