The Battle of Enemy Equipment: A Story of ASF Enemy Equipment Intelligence Service Teams

This document was digitized by Jonathan Clemente who supplied it to Prof. Bolin. This document is Special Technical Bulletin No. 5, 13 March 1945, issued by the Office of the Director of Intelligence, Army Service Forces. The Enemy Equipment Intelligence Service Teams (EEIS) were personnel from the Army Technical Services – the Ordnance Department, Chemical Warfare Service, Quartermaster Corps, Signal Corps, Army Medical Department, and Transportation Corps – which were trained by the Army Service Forces to collect enemy equipment for use in the field and for evaluation in the field and in the continental United States. Actually the Army Service Forces was an organization which operated only in the United States. When EEIS teams were sent to the various theaters of war they were used in the manner the commander of the theater decided. The benefit of the ASF approach is that the EEIS team personnel provided knowledge of the importance of the importance of collecting enemy equipment, knowledge of best practices for doing that, and examples of the fruits of such activities. This bulletin gives examples of valuable enemy equipment captured, of use of enemy equipment in the field, and of exploitation of enemy equipment to improve US equipment. The bulletin was originally classified CONFIDENTIAL