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2nd
Military Intelligence Battalion |
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| Seventh Army Aerial Reconnaissance Support Company (7877 Army Unit) | |||||||||||||||||
| 19.. - 19.. | |||||||||||||||||
| (Source: Email from Bennett E. Young, 1957-59) | |||||||||||||||||
| I was stationed at Kapaun Barracks, just outside of Kaiserslautern, from January of 1957 thru May of 1959 with an outfit called the Seventh Army Aerial Reconnaissance Support Company (7877 Army Unit). I have looked for it mentioned anywhere and have yet to see it listed, even on your very comprehensive Seventh Army list of organizations. Let me give you a little of my own background and what I know of the 7877 AU and then later I'll dig through my piles of old photos and see what I can find for you. I enlisted in the Army in July of 1956 and took my basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri. Following that I went to the Signal School at Ft. Monmouth, NJ for a Photo Lab Technician's course and came out with an 841.0 MOS, I believe. I was then sent to Kaiserslautern, Germany in early 1957 to the 7th Army Aerial Reconnaissance Company, as I mentioned in my initial email to you. |
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| Soon after I arrived at SAARSCO, I realized that the Photo Section had very few slots for advancement and that the work was rather tedious so I made application for, and was accepted into, the Photo Interpretation section of the Intelligence, Military Police and Special Weapons School in Oberammergau, but that's a whole other story. I came out of that school with a 969.1 MOS, that of a Photo Interpreter. I later returned to the same IMPSW school a year or so later for an advanced PI course. I returned to the states and was honorably discharged on May 10, 1959. | |||||||||||||||||
| (Source: STARS & STRIPES, July 8, 1957) | |||||||||||||||||
| Aerial Photos Help Recon Company Spot Target by Henry B. Kraft, Staff Writer A Chinese sage once said that "one picture is worth ten thousand words." To the 7th Army, one picture interpreted by its Air Recon Co. stationed at Kaiserslautern, Germany, may be worth thousands of American lives. For a photograph taken from the air may reveal a vital enemy position, a camouflaged supply depot or a plant which makes equipment vital to an enemy. The Kaiserslautern unit has the responsibility of supplying the 7th Army with aerial information. The outfit is commanded by Maj. Ross H. Calvert, Jr. Its 150 technicians must reproduce, interpret and distribute all Air Force aerial photographs for tactical use by units of the 7th Army. Air photo missions are flown by 12th Air Force reconnaissance planes. However, Army ground liaison officer teams (GLO), which are assigned with the Air Force, receive the developed negatives and rush them to Calvert's outfit. In actual combat, the GLO would stand by while the films were being developed, prepared to scan the wet negatives and then speedily relay the "hot target" information to Army G2. When the 7th Army Recon Co. receives the negatives, personnel examine them in mobile vans. Then they are printed and plotted to pinpoint the area covered and finally interpreted by the specialists to whom photographs are an open book. "A good photograph," said Sp3 Roger L. Marohn, "will show about everything but the inside of a building. We get so much information from them that it doesn't seem legal." Photo interpretation teams must be so highly trained that - to quote Sp2 Hoke S. Garrett - "we can generally decide the weight capacity of a bridge just by looking at a picture of it." The teams study the aerial photographs for tactcial targets, troop movements and vehicle convoys, enemy emplacements, camouflaged positions and layout of the terrain. And they also consider strategic targets such as ports and industrial concentrations. A faint shadow, a dim line, may contain a clue to vital intelligence information. A foxhole looks pretty small when a picture of it is taken from a plane two miles up. Yet troop concentrations can be determined just by counting foxholes in a picture. A pinpoint automatic counter is used for this purpose. Almost no enemy secret is safe from the photo technicians once they focus their attention upon a good photograph. The company goes into the field whenever the 7th Army does. It is completely mobile. Whether on alert or maneuvers the darkrooms and photo interpretation vans roll quickly out of their permanent base at Kaiserslautern, taking with them all smaller vehicles and equipment essential to independent operation. Calvert, describing the functions of his organization, said: "Our job is to get the report to G2 before the target gets cold. To do this we sometimes must have the photos developed, printed and interpreted before the jets of the airplane that flew the mission get cold." |
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| (Source: STARS & STRIPES) | |||||||||||||||||
