Military Intel Final Exam

1. “Fortress Singapore” was the crown jewel of Great Britain’s defense network in the Pacific region at the time of the Japanese attack. TF

TRUE

2. After World War I, Japan’s steadily increasing naval power concerned both the United States and Great Britain. What was the name of the 1922 treaty that allowed for a 5:5:3 ratio of British, American, and Japanese warships and prohibited the fortification of islands in the Pacific (except for British-owned Singapore)?

Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 (5 Powers Treaty)

3. What were two natural resources produced by Malaya that the Japanese coveted? (Be sure to select both.)

d. Rubber e. Tin

4. In the 1920s, Great Britain (aided by Australia) formulated its Singapore Strategy, which involved building a huge naval base on the island of Singapore to protect British interests in the region. The Singapore Strategy assumed that any threats would come from land. TF

FALSE

5. As part of their Singapore Strategy, British strategists devised an integrated defense plan for Singapore and Malaya. In close consultation with the British Army, Great Britain’s Royal Air Force established airfields all over Malaya so they would be able to provide air support to British soldiers in the event Malaya was ever invaded. TF

FALSE

6. British intelligence did an exceptionally good job ensuring that Great Britain would not fall victim to a surprise Japanese attack on Malaya and Singapore. TF

FALSE

7. Which of the following Japanese tactics and techniques caught British defenders by surprise, and were successfully used to attack and defeat British forces in Malaya? (Be sure to select all those that apply.)

a. The Japanese effectively employed light tanks (which the British had mistakenly believed were unsuitable for the region) c. The Japanese used bicycles (the so-called “bicycle Blitzkrieg”) to quickly flank British defenders d. Japanese infantry used a “fishbone strategy” to rapidly flank defenders (A, C, D)

8. Prior to their invasion of Malaya, Japanese military intelligence was not nearly as capable or well resourced as British intelligence had been. TF

FALSE

9. Prior to the invasion of Malaya, Japanese military intelligence recruited Captain Patrick Heenan, a British Air Intelligence Liaison Officer (AILO) who was unpopular with fellow officers in his battalion. Heenan provided the Japanese with Malaya Command’s orders of battle and the types, dispersal locations and weapon states of every RAF aircraft on the peninsula, together with contingency battle plans. TF

TRUE

10. After World War II ended, the British discovered to their horror that the Japanese had seen all the most secret message traffic between Churchill and the War Cabinet in London and the Commander-in Chief in Singapore in 1941. This had occurred because a German surface raider, the Atlantis, had attacked a British merchant ship, the Automedon, in late 1940 and captured British maritime code books and classified documents that had been sent from London to Singapore. The Germans provided this intelligence to the Japanese, who incorporated it into their planning for the invasion of Malaya. TF

TRUE

11. Great Britain’s Singapore Strategy had originally envisioned British forces temporarily holding off an invasion force until the Royal Navy could send battleships to relieve them. Unfortunately for Singapore’s defenders, this provide to be a very flawed assumption because:

b. Japanese torpedo bombers sank the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, a battleship and a battle cruiser that Great Britain had sent to aid British defenders at Singapore

12. The Japanese managed to capture Malaya and Singapore because their 130,000 troops used unexpected tactics and techniques to defeat 35,000 British, Australian, and Indian defenders. TF

TRUE

13. Poor British military intelligence was a major factor contributing to the Japanese capture of Malaya and Singapore. TF

TRUE

14. Not only did the British fail to anticipate Japanese battlefield tactics in the battle for Malaya and Singapore, they were also hampered by cultural biases which resulted in them underestimating their enemy. TF

TRUE

15. One of the factors that contributed to the British failure to successfully defend Malaya and Singapore was a number of flawed assumptions about the Japanese and how they would fight. TF

TRUE

16. What was the name of the surprise American air raid on Japan on 18 April 1942 – just four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor – that is considered to be propaganda of the deed because it provided both a huge morale boost to Americans and a psychological blow to the Japanese?

