Chapter VII

District Intelligence Officer

 

From 1919 to 1933, while the headquarters of the Eighth Naval District were at the Naval Station in New Orleans, the active District Intelligence organization consisted of only the District Intelligence Officer, who combined his intelligence duties with operational and other responsibilities assigned to him by the Commandant of the district. When the Eighth Naval District was made inactive, in 1933, and its administration was taken over by the Commandant, Sixth Naval District, at Charleston, South Carolina, the District Intelligence Officer of that command assumed control of the Intelligence organization of the Eighth.

Prior to 1927 the "Intelligence organization", other than the District Intelligence Officer himself, comprised only a handful of reserve I-V(S) officers in inactive status. They had no regular contact with the District Intelligence Officer and had no duties to perform. In March 1927 the Director of Naval Intelligence wrote to the Commandant, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Naval Districts, suggesting that these reserve officers be welded into an Intelligence unit, for "obtaining information in peace time which will be of benefit to the Navy in time of war," but to remain in inactive status and serve without expense to the government.1 The Director of Naval Intelligence stated at that

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time that no concrete plan for Intelligence organizations within the Naval districts existed except with regard to Censorship, for which a detailed plan had been prepared. The mission of the proposed Intelligence unit was stated, in only the most general terms, to be to procure additional Intelligence personnel and to observe and report upon suspicious and subversive persons and incidents.

During the years 1927-1935 the District Intelligence Officer undertook by correspondence to get in touch with and, to a certain extent, to train the inactive I-V(S) officers in this district. But war plans were non-existent or incomplete, and the organization itself existed largely on paper, as there were virtually no funds for its operation and the reserve officers were expected to perform their duties, which were only vaguely defined, on their own time.

On 19 April 1935 the Commandant of the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Naval Districts divided the Eighth District into zones, appointing the inactive officers as zone officers-in-charge, and assigning as their principal duties the neutralization of subversive activities and the training of Intelligence personnel. Provision was made to station officers in the principal coastal cities, the entire inland territory being divided into four huge areas and assigned to four officers-in-charge.

Although the headquarters for the Eighth Naval District remained at Charleston until 15 December 1940, correspondence originating in February 1938 culminated in the establishment on 15 August 1938 of the District Intelligence Officer in New Orleans. He set up an office in

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the Nov Orleans Customhouse. The full-time force was "doubled" in December 1938 when a civilian agent was employed to assist the District Intelligence Officer. Stationed in New Orleans, he devoted his time principally to undercover investigations of subversive and suspicious persons and incidents. He continued in the employ of successive District Intelligence Officers until 1944.

The years 1938 and 1939 witnessed a very gradual enlargement of the headquarters unit in New Orleans and an increase of the number of reserve officers, inactive, who were procured within the district. At the end of 1939, the New Orleans headquarters had the only full-time personnel; investigative work outside New Orleans was still performed by Inactive officers on their own time. It was they who investigated end aided in procuring other reserve officers who, themselves remaining on inactive duty, were to form the nucleus of the wartime organization of the District Intelligence Office.

Shortly after the Eighth Naval District was reactivated and the headquarters were reestablished in New Orleans, in December 1940, the District Intelligence Office was removed from the Customhouse to the Federal Building. On 17 March 1941 the Chief of Naval Operations issued instructions to the Commandants of all Naval Districts, stating that the "time has now arrived for placing the Naval Establishment in in advance state of readiness," and directing the addressees to consider the advisability of establishing outlying zone and branch Intelligence offices.2 Two months later, 19 May 1941, the Secretary of

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The Navy declared "there exists the likelihood that, should mobilization be ordered, this circumstance may be the signal for an outbreak of sabotage in all activities engaged in work contributing to the national defense and an acceleration in the efforts of subversive and espionage groups throughout the Naval Establishment. To cope adequately with such a situation it is apparent that the Naval Intelligence forces must be fully mobilized prior to M-Day if and when ordered."3 Immediately the district was carved into nine zones, in the areas surrounding the following cities:

Zone 1 - Mobile, Ala.
Zone 2 - Birmingham, Ala.
Zone 3 - Chattanooga, Tenn.
Zone 4 - New Orleans, La.
Zone 5 - Memphis, Tenn.
Zone 6 - Houston, Tex.
Zone 7 - Laredo, Tex.
Zone 8 - Dallas, Tex.
Zone 9 - Oklahoma City, Okla.

By the end of July 1941 - almost five months before hostilities, the necessary officer and enlisted personnel had been procured and trained; office space and equipment had been acquired; and offices at the above-listed places had been established and were operating. In addition, branch offices were established, or planned for early activation, at Brownsville, Galveston, Port Arthur, and El Paso, Texas, and officers had been assigned to the so-called "unit" offices at the Naval Air Stations at Corpus Christi and Pensacola.

By late August 1941 a teletypewriter network linking the zone end branch Intelligence offices along the Gulf Coast and the Mexican

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border with headquarters had been installed and was in operation. This TWX network, incidentally, provided virtually the only rapid communication system the Navy possessed between the New Orleans headquarters and any outlying areas within the district.

During the fall of 1941 the newly established organization worked feverishly, increasing its personnel, activating additional offices, building suspect files on suspicious or subversive persons, investigating incidents of Naval interest, and otherwise preparing for the blow that descended on December 7. Three additional branch offices were set up and seven unit officers were assigned to Naval shore establishments. When the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred, there was no portion of the Eighth Naval District not manned by resident Naval Intelligence Officers. Dossiers on the major subversive suspects were on hand; industrial plants of Naval cognizance had been inspected and had taken the required anti-sabotage and anti-espionage measures; undercover investigators had been indoctrinated; and the headquarters operations had been departmentalized. In short, on 7 December 1941 the District Intelligence Office network was in the "advance state of readiness" which the Chief of Naval Operations had directed.