| Photos Tell Sgt the Story Most people read books, but MSgt Harry W. Griffin reads pictures. And they tell him quite a story. A member of the 7th Army Air Reconnaissance Co. stationed here (Kaiserslautern), Griffin studies pictures as part of his job of interpreting aerial photos. The other part of his job is training others to read the messages that aerial photos have to tell. Griffin has spent most of his time in the service poring over photographs, analyzing them and making reports on what information they have to tell him. During the early days of World War II Griffin was assigned to the photo-interpreting unit at Camp Ritchie, Md. That was when the Army was learning how photographs of enemy-held territory could save American lives if some one could interpret them. The World War II Army Air Corps could and did take pictures of enemy-held areas. But it was up to some one like Griffin to study them, to find the location of enemy positions, weapons, troops, and enemy transportation and communication facilities. Other Duties Now busy studying photos here, Griffin devotes most of his time to training a new crop of photo interpreters as he passes along the skills he accumulated during World War II and Korea. Skill as a photo interpreter doesn't come easily, Griffin's pupils point out. Senior noncommissioned officers in this relatively new field have to start their trainees from scratch. They need a basic education in photography, but that's only a beginning. They need to know conventional military signs and symbols, and they need to be able to recognize enemy equipment and formations from a photograph. Experience, Judgement Experenced judgement plus special tools of the trade allow these photo interpreters to make a close calculation on the weight capacity of a bridge and what it would take to blow it up. From stacks of photographs taken from the cameras of speedy Air Force planes the interpreter in his mobile van makes a map overlay, piecing together photographs until he has a complete picture of the area under study. He examines the photographs almost microscopically for every scrap of information, and then prepres a clear report for his superiors on what he saw and where it was. But Griffin's job in combat is not just looking at the enemy. Another important task is studying photos of friendly areas to make sure that American positions are camouflaged properly against the enemy's cameras. |
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| (Source: STARS & STRIPES, July 26, 1958) | |||||||||||||||||
| The 7th Army Air Recon Co is located in Kaiserslautern. CO is Lt Col Herman A. Ruff. The company is comprised of 23 officers, 1 warrant officer, and 140 enlisted men. (About 80 of the soldiers are photo interpreters.) The company also operates three L-19 airplanes from Air Force air bases (probably where the Air Force recon squadrons are located). They are used to deliver finished photographs and PI reports to tactical unit commanders. The results of the photo interpretations performed by the company serve as a vital source of intelligence for the 7th Army -- the (peacetime) mission of the unit includes route reconnaissance, survey of maneuver and bivouac areas, investigation of bridges and their approaches, and surveys of possible river crossing sites. Ground liaison officers are assigned to the Air Force recon squadrons. When they receive a survey mission from an Army tactical unit (such as a division or corps) they brief the pilots who will make the flight. (The briefing will include information on the target area and what the Army unit is looking for.) The AF recon plane then takes vertical and oblique shots of the target area during its fly over. Upon its return to the air base, the film is developed and the pilot de-briefed by the ground liaison officer. Once developed, the film is turned over to the photo interpretation teams of the 7th Army Air Recon Co. Depending on the level of urgency, the film can be placed on a light table for direct interpretation or prints can be made for study under stereoscopes. The stereoscope provides a 3-D effect and makes the terrain stand out in relief. The Reproduction Section of the company can develop and print as many copies as the Army unit needs. The company generates immediate reports that are primarily based on the intelligence collected during the de-briefing performed by the ground liaison officers. The reports are sent over a special radio net called the "Reccy-Glo" net. Besides receiving much of their training "on the job," most of the photo interpreters are graduates of the Photo Interpretation Division, US Army Intelligence School (Fort Holabird, Md.) or of the USAREUR Intelligence School in Oberammergau. The reproduction men come from the Signal Corps School at Fort Monmouth, N.J. |
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| (Source: 7th Army Air Reconnaissance Support Company Briefing, 1959) | |||||||||||||||||
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The water supply system consists of a 50 gallon hot water tank with the necessary tubing, valves and pumps to circulate the water through the system. Fresh water may be pumped into the laboratory through a 50 foot length of hose from a suitable stream or other source. The system is designed to use a minimum amount of water by applying stabilization processing. The major components of the ES-22 are:  a. Semi-trailer, Van V-79/G, 10 ton. b. 30 KW Diesel Power Generator on trailer, 1½ ton. c. Processing Machine, Photographic Paper, EH-26. d. Printer, Photographic, Contact, USAF Type, D1~A. e. Printer, Contact, Continuous, USAF Type, C-1B. f. Gasoline Space and Water Heaters. g. Three (3) 1½ ton Capacity Air Conditioners. h. Semi-automatic Paper Chopper, USAF Type, FM-6, i. Table, Plotting, USAF Type, A-7. |
