The army behind the armyPowell, E. Alexander (Edward Alexander)
History
The army behind the army
Powell, E. Alexander (Edward Alexander)
United States. Army; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
It did not take the government long to realize that, if the cable and
postal censorships were to be made sufficiently water-tight to prevent
our military secrets leaking through to the enemy, it would be necessary
to reinforce them with a censorship of photographs and motion-picture
films. Accordingly, the Censorship Section of Military Intelligence was
charged, in addition to its numerous other duties, with the censorship
of all pictures taken by military photographers for the use of the
Committee on Public Information and for other publicity purposes, as
well as of those taken for commercial purposes by private concerns.
In order to keep our own people, as well as those of the Allied and
neutral countries, acquainted with the progress which the United States
was making in the business of war, scores of cameramen belonging to
the Photographic Section of the Signal Corps were sent out, at the
request of the Committee on Public Information, to take pictures at the
cantonments, training-camps, and munition factories in this country and
in the theatres of operations overseas. As, however, there were countless
details of our equipment, munitions, training methods, and the like
of which the enemy must be kept in ignorance, it was imperative that
all such pictures be carefully examined and passed upon before being
released for publication or exhibition. And, moreover, they must be
passed upon by men who were authorities on the various phases of the army
with which the pictures dealt. That it was a matter which could not be
left with safety to amateurs was emphasized by an incident which occurred
in October, 1918, when the great Allied offensive was at its height.
One Sunday morning the officers of the General Staff were astounded to
see, in the illustrated supplement of a New York newspaper, detailed
photographs of the new French howitzers, the very existence of which
up to that time had been one of the most carefully guarded secrets of
the Allies. The young officer who passed the pictures for publication
explained that, not being an artilleryman, the howitzers looked like
any other guns to him. A few weeks later the Staff was again surprised
and angered to see another secret—the small tanks which were being
manufactured in this country—revealed in the same paper. Here was another
case of an officer having passed a photograph dealing with a subject of
which he was ignorant. In order to prevent a repetition of such blunders,
the Censorship Section arranged to work in close co-operation with the
Chief Naval Censor and with experts in the offices of the Chief of Coast
Artillery, the Chief of Field Artillery, the Chief of Ordnance, the
Director of Military Aeronautics, the Bureau of Aircraft Production,
the quartermaster-general and the surgeon-general, these experts being
consulted in regard to all pictures relating to their respective arms
of the service. With their assistance a series of precedents was
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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