Thread by @WWIPhD

It turns out there are more published memoirs/autobiographies of American intelligence figures from World War I than I would have thought. If you throw in published diaries and the like, my current count is at 23, though that number may shrink or grow a bit. #FWW #intelhist 1/x

After I submit the manuscript for my present book in a few days, I'm thinking of doing a short bibliographical essay on these, though I don't know if there'd be a good outlet for it. I may do it just for my own amusement. 2/x

Of the ~23 on my list presently, one is a woman (Marguerite Harrison, the subject of a very interesting recent biography, by the way), the other men. 3/x

One is by a naval officer, John Gade, "All My Born Days: Experiences of a Naval Intelligence Officer in Europe." He was a naval attache. Two are by State Department folks, DeWitt Clinton Poole and Hugh Gibson, though I'm slightly stretching to call Gibson an intel officer. 4/x

All the rest by folks who, during WWI, were in the Army. All officers, except for Ernest H. Hinrichs, who manned a listening station eavesdropping on German field telephones and such-like. 5/x

At least two others involved in the SIGINT business wrote memoirs. J. Rives Childs who broke codes in the AEF's G-2 and, of course, Herbert Yardley, whose book is by far the most famous and best-selling. It is probably the most sensational in its presentation. 6/x

In fact, that's one of the most interesting things to me. Most of these books are decidedly unsensational. In fact, a few people devote only glancing attention in their autobiographies to their time in intelligence and most of the others are pretty matter of fact about it. 7/x

A couple intel officers in tactical units in the AEF seem kind of unimpressed with the whole endeavor in their books. 8/x

There are a couple of books that deal with domestic counterintelligence; one (Hubbard's "Memoir's of a Staff Officer") about someone whose most interesting work was as an analyst; three or so that deal with US espionage... 9/x

Another three that deal (to the extent that the author cares about WWI) with propaganda done by intel staffs, four I've found that deal with aerial reconnaissance in some way. 10/x

Anyway, I don't know where I was going with this except to say that there are more of these than I would have imagined and they are, taken as a whole, of higher quality than I would have imagined. When I started looking at US intel in WWI... 11/x

I had in mind Edwin Fishel's warnings about the horrific quality of Civil War spy memoirs and Nigel West's simultaneously hilarious and depressing book on fake British spies of World War II ("Counterfeit Spies."). As I say, that's not what I found. 12/x

Thus endeth this rather pointless geek out. I hope you find it interesting. fin.

Addendum 1: at least two of these authors got trained up for intelligence work during World War I but the Armistice came and they didn't get a chance to put their skills to use in that war: Marguerite Harrison and George Goddard, a pioneer in aerial photography.

Addendum 2: one of these books is called "Wine, Women, and War: A Diary of Disillusionment," by Howard Vincent O'Brien, published in 1926 (h/t @jock_bruce) and another is called "War, Women, and Wine" by E. H Myrland and published in 1985.