The District Intelligence War Plans in effect at that time had been a long time evolving. As early as March 1931 the War Plans of the Office of Naval Intelligence were complete, although they were to undergo many changes during the following ten years. In September 1932 the Office of Naval Intelligence distributed to all Commandants a skeleton outline of a typical, theoretical District Intelligence wartime organization,

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suggesting that the principles outlined be developed in detail and incorporated in the District War Plans. In December 1939 the Office of Naval Intelligence submitted a revised theoretical District Intelligence organization diagram which, for the first time, indicated a semblance of the form that the organization was finally to assume.4 The formal War Plans of the Director of Naval Intelligence were promulgated 20 April 1940, and supplements were issued on 31 May 1941. Frequent changes were made in these plans during succeeding months.

Meantime, at Charleston, War Plans for the Sixth Naval District had been submitted to and rejected by the Chief of Naval Operations, and on 1 July 1935 the War plans Officer had begun rewriting them.5 War Plans of the Seventh and Eighth Districts, patterned after those of the Sixth, had to be rewritten also. Work on these plans continued for several more years, with the result that the formal War Plans for the District Intelligence Office, Eighth Naval District, were not promulgated until January 1941.

These intelligence plans, plus a few changes, were in effect when the war began. During the many wartime months to follow, changes in the organization of the District Intelligence Office occurred in pace with combat developments. Such alterations were, for the most part, not formally incorporated in the District War Plans. Although formal War Plans were developed and promulgated as set forth above, the

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Intelligence organization at all times, prior to and subsequent to the preparation of War Plans, operated pursuant to directives of the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Commandant, Eighth Naval District, rather than in accordance with War Plans. Functions were added, eliminated, and changed at fairly frequent intervals in order to meet changing conditions.

As originally conceived, the Intelligence organization included four main branches:

Branch A - Administrative
Branch B - Intelligence
Branch C - Public Relations
Branch D - Censorship

In May 1941 the Public Relations Branch was separated from Intelligence and established as an independent office directly under the Secretary of the Navy. In December 1941 the Censorship Branch was separated from Intelligence and became the Cable and Radio Censorship section of the national censorship office in Washington.

Although these two departments thus early passed from under the cognizance of Intelligence, they were, at the time of their separation, staffed by Intelligence personnel who had been procured and investigated by Intelligence and trained in New Orleans by the training program of the District Intelligence Office. Many Public Relations and Censorship officers retained their I-V(S) classifications until late in the war.

The elimination of the Public Relations and Censorship branches left only two branches: A - Administrative and B - Intelligence. When Breach F was added, in 1943, the three branches become known as

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A - Services; B - Counter-Intelligence; and F - Intelligence.

The advent of war also eliminated from the Intelligence department one section of the B Branch, namely, Section B-6 - Plant Protection. In the six months before Pearl Harbor, Intelligence was very active in assisting and advising Naval establishments and industrial plants having Naval contracts in protecting themselves against sabotage and espionage, as well as against industrial disaster in all forms (fire, explosion, and the like, and even invasion by hostile forces). In December 1941 this function was transferred to the District Security Officer. The District Intelligence Office continued for some months to procure and train I-V(S) officers and V-4 yeomen to staff the Plant Protection force. Many such personnel retained their Intelligence classifications until late in 1943.

One other section, B-l - Dissemination - knew a brief pre-war existence. After a few weeks, however, it was decided that each section should be responsible for its own dissemination, and Section B-l passed out of the picture.

Since Intelligence was mobilized long before the general Naval Mobilization, it was absolutely necessary that Intelligence then be a completely self-sufficient organization, with its own personnel, supply, accounting, and communications departments. General Naval mobilization, which included the establishment of headquarters departments for the services of supply, accounting, and the like, perhaps eliminated the strict necessity for the maintenance by Intelligence of its own complex, self-sufficient organization; nevertheless, the pre-war arrangement, having been found workable and satisfactory, continued for the duration

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of the war.

In order to relate the work done by the District Intelligence Office during the war, it is necessary to go into some detail about the functions of the sections which constituted the three main branches of the organization.

BRANCH A - SERVICES

Section A-l - Directives and Bulletins

Although the organizational chart of the Office of Naval Intelligence long included a "Secretarial" section denoted A-l, no section with corresponding functions had individual existence in this district. In late 1942 a new section was created for two purposes: (a) indexing, rearranging, and disseminating the many directives issued by the Office of Naval Intelligence; and (b) editing and publishing a semi-monthly (monthly since January 1945) bulletin, for distribution to Intelligence activities only, containing newsworthy items of Intelligence interest. This section was called A-l for the reason that the A-1 space in the organizational scheme was blank.

In addition to the two duties mentioned, the officer-in-charge of Section A-l for many months edited and compiled the Eighth Naval District War Diary - a running log of all district events and happenings in all departments. This duty was delegated to the District Intelligence Office by the Chief of Staff.

Section A-2 - Personnel

Procurement of additional Intelligence personnel was a responsibility

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of the District Intelligence Office for several years before the outbreak of war. In May 1941 a special headquarters Intelligence section was established to carry on this function and, in addition, to handle all details regarding transfers, detachments, leaves of absence, travel expenses, and other such matters affecting Intelligence personnel, commissioned and enlisted, in the Eighth Naval District.

Prior to March 1942 all applications for I-V(S) commissions were processed through Section A-2, with only passing intervention by the District Personnel Office. When the Office of Naval Officer Procurement was established in March 1942, a representative of the District Intelligence Office was assigned to the New Orleans Director of Naval Officer Procurement for the purpose of examining all applications and selecting those of applicants who looked like the best I-V(S) material. The applicants willing, their applications were withdrawn from Director of Naval Officer Procurement custody and handled thereafter by Section A-2, acting directly under the District Intelligence Officer end the Commandant.

