Photo By Lori Stewart | Students mill about outside one of the first classroom buildings at the CIC School at...... read more read more
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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
CIC SCHOOL OPENS AT "THE BIRD"
On 15 October 1945, the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) School opened at Camp Holabird, Maryland, about six miles southeast of Baltimore’s business district. For the next ten years, this Maryland post—the location not only of the CIC School but also the CIC Center—would be the nexus of all administrative, policy, personnel, and training activities for the Army’s counterintelligence personnel.
Throughout World War II, CIC administrative and training functions were scattered and relocated often. The Office of the Chief, CIC, was first located in Washington, D.C., but moved to Baltimore in January 1943. As CIC headquarters, it was responsible for the selection, investigation, assignment, movement, supply, and training of all CIC personnel and general CIC policy formulation. Meanwhile, technical training for CI agents began at the Chicago-based CIC School in late 1941 after its move from Fort McNair. [See This Week in MI History #15 10 November 1941]
The CIC’s first use of Camp Holabird came in August 1943. Twenty-six years earlier, the Army had spent $450,000 to purchase 153 acres of land along Colgate Creek for use as its first motor transport depot for World War I. Into the early months of World War II, the post continued to serve as an ordnance motor base. At that time, the CIC used nearby Logan Field as its staging area for personnel waiting to embark for overseas deployments. Before shipping out, agents spent a week at Holabird for an automotive course that included instruction in mechanics and driving. In July 1943, the Ordnance Corps transferred its automotive activities to Aberdeen, and about the same time, the Army Air Forces demanded full use of Logan Field. On 8 August 1943, the CIC requested permission to move its staging area to Holabird.
Born of necessity, the move to Holabird quickly became fortuitous. After just a few months of wartime experience, coupled with the complaints of commanders that their CIC agents lacked basic combat skills, the CIC developed a six-week combat training course for its deploying personnel. Holabird proved an ideal location for the physically focused training of marksmanship, map reading, escape and evasion, scouting and patrolling, and tent pitching. Unfortunately, although beneficial to all CIC agents, Holabird’s use as a staging area came to an end in February 1944. At that time, the Army combined all CI training—both that conducted in Chicago as well as at Holabird—with the general intelligence training conducted at the Military Intelligence Training Center at nearby Camp Ritchie, Maryland.
On 13 July 1945, after the war had ended in Europe and deployed CIC agents began to return to the states, the Army established an administrative and training CIC Center at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. The first class began on 11 August; however, Fort Meade’s lack of adequate housing and classroom space rapidly became apparent. On 3 October, after considering and discarding an option to move the CIC Center to distant Fort Warren, Wyoming, the War Department ordered its movement to Holabird. One week later, the chief of the CIC, Col. Harold R. Kibler, transferred the CIC Center twenty-five miles north to Camp Holabird. On 15 October, with the move complete, the first course of the new CIC School began.
The CIC Center, under the jurisdiction of the Army’s assistant chief of staff, G-2, (today’s deputy chief of staff, G-2), flourished in the postwar period. By April 1950, when Camp Holabird was redesignated Fort Holabird (fondly remembered as “The Bird” by former students), the CIC Center and School handled all CI training, personnel assignments, unit organization, operational policy, and specialized supply development and acquisition. In 1954, it became the nucleus for a new and expanded U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School.
New issues of This Week in MI History are published each week. To report story errors, ask questions, request back issues, or be added to our distribution list, please contact: TR-ICoE-Command-Historian@army.mil.
| Date Taken: | 10.15.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 10.15.2024 10:10 |
| Story ID: | 483107 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 82 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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