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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
LT. COL. WISE COMPLETES TOUR OF CIC IN NORTH AFRICA
On 29 September 1943, Lt. Col. Hugh D. Wise, Jr., completed a month-long tour of nearly every Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) unit deployed in North Africa, the Middle East, Iceland, and Greenland. He spent the bulk of that time in North Africa, where the rapid deployment of CIC personnel with tactical units the previous fall had highlighted significant problems.
A 31-year-old, well-educated New Yorker, Wise had been called to active duty and assigned to the Corps of Intelligence Police (CIP) in September 1940. When the CIP was renamed the CIC in early 1942, Wise became executive officer to the chief, Lt. Col. Henry G. Sheen. In July, Sheen was assigned to London, leaving Wise as the new chief. His tenure in that position lasted until May 1943, when he became assistant chief under the higher-ranking Col. Harold R. Kibler.
Wise had been the chief when the order came from the War Department to organize the first CIC units for tactical assignments overseas [see This Week in MI History #146 August 1942]. At that time, the CIC envisioned its agents confined to the rear areas to “provide effective counter-espionage, counter-sabotage, and counter-subversive security…and to detect and investigate all cases of positive or suspected disaffection, sabotage, espionage and subversion within or affecting the military service.” As operations unfolded in North Africa, however, the CIC was drawn into duties with frontline troops, duties the personnel were not trained, equipped, nor authorized to conduct. Once tactical commanders saw the value in their CIC detachments, the demand for additional personnel—preferably properly trained and equipped—for frontline duty skyrocketed.
Distressed with the use of CI agents contrary to War Department CIC policy, Colonel Kibler directed Colonel Wise to embark on a tour of CIC units deployed overseas. His primary mission was to bring CIC activities in North Africa “back in line with the War Department’s concept of the [CIC] mission.” Leaving D.C. in August 1943, Wise spent 12-29 September visiting nearly every CIC detachment in North Africa and Sicily and talking with headquarters’ staff and G-2s.
Colonel Wise came away from his visit agreeing with many of the arguments posed by CIC personnel in the theater. In his report, he stressed additional CIC personnel were “absolutely essential” for “the performance of combat counterintelligence” with frontline troops. He also outlined the need for more linguists and better promotion policies, as well as changes in the Special Equipment List, personnel allocations, and the CIC’s training curriculum. Further, he suggested both the War Department and officers of other services needed to be better educated to the “peculiar needs of CIC” in the combat areas.
Reforms got underway shortly after Wise returned from his trip. On 15 November 1943, Colonel Kibler reversed the policy in which CIC personnel had formerly been assigned to the War Department’s CIC and then attached to the tactical units. From then on, all CIC personnel were assigned to the theater headquarters’ CIC detachment, which would act as a centralized authority for all CIC personnel in theater. Additionally, a new Initial Table of Organization increased the theater’s allotment of officers and enlisted men with those additional men enroute by February 1944.
Some of Wise’s recommendations would take more time to address, but these initial changes provided the theater more administrative control over its CIC personnel and operational control over the CIC detachments.
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| Date Taken: | 09.27.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 09.27.2024 16:51 |
| Story ID: | 481973 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 78 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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