The Doolittle Raid

17. One of the reasons why the Japanese decided to attack Midway was because Japan’s military commander, Admiral Yamamoto, realized that the American bombers who attacked Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagoya had taken off from Midway Island, 1,300 miles west and north of Hawaii. TF

TRUE

18. One of the factors contributing to the American military victory at Midway was the ability of military intelligence to break Japan’s Purple and JN-25 codes. TF

TRUE

19. U.S. Navy cryptologists were able to read Japanese message traffic, but they were uncertain as to where the Japanese planned to attack because the Japanese kept referring to their target as “AF.” In late May of 1942, just days before the battle, Navy cryptologists at Hypo arranged for forces on Midway to report (in the clear) that they had a shortage of fresh water. To Hypo’s delight, two days later the Japanese reported in code that ‘AF’ was short of water. As a result, thanks to SIGINT, the Americans then knew that “AF” was Midway. TF

TRUE

20. Thanks to successful SIGINT, Admiral Nimitz and his task force commanders went into the Battle of Midway with advance knowledge of Japanese objectives, the order of battle for both the Midway and Aleutian strike forces, the timetables for enemy attacks, and the axes of advance and planned routes. TF

TRUE

21. Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander of Japan’s Combined Fleet, had been one of the most vocal proponents of Japan going to war with the United States. He was so intent on going to war with the United States that Japanese army officers planned to kill him. TF

TRUE

22. The US Navy had been a battleship-centric force until Japanese aircraft sank or disabled eight American battleships at Pearl Harbor. The loss of so many US battleships to air attack, coupled with the recognition that warships were so vulnerable to air attack, prompted the US Navy to shift to being an aircraft carrier-centric force. TF

TRUE

23. Thanks to SIGINT, Admiral Nimitz knew the Japanese were going to attack Midway on 4 June and would conduct a diversionary attack on the Aleutian Islands on 3 June. What Nimitz did not know, however, was the location of the approaching Japanese fleet. Nimitz’ plan was to ambush the Japanese by conducting a surprise air attack on the Japanese aircraft carriers that he knew were approaching Midway. TF

TRUE

24. Flying at high altitude, American Dauntless dive bombers attacked the Japanese carriers first, but were encountered and shot down by Japanese Zero fighters before they could even drop their bombs. While the Japanese Zeroes were at high altitude fighting the Dauntless dive bombers, US torpedo planes approached the carriers at wave top level and dropped their torpedoes, which sank three Japanese carriers. TF

FALSE

25. SIGINT not only contributed to the successful outcome of the Battle of Midway, it also enabled the US military to decrypt a Japanese message stating where, when, and how Admiral Yamamoto would visit 4 Japanese troops in New Guinea. This knowledge enabled the US military to use long-range fighters to shoot down the transport aircraft carrying Admiral Yamamoto, killing him. TF

TRUE

26. In the Pacific theater of World War II, which intelligence collection discipline proved to be the most useful to the US Navy?

d. SIGINT

27. Stanley Johnston, a Chicago Tribune reporter embedded with the Navy at the Battle of Midway, sailed back to San Diego with survivors of the battle. In chatting with them, Johnston obtained classified information detailing how the US had used SIGINT to gain foreknowledge of Japanese forces and plans. The headlines that introduced the story in the Washington Times-Herald for 7 June 1942 revealed without a doubt that the author had been privy to secret material concerning Japanese intentions and strategy: ‘US KNEW ALL ABOUT JAP FLEET. GUESSED THERE WOULD BE A FEINT AT ONE BASE, REAL ATTACK AT ANOTHER.’ As a result of this news headline (and article), the Japanese changed the codes and ciphers used to encrypt their message traffic. TF

TRUE

28. Which Allied country provided the majority of soldiers that participated in the Dieppe raid of 19 August 1942?

c. Canada

29. Which of the following was not a factor contributing to the decision to launch a raid against Dieppe in 1942?

b. By mid-1942, the Western Allies had experienced an impressive string of victories against Nazi Germany.

