by Matt Zullo, CTICM(ret.)
2001 OTRG award winner
OTRG Historian and Author
As many of you likely know, I published a pair of books in 2020 about our very own “On-the-Roof Gang,” the US Navy’s cryptologic pioneers. Thanks to you, these books have sold well and have garnered some amazing reviews on many online retailer websites. Since then, I have continued my research into the group, finding new information and new photographs that are pertinent to the story. I am very excited to announce that I have published a Second Edition of both volumes of the books.
In 1982, an insurance agent with a fascination for naval history and Cold War strategy sat down to write a novel. He had no grand expectations—just a hope that maybe 5,000 readers would buy his book. That writer was Tom Clancy, and the manuscript was The Hunt for Red October.
Continue reading “Tom Clancy and The Hunt for Read October”
This photograph was taken in front of a captured Japanese Navy Communications facility. The U.S. Marines, 3rd Radio Intelligence Platoon took over the station and used as communications interception facility. Pictured are Marines and Navy Radio Intelligence personnel.
Continue reading “Navy Supplementary Radio Station, Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, circa 1944”
By Captain Tony Butera, U.S. Navy
January 2019 Proceedings Vol. 145/1/1,391
The Navy is adjusting to the return to great power competition but has not gone far enough culturally in shifting its priorities and budget to win the competition. In many ways, a mind-set that prioritizes hardware over software pervades. Twenty years ago, then-Captain James Stavridis warned that while the nation and its defense industry were preoccupied with the first revolution in military affairs, peer competitors would leapfrog over and “skim the cream” from our technological advances to achieve “regional information dominance.”1 From China contesting international norms at sea to Russia using information operations to help seize Ukrainian territory and vessels, this prediction has come to pass. Great power competition today involves a constant state of multi-domain warfare.
Continue reading “Navy Information Warfare Needs More Resources—and Command at Sea”
Quoting Captain Holmes again how the course of the War was changed the nature of our work:
“The virtual destruction of the Japanese Navy and the drastic reduction in the numbers of marus brought about changes in radio intelligence. It also forced the Japanese to suicide weapons of many varieties. Most effective were kamikazes which, in April and May 1945, took off from Kyushu in mass flights to attack U.S. ships in the vicinity of Okinawa. Kamikazes were the most serious threat the Navy faced during the war.”
By Captain Bray, Retired Intelligence Officer, December 2016 Proceedings Vol. 142/12/1,366
Summary:
Captain Bray argues that U.S. naval intelligence has been harmed by being subordinated to the Navy’s information warfare (IW) community. His central thesis is that intelligence is not warfare—it is a distinct, cognitive discipline that must remain operationally independent to preserve the integrity of intelligence assessments.
Station HYPO 