In Scituate, Rhode Island, near the top of the 7th-highest peak in the state, the old Suddard Farm on Chopmist Hill (elevation 732) served as a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) intercept site.
The monitoring station was established in March 1941 and was the largest of 13 sites in the FCC nationwide network. The complex had 11 antennas, 80,000 feet of wire, a power-generating station and a six-foot barbed-wire fence.
The FCC’S Radio Intelligence Division (RID) and a COMINT mission in the early days of World War II and regularly intercepted German and Japanese traffic. The 40 radio operators assigned to Chopmist Hill reportedly ran the most effective site in the system, probably due to peculiarities of the terrain and atmospheric conditions. Among the targets monitored here were German weather reports and the transmission of German spies in North Africa and South America. It is said the coded messages from General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corp were intercepted here and relayed to the British.
The FCC, used to acting in a more public way than military intelligence units, did not impose the stringent handling requirements on cryptologic materials that the military did. The FCC even made a public information film about its successes in monitoring foreign communications. As a result, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent a memorandum to President Franklin Roosevelt in mid-1942 which asked that nonmilitary agencies be barred from engaging in foreign communications intelligence. Roosevelt agreed with the need to limit COMINT activities for security reasons, and sent a note to the Director of the Budget on July 8 ordering that funds be discontinued for cryptologic activities by the FCC, OSS, Director of Censorship, and any other federal agencies engaged in such work.
Chopmist Hill had another brush with history at the end of the war. In January 1946, a team inspecting locations under consideration for the headquarters of the United Nations visited two sites in Rhode Island; one was Chopmist Hill. While touring the Suddard house, the inspection team saw radio receivers marked “Madrid” and “Lisbon” and listened as Cairo and the BCC came in clearly. Although Dr. Stoyan Gavilovic of Yugoslavia, the head of the team, was impressed by the site, Chopmist Hill didn’t stand a chance against the prospective location on the East River in New York City.
The old Suddard Farm is now a private home. The blockhouse that housed the power generating station still stands as do many of the poles that held antenna wire.
Source: NSA.gov
FOIC Case #65566
31 March 2020 at 02:17
Although seldom recognized by historians, FCC’s Radio Intelligence Division played an important role in WWII SIGINT and counterintelligence efforts. Its Chief at the time, George Sterling W3DF, published a history of his work with RID in “The History of the Radio Intelligence Division Before and During World War II 1940–1945” More about Chopmist Hill at the Rhode Island Radio web site: http://www.61thriftpower.com/riradio/rid.shtml
You’ll find a pdf version of Sterling’s book at http://www.61thriftpower.com/riradio/pdf/ridhist.pdf
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31 March 2020 at 14:26
Although seldom recognized by historians, FCC’s Radio Intelligence Division played an important role in WWII SIGINT and counterintelligence efforts. Its Chief at the time, George Sterling W3DF, documented his work in “The History of the Radio Intelligence Division Before and During World War II 1940–1945”. A pdf version of Sterling’s book is available at http://www.61thriftpower.com/riradio/pdf/ridhist.pdf
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1 April 2020 at 18:05
Interesting article. The link to George Sterling’s book is also greatly appreciated.
While I know little of the FCC’s work with intercepts over the course of its history, the one interesting thing I do know is that James Lawrence Fly, Jr. graduated in the Naval Academy’s class of 1921. Still in the rank of ensign, Fly resigned his commission on 5 September 1923. (Source: Naval Academy’s Register of Alumni, 1845-1979, p. 212.) George Van Deurs, who later testified to the Admiral Thomas C. Hart Inquiry, see PHA26, p. 311, that he was the actual author of the “Martin-Bellinger estimate” (actual title: Joint Estimate Covering Joint Army and Navy Air Action in the Event of Sudden Hostile Action Against Oahu or Fleet Units in the Hawaiian Area of 31 March 1941), appears to have had a good working knowledge of ORANGE thinking that went into Hawaii Operation later in 1941.
As an aside, there is an interesting article titled Fortunate Blunder by Captain Robert C. Gillette, USN (Ret.) published on page 66 of the December 1997 issue of Naval Institute Proceedings. The USS Lexington’s CXAM radar, then Lt (junior grade) Gillette himself, Lieutenant Jerry O’Donnell and the ship’s lookouts saw a single engine carrier plane about 400 miles northwest of Oahu on Saturday, 6 December 1941. Lexington, like Enterprise that was returning from delivering aircraft to Wake Island, was on full alert. (While I’ve known of this Proceedings article since it was first published, I’ve only had Gillette’s oral history for less than 2 days.) In order to limit the length of this reply, I’ll close by saying that Captain Gillette’s statements raise some very interesting questions. This material does, however, support the conclusions that were sent out by Station HYPO over 5 days in the form of Time to Reexamine Pearl Harbor beginning on 7 December 2018.
The “work” I do on Pearl Harbor history is certainly THE most interesting work I’ve done in my life. Thank you, Mario, and thanks to everyone who works in communications intelligence for our Government. You folks are absolutely Tops!!
Andy McKane, Maunaloa, Molokai, Hawaii
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