Watch The Big Picture - Nerves of the Army

Experience the American Journey through our country's visual heritage in this historical recording provided by the National Archives of the United States. From the U.S. Army's "The Big Picture" television series, 1950-1975. This is the story of the United States Army Signal Corps. An Army has been compared with a man, responding the way a man responds to danger. And it has nerves--an intricate but vast sensory system spreading throughout the entire body, giving it sight, the ability to hear and the power to communicate. This complex nervous system which sensitizes the Army has a name. It is the Signal Corps. Throughout the world, wherever the Army stands, the Signal Corps keeps it alert. In making this picture, the camera crews visited Signal Corps engineering laboratories at Fort Monmouth, N.J., and the Army Electronic Proving Ground at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Television audiences will look at a simulated battlefield of the future, and see how some Signal equipment, and how communications systems developed at the proving grounds, would be employed. The operation of the new 100-inch camera with its infra-red lens, capable of penetrating 26 miles through haze, will be shown in reconnaissance missions. This is a new form of reconnaissance--under atomic or non-atomic conditions. Its potentialities are unlimited.

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