Thus it is seen that Intelligence had the rare, and probably exclusive, privilege of selecting its own officers from the multitude of officer-applicants who sought commissions during 1941 and 1942, and until early in 1943, when procurement of class I-V(S) officers was discontinued on the order of the Director of Naval Intelligence. Likewise, Intelligence recruited and procured its own enlisted personnel, free of Intervention by the personnel or recruiting offices, until

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January 1943, when enlistments in Class V-4 (Intelligence) were discontinued by order of the Director of Naval Intelligence. Since the procurement of Intelligence personnel directly from civilian life was discontinued in early 1943, replacements, in the case of officers, were entirely by Wave (W-V(S)) officers. Enlisted personnel were replaced by V-6 and V-10 (Wave) yeomen.

Not only did the District Intelligence Officer procure his own personnel, he also thoroughly examined the qualifications of all persons so procured. The backgrounds, education, ancestry, loyalty, sobriety, ability to retain confidential information, and other pertinent natters, were in the cases of all applicants, commissioned and enlisted, thoroughly investigated by Intelligence field officers. Only those meeting the most rigid specifications were selected. Officer personnel were selected principally from the following professional groups: lawyers, educators, linguists, law-enforcement officials, accountants, and bankers. Enlisted personnel selected were mainly those with clerical and stenographic experience with industrial or commercial concerns.

At the outbreak of war, the on-board complement of the District Intelligence Office was 86 officers and warrants, and 93 yeomen. The next twelve months witnessed enormous growth in the district organization, whose maximum complement was attained in March 1943; at that time there were on duty 277 officers and warrants, and 256 yeomen. As already noted, procurement was discontinued in the first part of that year. About the same time, in February 1943, the Director of Naval Intelligence established the Advanced Naval Intelligence School in

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New York. Thereafter, as officers were sent to the school and thence to sea or foreign billets, and as yeomen were transferred to general duty, the district organization gradually diminished in size. By the end of 1943, the on-board complement was reduced by 20 percent; and by the end of 1944, the organization was only half its former maximum size. At the end of the European war, only 75 officers remained on board; and when Japan finally surrendered, only 70. The complement of enlisted personnel increased and decreased in proportion to the complement of officer personnel.

In summary, it may be said that the District Intelligence organization was both mobilized and demobilized in anticipation of approaching military requirements. An adequate and rapidly increasing staff was on hand to combat espionage and sabotage at the time the war broke out. A still larger organization was available to meet Intelligence needs when German submarines brought the war to Gulf waters. A large staff of field investigators, at a peak number of thirty-seven field offices, was ready to meet the multitudinous investigative demands of a rapidly expanding Naval shore establishment. Then, as the war receded from continental waters, as the dangers of espionage and sabotage seemed neutralized, and as personnel requirements of Naval shore activities were filled, thereby reducing personnel investigations, the District Intelligence organization was gradually reduced, those released furnishing a pool of trained Intelligence operatives who followed the fighting forces to sea and to distant shores.

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Section A-3 - Mail, Filing, and Archives

Section A-3 was established in May 1941, and during the first few months of its existence performed the functions of A-l (Directives), A-4 (Supply and Accounting), and part of the duties of A-2 (Personnel).

By December 1941 the Section was performing those duties prescribed by the Office of Naval Intelligence:

  1. Receiving and routing incoming mail.
  2. Dispatching outgoing mail.
  3. Maintaining District Intelligence Office files (other than suspect files).

In addition to these functions, the Section performed miscellaneous duties such as the preparation of personnel rosters, watch lists, office orders, and correspondence instructions. From May 1941 to August 1945, this section handled over 1,000,000 pieces of incoming and outgoing mail, including 66,500 items of outgoing U. S. registered mail. Section A-3 had permanent custody of all the secret documents received by the District Intelligence Office.

Section A-3(b) - Central Card Files

During 1941 and 1942, Section B-7, the sabotage, espionage, and counter-intelligence section, had accumulated many dossiers on suspicious and subversive persons. These were summarized on 3" by 5" cards, arranged in alphabetical order. The task of maintaining the cards, indices, and pertinent file-jackets, keeping them up to date, and checking names on behalf of other sections, activities, and agencies, while at the sane time carrying on counter-intelligence work, became so overwhelming

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that in November 1942 a separate section, denoted A-3(b), was erected to take over the custody, maintenance, and servicing of B-7 cards and files.

A direct offspring of Section B-7, and manned at first with personnel drawn from it, the new section was without any counterpart in the Office of Naval Intelligence, but quickly proved its worth in coordinating and streamlining the routine checking of names. To facilitate the name-checking procedure, a "Visible Index" on large "index" panels was set up in lieu of the cumbersome card index. Against this index were checked lists of names submitted by Military Intelligence Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Coast Guard, Civil Service, and other agencies. During October 1943, as many as 78,000 names were thus checked against the Visible Index, and any positive derogatory information was furnished in detail to the submitting agencies. Also checked against A-3(b)'s index and file were names of all crew members on merchant ships leaving Eighth Naval District waters; all applicants for Navy employment and thousands of those seeking defense work; applicants for Naval commissions; and the names of hundreds of travelers entering this district by steamship and airliner.

During the peak of Naval expansion, in late 1942 and 1943, the influx of names of new suspects to be added to the files and indices of A-3(b), running as high as 14OO-1600 daily, required the addition of a night-shift for the purpose of preparing and inserting new index strips and the filing of new information on suspects. By late 1943, the files contained information on 260,000 subjects, and its growth

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continued to the end of hostilities, though at a reduced rate.

To reduce the size of the files, a microfilm unit was employed to transfer older documents to 16 mm. film, allowing the original documents to be destroyed. Approximately 500,000 documents had thus been photographed and destroyed by June 1945. The section also maintained and operated multilith and ditto equipment for duplicating matter for distribution by the District Intelligence Office, and for other headquarters departments as well. This apparatus printed 250,000 sheets per month during the winter of 1944-1945.

