![]() Army aviation remained within the Signal Corps until 1918, when it became the Army Air Service. In 1908, the Wright brothers made test flights of the Army's first airplane built to Signal Corps' specifications. On August 1, 1907, an Aeronautical Division was established within the office of the Chief Signal Officer. Troops from Indiana and Kentucky made up this Division. Camp Zachary Taylor was where the 84th Division was trained during World war I. Shortly after the war, the Signal Corps constructed the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS), introducing the first wireless telegraph in the Western Hemisphere. In addition to visual signaling, including heliograph, the Corps supplied telephone and telegraph wire lines and cable communications, fostered the use of telephones in combat, employed combat photography, and renewed the use of balloons. The Signal Corps' role in the Spanish American War of 1898 and the subsequent Philippine Insurrection was on a grander scale than it had been in the Civil War. The weather bureau became part of the US Department of Agriculture in 1891, while the Corps retained responsibility for military meteorology. With the assistance of Lieutenant Adolphus Greely, Chief Signal Officer Brigadier General Albert James Myer, by the time of his death in 1880, commanded a weather service of international acclaim. In 1870, the Signal Corps established a congressionally mandated national weather service. Within 12 years, the Corps had constructed, and was maintaining and operating, some 4,000 miles of telegraph lines along the country's western frontier. The electric telegraph, in addition to visual signaling, became a Signal Corps responsibility in 1867. Even in the Civil War the wig-wag system, dependent upon line-of-sight, was waning in the face of the electric telegraph. Myer's Civil War innovations included an unsuccessful balloon experiment at First Bull Run and, in response to McClellan's desire for a Signal Corps field telegraph train, an electric telegraph in the form of the Beardslee magnetoelectric telegraph machine. Some 2,900 officers and enlisted men served, although not at any single time, in the Civil War Signal Corps. Until March 3, 1863, when Congress authorized a regular Signal Corps for the duration of the war, Myer was forced to rely on detailed personnel. Using flags for daytime signaling and a torch at night, wigwag was tested in Civil War combat in June 1861 to direct the fire of a harbor battery at Fort Wool against the Confederate positions opposite Fort Monroe. Major Myer first used his visual signaling system on active service in New Mexico during the 1860-1861 Navajo expedition. When the Army adopted his system on June 21, 1860, the Signal Corps was born with Myer as the first and only Signal Officer. He proposed that the Army use his visual communications system called "wig-wag," or "aerial telegraphy," while serving as a medical officer in Texas in 1856. Early history Ĭlick photo to enlarge for history of the wigwag.Īlbert James Myer, an Army doctor, was the first to conceive of the idea of a separate, trained professional military signal service. They integrate tactical, strategic and sustaining base communications, information processing and management systems into a seamless global information network that supports knowledge dominance for Army, joint and coalition operations. Signal forces plan, install, operate, and maintain voice and data communications networks that employ single and multi-channel satellite, tropospheric scatter, terrestrial microwave, switching, messaging, video-teleconferencing, visual information, and other related systems. Signal support encompasses all aspects of designing, installing, maintaining, and managing information networks to include communications links, computers, and other components of local and wide area networks. Signal support includes Network Operations (information assurance, information dissemination management, and network management) and management of the electromagnetic spectrum. The mission of the Signal Corps is to provide and manage communications and information systems support for the command and control of combined arms forces. 10 Commissioned Officer Functional Areas (FA).9 Commissioned Officer Areas of Concentration (AOC).8 Warrant Officer Military Occupational Specialties. ![]() 7 Enlisted Military Occupational Specialties (MOS).
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