Servizio Informazioni Militare
| Servizio Informazioni Militare (SIM) | |
|---|---|
SIM seal | |
| Active | 1925–1944 |
| Countries | Kingdom of Italy |
| Branch | Royal Italian Army |
| Type | Military intelligence |
| Size | over 300 officers, 1,200 NCOs and specialists, and more than 9,000 secret agents (c. 1943) |
| Part of | Comando Supremo |
| Engagements | Second Italo-Ethiopian War Spanish Civil War World War II |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders | Mario Roatta Cesare Amè |
The Military Intelligence Service (Italian: Servizio Informazioni Militare, or SIM) was the military intelligence organization for the Royal Italian Army of the Kingdom of Italy from 1925 to 1944. Established by Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, it was the Italian equivalent to the German Abwehr.
In the early years of the war, the SIM scored important intelligence successes; among its most notable achievements was cracking the United States Black Code used by Colonel Bonner Fellers to communicate plans for British military operations in North Africa in 1942, which substantially aided Axis forces in the theater.
The SIM was highly efficient and performed favourably to its German counterpart. Bernard Montgomery's Chief Intelligence Officer, Brigadier Edgar Williams, remarked that the Italians "made far more intelligent deductions from the information they received than did the Germans." According to historian Thaddeus Holt, the SIM was the ablest Axis secret service on the technical level, and it exceeded by far any other secret service in Europe outside the USSR.