Intelligence Corps (United Kingdom)
The Intelligence Corps (Int Corps) is a corps of the British Army. It is responsible for gathering, analysing and disseminating military intelligence and also for counter-intelligence and security. The Director of the Intelligence Corps is a brigadier.
Intelligence Corps
1914–1929
19 July 1940 – present
7 Battalions
Int Corps
Manui Dat Cognitio Vires
Knowledge gives strength to the arm
Cypress green
"Rose & Laurel" (quick)
Purcell’s "Trumpet Tune and Ayre" (slow)
General Sir Nicholas Houghton
History[edit]
1814–1914[edit]
In the 19th century, British intelligence work was undertaken by the Intelligence Department of the War Office. An important figure was Sir Charles Wilson, a Royal Engineer who successfully pushed for reform of the War Office's treatment of topographical work.[1]
In the early 1900s intelligence gathering was becoming better understood, to the point where a counter-intelligence organisation (MI5) was formed by the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DoMI) under Captain (later Major-General) Vernon Kell; overseas intelligence gathering began in 1912 by MI6 under Commander (later Captain) Mansfield Smith-Cumming.[2]
1914–1929[edit]
Although the first proposals to create an intelligence corps came in 1905, the first Intelligence Corps was formed in August 1914 and originally included only officers and their servants. It left for France on 12 August 1914.[3] The Royal Flying Corps was formed to monitor the ground, and provided aerial photographs for the Corps to analyse.[4]
During the Irish War of Independence, Intelligence Corps operatives were used to monitor the Irish Republican Army. On Bloody Sunday (1920) 15 British Military Officers and civilians were shot and killed during multiple attacks in Dublin. Of the 15 killed six were Army Intelligence Officers, two were Courts Martial Officers, one was a senior Staff Officer serving with Irish Command (Brevet Lieut-Colonel Hugh Montgomery), three policemen (all former British military), two civilians (all former British military) and one local civilian.[5] Following the war the Intelligence Corps was gradually scaled down and disbanded entirely in 1929; intelligence matters were left to individual unit officers.[6][7][8]
Second World War[edit]
On 19 July 1940 a new Intelligence Corps was created by Army Order 112 and has existed since that time. The Army had been unprepared for collecting intelligence for deployment to France, and the only intelligence had been collected by Major Sir Gerald Templer. The Corps trained operatives to parachute at RAF Ringway; some of these were then dropped over France as part of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Intelligence Corps officers were involved in forming the highly-effective Long Range Desert Group, and Corps officer Lt Col Peter Clayton was one of the four founders of the Special Air Service (SAS). Around 40 per cent of British Army personnel at Bletchley Park were in the Intelligence Corps.[9]
The Combined Allied Intelligence Corps as it was known in Malta, began recruiting in 1940 following Italy’s entry into the war on the side of Germany.[10] Among its many responsibilities in the Mediterranean Theatre were debriefing and interrogation of high-ranking prisoners of war in East Africa following Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia (“Eldoret” P.O.W. Camp no. 365 being one example), counter-intelligence operations following Operation Husky the Allied invasion of Sicily in August 1943, and implementation of the Allied Screening Commission.[10] The Commission was established by Field-Marshal Sir Harold Alexander a few days after the fall of Rome in June 1944 to identify and reimburse Italian civilians who had assisted Allied escapees.[11]
Cold War[edit]
Throughout the Cold War, Intelligence Corps officers and NCOs (with changed insignia) were posted behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany, to join in the intelligence-gathering activities of the British Commanders'-in-Chief Mission to the Soviet Forces in Germany (Brixmis).[12]
Northern Ireland[edit]
Many members of the Intelligence Corps served in Northern Ireland during "the Troubles". Units such as the Military Reaction Force, Special Reconnaissance Unit, Force Research Unit and 14 Intelligence Company contained Corps soldiers and officers.[13]
Corps traditions[edit]
Intelligence Corps personnel wear a distinctive cypress green beret with a cap badge consisting of a union rose (a red rose with a white centre) between two laurel branches and surmounted by a crown. Their motto is Manui Dat Cognitio Vires ("Knowledge gives Strength to the Arm"). The corps' quick march is The Rose & Laurel while its slow march is Henry Purcell's Trumpet Tune & Ayre.[14]
Within the British Army, soldiers of the Intelligence Corps are often referred to as Green Slime, or sometimes simply 'Slime', due to the colour of their beret.[15][16][17]
Locations[edit]
Their headquarters, formerly at Maresfield, East Sussex, then Templer Barracks at Ashford, Kent, moved in 1997 to the former Royal Air Force station at Chicksands in Bedfordshire along with the Defence Intelligence and Security Centre (DISC).[14] DISC was renamed as Joint Intelligence Training Group in January 2015.[18]
The Intelligence Corps Museum was created in 1969,[19] and later renamed as the Military Intelligence Museum, now also at Chicksands. As a working military base, the museum can be visited by appointment only.[20]
All battalions of the Intelligence Corps fall under 1st Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Brigade of the 6th (UK) Division.[24] Below are the current units of the corps.[25][26]