ArmySignalOCS.com Information

The Company we are talking of, the 138th, was a classic radio intelligence company of the type one would have seen during the early WWII period. It was constituted on 7 Feb 1942, at Fort George Wright, near Spokane, Washington. Of interest to us is that it's first Officer, as well as nearly all of the Officers that eventually commanded it, were no more than lowly little Army Signal Corps 2nd Lieutenants at the time; most fresh out of Army Signal OCS, with no command experience to speak of. While newly formed, the 138th Signal Radio Intelligence Company went on to earn Campaign Streamers for its work in World War II. They included streamers for the Asiatic-Pacific Theater, New Guinea from 1943-1944, Leyte from 1944-1945, and Luzon during 1944-1945. It's very first Officer was 2nd Lieutenant Felix M. Marshall. A regular Army soldier of some thirteen years before coming to the 138th, he had served with the engineers in Panama for three years and received intensive training in communication in the Coast Artillery Corps. He gained his commission in the Signal Corps Reserve in 1941, prior to which he had been a radio operator in fixed stations and a member of combat crews in the Army Air Corps. This, the Department of War thought, qualified him to set up a radio intelligence company. Fortunately for Lieutenant Marshall, he didn't have to do it alone. On 1 May, 1942, only three months after he was assigned command of the then newly formed 138th, he found himself welcoming the first of many Army Signal OCS graduate helpers to come. This first to arrive was 2nd Lieutenant Harold G. Harbin , from Army Signal OCS Class 42-03. Having graduated from Signal OCS on February 27th, less than 3 months earlier, Harbin originally hailed from Arizona. His addition to the company proved critical, as although his time with the unit was to be short, during his time there he defined for Lt. Marshall the training programs the Company would need to set up if it was to bring its as yet mostly unassigned men up to speed. Training in a constituted field unit, you ask? Doesn't training come before you are assigned to your field unit and sent into combat?