It is believed that A-3(b)'s system of indexing and cataloguing cards and other documents, of checking names for and providing prompt information to other agencies and to all sections of the intelligence network, is far superior to "filing and finding" systems maintained by other intelligence agencies. It is perhaps unfortunate that the original organizational scheme did not call for one central section to maintain all suspect files and cards on behalf of all the counter-intelligence sections. But it was not so planned, and the middle of a war was no time to change.

Section A-4 - Supply and Accounting

This section, the "S and A" department for the District Intelligence Office, was established in September 1941, its duties having been previously performed by Section A-3. For both headquarters and the field offices, it procured office space, furniture, equipment, supplies, telephones, firearms, motor vehicles, and gasoline and tires for

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the vehicles. The accounting phase of the section's activities included disbursements for expenses of collecting information and maintaining all records pertinent to the supply phase. This section also promoted the sale of War Bonds to District Intelligence Office personnel. As the District Intelligence organization decreased in size, the section was charged with accounting for all excess office space, furniture, equipment, supplies, funds, and the like, and the delivery thereof to the appropriate ultimate custodians.

BRANCH B - COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE

Branch B included all the counter-intelligence sections, as distinguished from the purely administrative or service sections comprising Branch A. In September 1939 an officer-in-charge of Branch B was appointed to coordinate the work of all B sections. This office continued in existence until December 1942, at which time the routine functions of Branch B were absorbed by Section B-7 and the task of coordinating the work of the various sections was taken over by the Assistant District Intelligence Officer.

Section B-2 - Censorship Liaison

During the early months of 1942 the national, office of Censorship established several field censoring stations in the Eighth Naval District. Much of the material reviewed by these stations was of interest to Naval Intelligence. Accordingly, in August 1942, pursuant to authority granted by the Office of Naval Intelligence, there was established

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a new section known as B-2 - Censorship Liaison - the duties of which were to collect from the field censoring stations all material of Naval interest allocated to Naval Intelligence for further review.

Field officers of the District Intelligence Office conducted the liaison with the censorship stations, both Postal and Cable-and-Radio. In addition, special B-2 representatives were stationed in San Antonio, Texas, for the purpose of selecting Intelligence material from the tremendous volume of international mail handled by the District Postal Censor at that place. These officers worked directly under the District Intelligence Office at headquarters; they were not formally attached to the Zone 10 District Intelligence Field Office at San Antonio. During B-2's existence, it collected some 25,000 censorship submission slips and routed them to the interested sections of the District Intelligence Office for appropriate handling.

In May 1944 this liaison in the field was superseded by direct liaison, in Washington, D. C, between the national office of Censorship and Section B-2 of the Office of Naval Intelligence. B-2 in the Eighth Naval District thereupon became dormant except for the collection of infrequent censorship items of direct, local Naval interest. This function was absorbed by Section B-7.

Section B-3 - Investigations

P Although investigations of all types were being made by Intelligence operatives all during the late 1930's, a separate headquarters section to supervise field investigations was not established until January 1941. From June 1942 to the end of September 1945 the section

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completed approximately 35,000 investigations, plus almost 20,000 routine "name check" investigations.6

Investigations made by the section fall into two broad fields: those pertaining to espionage, sabotage, and subversion; and those relating to personnel security. On the theory that existence of potential Naval interest conferred investigative jurisdiction, the section, prior to April 1943, end notwithstanding the Delimitation Agreement of 26 June 1933, as amended, actively investigated cases of espionage, sabotage and subversion, actual or suspected, and disseminated investigative reports on these subjects.

In April 1943 the Delimitation Agreement was clarified by a pronouncement by the Director of Naval Intelligence that the Federal Bureau of Investigation would investigate all cases of espionage and sabotage outside the Naval establishment in which Naval Interest was not initially apparent. From this date forward, investigations by Naval Intelligence, in the fields of sabotage, espionage, and subversion, were strictly limited to cases involving Naval personnel and eases occurring on Naval vessels or at Naval shore establishments. Obviously, thereafter there was a sharp decrease in the number of investigations made by Naval Intelligence in the fields of sabotage and espionage. In the matter of personnel security, however, investigations increased and continued with little abatement until the end of the war. Investigations in this category were made, when requested by competent Naval authority, to determine the fitness of

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Naval personnel - civilian, enlisted, or commissioned - to hold Naval employment, rating, or rank.

Section B-3 did not itself initiate investigations. They were commenced upon requests originated either by other sections of the District Intelligence Office or by other Naval departments or activities. The physical investigations were, of course, made by field officers; the headquarters section was entirely concerned with supervising the field work and correlating, evaluating, and disseminating the resulting investigative reports.

During 1941 and early 1942, Section B-3 operated the TWX machines connecting the District Intelligence Office with several field offices and with all other District Intelligence Offices and the Office of Naval Intelligence, and a 24-hour teletype watch was accordingly maintained in the B-3 office. The TWX machine and the 24-hour watch were transferred to Section B-5 when the press of that sections business so required.

Section B-4 - Security

This section, formed in August 1941, was charged with the security of Intelligence classified matter and with the physical security of space occupied by Intelligence personnel.

As the section was activated prior to the outbreak of war and the resultant rapid growth of the local Naval establishment, it initially assumed responsibility for the physical security of district headquarters, New Orleans, and, to an additional but limited extent, for the security

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of Naval information everywhere in the district. For a period of several months early in the war, the section was charged with the issuance of identification cards to all Eighth Naval District naval personnel.

An expanding District Security Office gradually absorbed the extra-intelligence duties of B-4 which, by the tine the war ended, was practically dormant and had been taken over by Section B-7.

Section B-5 - Commerce and Travel

Section B-5 was established in January 1941, pursuant to instructions from the Office of Naval Intelligence.7 Its peace-time duties consisted almost entirely in boarding merchant vessels and obtaining the routine information required by Navy Regulations, Article 283. The ships were boarded at all ports in Eighth Naval District waters by personnel at the several coastal offices of the District Intelligence Office.

