High-Stakes Fox Hunting: The FCC’s Radio Intelligence Division in World War II
1 min read
Summary
In 1940, US President Franklin Roosevelt approved an emergency request from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for $1.6 million to fund a National Defense Operations section responsible for detecting and eliminating illegal transmissions originating from within the US, amid fears of foreign espionage over radio airwaves.
The group was headed by George Sterling, who drew on his amateur radio experience to rapidly assemble a network of skilled operators and a dozen primary stations, with a focus on shortwave transmissions, to protect America from foreign threats.
The network would eventually grow to more than 100 stations, using innovative equipment to detect illicit transmissions on a broad swath of the radio spectrum and then triangulate their source for further investigation.
About 80% of staff at the Radio Intelligence Division (RID) were amateur radio operators, who used their skills and know-how to good use by silencing the transmissions of 400 illegal stations and capturing some 200 suspected foreign spies, including identifying shipping executives who were supporting Nazi U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico and a major spy ring on Long Island, New York.
