by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian

ARMY SECURITY AGENCY ACTIVATES GOODFELLOW DETACHMENT

On Mar. 25, 1966, the Army Security Agency Training Center and School (ASATC&S) activated a training detachment at Goodfellow Air Force Base near San Angelo, Texas. Nearly sixty years later, the unit—now a battalion—continues to provide critical cryptologic personnel to the U.S. Army.

In April 1952, the ASA School was established at Fort Devens, Massachusetts; it changed its designation to ASATC&S five years later. The school had responsibility for Army cryptologic, signals intelligence, and electronic warfare training. This included voice intercept training, but that early training was limited. After students completed their initial language training at the Defense Language Institute (DLI), they were typically assigned to their units for on-the-job training. As U.S. involvement accelerated in Vietnam, however, the ASA began diverting many DLI graduates to Two Rock Ranch Station in Petaluma, California, for a more intensive voice intercept training program specific to Vietnam. The training used the same equipment used in-country as well as traffic from actual operations and was taught by instructors with Vietnam experience. This allowed soldiers to be effective immediately once deployed to Vietnam, where little time was available for additional technical training.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force Security Service had begun training its own cryptologic skills—intercepting, translating, and analyzing messages—at Goodfellow Air Force Base in the late 1950s. In the mid-1960s, the National Security Agency gave Executive Agency responsibility for cryptologic analysis and reporting to the U.S. Air Force. This decision resulted in the consolidation of all the armed services’ cryptologic training at the Air Force’s school at Goodfellow Air Force Base. Because cryptologic personnel from all services were typically co-located in the field (albeit not conducting joint operations at that time), this decision to consolidate training was logical.

At Goodfellow, like in the field, however, the Army’s personnel required their own command and control, administration, and logistics. Consequently, on Mar. 25, 1966, Col. Kenneth R. Linder, the ASATC&S commander, activated the Goodfellow Detachment at the Texas installation, known unofficially as Fort Goodfellow to the Army. The detachment at that time consisted of one officer, one warrant officer, and twenty-three enlisted members.

In 1976, when the ASATC&S became a subordinate command of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School (USAICS) at Fort Huachuca, the school was renamed U.S. Army Intelligence School, Fort Devens (USAISD). The Goodfellow Detachment remained assigned to the Devens schoolhouse, but over the years, as the detachment assumed responsibility for additional courses, it grew to more than four hundred personnel. In June 1983, it was elevated to a provisional training battalion. On Oct. 5, 1983, it converted to permanent battalion status as the U.S. Army Training Battalion (USAITB).

At that time, the battalion’s students continued courses in voice intercept as well as signals intelligence (SIGINT) analysis, and additional skill training for cryptanalysis, enciphered communications analysis, transcription for Russian and Czech linguists, and familiarization of the “Streamliner” communications system for operator and maintenance personnel. Army students also had their own field training site, known as Camp Armydillo, and a joint Army-Air Force Mobile Training Team instructed signal search and development at sites within the United States and overseas.

In 1987, the USAITB became the 3d Battalion of the newly activated 112th MI Brigade headquartered at Fort Devens. It was redesignated the 344th MI Battalion in 1990. Three years later, when all training at Fort Devens moved to Fort Huachuca, the battalion was resubordinated to the 111th MI Brigade. Today, the battalion at Goodfellow continues to train the Army’s cryptologic soldiers in three Military Occupation Specialties: 35N SIGINT Analyst, 35P SIGINT Voice Collector, and 35S Signals Collector/Analyst.

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