With the coming of war, information beyond that required by Navy Regulations was gathered. Included was information on such subjects as conditions in foreign ports, combat and operational intelligence, unusual incidents at sea, counter-intelligence, crew behavior, and the like. Boarding officers prepared boarding reports which, forwarded to the District Intelligence Office at headquarters, were further disseminated to other District Intelligence Office sections, other Naval districts, Director of Naval Intelligence, and any other interested

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intelligence agencies. Over 6,000 boarding reports were thus prepared and disseminated; 2,153 individual ships were boarded. Until February 1944 all ships entering Eighth Naval District ports were boarded. Thereafter, selective boarding was done.

To aid in the collection of intelligence through boarding, informants called "ship's observers" were developed on many ships. They were appointed by all coastal Naval districts. The Eighth Naval District itself developed and appointed 233 ship's observers, from among reliable ship or Armed Guard officers on as many ships.

From January 1942 until October 1944, prospective crew lists on merchant vessels departing Eighth Naval District waters were submitted to Section B-5 for approval in advance of calling. These lists were checked against the District Intelligence Office suspect list, and arrangements were made for replacing any crew members on whom seriously derogatory information appeared. The lists were submitted principally by TWX and a 24-hour watch was maintained in B-5 to facilitate the screening process. More than 22,000 crew lists, adding up to hundreds of thousands of names, were thus submitted and screened until the Coast Guard assumed responsibility for this operation in October 1944.

The investigation and dissemination facilities of the District Intelligence Office were freely employed in collecting and distributing information concerning suspect seamen. As a result of this crew control, 126 seamen were "beached" by competent authority, and hundreds of others were warned or placed on probation or under observation. It is believed that this procedure had a salutary effect on recalcitrant seamen

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during the most dangerous months of the war.

In October 1942, jointly with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Military Intelligence Service, this section instituted the paneling procedure whereby all steamship and airliner passengers entering or leaving the district, and all crew members of neutral vessels seeking shore liberty within the district, were interrogated to determine whether such entry, departure, or shore liberty was or might be inimical to the nation's internal security.8 All possible advance data on these Individuals were compiled and furnished to the panel boards, which thereupon granted or withheld permission to enter or leave the district. Approximately 60,000 travelers and neutral seamen were submitted to the paneling procedure until Naval Intelligence withdrew therefrom in January 1944, pursuant to a directive of the Office or Naval Intelligence.9

During the enemy's submarine campaign in Gulf Sea Frontier waters between February 1942 and December 1943, when more than one hundred ships were torpedoed, the many hundreds of survivors of these attacks who were rescued and reached the shores of the Eighth Naval District were immediately interviewed by Naval Intelligence in order to determine all details of the attacks, and such details were dispatched to the Chief of Naval Operations for action. Written survivor reports (121 in all) followed by mail.

The interviewing officers, who were usually first on the scene,

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were further charged with arranging for the physical well-being of the survivors to the and that they received transportation, clothing, food, and housing. For services thus accorded, Intelligence personnel received oral and written thanks from many survivors and from some of the owners of vessels sunk.

During the period of its greatest activity, B-5 operated the District Intelligence Office TWX and TWL facilities and was responsible for receiving and dispatching all communications of the District Intelligence Office over these wires. Approximately 38,000 messages were sent and received over the two machines prior to their removal to Section F0.

Section B-7 - Sabotage, Espionage, and Counter-subversion

A directive of the Director of Naval Intelligence of 13 November 1940 enjoined all District Intelligence Officers to establish "counter-espionage" sections in the districts.10 Although the District Intelligence Office, Eighth Naval District, was already active in the field of counter-espionage, a separate section was not established until October 1941.

The announced task of the section was to "Evaluate, classify, index, file, card, and disseminate information regarding espionage, sabotage, propaganda, and subversive organizations of actual and potential enemy agents and sympathizers". The original subdivisions, or "desks" of the section, were denoted (a) German, (b) Italian,

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(c) Japanese, and (d) Communist and Miscellaneous. After the outbreak of war, the Communist desk was established separately from the miscellaneous division, and other desks were added to handle various kinds of information: French and Falangist (Franco and Vichy sympathizers); Negro (racial agitation); Sabotage (sabotage incidents, methods, and techniques); and Mexican (subversive groups and persons, of all ideologies, residing in Mexico).

In late 1942, the functions of Section B-10 (Plant Personnel Security) were absorbed by B-7 and were thereafter handled by a B-7-10 desk. At various tines, the section also absorbed the remaining functions of sections B-2 (Censorship Liaison) and B-4 (Security), and the routine duties of the former Branch B. B-7 was also the "parent" of Section A-3(b), which maintained most B-7 files, and collected and disseminated positive foreign information until the volume of such material required the establishment of a separate section. Prior to the enlargement of Section B-5, B-7 also handled all information regarding suspect merchant seamen. Even when Section B-5 expanded its crew control functions, B-7 continued its interest in merchant seamen who were considered subversive.

The information reaching B-7's hands was derived from many sources. The prime duty of the section was to evaluate such information and disseminate it to those activities or agencies which should have it. While such dissemination was made in the form of detailed letters or reports, the great bulk of it was summarized on 3" x 5" cards, which were easily indexed and filed. Other District Intelligence Offices and the Office

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of Naval Intelligence also distributed cards, and B-7, Eighth Naval District, thus wrote and accumulated more than 300,000 cards on suspect persona, groups, and incidents.

Under the Delimitation Agreement of 9 February 1942, as amended, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was assigned investigative jurisdiction over civilians outside the Naval establishment, with the exception of Japanese. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reports made in this district were received by B-7, which recorded the information on behalf of the Navy. In the Japanese field B-7 was active in making investigations, preparing numerous reports and surveys. All such information was disseminated to the Office of Naval Intelligence and any other interested activities, and a bulletin of each month's developments and highlights was distributed monthly to the intelligence network and appropriate Naval activities.