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Photo #1 -- Semi-trailer, Van V-79/G, 10 ton w/generator Photo #3 -- Continuous Contact Printer, Type C1-B The complete unit packed weights approximately 140 lbs. The printer can print 390 ft of aerial negative, and 500 ft spool of positive paper. The printer is operated on 110 volt alternating current-semi-portable and manufactured by Consolidated Photo Engraverz and Lithographers Equipment Company, Inc., Chicago, Illinois. The paper processing machine was designed to process rapidly and continuously 9½" or 9 Photo #6 -- Photographic Paper Chopper, Model # 2, Vectron The photographic paper chopper, model # 2, is manufactured by Vectron of Massachusetts. |
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| 2nd Military Intelligence Battalion (Aerial Exploitation) | |||||||||||||||||
| 19.. - 19.. | |||||||||||||||||
2nd MI Battalion (AE) DI |
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| (Source: George "Pat" Riggs) | |||||||||||||||||
I was assigned to the 2d MI Bn (Aerial Exploitation) from 1978-1982. The unit was basically a Corps-level unit that was operating as an Echelons Above Corps (EAC) role as it was the only unit in USAREUR with aerial exploitation assets. The 2d MI was assigned to the 66th MI Group (Intelligence & Security) (Provisional), an INSCOM unit. To further complicate things, we wore the 7th Army left shoulder patch, which the rest of the 66th wore the INSCOM patch. And, in the event of war, we chopped to CENTAG. A nice, clean chain of command… It appears that the 2d MI could trace its lineage back to the Seventh Army Reconnaissance Support Company that was originally stationed at Kapaun Barracks in Kaiserslautern. When Kapaun Barracks was transferred to the Air Force during Operation Creek Swap in the mid 1970’s, I believe the unit was temporarily moved to the Muenchweiler Army Hospital, just east of Pirmasens. (There was probably some violation of the Geneva Convention to have an MI unit in a hospital, which I think wasn’t active but a contingency hospital, but I don’t know the particulars of that…) Somewhere along the way the battalion was re-designated to be the 2 nd MI Bn (Aerial Reconnaissance and Surveillance) or 2nd MIBARS. In 1976 or 1977 towards the end of my first tour in Germany, I interviewed with then-LTC Ted Cummings, the Battalion Commander, regarding branch transferring from ADA to MI. We met in the BN HQ at Muenchweiler. In the spring of 1978 2d MI had an HHC, and three companies. The Battalion HQ and HHC had moved from Muenchweiler to Husterhoeh Kaserne in Pirmasens and was located in Building 4607 (I think) on the east side of the kaserne. The three companies were the 73rd Combat Intelligence Company (Aerial Surveillance), the 330th Electronic Warfare Aviation Company (Forward) and the Combat Intelligence Company (Imagery Interpretation). The 73rd Combat Intelligence Company (Aerial Surveillance) was located at Stuttgart Army Airfield and shared runways with the Stuttgart civilian airport. They flew two variants of the Mohawk, the OV-1D and RV-1D. The OV-1D was equipped with various aerial camera systems taking both panchromatic and infra-red imagery. Additionally, it had the APPS-94 Side-Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR) system. The RV-1D was an Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) collector. Both the OV-1D and RV-1D flew Peacetime Aerial Reconnaissance Program (PARPRO) missions on the East German and Czech borders. The OV-1D missions were called “Lard Can” and the RV-1D’s missions were called “Carrot Rock” (I think). The 73d was commanded by a Major and had at about 300 soldiers assigned to it. It was a challenging command, flying time-sensitive PARPRO missions, exercise support for things like REFORGER, and providing aerial surveillance for a theater versus a single Corps AO. The 330th Electronic Warfare Aviation Company (Forward) was located in multiple sites, which made command and control for the Company Commander a real challenge. The flight line was at Ramstein Air Base on the south side of the runway. The barracks for the 330th were at Kleber Kaserne in Kaiserslautern. Finally, the Integrated Processing Facility (IPF), where the data from the company’s aircraft was downlinked for processing and analysis, was located at Gruenstadt, overlooking the Rhine Valley in an old Matador SSM site. The 330th’s commander spent a lot of time on the autobahn between Ramstein, Kaiserslautern and Gruenstadt… When I first arrived the 330th was flying RU-21 GUARDRAIL IIA aircraft (I think). Like the 73rd the 330 th flew a theater-level mission. Data from the aircraft was downlinked directly or via a second RU-21 to the IPF, where it was analyzed and distributed via terrestrial communications or uplinked back to the RU-21 for downlinks to Tactical Commanders’ Terminal (TCT) that were located with MI units in both V and VII Corps, as well with British forces in Northern Germany. This allowed the 330th to provide almost real-time COMINT data to supported units. The 330th was a large unit, also commanded by a Major. In 1978 we upgraded aircraft and sensors in both the 330th and the 73rd. The 330th went to GUARDRAIL V, which was a significantly improved airframe and collection capability. The 73rd received the