Signal Corps ( United States Army ) The United States Army Signal Corps develops , tests , provides , and manages communications and information systems support for the command and control of combined arms forces . It was established in 1860 , the brainchild of United States Army Major Albert J . Myer , and has had an important role from the American Civil War through the current day . Over its history , it had the initial responsibility for a number of functions and new technologies that are currently managed by other organizations , including military intelligence , weather forecasting , and aviation . Mission statement . Support for the command and control of combined arms forces . Signal support includes Network Operations ( information assurance , information dissemination management , and network management ) and management of the electromagnetic spectrum . Signal support encompasses all aspects of designing , installing , data communications networks that employ single and multi - channel satellite , tropospheric scatter , terrestrial microwave , switching , messaging , video - teleconferencing , visual information , and other related systems . They integrate tactical , strategic and sustaining base communications , information processing and management systems into a seamless global information network that supports knowledge dominance for Army , joint and coalition operations . Early history . While serving as a medical officer in Texas in 1856 , Albert James Myer proposed that the Army use his visual communications system called " wig - wag " , or " aerial telegraphy " . When the Army adopted his system on June 21 , 1860 , the Signal Corps was born with Myer as the first and only Signal Officer . Major Myer first used his visual signaling system on active service in New Mexico during the early 1860 ' s Navajo expedition . Using flags for daytime signaling and a torch at night , wigwag was tested in Civil War combat in June 1861 to direct the fire of a harbor battery at Fort Wool against the Confederate positions opposite Fort Monroe . For nearly three years , Myer was forced to rely on detailed personnel , although he envisioned a separate , trained professional military signal service . Myer ' s vision came true on March 3 , 1863 , when Congress authorized a regular Signal Corps for the duration of the war . Some 2 , 900 officers and enlisted men served , although not at any single time , in the Civil War Signal Corps . Myer ' s Civil War innovations included an unsuccessful balloon experiment at First Bull Run , and , in response to McClellan ' s desire for a Signal Corps field telegraph train , an electric telegraph in the form of the Beardslee magnetoelectric telegraph machine . Even in the Civil War , the wigwag system , restricted to line - of - sight communications , was waning in the face of the electric telegraph . Initially , Myer used his office downtown in Washington , D . C . to house the Signal Corps School . When it was found to need additional space , he sought out other locations . First came Fort Greble , one of the Defenses of Washington during the Civil War , and when that proved inadequate , Myer chose Fort Whipple , on Arlington Heights overlooking the National Capital . The size and location were outstanding . The school remained there for over 20 years and ultimately was renamed Fort Myer . The electric telegraph , in addition to visual signaling , became a Signal Corps responsibility in 1867 . Within 12 years , the Corps had constructed , and was maintaining and operating , some 4 , 000 miles of telegraph lines along the country ' s western frontier . In 1870 , the Signal Corps established a congressionally mandated national weather service . Within a decade , with the assistance of Lieutenant Adolphus Greely , Myer commanded a weather service of international acclaim . Myer died in 1880 , having attained the rank of brigadier general and the title of Chief Signal Officer . The weather bureau became part of the U . S . Department of Agriculture in 1891 , while the Corps retained responsibility for military meteorology . The Signal Corps ' role in the Spanish American War of 1898 and the subsequent Philippine Insurrection was on a grander scale than it had been in the Civil War . In addition to visual signaling , including heliograph , the Corps supplied telephone and telegraph wire lines and cable communications , fostered the use of telephones in combat , employed combat photography , and renewed the use of balloons . Shortly after the war , the Signal Corps constructed the Washington - Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System ( WAMCATS ) also known as the Alaska Communications System ( ACS ) , introducing the first wireless telegraph in the Western Hemisphere . World War I . " For more details on this topic , see Aeronautical Division , U . S . Signal Corps and Aviation Section , U . S . Signal Corps " On 1 August 1907 , an Aeronautical Division was established within the Office of the Chief Signal Officer ( OCSO ) . In 1908 , the Wright brothers made test flights of the Army ' s first airplane built to Signal Corps ' specifications . Reflecting the need for an official pilot rating , War Department Bulletin No . 