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What kind of deal was it really?
Sifting through official radio equipment manifests, decoded messages, personal photos, letters home, and maps of France - I don’t think Abe could have envisioned all that came his way starting in November of 1944.
As the leader of SIAM Company 3151, Lt. Sacks had two jobs which overlapped in this one mission. His first was to enable the six radio ops, (all of them he called his boys), to use BC-342 and BC-312 receivers to listen to the traffic of their own soldiers in action. The SIAM Group #4 would monitor, annotate, filter, and relay the short range HF voice transmissions from the combat and reconnaissance forces on the front lines.
As developed and practiced by the British J Forces, and the U.S. Army in Sicily, the SIAM group moved the important information from the front lines quickly up to the division commanders. SIAM operators would monitor around the clock, and pass the raw reports to an officer like my dad. He would read, filter, and prioritize the “intercepted” messages. SIAM code clerks would then encrypt the re-organized traffic before sending it on up the command chain. All on the HF bands, all in CW. The speed and accuracy of these reports made an important strategic contribution to the U.S. war effort.
Sifting through official radio equipment manifests, decoded messages, personal photos, letters home, and maps of France - I don’t think Abe could have envisioned all that came his way starting in November of 1944.
As the leader of SIAM Company 3151, Lt. Sacks had two jobs which overlapped in this one mission. His first was to enable the six radio ops, (all of them he called his boys), to use BC-342 and BC-312 receivers to listen to the traffic of their own soldiers in action. The SIAM Group #4 would monitor, annotate, filter, and relay the short range HF voice transmissions from the combat and reconnaissance forces on the front lines.
As developed and practiced by the British J Forces, and the U.S. Army in Sicily, the SIAM group moved the important information from the front lines quickly up to the division commanders. SIAM operators would monitor around the clock, and pass the raw reports to an officer like my dad. He would read, filter, and prioritize the “intercepted” messages. SIAM code clerks would then encrypt the re-organized traffic before sending it on up the command chain. All on the HF bands, all in CW. The speed and accuracy of these reports made an important strategic contribution to the U.S. war effort.
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Early in his new job, in November 1944, Abe described his activities to his wife in a letter that surprisingly, was passed by the mail censors un-redacted:
101 Reports Come Into This Tent November 7, 1944 Dearest, We are setting in a warm tent, listening to the radio. Every five minutes we are told that the election return will be broadcast at 080400, so if we want to get up then, we can get the returns. I spoke too soon about the weather. It has been raining two nights and two days and no let up in sight. I never once loose thought of those poor boys up front "God bless them". They are doing a wonderful job. My job calls for me setting up by a radio waiting for reports from the lower units. In this role, I also have to "hob-knob" with the Liaison Officers to get whatever information I possibly can. Then there are 101 reports that come to this tent. From all of these sources, I have to filter these reports and determine whether any of the news I gather is of interest to higher headquarters. I then call the clerk who puts it in code and radios it to the Army. At present, I sleep in a building that has been pretty well shot up. It doesn't leak but it doesn't have any windows. At least it's dry.” Explaining another important aspect of Army life, Abe writes more, “Our mess is pretty nice. It cost us five dollars per month, but it's worth that a hundred-fold. The Mess Officer buys things (food), for us from the civilians. So, you can see, I don't have it too tough. This will be all for now. Remember me to everyone. Love always Abe” |