Re: Strategic Command WWII: World At War Activation Code
Sacha Weakland
U.S. Strategic Command is one of eleven unified commands under the Department of Defense (DoD). Headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, USSTRATCOM is responsible for strategic deterrence, global strike, and operating the Defense Department's Global Information Grid. It also provides a host of capabilities to support the other combatant commands, including strategic warning; integrated missile defense; and global command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR).
Established Oct. 1, 2002, USSTRATCOM has made many contributions to the national defense. For example, it has provided intelligence, planning and cyber support to coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. It monitors orbiting satellites and space debris, allowing high-value spacecraft like the International Space Station to maneuver and avoid collision. It has fielded systems to provide limited protection against ballistic missile attack. In February 2008, it destroyed a satellite that was about to re-enter the earth's atmosphere. In 2011, it supported U.S. Africa Command's operations against Libya in a variety of ways, including long-range conventional strikes and ISR. Today's USSTRATCOM is the product of an evolution from a nuclear command to a strategic one in the broadest sense-from an organization prepared to employ thermonuclear weapons in a general war (which it existed to prevent) to a command that creates a variety of global strategic effects day to day in support of national objectives. Its rich history draws on important contributions from many different organizations stretching back to World War II.
On June 1, 1992, SAC and the JSTPS were replaced by a new unified command, USSTRATCOM. In addition to the dramatic changes in the global landscape associated with the end of the Cold War, changes in the structure of the DoD stemming from the 1986 "Goldwater-Nichols Act" led national leaders to favor a single command responsible for all strategic nuclear forces. The new command's principal mission was to deter military attack, especially nuclear attack, on the United States and its allies and, if deterrence failed, to employ nuclear forces.
A new attack led to further reorganization. A malicious code, which would allow an adversary to download critical defense information, spread across the DoD's classified and unclassified networks in 2008. As JTF-GNO synchronized efforts to disinfect and protect over 2.5 million computers in 3,500 DoD organizations spanning 99 countries, Defense Secretary Robert Gates endorsed the idea of a new sub-unified command under USSTRATCOM that would recombine offensive and defensive computer network operations. Established 21 May 2010, U.S. Cyber Command was fully operational on Oct. 31, 2010. JTF-GNO and JFCC-NW were disestablished.
French Resistance groups also developed an "under-ground railroad" system to smuggle downed Allied airmen back to Britain or the front lines. Using standardized coded messages, Allied servicemen were shuttled to various safe houses on route to their destination. Toward the end of the war, these same networks were used by Allied forces to send messages to various resistance groups throughout the countryside. Allied "Jedburg" teams, soldiers trained to aid the resistance, sabotage German supply lines, and unify the command of partisan groups, parachuted into France behind German lines. Individual Jedburg soldiers used the underground network to reach the towns or groups in which they were to operate. The two-way traffic of Allied servicemen in the "underground railroad" system facilitated communication not only with diverse resistance groups, but also with Allied command.
Jedburg groups also coordinated the procurement and allocation of radios to facilitate communication. While radios carried an increased risk of detection by occupation forces, they made mass communication over longer distance possible. Coded messages were transmitted nightly, both to Allied command and to various area partisans. Messages identified their recipients with a cryptonym and gave necessary instructions in coded messages. The codes were agreed upon in person, and then used in broadcasts to activate plans. When intercepted, the messages were easily identifiable as partisan transmissions, but their meanings were indecipherable. British radio, and the European underground radio, often rebroadcast Jedburg and other resistance messages. While this coding method was primitive, it required German forces to use spies instead of technology as primary means of breaking resistance group communications. Such missions were a costly drain on human intelligence resources, and carried a high level of risk.
The timing of the actual change of codes was exquisite. On the afternoon of June 25, Auchinleck made two decisions. The first was to fly to the battle headquarters at Mersa Matruh and dismiss the commander of the 8th Army, Neil Ritchie. In his place, Auchinleck himself took command in the field.
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