WW2 Intelligence Corps Cap Badge

Guaranteed original. Complete & intact. This is an original Intelligence Corps Cap Badge for sale. In good condition. Please see our other items for more original WW1, WW2 & post war British military cap badges for sale including other Intelligence Corps cap badges.

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The Intelligence Corps (Int Corps) is one of the corps of the British Army. It is responsible for gathering, analysing and disseminating military intelligence and also for counter-intelligence and security. The Director of the Intelligence Corps is a Brigadier. In the early 1900s intelligence gathering was becoming better understood, to the point where a counter-intelligence organisation was formed – MI5 by the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DoMI) under Captain (later Major-General) Vernon Kell; overseas intelligence gathering began in 1912 by MI6 under Commander (later Captain) Mansfield Smith-Cumming. Although the first proposals to create an intelligence corps came in 1905, the first Intelligence Corps was formed in August 1914 and originally included only officers and their servants. It left for France on 12 August 1914. The Royal Flying Corps was formed to monitor the ground, and provided aerial photographs for the Corps to analyse.

During the Irish War of Independence, Intelligence Corps operatives were used in an unsuccessful battle to defeat the Irish Republican Army. The Cairo Gang were overwhelmingly Intelligence Corps operatives.On Bloody Sunday, 1920, twelve of these agents were assassinated at their lodgings by Michael Collins’ Squad. Due to this and similar failures, the Intelligence Corps was disbanded in 1929. On 19 July 1940 a new Intelligence Corps was created by Army Order 112 and has existed since that time. The Army had been unprepared for collecting intelligence for deployment to France, and the only intelligence had been collected by Major Sir Gerald Templer. The Corps trained its operatives to parachute at RAF Ringway, who were then dropped over France as part of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Intelligence Corps officers were involved in forming the highly-effective Long Range Desert Group, and the Corps officer Lt Col Peter Clayton was one of the four founders of the Special Air Service (SAS). Around 40% of British Army personnel at Bletchley Park were in the Intelligence Corps.

The Corps gained its regimental march in 1956, first played at Kneller Hall, the home of the Royal Military School of Music. From August 1957, the Corps first had a permanent cadre of officers; previously all personnel serving in the corps were officers from other parts of the army, on occasional tours. Throughout the Cold War, Intelligence Corps officers and NCOs (with changed insignia) were posted behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany, to join in the intelligence-gathering activities of the British Commanders’-in-Chief Mission to the Soviet Forces in Germany (Brixmis). The corps has a particularly high proportion of commissioned officers, many of them commissioned from the ranks, and also a high percentage of female members. Non-commissioned personnel join as an Operator Military Intelligence (OPMI) or Operator Military Intelligence (Linguist) (OPMI(L)). They do basic 14-week military training at the Army Training Centre, Pirbright. OPMI will complete a 27-week special-to-arm training at Templer Training Delivery Wing, Chicksands, at the end of which they are promoted to Lance Corporal.

Please see our other items for more original WW1, WW2 & post war British military cap badges for sale including other Labour Corps cap badges.