2 , released on 24 February 1911 , established a “ Military Aviator ” rating . Army aviation remained within the Signal Corps until 1918 , when it became the Army Air Service . The Signal Corps lost no time in meeting the challenges of World War I . Chief Signal Officer Ryan Adam Squier worked closely with private industry to perfect radio tubes while creating a major signal laboratory at Camp Alfred Vail ( Fort Monmouth ) . Early radiotelephones developed by the Signal Corps were introduced into the European theater in 1918 . While the new American voice radios were superior to the radiotelegraph sets , telephone and telegraph remained the major technology of World War I . A pioneer in radar , Colonel William Blair , director of the Signal Corps laboratories at Fort Monmouth , patented the first Army radar demonstrated in May 1937 . Even before the United States entered World War II , mass production of two radar sets , the SCR - 268 and the SCR - 270 , had begun . Along with the Signal Corps ' tactical FM radio , also developed in the 1930s , radar was the most important communications development of World War II . During World War I women switchboard operators , AKA " Hello Girls " , were sworn into the U . S . Army Signal Corps . Despite the fact that they wore U . S . Army Uniforms and were subject to Army Regulations ( Chief Operator Grace Banker received the Distinguished Service Medal ) , they were not given honorable discharges but were considered " civilians " employed by the military , because Army Regulations specified the male gender . Not until 1978 — the 60th anniversary of the end of World War I — did Congress approve Veteran Status / Honorable discharges for the remaining " Hello Girls " . World War II . When the War Department was reorganized on March 9 , 1942 , the Signal Corps became one of the technical services in the Services of Supply ( later Army Service Forces ) . Its organized components served both the Army Ground Forces and the Army Air Forces . The Army Chief Signal Officer ( CSO ) was responsible for establishing and maintaining communications service schools for officers and enlisted soldiers , ranging in qualifications from those holding doctorates to functional illiterates . The single pre - war Signal training site was Fort Monmouth , New Jersey . To keep up with the demand for more signalleers , the CSO opened more training facilities : Camp Crowder , Missouri ; Camp Kohler , California ; and Camp Murphy , Florida . The Eastern Signal Corps Training Center at Fort Monmouth consisted of an officers ' school , an officer candidate school , an enlisted school and a basic training center at subpost Camp Wood . The officer candidate school operated from 1941 to 1946 and graduated 21 , 033 Signal Corps second lieutenants . The term " RADAR " was coined by the Navy in 1940 and agreed to by the Army in 1941 . The first Signal Corps Field Manual on Aircraft Warning Service defined RADAR as " a term used to designate radio sets SCR ( Signal Corps Radio ) - 268 and SCR - 270 and similar equipment " . The SCR - 268 and 270 were not radios at all , but were designed as such to keep their actual function secret . Although important offensive applications have since been developed , radar emerged historically from the defensive need to counter the possibility of massive aerial bombardment . In 1941 , the laboratories at Fort Monmouth developed the SCR - 300 , the first FM backpack radio . Its pioneering frequency modulation circuits provided front - line troops with reliable , static - free communications . The labs also fielded multichannel FM radio relay sets ( e . g . , AN / TRC - 1 ) in the European Theater of Operations as early as 1943 . Multichannel radio broadcasting allowed several channels of communications to be broadcast over a single radio signal , increasing security and range and relieving frequency spectrum crowding . FM radio relay and radar are typically rated among the four of five " weapon systems " that made a difference in World War II . In December 1942 , the War Department directed the Signal Corps General Development Laboratories and the Camp Evans Signal Lab to combine into the Signal Corps Ground Service ( SCGS ) with headquarters at Bradley Beach , New Jersey ( Hotel Grossman ) . The Department also directed the Signal Corps Ground Service to cut