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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE TRAINING CENTER OPENS AT CAMP RITCHIE
On 19 June 1942, instruction began at the Military Intelligence Training Center (MITC) at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. By the time it closed in October 1945, the school had graduated approximately 19,000 military intelligence specialists, most of whom deployed overseas to support combat operations.
During World War II, general supervision of intelligence training rested with the Training Branch of the War Department’s Military Intelligence Service (MIS), the operating agency of the Army’s G-2. Unfortunately, going into the war, the War Department did not have a dedicated intelligence school. The MITC, which began operations on 19 June 1942, came closest to fulfilling the Army’s long-neglected need for a centralized intelligence school.
The initial class of students, all officers, gained admission based on letters of recommendation from their commanders. All subsequent classes were comprised of both commissioned and enlisted students to meet the demand for a variety of trained intelligence specialists overseas. Students either applied for admission or received assignment on a quota basis from the Army Ground Forces and Army Service Forces. Marine Corps and international students also attended MITC.
General intelligence courses ran about eight weeks; the first five weeks focused on basic instruction in intelligence procedures while the remaining three were reserved for specialty training. The school’s curriculum changed to meet the express needs of field units overseas and to incorporate lessons learned. It began with courses in interrogation, interpretation, and translation, and quickly expanded to include terrain studies, signal communications, captured document analysis, order of battle, photograph interpretation, and familiarity with enemy small arms.
Beginning in February 1944, the Secretary of War gave the MITC the added mission of training division intelligence personnel. The staff inaugurated a month-long course to teach familiarization with foreign maps and enemy tactics and equipment, prisoner-of-war interrogation, staff work, and the employment of specialist intelligence teams. Additionally, about 1,200 Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) officers and enlisted personnel also trained at the MITC until July 1945. At that time, the Intelligence Division of the Army Service Forces established a new CIC Center and School at Fort Meade. The CIC Center would move to Camp Holabird, Maryland, shortly thereafter.
MITC faculty used the FM-30 series of manuals published just prior to the war as the basis of its lesson plans [see This Week in MI History #27 15 February 1940 and #233 17 April 1940]. Teaching methods included lecture, conferences, demonstrations, plays, practical exercises, and the use of training aids and films. When possible, instructors incorporated actual captured documents, maps, German prisoners, and G-2 reports from the theaters and brought in guest instructors from Allied countries. Courses concluded with field exercises ranging from two to eight days, depending on the specialty of the students. For realism, MITC had full-scale models of German and Japanese armored vehicles and tanks and a replica of a German village square for street fighting and specialized CI training. An Indoor Combat Firing Course, Infiltration Course, and Silent Movement Course also aided training in combat skills.
While overseas commanders gave the training mixed reviews, the MITC represented the Army’s first effort at centralized training for its MI personnel. When it closed immediately after war, the Army again lacked an intelligence school. The Army Ground Forces, however, activated an intelligence school at Fort Benning (known as Fort Moore since 2023), Georgia, that same month to alleviate the gap and capture the lessons of World War II. The following month, the school moved to Fort Riley, Kansas, to operate under the administrative purview of the Commandant, The Cavalry School. The new Intelligence School opened there on 1 July 1946.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE OPENING OF THE MITC, VISIT: https://www.dvidshub.net/news/447524
New issues of This Week in MI History are published each week. To report story errors, ask questions, or be added to our distribution list, please contact: TR-ICoE-Command-Historian@army.mil.
| Date Taken: | 06.14.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 06.14.2024 18:03 |
| Story ID: | 474074 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 285 |
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