30. One of the reasons for the successful landing at Dieppe was Lord Louis Mountbatten’s reliance on extensive intelligence collection and analysis prior to the raid. This, coupled with his close coordination with the British Chiefs of Staff, greatly contributed to the operation’s success. TF

FALSE

31. Lord Louis Mountbatten’s performance as a British naval officer during World War I, when he served as commander of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla, was so exceptional that in 1941, Winston Churchill hand picked Mountbatten to lead the Dieppe raid of 1942. TF

FALSE

32. One of the noteworthy aspects of the Dieppe raid was that it was the only military operation ever conducted by Great Britain during World War II that did not receive authorization from the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Not only had there been no authorization to conduct the Dieppe raid, Lord Louis Mountbatten knew it but conducted the operation anyway. Also, in preparing for the Dieppe raid, Mountbatten did not request any support from the major intelligence agencies like MI-6, the Secret Intelligence Service. TF

TRUE

33. Prior to the Dieppe raid, British intelligence failed to collect terrain intelligence on the rocky beach where Canadian tanks were expected to land and then cross into the town of Dieppe itself. British military planners used tourist postcards to assess the terrain. The attacking soldiers were surprised to discover that the round, baseball-sized rocks on Dieppe’s beach proved to be virtually impassable by armored and wheeled vehicles. On top of that, attacking a beach surrounded by cliffs gave dug-in German defenders a tactical advantage over the Canadian attackers. TF

TRUE

34. Poor intelligence collection significantly contributed to the disaster at Dieppe. The Dieppe raid sustained the heaviest casualties of any Allied attack in the Second World War. Of the 5,000 men who were in the force, 2,700 were killed, wounded or captured. As only 4,000 of the attackers got ashore, this meant a casualty rate of 60 per cent: worse even than that benchmark of loss, the first day of the Somme in 1916. Within just a few hours of landing on the French beach, almost a thousand Canadian soldiers died and twice that many were taken prisoner. TF

TRUE

35. Prior to the 1943 invasion of Sicily, British intelligence concocted an ingenious deception operation to fool the Nazis into thinking the next invasion would be conducted in Greece or Sardinia. A dead body would be ‘planted’ off the coast of Spain carrying secret documents which purported to reveal that the targets for the forthcoming invasion would be Greece and Sardinia, with Sicily only intended as a feint. To ensure that the Germans swallowed the deception, it was necessary to create a detailed false identity for the body, who in reality was a homeless laborer who had died after swallowing rat poison. The codename for this deception operation was:

b. Mincement

36. Prior to depositing “Major Martin” into the sea, the British had “trapped” some of his personal effects so that it would be clear to them whether the Spanish had done a forensic examination of the body and personal effects. When the Spanish returned the body to the British, an examination of the body revealed that the Spanish had, in fact, performed a forensic examination on him. Once back in London the letters “Major Martin” carried were examined and small clues showed that the letters had been taken out, using small steel rods on which the letters were rolled without breaking the envelopes. For the British, this was all important confirmation that their deception operation was likely going to be successful. In military deception, what is the term for this type of confirmation?

Confirmatory Indicator

37. What was the name of the elaborate deception campaign conducted by the Western Allies during World War II that fooled the Nazi high command into thinking the D-Day landing would be at Pas-de Calais, rather than at Normandy? This deception plan successfully convinced the Germans to divert their forces and resources away from the actual landing sites.

Operation Fortitude

38. Prior to the Normandy invasion, German aerial intelligence was fooled by Allied deception techniques that included creating a network of fake radio traffic, fielding decoy ships, deploying dummy landing craft, and building inflatable tanks and aircraft to create the illusion of a sizable military force. Double agents were used to relay false information about the planned invasion of Calais, reinforcing the German belief in its authenticity. TF

TRUE

39. What was the name of the American military intelligence operation at the end of World War II, primarily involving HUMINT and TECHINT, that was intended to obtain information about German secret weapons and advanced technology, and relocate former Nazi technologists, scientists, and engineers to the United States?

Operation Paperclip

40. What were US objectives in bringing Nazi wartime technology and scientists to the United States after World War II?

d. All of the above

41. What was the name of the former Nazi scientist (who held the rank of major in the SS) who worked at the V-2 rocket construction facility in Nordhausen and later became one of the architects of the Apollo space program that landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon in 1969?