total military and civilian personnel from 14 , 518 military and civilian personnel to 8 , 879 by August 1943 . In June 1944 , “ Signees ” , former Italian prisoners of war , arrived at Fort Monmouth to perform housekeeping duties . A lieutenant colonel and 500 enlisted men became hospital , mess , and repair shop attendants , relieving American soldiers from these duties . One of the more unusual units of the Signal Corps were the Joint Assault Signals Companies ( JASCOs ) . These companies were Signal Corps units that were made up of several hundred Army , Air Corps , and United States Navy communications specialists specially trained to link land , sea and air operational elements . They saw combat throughout the Pacific and European theaters during World War II in late 1943 . JASCOs were much larger than normal signal companies . The Joint Assault Signals Companies were the predecessor to the Air - Naval Gunfire Liaison Company that exists today . JASCOs represented but one of many unprecedented Signal Corps ' activities in the Pacific theater . Shipboard fighting was a new kind of combat for Signal Corps soldiers . Army communicators sometimes plied their trade aboard Navy and civilian ships . Signal Corps personnel also served on Army communications ships . In particular the Southwest Pacific Area ( SWPA ) formed a fleet , unofficially known as the " Catboat Flotilla " and formally as the CP fleet that served as command and communication vessels during amphibious operations , starting with two Australian schooners " Harold " and " Argosy Lemal " acquired by the Army and converted during the first half of 1943 by Australian firms into communications ships with AWA radio sets built by Amalgamated Wireless of Australia installed . These initial vessels were joined by " Geoanna " , " Volador " and later by a more capable fleet as described in " The Signal Corps : The Outcome ( Mid - 1943 Through 1945 ) " : The first task was to obtain ships more suitable than the Harold or the Argosy . Such a ship was the freighterpassenger , FP - 47 , acquired by Signal Corps in March 1944 , at Sydney . The Army had built her in the United States in 1942 , a sturdy , wooden , diesel - driven vessel only 114 feet long , but broad , of 370 tons , intended for use in the Aleutians . Instead she had sailed to Australia as a tug . The Signal Corps fitted her with Australian transmitters and receivers , also with an SCR - 300 walkietalkie , two SCR - 808 ' s , and an SCR - 608 , plus power equipment , antennas , and , finally , quarters for the Signal Corps operators . The Australian sets were intended for long - range CW signals operating in the high frequencies ; the SCR ' s were short - range VHF FM radios for use in the fleet net and for ship - toshore channels . Armed with antiaircraft weapons and machine guns ( served by 12 enlisted men of the Army ship and gun crews ) , navigated by a crew of 6 Army Transport Service officers and the 12 men already mentioned , the FP - 47 was ready for service in June . Her Signal Corps complement consisted of one officer and 12 men . The facilities of FP - 47 were needed immediately at Hollandia to supplement the heavily loaded signal nets that could hardly carry the message burden imposed by the invasion and the subsequent build - up there of a great base . Arriving on 25 June , she anchored offshore and ran cables to the message centers on land . Her powerful transmitters opened new channels to SWPA headquarters in Brisbane and to the advance headquarters still at Port Moresby . At Hollandia , and at Biak , to which the FP - 47 moved early in September , this one ship handled an average of 7 , 000 to 11 , 000 code groups a day . Many film industry personalities served in the Signal Corps , including Tony Randall , the actor , and Jean Shepherd , radio storyteller , author and narrator of " A Christmas Story " . In 1942 General George C . Marshall ordered the creation of the Army Pictorial Service ( APS ) to produce motion pictures for the training , indoctrination , and entertainment of the American forces and their Allies . The APS took over Kaufman Astoria Studios in 1942 and produced over 2 , 500 films during the war with over 1 , 000 redubbed in other languages . The Army left Astoria studios and film production in 1971 . Julius Rosenberg worked for the Signal Corps Labs from 1940 to 1945 . He was dismissed early in 1945 when it was learned he had been a member of the Communist Party USA secret apparatus , and had passed to the Soviet Union the secret of the proximity fuze . Cold War . The Signal Corps ' Project Diana , in 1946 , successfully bounced radar signals off the moon , paving the way for space communications . In 1948 researchers at Fort Monmouth grew the first synthetically produced large quartz