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'·t_~) (1) (j;)j·{3) -50 USC 403 (b-) (3}.-P . L . 86-36

The Handy .. Dandy Field Site History: Fifty Years of Field Operations, 1945-1995

THOMAS R. JOHNSON

August 1995 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the e~d of World War II. It also marks th~·~ginningofmodern cryptologic field site operations. Now is a convenient time to look beck ~n.(1fty years of postwar geographic dispersal.

When ·wo.rld War II came to an end, Army and Navy cryptologists were spread out across the globe-in small, mobile organizations supporting fighting forces. They had a few fixed sites, most ~h~em in the United States, but the great bulk of their resources was in the mobile units.

Most of them went back .. ~.-..1Y.Waa-.i.lj1t...11i1.1K1....u1~11M..1o111&.1~11&.AY1IOl..ll~~-.u~1.1.11..a....-small residue of mobile teams:·

n t e ir orce cryp ogic organization, USAF Security Service, was created in 1948, it inherited three mobile Army Security Agency units but no fixed field sites. This is how the cryptologic business looked when, in 1948, the "Cold War" broke out.

When the Armed Forces Security Agency (the first American attempt at centralized cryptologic management) was formed in 1949, one of the first orders of business was to write a master plan for the expansion of field sites. This task was spurred by the outbreak of war in Korea the following year, and the early 1960s were characterized by the almost breathtaking expansion of StGINT field sites. By the end of the Korean War, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had endorsed a plan establishing the rmal level of collection positions at

\I_------The "era of expansion" (1948 through 1957; see char\ 1) had several unique

characteristics:

pproved for Release by l\JSA on 9-26-2012 FOIA Case # 51546

145 IIfttfB~! VIA eeMm• 811/dffft!ts BlftY

fhe opinions expressed in this arti cle are those of the author(s) and do not represent the offi cial opinion of NSA!CSS.

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HANDY-DANDY FrELDSITE HISTORY Sl!!ERii'°"

l. This was the "Golden Age of HF." The principal targets communicated mainly in high frequenc communications, althou h above HF was gradually coming into use.

2. The primary target was the Soviet Union. Others (Communist China, North Korea,

The h~_ady expansion years of the first decade peaked in the late Eisenhower administration. The austere military budgets of 1958-1960 resulted in a small decline in the number d( field sites, but the conflict in Southeast Asia brou ht this to an end. Site

r ered by a series o committees rom 1958 through 196 , di not ..... ~~~~~~~~· lead to W?- overall\reduction in field site resources. The extra resources were simply transferred to South~ast Asia to support the Vietnam conflict.

As American troo., :a left Southeast Asia be 'nnin in 1969 the SIGINT business be

The invasion, and the Iranian hostage crisis, .... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~--~ forced President Jimmy Carter to focus., increasingly on national security issues, and Reagan continued and accelerated the build:~P of defense resources.

The Reagan buildup did not lead to a~-.pverall increase in SIGINT field sites. The number stayed virtually stationary, even .,while the budgetary increases brought increasing sophistication to the field sites. (t .,~as the same set of field sites with more expensive toys. Overhead and COMSATcollection ~ere high-ticket items, and the sites that had collection assets in those areas underwent expa~sion. Classical HF sites did not grow.

The end of the Cold War, symbolized by the fall..of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the · : breakuo of the Soviet Union followinEr the 1991 couo:1 I

147 HAN OLE i IAC6iiilt4 l CHAlfif!M 8!1!(.t

\·Jo) ( 1 ) (ti-l.(3)-50 USC 403 (Bf t))- P . L. 86-36

\~~~:ID : 4~~~.:14 CRYPl'OLOGIC QUAR'IERL Y

\~~'~i~\ ~~~~~~ field site system as cryptologists came to know it has become a thlng of the past.

\. Chart Two tracks the field sites from 1945 through 1994. They are organized by ·Service, with Army first, then Navy, then Air Force, and finally units which do not fit n~·a~ly int.o any of the three "service" categories. (NSA field sites are in this group.) Witftip service, the units are listed by SIGINT Address (Sigad) in ascending order. Each Sigad 'i.1'. followed b a location, but locations are not necessaril ouped to ether. For instance\

\ This recap of cryptologic field sites since 1945 is a follow-on to an article published in \ pryptol.og for January-February 1977 bJ ! lt tr~-s ~e_ebt>:arid-f.fow'of" .. (b)(3)-P.L. 86-36

tf.S\ field sites since World War II, based on (~_Us .. hoped}·moie.complete information, u~a~d through 1994. I ~ime"perlod ended in 1976.) It is based on different criteria., however. Specifically, it includes only those sites that were assigned a COMINT mi~~ion\(or, since 1958, an ELINT mission) and steers clear of headquarters-only sites (thos~ th4.~ h d onl ·on, as opposed to collection, processing, and report~~ . N S Re resentative locations also do not appear: COMSEC-only sites have not en inc u ed, and purely tactical organizations have also been placed outside the sphere. (However, predsely what constitutes a "tactical" unit versus a "fixed site" has been rather murky at times, especially in the early years. And in war zones like Korea and Vietnam, everything could be, but was not, considered "tactical.") Beginning and end dates for units depend on complex {actors, and the mists of time have obscured, in many cases, information about when a unit actually began or ended its operationa1 mission (as opposed to orderly room {unctions). No two cryptologic veterans would ever agree on a final listing, and each would be able to produce evidence substantiating his or her case.

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USM-83 St. Lawrence ts .. Al.

l,JSM-604 Pleiku/Nha Trang, RVN

USM-62& Saigon. RVN

Arm Site•

66-72

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USM·7 Fairbanks.Al. 45-S) " •A I

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(54-70) USN-416 Marietta, Wn. ·-._

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USN-842 Udorn. Thai.

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USN·86'1 Sa11 Antonio. Tx. I f USA-28 Northeast C•pe, AL (51-67)

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Air Force Sites

60-73 USA-516 Eielro" AFB. ., I

USA-520 Macom AFB, Fl. 62-67 Homestead AFB, fl. I 68 •

USA-S308 Eielson, Arn. Al.

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HANDY-DANDY FIELD SITE HISl'ORY ""'EEIU!T

.'.11'0tJ8) Mr. Johnson is a senior historian . and chief of research and writing with

· .. : .. '· '· ·" ·. : =the Center for Cryptologic History. He .'. · ·.· "." ' ' .. • :· ":. ··· .: has had ·over thirty years of experience in

SIGINT, primarily in operational assignments. He began his service with

. : the Air Force in 1964 and from then until · his retirement in 1985 served in a variety

of SIGINT assignments around the world. · Since joining NSA in 1985. he has served '. alternately 851 a historian and in operational and foreign relations jobs. He earned a Ph.D. in American history fl'om the University of Maryland in 1975. He has taught history at Pennsylvania

'" . State University. University of Maryland. · · · and the U.S. Air Force Academy. Mr.

Johnson is a prior contributor to Cryptologic Quarterly and has also publis:hed historical articles in academic journals. He is a certified Collection Officer. ·

159 RANDLE V LA CO!VllMT e111rtfff81!!8 8Ws¥