Wernher von Braun

42. One of the strongest advocates for bringing former Nazi scientists to the United States after World War II was Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the former President, Franklin D. Roosevelt. TF

FALSE

43. The goal of Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat in launching the 1973 Yom Kippur War was to recapture all of the territory Egypt had lost to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, including the entire Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. Sadat was confident the Egyptian army could defeat the Israelis and achieve these objectives. TF

TRUE

44. Prior to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israeli military intelligence acted and thought in a dogmatic way, based on an analytical paradigm formulated over several years. This paradigm, later known as ‘the Conception,’ proved in hindsight to be flawed, even though it relied on high-quality and reliable information. TF

TRUE

45. Egyptian billionaire Ashraf Marwan was the son-in-law of former President Nasser and a close aide to President Anwar Sadat. In 1973, Marwan was also an Israeli human intelligence source living in London. On the afternoon of 4 October, close to two days before war started, Marwan called his Israeli case officer in London to briefly tell him that he wanted to meet the Mossad chief as soon as possible to discuss with him the issue of ‘a large-scale war’. When Zamir met him in London a day later at around 11:00 pm, Marwan informed him that war would break out the next evening. This warning enabled the Israelis to start mobilizing for war a few hours before it started, and thus avoid a complete surprise. TF

TRUE

46. What was the name of the Israeli government commission that investigated why the Egyptians had taken Israel by surprise, and who was responsible?

The Agranat Commission

47. Prior to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, there were multiple Israeli entities responsible for both collecting and analyzing intelligence. These included Israel’s diplomatic corps, the Mossad, and Israeli military intelligence. All three of these organizations provided Prime Minister Golda Meir with intelligence analysis. TF

TRUE

48. Major General Eli Zeira, the Director of Israeli Military Intelligence (AMAN), had wrongly believed Egypt and Syria would not attack (= “The Concept”). In the course of their investigation, the Agranat Commission found him negligent, and Zeira resigned. TF

TRUE

49. Which of the following factors contributed to the leadership of Israeli military intelligence mistakenly adhering to “The Concept?”

g. All of the above

50. North Korean leader Kim Il Sung consulted with Soviet leader Josef Stalin and with Communist China’s leader, Mao Zedong, prior to launching his invasion of South Korea in June 1950. Both Communist leaders approved his invasion plans. TF

TRUE

51. Mao Zedong and senior Chinese leaders simply could not accept the prospect of a unified, capitalist Korea right on their northeastern border. Therefore, even though China was an agrarian, impoverished country not yet entirely unified under the communists, and had been at war for almost two decades, Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist leadership decided they had no choice but to intervene and save the North Korean military from total destruction. TF

TRUE

52. CIA was established in 1947, and the first two National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) were written in 1950. The first NIE, dated 12 October 1950, was written in response to President Truman’s question as to whether or not the Chinese would militarily intervene in the Korean War. This NIE was remarkably accurate because it predicted that the Chinese would, in fact, militarily intervene and soon deploy large numbers of troops into North Korea. TF

FALSE

53. The second NIE, dated 8 November 1950, was intended to assess the number of Chinese troops then inside North Korea. This second NIE was extremely accurate because it correctly asserted there were 250,000 Chinese troops inside North Korea. TF

TRUE

54. The Chinese successfully moved four armies (~250,000 men) across the Yalu River and into North Korea over a five-day period. The Chinese military was well aware of United Nations’ intelligence capabilities, especially in terms of aerial reconnaissance (IMINT) and signal intelligence (SIGINT). As part of their deception plan, China did a number of things to conceal the fact that they were sneaking large numbers of troops into North Korea in the fall of 1950. Name three things the Chinese military did in support of this deception plan.

1. underwater bridges lowered at day and raised at night for troop movement

2. radio silence

3. hidden supply lines to hide large concentration/presence

55. In what year was the National Security Agency (NSA) created?

c. 1952

56. United Nations and United States intelligence failed to predict China’s massive military intervention in the Korean War due to which of the following reasons?

h. All of the above

57. What did the acronym USMLM stand for? USMLM was present in West Berlin and Potsdam, East Germany between 1946 and 1990.

