PURPOSE OF A SIGINT COMPANY IN WWII
Information about the enemy's makeup and plans are always needed during war. Several types of intelligence gathering agencies are employed to gather this information. During World War Two [WWII] I was part of one of these units during the invasion and liberation of Europe. It was not a vehicle for generating exciting stories about spies or parachute drops behind enemy lines. This is the story of a secret army unit stationed close behind the front lines whose task was to monitor the identity, actions and location of enemy units facing us. This information along with intelligence from other sources helped our commanders make and carry out their strategies.
My unit was the 3250 Signal Service Co, the first of ten formed in 1944. We were attached to the 5th Corps of the 1st Army who led the Normandy invasion in June 1944. We were a 1st Army non-combat unit who landed on Omaha Beach on D+1. Our real function was as a Signal Radio Intelligence [SigInt] unit. We were stationed close to the front to pick up the low powered enemy radio traffic. We identified the enemy units by the their radio operators signature [hand] and salutation, located signal source with direction finders [D/F] and broke the low security German code used by front line units. This is called traffic analysis [T/A]. Radio traffic was all in Morse code.
The 3250th followed the 1st Army across France into Luxemburg and Belgium. We were located just north of the Bulge in December 1944 and then spent a quiet winter while the Germans were slowly pushed back to the Rhine. After the crossing of the Rhine in March we spent April following the Allies' drive across Germany so that on May 8 [V-E Day] we entered Czechoslovakia. We spent a delightful 6 weeks in Plzen waiting for the Russians to come, then to Bavaria where we started our long wait to get on a boat for home.
John Buzzell, T/4, 3250 Signal Service Co, April 1944-August 1945