In June 1942 the U.S. Army established a top-secret post at Vint Hill Farms to intercept enemy radio transmissions, and these barns housed the monitoring station. The Signal Corps’ cryptographic school, which taught personnel to encode, decode, and translate messages, was moved here. Pvt. Leonard A. Mudloff is credited with intercepting a message here from Oshima Hiroshi, the Japanese ambassador to Germany, on 10 Nov. 1943. It described German coastal fortifications in western France, troop strengths, and contingency plans. The “Oshima Intercept” was a crucial contribution to the planning for D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe. The post operated through the Cold War, closing in 1997.