The card system of recording and disseminating information from all sources was found an immensely successful method of constructing and indexing suspect files and keeping them up to date. By referencing and cross-referencing, by the use of distinctive colors according to the danger of the subject, by arrangement geographically as well as ideologically, it was possible for B-7 quickly to assemble and correlate any recorded information on any desired subject or situation within the counter-intelligence province. The system was believed to be more complete than and superior to that used by any other counter-intelligence agency. The information contained in the card system was continually used by proper Government agencies, other Naval activities,

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and other sections of the District Intelligence organization.

Section B-9 - Training

This section was activated in early 1941 for the purposes of indoctrinating newly-active I-V(S) officers in intelligence techniques and in Naval traditions and customs. The original course consisted of two weeks of lectures and study of technical manuals of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Later this was implemented by practical experience in boarding merchant vessels. Still later, B-9 students made lengthy visits to all headquarters sections, studying the details of their operations. Many of the new officers, after completing B-9, were privileged to attend the Office of Naval Intelligence three weeks' training school in Washington. In late 1942, Section B-9 was absorbed by A-2. It was largely dormant after I-V(S) procurement ceased, but was re-activated near the end of the war to reindoctrinate veteran officers returning to the Eighth Naval District from sea and foreign duty.

Section B-10 - Plant Personnel Security

This section was established in February 1942 pursuant to a directive of the Office of Naval Intelligence.11 Originally, its functions were to gather information on aliens who might seek employment in industrial plants having Navy contracts. Subsequently, the plan of organization was expanded to include the gathering of information on

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practically all parsons who might seek employment in defense industries anywhere. The purpose of the compilation of such information was to enable the Navy to provide information promptly to industrial employers and to aid them in employing or discharging persons of doubtful loyalty or with unsavory backgrounds.

Simultaneously, the Army inaugurated a similar plan and, because of the magnitude and scope of the problem, it was decided in late 1942 that the whole matter should be placed under the jurisdiction of the Army.12 At that time B-10 was discontinued as an individual section, and its remaining functions, which were concerned entirely with civilian personnel directly employed by the Navy, were delivered to Section B-7, which set up a special desk to handle them.

BRANCH F - INTELLIGENCE

Prior to April 1943 the District Intelligence Office organization comprised only the A - Administrative and B - Intelligence Branches. In that month the Office of Naval Intelligence revised its own organization and added several branches, one of which was F - Intelligence, to conform to the Washington revision to the extent necessary in the Eighth Naval District. The District Intelligence Office in July 1943 redesignated the A and B Branches as Services and Counter-intelligence, respectively, and established an F Branch - Intelligence - to handle positive intelligence as distinguished from counter-intelligence.

Although the internal organization of the Office of Naval Intelligence

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was later revised several times, to the point of transferring some former F functions to new branches. It was not felt necessary in the District Intelligence Office, Eighth Naval District, to rearrange the local organization to conform to the several revisions of the Washington office. No officer in charge of the F Branch was appointed.

The section's work was coordinated by the Assistant District Intelligence Officer.

Section F0 - Operational Intelligence

On 5 December 1940 a report made by the District Intelligence Office, Eighth Naval District, to the Director of Naval Intelligence indicated that Section B-8 was in the planning stage.13 The section was activated when, on 16 July 1941, the Director of Naval Intelligence ordered the Commandant, Eighth Naval District, to "take immediate action to bring the Coastal Information Section to a state of complete readiness".14

On 10 December 1941 the section was ordered by the Commandant to establish a twenty-four hour watch as part of the Joint Operations Center, Eighth Naval District. This watch continued to function until eliminated on 5 September 1945. From the time of the establishment of the watch until the latter part of 1943, the Section was split, with one part (DIO-B-8) handling the administrative functions and various general matters coming under the cognizance of the section, and the

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other part (Op-B-8) maintaining the twenty-four hour watch, performing operational intelligence functions, and handling District Intelligence Office Communications.

The Section expanded rapidly in the first half of 1942 because of the great number of attacks by German submarines in Eighth Naval District waters during May, June, and July. During the period of heavy enemy attacks and throughout the subsequent period when Eighth Naval District waters were not considered free from enemy activity, the section worked closely with Section B-5 and the District Intelligence Office field offices in keeping the operating forces of the district advised concerning enemy activity and in investigating and evaluating incidents which were or might have been connected therewith.

In July 1943, to correspond to similar changes in the organization of the Office of Naval Intelligence, the designation of the section was changed to F0, the B-8 connotation was eliminated, and the two phases, coastal information and operational intelligence, were combined into one unit physically located adjacent to the Joint Operation Center, Eighth Naval District. Thus the section passed from the cognizance of Branch B to Branch F.

During the course of its history the section performed functions as set forth below. As the need for certain of these functions ceased to exist, the functions were discontinued. In addition to maintaining a twenty-four hour watch, which also served as the District Intelligence Office watch during a considerable period of time, and handling all District Intelligence Office TWX and TWL communications since they were

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relinquished by Section B-5, the section performed many functions, among them the following:

  1. Maintained in and for Operations, plots of the movements of all merchant ships and all Naval vessels entering or leaving the Gulf of Mexico or between ports therein.
  2. Maintained plots of the movements of enemy and friendly submarines and of contacts, sightings, and attacks on and by enemy submarines in the Atlantic, Gulf, and Caribbean areas.
  3. Maintained complete records on the movements of merchant vessels in Eighth Naval District waters and prepared and disseminated daily dispatches and written reports covering arrivals and departures of merchant ships in the Eighth Naval District and monthly statistical reports on the same subject.
  4. Acted as issuing office for Office of Naval Intelligence non-registered publications.
  5. Prepared a monthly war diary for Operations, Eighth Naval District.
  6. Collected, plotted, and disseminated information concerning wrecks and danger areas (including practice firing areas) in the district.
  7. Received, evaluated, and disseminated information having to do with subversive or suspect activities in the coastal area, including incidents involving radio, flotsam and jetsam, flares and lights, oil slicks, and possible landing of enemy agents.
  8. Performed work at headquarters and supervised field work of the District Intelligence Office in connection with the numerous small craft plans, such as Fisherman Auxiliary Plan No. 1-42, Auxiliary Coastal Patrol Plan No. 1-42, and Caribbean Small Craft Plan.
  9. Maintained liaison with such Eighth Naval District activities as Operations, Port Director, Commander Inshore Patrol, District Coast Guard Office, Fleet Post Office, Air/Sea Rescue Officer, Army Operations, Military Intelligence Service, War Plans, and numerous other activities for the purpose of exchanging information and of furnishing to these activities information of interest to them received through Naval Intelligence (and particularly Coastal Information) channels.

