Rear Admiral Joseph Numa Wenger
June 7, 1901 – September 21, 1970
Rear Admiral Joseph Numa Wenger, USN (Ret.) died on September 21, 1970 in Jackson, New Hampshire. Interment with full military honors followed on 25 September at Arlington National Cemetery.
Joseph Numa Wenger was born in Patterson, Louisiana, on June, 7 1901. His family shortly thereafter moved to Washington, D.C., where he spent most of his youth. Appointed to the Naval Academy in 1919, he was graduated and commissioned in 1923. Advancing progressively in rank, he was promoted to Captain in 1943 and his nomination to the rank of Rear Admiral was confirmed by the Senate in 1951.
Beginning in 1924, his naval career was largely devoted to varied and challenging assignments in communications and electronics. In 1925, he became Communication Watch Officer on the staff of Commander Battleship Division. In 1931, while assigned to the Bureau of Engineering at the Navy Department, he made certain proposals which were instrumental to the development of radar. There followed a brief assignment to Europe after which he joined the staff of the Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet. He next returned to Washington in 1935 to become a Branch head in the Communications Division of the Navy Department. While there, he devised various cipher devices with a very high degree of cryptographic security which were adopted by the Navy.
With the outbreak of World War Two, his early training and experience in communications and data processing found him assigned as technical director to the naval communications organization. In July 1941, he reported for duty as Deputy Director in the Office of Naval Communications, Navy Department. He remained in this office throughout World War Two and until July 1949.
With the end of the war, Captain Wenger anticipated the loss to the Navy of the talented group of engineers and specialized communicators. By his efforts, several key persons agreed to remain for a time and maintain the continuity of the effort. Another long-term solution was to support the creation of a private corporation, Engineering Research Associates of St. Paul , Minnesota, which helped lay the foundation for the vast computer industry. In the late 1940s, he initiated a computer research project which became the first development that IBM undertook for the United States Government.
During the Korean hostilities, he served as vice director of the National Security Agency. President Eisenhower awarded him the National Security Medal in 1953. In 1956, he was appointed Director of Communications-Electronics for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and in 1957 he was designated Chairman and U.S. member of the Communications-Electronics Board, Standing Group NATO.
Following a period of hospitalization, he retired in February 1958. Even in retirement, however, he was called to serve as a member of the National Security Agency Scientific Advisory Board, Radio Corporation of America (RCA), the Syracuse University Research Corporation and C-E-I-R, Inc.
He pursued a keen interest in drawing, etching and watercolor throughout his life, illustrating numerous periodicals and several books in his youth. He held a monumental and startlingly beautiful one-man photographic exhibition at the Smithsonian Institute in 1934. He designed his own summer home in Jackson, New Hampshire, upon which he had just started construction when he suddenly died.
Source: NCVA/Echoes of our Past
30 January 2022 at 05:08
Wenger was instrumental in the removal of Rochefort from Hypo . Wenger lied about his involvement / spread false accusations against Rochefort . Wenger was two faced and a coward who helped screw over Commander Rochefort . I have no respect for Wenger nor his good old boy buddies – the Redmond Brothers and a few others … Rochefort was the absolute best intelligence officer in WW2 . No doubt with Rochefort out of Hypo , Americans died due to Rochefort’s absence .
Rochefort deserved the Medal of Honor . The Redmond brothers / Wenger deserved to be court martialed for their conspiracy to bring Rochefort down . In the end , Nimitz should have done more to protect Rochefort- even if that meant going straight to FDR , bypassing King . It sickens me as I learn the truth just how dishonest Wenger , Redmonds , Horn , Gogans were . A premeditated conspiracy against Rochefort due to their jealousy of Rochefort’s far superior ability is unacceptable and should not have gone unpunished by the Navy . These jackasses also attempted to bring down Ed Layton , Nimitz’s Intel officer . King is also to blame as he was hustled by the Redmonds and never sought the truth . Without Rochefort, there would have been no victory at Midway . Even after the victory at Midway , the Redmonds tried to steal the credit and convinced King that Rochefort deserved no medal . The entire bunch at OP20G who perpetrated these crimes against Rochefort were traitors to our country – history books should be amended to spell out the truth about them . These people have long since passed away – may the guilty get what they deserve when they stand before God to answer for their sins against Commander Joseph Rochefort ( a true American hero ).
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30 January 2022 at 05:17
To add : the 8th Commandment tells us : DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST THY NEIGHBOR .
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