Updating the XIII Corps SOP for Combat Operations (25 OCT 1944)

Official Statements

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “On Oct. 25, 1944, XIII Corps Chief of Staff Col. Craig Alderman directed his staff to issue a revised Standing Operating Procedure (SOP) for upcoming combat operations. The SOP outlined the operational and reporting requirements for the G-2 section, headed by Col. Thomas J. Wells. In late October, Maj. Gen. Alvan C. Gillem Jr., the corps commander, moved his headquarters forward from Brittany into Belgium and the Netherlands.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “As it rolled eastward, the staff transitioned from the administrative duties of staging divisions arriving in France to operational planning for a three-division offensive north of Aachen. Under the U.S. Ninth Army, Gillem and his corps were ordered to drive across the northern Rhineland to the Roer River. This mission required a staff capable of converting battlefield information into operational decisions, rather than just processing newly arriving formations. Consequently, Colonel Alderman recognized the value of updating the staff’s tactical SOP.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “This process likely helped refresh staff members’ knowledge of command arrangements, operational responsibilities, and reporting requirements. Colonel Wells, a 38-year-old infantryman, led the corps G-2 section. Unsurprisingly, the SOP established Wells’s section as the focal point for collecting, processing, and disseminating intelligence during combat operations. It required subordinate commands to provide timely, accurate, and operationally useful information regarding enemy activity, terrain hazards, prisoners of war, captured materiel, aerial reconnaissance, and rear-area threats. It also integrated intelligence reporting into the corps’ broader command-post and communications networks.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “Wells and his staff joined Gillem, Alderman, and the rest of the general staff in the corps’ forward echelon. This positioning reflected the operational role of intelligence: the G-2 section was expected to support immediate command decisions rather than simply compile retrospective data. While the SOP did not dictate report formats, it established a disciplined intelligence reporting cycle, running from 1200 to 1200 hours. Subordinate-unit periodic reports, supported by overlays and annexes, had to arrive at the corps headquarters by 1000 hours.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “Shorter intelligence summaries were required three times daily - at 0200, 1200, and 1800 hours. While routine reporting supported Wells’s regular analysis, the SOP also mandated the immediate reporting of information whose operational value would be lost through delay. Reports of first contact, new enemy identifications, and armored or airborne attacks were to be sent through intelligence channels “as obtained by the fastest available means.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “Flash warnings of attacks by aircraft, parachute troops, air-landing forces, or mechanized units were to be transmitted by the fastest means possible immediately after alerting endangered units. This system was designed to provide Gillem and his staff a current picture of enemy activity and emerging threats.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “For Wells’s G-2 section, the SOP established intelligence as a continuous combat-support function. The section managed all requests for aerial photography, which specified the target area, photographic type, scale or direction, number of prints, and requested delivery time. Lower-echelon units - regiments and separate battalions - were required to maintain observation teams to watch for likely airborne landing zones and armored avenues of approach. Units were also required to report minefields, prisoners, captured documents, and unfamiliar enemy equipment. The SOP laid out a substantial responsibility for Wells’s small section.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “Operating with only a handful of officers and enlisted personnel, his team was responsible for combat intelligence, order of battle, air liaison, counterintelligence, and intelligence dissemination. Fortunately, the section was reinforced by specialized Military Intelligence Service (MIS) teams. Within the headquarters, an order of battle team identified, tracked, and analyzed enemy military units. Working outside the headquarters, prisoner-of-war interrogation teams questioned captives; military intelligence interpreters processed captured documents and maps; and photo-interpretation teams extracted usable intelligence from aerial imagery.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “These specialists enabled the core G-2 staff to convert raw data into a meaningful intelligence picture for commanders and subordinate units. By establishing disciplined routine reporting, immediate warning procedures, and specialized support, Wells’s G-2 section helped prepare the corps for its Rhineland campaign and subsequent drive across Germany in 1945. Gillem’s and his divisional commanders’ ability to effectively direct these successive campaigns rested largely on this capacity to collect, evaluate, and distribute intelligence fast enough to support dynamic combat operations.”

• U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, November 13: “Article by Michael E. Bigelow, INSCOM Command Historian. New issues of This Week in MI History are published each week. To report story errors, ask questions, request previous articles, or be added to our distribution list, please contact: TR-ICoE-Command-Historian@army.mil.”