crystals . The crystals were able to be used in the manufacture of electronic components , and made the United States largely independent of foreign imports for this critical mineral . In 1949 the first auto - assembly of printed circuits was invented . A technique for assembling electronic parts on a printed circuit board , developed by Fort Monmouth engineers , pioneered the development and fabrication of miniature circuits for both military and civilian use . Although they did not invent the transistor , Fort Monmouth scientists were among the first to recognize its importance , particularly in military applications , and did pioneer significant improvements in its composition and production . Everything was to change as world tensions increased with the Cold War and the Berlin Airlift . To sustain the Army ' s worldwide commitments , it again became necessary to enlarge the capacity of every activity on - post . In June 1950 , with the onset of the Korean War , President Harry S . Truman quickly received the necessary authorization to call the National Guard and Organized Reserves to 21 months of active duty . He also signed a bill extending the Selective Service Act until 9 July 1951 . The Officer Candidate School was reestablished . The fighting in Korea brought to light the need for new techniques in the conduct of modern warfare . The use of mortars by the enemy , and the resultant need to quickly locate and destroy the mortar sites resulted in development of the Mortar - Radar Locator AN / MPQ - 3 and AN / MPQ - 10 . The Communications Electronics Research and Development Engineering Center , better known as the Albert J . Myer Center , or simply , the Hexagon . Korea ' s terrain and road nets , along with the distance and speed with which communications were forced to travel , limited the use of wire . The Signal Corps ' VHF radio became the " backbone " of tactical communications throughout the war . The development of new equipment , however , placed requirements on the Signal Corps to provide increased numbers of trained electronics personnel to work in the fire control and guided missile s firing battery systems . To meet this need , Signal Corps Training Units — the 9614th and 9615th — were established at Aberdeen , Maryland and Redstone Arsenal in Alabama . These units provided instruction on electronics equipment used in the anti - aircraft artillery and guided missile firing systems . Following the arrest of the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1950 , two former Fort Monmouth scientists , Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant , defected to the Soviet Union . On 31 August 1953 , having received word of possible subversive activities from Fort Monmouth ' s commanding general , Kirke B . Lawton , the Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations ( PSI ) , Senator Joseph McCarthy , suspected a spy ring still existed in the Signal Corps labs . At first , McCarthy conducted his hearings behind closed doors , but opened them to the public on 24 November 1953 . Extensive Congressional hearing s were continued in 1955 under the chairmanship of Senator John McClellan of Arkansas . In the 1950s the Army Pictorial Service produced a series of television programs called " The Big Picture " that were often aired on American television . The last episode was produced in 1971 . On 18 December 1958 , with Air Force assistance , the Signal Corps launched its first communications satellite , Project SCORE , demonstrating the feasibility of worldwide communications in delayed and real - time mode by means of relatively simple active satellite relays . The Vietnam War ' s requirement for high - quality telephone and message circuits led to the Signal Corps ' deployment of tropospheric - scatter radio links that could provide many circuits between locations more than 200 miles apart . Other developments included the SYNCOM satellite communications service , and a commercial fixed - station system known as the Integrated Wideband Communications System , the Southeast Asia link in the Defense Communications System . Korean War and Vietnam War . During the Korean War and Vietnam War the Signal Corps operated Officer Candidate Schools initially at Fort Monmouth in 1950 – 1953 , graduating 1 , 234 officers , and at Fort Gordon in 1965 – 1968 , which produced 2 , 213 signal officers . ( The World War II Signal OCS program at Fort Monmouth , from 1941 – 1946 graduated 21 , 033 Signal Corps Officers . ) Modern warfare utilizes three main sorts of Signal soldiers . Some are assigned to specific military bases ( " Base Ops " ) , and they are charged with installation , operation and maintenance of the base communications infrastructure along with hired civilian contracted companies . Others are