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  1. Acted as part of Combat Intelligence, Gulf Sea Frontier, in obtaining information requested by that activity and by keeping Sea Frontier Intelligence advised of incidents which took place in the Eighth Naval District.
  2. Served as a training section for Operational Intelligence officers.
  3. Supervised and directed the work of the field officers in obtaining Operational Intelligence, including boarding of Naval and merchant vessels and investigating incidents.

Section F-l - Foreign Intelligence

The Mission of Section F-l was the collection, evaluation, and dissemination of information concerning strategic foreign areas. Of particular importance was the gathering of information concerning landing beaches, shore defenses, and the like (to aid landing parties), and that regarding factories, railways, and bridges in enemy-held coastal areas (to provide knowledge of bombing objectives). The types of information desired were not limited to those listed, but included conditions of healthy economy, political forces, important personalities, and other such matters in enemy-held or little-known foreign areas.

The collection and dissemination of foreign intelligence, which began in May 1943, was supervised by Section B-7, whose designation was changed to F/B-7. By August 1943 the volume of material being handled having increased tremendously, a new section, denoted FN (later simply F), was established.15 Subsequent directives clarified the work of the section, and the program was in full swing in October 1943. It continued without abatement to the end of the war. Of a total of 583

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Eighth Naval District reports forwarded to the Office of Naval Intelligence, 424 were submitted during the first eight months of 1945, when our expeditionary troops were moving at their most rapid pace.

While many of the hundreds of interviews were obviously unproductive of information of real value, a substantial portion of the reports so forwarded covered in detail areas later invaded and occupied by U. S. forces. Documentary matter pertaining to the Philippines, the Lingayen Gulf, the China coastal waters, and the Chinese mainland, were submitted to the Office of Naval Intelligence by the District Intelligence Office, Eighth Naval District, prior to operations in those areas and are believed to have been of direct value to these in charge of such operations.

Information was gathered from many sources, including missionaries, scientists, engineers, immigrants, tourists, merchant seamen and others who had knowledge of foreign areas. The quality of information furnished improved greatly in the latter months of the war, as the poorer sources of information (such as casual tourists) were eliminated, as interviewing technique was improved, and as additional factual background information on important areas became available in files of the District Intelligence Office.

On 1 July 1945 the designation of the section was changed to F-l, to distinguish it from the newly-created F-2. Functions remained unchanged.

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Section F-2 - Foreign Intelligence - Special

From the time Section F was established until 1 July 1945, the collection of strategic information regarding foreign areas was performed by field officers. With the passage of time and the accumulation of much documentary material in Section F's headquarters' files, it came to be realized that the collection of F information by field officers was seriously handicapped by the facts that many field officers were inexperienced in F work, and that they had no ready access to F files and hence could not know what information not to collect. During this period certain officers who had much experience in collecting the desired information became quite adept at the work. During the early part of 1945 these officers made test trips into the field for collection of important F information, achieving better results than were usually produced by field officers.

The foregoing process culminated on 1 July 1945 in the establishment of Section F-2 in Headquarters, Eighth Naval District. It was an adjunct of Section F (thereafter called F-l), had easy access to F files, and acted only when so requested by Section F. It was composed of former field officers experienced in F work. It combined the functions of a headquarters section with a field office, in that its personnel were authorized to and did travel throughout the entire district in the performance of the functions of the Section.

The devotion of much space to a discussion of the functions of the District Intelligence Office headquarters is not intended to detract from the importance of the operations of the field offices. It

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was the field officers who were responsible for the results obtained by the organization. It was the field officers who developed the information that was the heart and life of the organization. Headquarters in New Orleans evaluated, correlated, and disseminated; the prime task of collection was done in the field. A total of 37 field offices was established - 10 zones, 11 branches, and 16 units.16

Although the original organization scheme made the branch offices responsible to the officers-in-charge of the nearest zone offices, this arrangement early proved unworkable, and thenceforth the branch offices were considered to be autonomous, responsible directly to the District Intelligence Officer. Unit offices were established at virtually all training and operating bases, air and surface. The personnel at the units were under the military command of the respective commanding officers of the activities, but were under the administrative command of the District Intelligence Officer. As the war receded from the Gulf, most unit offices were discontinued, their Intelligence functions passing to the nearest field offices.

Theoretically, all field offices worked for all sections of the District Intelligence Office. In practice, the interior offices were concerned almost entirely with personnel investigations and espionage end sabotage cases. The offices on the Mexican Border performed the same functions plus travel control and inquiry into suspicious Border Incidents. And the offices along the Gulf Coast carried on the functions of the interior offices, plus special emphasis on coastal and

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operational intelligence, briefing, boarding, crew control, and the like. Most coastal offices maintained 24-hour watches until the capitulation of Germany.

As already noted, The District Intelligence Organization attained its greatest size in early 1943. This was also the period of the greatest activity in four major fields:

  1. Combat Intelligence: The enemy's submarine campaign in the Gulf was past its zenith but by no means finished. Coastal offices and headquarters sections were fully manned for the purposes of briefing captains of Naval vessels and gathering information of submarine attacks.
  2. Travel Control: The process of processing passengers and seamen was at its maximum. The other intelligence agencies which were later to absorb most of the functions with regard to passengers and seamen were still in their organizational stages.
  3. Counter-Intelligence Investigations: Naval Intelligence was still investigating in the field later taken over exclusively by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
  4. Personnel Security Investigations: The Navy's shore establishments were growing rapidly, necessitating loyalty and integrity investigations of large numbers of personnel, mainly civilians. Both inland and coastal offices devoted thousands of man-hours to such investigations.

