34 Facts About Bonner Fellers

Brigadier General Bonner Frank Fellers was a United States Army officer who served during World War II as a military attache and director of psychological warfare.

Bonner Fellers is notable as the military attache in Egypt whose extensive transmissions of detailed British tactical information were unknowingly intercepted by Axis agents and passed to Nazi German Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel for over six months, which contributed to disastrous British defeats at Gazala and Tobruk in June 1942.

Bonner Fellers entered the Military Academy in June 1916, ten months before the American entry into World War I The increased need for junior officers during World War I caused Fellers's class to be accelerated and to graduate on November 1,1918, ten days before the armistice with the German Reich which ended the war.

Bonner Fellers was promoted to first lieutenant in October 1919 and graduated from the Coast Artillery School Basic Course in 1920.

The drastic reduction in the size of the army after the war created limited opportunities for promotion and so Bonner Fellers was not promoted to captain until December 3,1934.

Fellers served three tours of duty in the Philippines in the 1920s and the 1930s, including assignment to the Office of the Military Advisor to the Commonwealth Government of the Philippines, under General Douglas MacArthur; while there, Captain Fellers interacted with Major Dwight D Eisenhower, a senior member of MacArthur's staff.

Bonner Fellers's assignments included helping to open the Philippine Military Academy, the Philippines' "West Point," and liaisoning with Philippine President Manuel Quezon.

Bonner Fellers graduated from the Army War College in June 1939.

Bonner Fellers then served as an assistant professor of English at West Point from July 1939 to August 1940 and was promoted to major on July 1,1940.

Bonner Fellers was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the war-footing Army of the United States on September 15,1941, and to colonel the following month.

In October 1940, Major Bonner Fellers was assigned as military attache to the US embassy in Egypt.

Bonner Fellers was assigned the duty of monitoring and reporting on British military operations in the Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre.

Bonner Fellers dutifully reported everything he learned to his superiors in the United States.

Bonner Fellers's reports were read by President Franklin Roosevelt, the head of American intelligence, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Bonner Fellers was concerned about the security of the "Black Code" of the US State Department, used when he sent his reports by radiogram.

Bonner Fellers was right to be concerned, as the details of the code had been stolen from the US embassy in Italy in September 1941 in a covert night raid into the embassy by Italian spies from the Servizio Informazioni Militare, the Italian military intelligence service.

The Germans could identify Bonner Fellers's report, starting just before the US entered into WWII until June 29,1942, when Bonner Fellers switched to a newly adopted US code system.

Bonner Fellers's deciphered radiograms provided the Axis with detailed, extensive, and timely information about troop movements and equipment.

The Germans referred to Bonner Fellers as die gute Quelle.

Debates continue on how the breaking of the code Bonner Fellers was assigned had impacted the overall battle for North Africa.

On June 10,1942, the British became convinced Bonner Fellers's reports were compromised because an intercept had compared British tactics negatively to American tactics.

Bonner Fellers was not found at fault for the interception of his reports, but he was transferred from Egypt on July 7,1942.

Bonner Fellers was promoted to brigadier general, the first in the West Point Class of 1918, on December 4,1942.

Bonner Fellers served as military secretary and the Chief of Psychological Operations under MacArthur.

Bonner Fellers met with the major defendants of the Tokyo tribunal.

Under an assignment with the codename "Operation Blacklist", Bonner Fellers allowed them to co-ordinate their stories to exonerate Hirohito and all members of his family of war crimes.

General Bonner Fellers, who came from a Religious Society of Friends family and attended the Quaker-affiliated Earlham College, was instrumental in the selection of Elizabeth Vining, an American Quaker educator, as tutor to the Emperor's children.

Bonner Fellers was familiar with the writings of Lafcadio Hearn and became a friend of Hearn's descendants in Japan, the Koizumi family.

In February 1946, Bonner Fellers reverted to the rank of colonel as part of a reduction in rank of 212 generals.

Bonner Fellers retired from the army on November 30,1946.

On July 24,1953, Bonner Fellers met with a number of former US military officers, including Pedro del Valle and Claire Chennault, to form the Defenders of the American Constitution.

Bonner Fellers was a member of the John Birch Society, which is named after a military intelligence officer, who was considered by its founding members to be the first casualty of the Cold War.

In 1964, Bonner Fellers was actively involved in promoting Barry Goldwater for the presidency.

Bonner Fellers died at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC, on October 7,1973, after suffering a heart attack, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.