United States Military Liaison Mission

58. The Huebner-Malinin Agreement of 1947 allowed for an equal number of liaison personnel from the Soviet Union and the United States to operate in the others’ respective zones in defeated Germany. How many U.S. military personnel did the Huebner-Malinin Agreement allow to be based at the USMLM house In Potsdam, East Germany at any one time?

b. 14

59. Both the USMLM and Army special forces soldiers assigned to Det A in West Berlin were clandestine HUMINT collection units. TF

TRUE

60. USMLM’s primary mission in East Germany was to collect actionable intelligence on Warsaw Pact equipment, tactics, operational tempo, and troop movements. They surveilled Soviet convoys and training exercises extensively, always on the lookout for a new type of issued equipment, vehicle configuration, or technological modification to the Soviet order of battle. Because this was a clandestine HUMINT activity, USMLM members always wore civilian clothes, drove nondescript East German vehicles, and attempted to blend in with the East German population as best they could. TF

TRUE

61. Maps used by USMLM teams traveling in East Germany had areas marked as “PRA.” What did the acronym PRA stand for?

Prohibited Reconnaissance Area

62. Just like USMLM personnel, Army special forces (SF) assigned to Detachment A and based in West Berlin also conducted clandestine HUMINT collection operations in East Germany. Army SF wore plain (civilian) clothes, wore their hair long, spoke German or another Eastern European language with native or near-native proficiency, and frequently snuck into East Berlin and East Germany to conduct reconnaissance and preparations in case World War III ever broke out. TF

TRUE

63. How many defense condition levels (DEFCON) are there?

C. 5

64. What was the name of the 1983 NATO military exercise that terrified the Soviets and led them to believe that NATO might be preparing to launch a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union?

d. ROYAL FLUSH 83

65. The NATO military exercise, conducted in November 1983, came on the heels of a series of stress inducing events that greatly increased tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union that year. Which of the following was not one of those events taking place earlier in 1983?

d. The invasion of Panama

66. What was the name of the KGB station chief in London who defected in place to the British and warned them that Soviet leaders assumed a US nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union was “in the works?”

c. Oleg Gordievsky

67. The primary purpose of the Able Archer 83 exercise was to test the command-and-control procedures for NATO’s nuclear forces in the event of a global crisis. Unlike previous wargames, however, Able Archer 83 featured new elements specifically meant to confuse and disorient the Soviets. It also simulated NATO going to DEFCON 1, a defensive readiness state that neither the United States nor NATO had ever gone to before. TF

TRUE

68. What were some of the analytic errors that both Western and Soviet military intelligence practitioners made about each other at the time of the Able Archer 83 exercise?

d. All of the above

69. During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), the United States secretly provided military intelligence to Iran in the hopes that it would enable Iran to defeat Iraq. TF

FALSE

70. After 9/11, the Bush administration was hyper-sensitive about foreign countries harboring or secretly supporting Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida. One of the reasons the United States went to war with Iraq was because of alleged links between Al Qaida and the Saddam Hussein regime: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld publicly asserted that the US had “bulletproof” evidence linking Saddam Hussein’s regime to the Al Qaida terrorist group. TF

FALSE

71. The October 2002 NIE on whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, based on extensive HUMINT, SIGINT, IMINT, and MASINT, definitively confirmed the Iraq possessed, and continued to develop, nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. TF

FALSE

72. What operational nickname did German intelligence give to Iraqi engineer Rafid Ahmed Alwan, who claimed to have worked in a mobile biological warfare lab in Iraq?

CURVEBALL

73. Which of the following was not a misstep committed by Ambassador Paul Bremer, who headed the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) after Saddam Hussein’s regime was overthrown in 2003?

b. Bremer refused to allow Iraqi Shia Muslims to vote in local or national elections.

74. The Iraqi insurgency came about because Iraqi Sunni Muslims, who had benefited under Saddam Hussein (who was himself Sunni Muslim), felt marginalized under the new Iraqi government that was dominated by Iraqi Shia Muslims. TF

TRUE

75. One of the military intelligence “lessons learned” from the Iraq War, as illustrated by the CURVEBALL case, was the criticality of corroborating human intelligence reporting. TF

TRUE