From this high point in the spring of 1943, activity in these four fields steadily declined. The fall of Germany was the signal for closing several coastal offices. By September 1945 the organization was approximately the same size as in mid-1941, when most filed offices were opened. In these closing stages, emphasis lay almost entirely on personnel security investigations of new Naval civilian employees.

Throughout its history the District Intelligence Office maintained liaison at all levels with other intelligence agencies and other Naval

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activities. Of particular importance was the close liaison with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Military Intelligence Service, which agencies and Naval Intelligence kept one another fully and continually advised in the fields of sabotage, espionage, and counter-intelligence. Liaison was effected whenever appropriate with the following organizations: Civil Service Commission, U. S. Secret Service, U. S. Maritime Commission, Board of Economic Warfare, Bureau of Customs, Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, Bureau of Narcotics, Coast and Geodetic Survey, Immigration and Naturalization Service, War Shipping Administration, and any others which might be interested in information coming to the attention of Naval Intelligence, or which had occasion to impart information of interest to the Navy. Close liaison was maintained with the District Coast Guard Officer and his subordinates in regard to merchant seamen and port security. Information of interest to other Navy departments, activities, and vessels was transmitted to the commanding officers concerned, usually directly instead of through channels.

Because of its communication system Naval Intelligence played an important, though passive, role in air/sea rescue matters. Its 24-hour teletype network connecting all major coastal cities was the most rapid and effective system of communications connecting headquarters with those cities, and the network was freely used by the Eighth Naval District Air/Sea Rescue Officer and by the Joint Operations Center in issuing instructions to operating air and surface rescue craft. The field officers on the spot, while not engaging in the actual rescue

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operations, were in most favorable positions to keep themselves and the operating units fully and continually informed of the rescue measures being taken by all activities and were of great assistance in coordinating such measures. Experience in this field of activity caused Naval Intelligence to be looked upon as the information center best posted on all air/sea rescue movements under way at any particular moment.

Neither space nor policy permits the inclusion here of specific cases of particular interest handled by District Intelligence Office, Eighth Naval District, in more than the briefest way. This office was instrumental in gathering information leading to such achievements as the following: neutralization of the pre-war espionage activities of the ex-German consul, Baron Von Spiegel, and his Naval attache, Hans Schmaus; the exclusion from the coastal area of the ex-German submarine captain who directed the port facilities of one of our major oil-exporting cities; the apprehension and imprisonment of a Japanese espionage agent whose operations took place in Texas; restricting the international travel of many suspects, including the German-born instigator of the Black Tom explosion of World War I; the interception, by a British cruiser, of the German SS Columbus as that vessel fled Mexico in 1940 with several Graf Spee survivors aboard; neutralization (through establishment of the coastal observer system, fishermen patrols, and other measures) of refueling of enemy submarines in the Gulf of Mexico; and detection of sabotage and its causes on various Naval vessels and airplanes.

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Such incidents added spies to Intelligence work. But the real value of Naval Intelligence was the part it played in the prevention of conditions directly harmful to the Navy. Its routine work in the fields of racial and Industrial relations; in the loyalty investigations of civilian and Naval personnel; in the disclosure of negligent or deliberately poor workmanship on vessels; in the careful briefing of ship captains; in the scholarly charting of ideological movements and trends; in the exposure of organized frauds and immoralities within the Naval service - all these activities aided the Navy in its prime mission of putting a first-class Naval fighting force at sea to oppose the enemy.

An additional service of Naval Intelligence was the investigative assistance that it lent to other Naval activities. Countless times, upon request, it furnished trained investigators to other departments to aid them in ascertaining facts that only experienced detectives were apt to uncover. The Personnel and Legal departments were special beneficiaries of this service.

Finally, mention should be made of the fact that the Naval service and the public generally were conscious of the existence of a Naval Intelligence organization. No statistics can be prepared to show what dollars-and-cents value this awareness had in the prevention of incidents harmful to the Navy; but there is every reason to believe that the bare fact of existence of a large but unseen organization was an "insurance policy" of great actual benefit to the Naval service and to the nation.

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FOOTNOTES

1. ONI Conf. ltr. Op-16-B, Subj: Organization of Intelligence Unit, dtd. 24 Mar. 1927.
2. CNO Conf. ltr., Ser. 0177616, dtd. 17 Mar. 1941
3. SecNav Conf. ltr., Ser. 0329116, dtd. 19 May 1941.
4. See Appendix K.
5. DIO Conf. ltr. to CofS, ND6,7,8, Subj: War Plans, Preparation of, as of 1 July 1935, dtd. 17 Jul. 1935.
6. See Appendix K.
7. DNI Conf. Cir. Ltr. DC(C)3-41, Ser. 043316, dtd. 24 Jan. 1941.
8. VCNO Conf. Ser. 02334616, dtd. 5 Oct. 1942.
9. CNO Conf. Ser. 043916, dtd. 6 Jan. 1944.
10. DNI Conf. ltr., Ser. 0390816, dtd. 13 Nov. 1940.
11. SecNav Conf. Ser. 01827916, dtd. 7 Jan. 1942.
12. SecNav Conf. Ser. 01152716, dtd. 8 May 1942.
13. DIO 8ND Conf. Memo to CON (DNI), Subj: Intelligence Personnel in Districts; List of, dtd. 5 Dec. 1940.
14. CNO Conf. Ser. 0539616, dtd. 16 Jul. 1941.
15. ONI directive, Ser. 01838916, dtd. 26 Jul. 1943.
16. For their locations, and opening and closing dates, see Appendix K.

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