OV-1D and RV-1D Mohawks with the APPS-94F SLAR and improved ELINT capability for the RV-1D. (The RV-1D was the only ELINT collector in theater that could collect and geolocate the GUN DISH radar in the Russian’s ZSU-23 AAA system – knowledge the Corps’ aviation units were very happy to have…) When the upgrade was complete, a combined PARPRO mission was flown on the East German border. The Russian response to these new sensors was “interesting” to say the least. We located lots of new Warsaw Pact elements who responded to these new sensors… The CBTI Co (II) was basically the old 2d MIBARS. There were four platoons and a company headquarters. (At one time the unit had a Delivery Platoon of U-21 aircraft for aerial delivery of photo reconnaissance products, but it stood down in 1979-80.) Two of the platoons and the company HQ were located at Zweibruecken Air Base with the USAFE 26th TRW and its two squadrons, the 38th TRS and the 17th TRS. (The 17th stood down in the late 1970’s). Another platoon was co-located with USAFE’s 497th Reconnaissance Technical Group at Schierstein (near Wiesbaden), also known as the European Special Activity Facility (ESAF) where they supported CREEK MISTY missions flying the Berlin Corridors, as well as national imagery exploitation. The final platoon was located at RAF Alconbury, UK and supported the 10th Reconnaissance Wing. Command and control for the CBTI Co (II) was a real challenge as the Platoon Commander (not Platoon Leader – Platoon Commander with UCMJ authority…) at ESAF was not rated by either the Company Commander or 2d MI Bn Commander. He was rated by the ESAF Commander (USAF 0-6) and senior rated by either the 66th MI Gp Commander or the USAREUR DCSINT. Lots of challenges there… The Platoon Commander at RAF Alconbury was rated by the CBTI Co (II) Commander, but due to the geographic separation from the rest of the company, he had UCMJ authority as well. I commanded the CBTI Co (II) from June of 1981 until October, 1982. This was a period when tactical reconnaissance was robust in USAFE. Zweibruecken AB was experimenting with data-linked side-looking airborne radar (SLAR), allowing for real-time exploitation of data in support of NATO forces using a variety of soft-copy systems such as Goodyear’s ABLE and Texas Instrument’s TIPI/MAGIIC/MAGIS. Reconnaissance Exploitation Reports (RECCEXREPs) could be generated much faster and push out to supported units. 2d MI also ran a unique intelligence support system for CENTAG and NORTHAG called the Tactical Aerial Reconnaissance Results Reporting System (TARRRS). TARRRS was activated for major exercises and consisted of landline links between different NATO recce elements and 2d MI HQ. A high-frequency radio-teletype (HF RATT) was the backup capability, but this was very slow and not too reliable. For exercises such as REFORGER, WINTEX, ABLE ARCHER and others, German, Belgium and occasionally French communications elements would converge at Husterhoeh Kaserne. RECCEXREPS from Zweibrucken, Alconbury, Stuttgart, and other NATO elements such as the French base near Strasbourg, would come in to 2d MI and then be pushed out to supporting units such as HQ CENTAG, V Corps, VII Corps, etc. As an example, a 38th TRS RECCEXREP supporting a German Corps could come from Zweibrucken to Pirmasens to the TARRRS Comm Center where it was routed to the German comms element deployed to Husterhoeh and then pushed to the German Corps. The TARRRS was an excellent example of multi-national use of intelligence assets. Even the French would occasionally participate in the TARRRS. By 1982 there was a push to provide both V and VII Corps with their own Aerial Exploitation capability. Additional Mohawk and GUARDRAIL assets were deployed in theater, and the 1st MI Bn (AE) was activated. (For details on this see the USAREUR Historian Web Page…) The CBTI Co (II) didn’t fit into the aerial exploitation TOE, so a decision was made to move it under the 502d MI Bn and 66 th MI Group. Each of the 4 platoon received new, separate numerical designations (the 581st, 582nd, 583rd and 584th MI Detachments) and reported directly to the 502nd, which had previously been a pure SIGINT unit. During the 1978-82 period the 2d MI Bn (AE) performed in a mission that it was not originally envisioned for, but did it in an amazing manner. It fielded state-of-the-art aerial reconnaissance and surveillance systems in the 73rd and 330th with minimal assistance from HQ USAREUR and the 66th MI. The 73rd and 330th continually flew PARPRO missions from the North Sea to the southeastern corner of Germany. The CBTI Co (II) fielded the Army’s first Mobile Army Ground Imagery Interpretation Center (MAGIIC). It flew Delivery Platoon Missions throughout Germany, the UK, Berlin, Italy and Spain. Finally, the 330th played a key role in the search for and release of then-BG Dozier when he was kidnapped in Italy by the Red Brigade. This was a huge battalion, somewhere in the neighborhood of 800-1000 soldiers scattered throughout Germany and the UK. It had superb leadership in LTC Gary Moore and his successor, LTC Jim Kollar. One General Officer and a disproportionate number of Colonels served as Captains and Majors in this Battalion. It truly was an outstanding unit that performed some very difficult missions in the height of the Cold War. |
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