members of non - Signal Army units , providing communications capability for those with other jobs to accomplish ( e . g . infantry , medical , armor , etc . ) in much the same way as , say , the unit supply sections , unit clerks , or chemical specialists . The third major sort of Signaleer is one assigned to a Signal unit . That is to say , a unit whose only mission is to provide communications links between the Army units in their area of operations and other signal nodes in further areas served by other Signal units . Sending radio signals across the vast Pacific Ocean had always been sketchy and unreliable . In August 1964 , radio communications across the sea were given a huge boost in quality : The first satellite terminal ever installed in a combat zone was installed in Ba Queo , near Saigon , led by Warrant Officer Jack Inman . This enabled trustworthy communications to Hawaii , and thereby to Washington , D . C . From north to south , communicating across the varied landscapes of Vietnam presented a variety of challenges , from mountains to jungle . The answer came by utilizing the technology of " troposcatter " . A radio signal beamed up into the atmosphere is " bounced " back down to Earth with astonishingly good results , bypassing debilitating terrain . The Army had little experience with this technology , so they contracted the development of the systems to Page Engineering . In January 1962 , Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara approved the system of troposcatter units under the operational name of BACKPORCH . The escalation of the number of troops in the Vietnam War caused an increasing need for more communications infrastructure . In the spring of 1966 the assorted Signal units were reassigned to the newly formed 1st Signal Brigade . By the close of 1968 this brigade consisted of six Signal groups , and 22 Signal battalions — roughly 23 , 000 soldiers . One of the very first Vietnam War Casualties was SP4 James Thomas Davis , a radio operator . Post Vietnam and Gulf War . A major program in 1988 was the initial production and deployment phase of the mobile - subscriber equipment system ( MSE ) . The MSE system called for setting up the equivalent of a mobile telephone network on a battlefield , allowing a commander or Tactical Operations Center ( TOC ) to connect mobile telephones and fax machines in vehicles with each other , sending and receiving secure information . Talking through signal nodes , MSE established a seamless connection from the battlefield even back to commercial telephone lines . Significant to the Signal soldiers , MSE was fielded on the backs of Humvee , rather than on the larger , less - mobile M35 2 - 1 / 2 ton cargo truck s — the " deuce and a half " . By the 1990s , most Army units had replaced their older VRC - 12 series FM radios for the new SINCGARS ( " SINgle - Channel Ground - Air Radio Systems " ) family of equipment . Rather than sending a signal along one signal frequency , the SINCGARS radios sent its signals across many frequencies , " hopping " from one frequency to another at lightning speed . This allowed many channels of talk to share an already - crowded frequency spectrum . Later generations of these radios combined the communications security ( COMSEC ) encryption devices with the receiver / transmitter , making a single easier - to - program unit . Most significant , the SINCGARS radios could send and receive digital traffic with great fidelity . By the advent of Operation Desert Shield , all Army units were deployed using the most secure FM communications in the world . Of note for the Signaleer , the SINCGARS radios have a failure rate in extreme heat of once every 7 , 000 hours compared to the VRC - 12 series ' failure rate of 2 – 300 hours . Global War on Terror . Since 11 September 2001 the Signal Corps has been supporting the Global War on Terror in both Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom . The Signal Corps is currently fielding the Warfighter Information Network – Tactical ( WIN - T ) . It will eventually provide “ On - The - Move ” down to the Company level for Maneuver , Fires and Aviation Brigades , and will fully support the Future Combat Systems ( FCS ) program ; and also provide protected Satellite Communications “ On - The - Move ” capability against jamming , detection and intercept and will be aligned with the Telecommunications Satellite ( TSAT ) program . Military Occupational Specialties . Signal Corps military occupational specialties are : Notable members . Notable members of the Signal Corps include General of the Army ( later General of the Air Force ) Henry H . Arnold , Frank Capra , Frank Lautenberg , Tony Randall , Jean Shepherd , John C . Holmes , Julius Rosenberg , Darryl Zanuck , Samuel Alito , and Stan Lee .