When very few documents were captured and relatively little was known about the enemy forces in the SWPA, it was imperative to translate all documents in full. [13] Eventually it would grow to over 2,500 personnel, some of who served with Advanced Echelons and combat units. He told soldiers that ATIS personnel had told him that they had seen Japanese . Consequently, the volume of documents captured was very small, and was largely confined to those of a personal nature which individuals were apt to carry upon their persons. Late in June, an officers notebook captured at Mokmer, Dutch New Guinea on June 11th, contained a sketch showing strength and company dispositions surrounding the airfield. Operations focused on attacking positions and seaborne traffic around Timor, Ambon, and the Kai and Aroe Islands. The New Guinea campaign of the Pacific War lasted from January 1942 until the end of the war in August 1945. 92). After taking evasive routes to the west of the Admiralty Islands to avoid air attack,[42] the convoy turned back towards their objective late in the afternoon. The air defences consisted of P-39 and P-40 fighters. 99-108 (Japanese Place Names-Philippines). 67 (Japanese Warships and Merchant Vessels Sunk, Damaged or not Previously Listed); No. Gona fell to the Australians on 9 December 1942, Buna to the US 32nd on 2 January 1943, and Sanananda, located between the two larger villages, fell to the Australians on 22 January. In May 1943, external requests for information available from ATIS sources led to the development of Information Request Reports published only in answer to specific requests for information. Publication No. [16] That summer a Document Restoration Sub-Section, staffed by six WACs (Womens Army Corps), including one officer, was established. In February 1944, the Japanese devised a plan known as Z Plan to counter the American naval offensive and destroy the U.S. Pacific fleet. Coming from battle fields, crashed aircraft, graves, sunken ships and foxholes, many of them torn, defaced, water-soaked, soiled and charred, making them difficult or impossible to read. [9] See Seventy Years Ago: The Makin Island Raid, August 1942., [10] The Armys Counter Intelligence Corps faced similar problems with souvenir hunters. The story of the capture and return of the Z documents is detailed in Appendix II. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Counter Intelligence (X-2) personnel at Rangoon Burma seized, in the former Japanese Embassy, a mass of documentation on the Kempei Tai (Japanese Military Police), Japanese political intelligence organizations, spy schools, and other political and intelligence organizations. The landings were undertaken simultaneously with the amphibious invasion of Aitape ("Operation Persecution") to the east. With the occupation of Morotai, the long drive up the New Guinea coast was strategically completed. By 1944 there were over 200 translators serving with JICPOA. Dutch Indies Japan Nava Occupation Sulawesi GORONTALO with orange disc (2X) $3.25 . Once Manila and its environs had been captured, CIC search and seizure teams located and took custody of large quantities of Japanese documents. Achieving complete surprise, they were able to destroy 340 aircraft on the ground and 60 more aircraft in the air, leaving the 6th Air Division unable to resist the planned invasion. The students were mostly second-generation Japanese-Americans (Nisei) from the West Coast. Gen. Millard F. Harmon, who was also subordinate to Nimitz. [14] Singapore, the Dutch East Indies and New Guinea had already fallen, and all of Australia's security hopes premised upon Britain's Fortress Singapore ideology had collapsed. In January 1944, during the New Britain-New Guinea operations, captured Japanese code books enabled radio intelligence staff to determine the intentions of Lt. Gen. Hatazo Adachi, commander of the Japanese 18th Army. To assist researchers interested in World War II-era research regarding the Pacific and Far East, I prepared a 1,700-page finding aid entitled Japanese War Crimes and Related Records: A Guide to Records in the National Archives,which is searchable and available online. 8, Kanji Abbreviations, Variants, and Equivalents; No. target: "#hbspt-form-1677759698000-1549361125", [34], Wau is a village in the interior of the Papuan peninsula, approximately 50 kilometres (30mi) southwest of Salamaua. For example, in the fall of 1944, Task Force Galahad, commanded by Brig. 1944 battle between American and Japanese forces during World War II, "Securing New Guinea: The U.S. Navy in Operations Reckless and Persecution: 2122 April 1944", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Hollandia&oldid=1132691020, South West Pacific theatre of World War II, Battles and operations of World War II involving Australia, Battles and operations of World War II involving Japan, Battles and operations of World War II involving the United States, Amphibious operations involving the United States, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 10 January 2023, at 02:36. Background. German New Guinea Stamps, Dutch Dutch & Colonies Cover Stamps, Dutch Stamps, [30], The D'Entrecasteaux Islands lie directly off the northeast coast of the lower portion of the Papuan peninsula. Engineers operating amphtracks pushed forward from Jautefa Bay to the lake to carry the infantry around the Japanese positions at the lake, completing their flanking maneuver on 25 April. The whole northern coast of the island was now in Allied hands and airfields from which bombers could strike the southern Philippines were soon in operation. [6] See The Sinking of the Japanese Submarine I-1 off of Guadalcanal and the Recovery of its Secret Documents., [7] See A Letter from Somewhere in Burma, June 1944. The terrain, however, proved more problematic. The unit was in effect a miniature ATIS, with various sections, coordinating the production of translation and interrogation reports of immediate operation value. Army units in the South Pacific were transferred to MacArthurs direct control in June, and the U.S. 13th Air Force was moved to the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) to form, with the U.S. 5th Air Force, the new Far Eastern Air Force, which was commanded by Gen. George C. Kenney in addition to his position as commander of Allied Air Forces SWPA. Miscellaneous identifications taken from documents captured in early November in the Pinamopoan Area, Leyte, gave the first indication of the Japanese 1st Divisions presence in this area. Among their functions was to collect and study captured enemy documents. In September 1945 they seized in Singapore important documentary evidence of war crimes, including photographs showing captured Indian soldiers being executed for refusing to join with Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army. Researchers should, of course, use the National Archives Catalog. [11] This document was quickly translated and published as ATIS Publication No. In March 1943, a document was captured showing the submarine schedule between Lae, New Guinea, and New Britain. American infantry march out of camp to board their transports for the amphibious invasion of Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea, 16 April 1944. It contained details of the proposed landing of Tama Group (full strength of one division) at Ormoc, Leyte, on November 1st. On 10 January 1942, during the Dutch East Indies Campaign, Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies as part of the Pacific War. The Z Plan would fall into the hands of the Allies and be translated by ATIS during the early summer of 1944 and immediately be returned to the Japanese. 3 (Fall 2005). They were carrying Admiral Mineichi Koga, commander in chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and his staff, including Vice Admiral Shegeru Fukudome, who was carrying the Z plan documents and the associated cipher system. Horikoshi, upon arrival at ATIS, at first denied all knowledge of any atrocities but on being confronted with his diary, admitted that such things had occurred. This information was given to the 163rd Infantry Regiment of the 41st Infantry Division who used it in subsequent offensive operations. Japanese plans to occupy Port Moresby were negated by losses during the Battle of the Coral Sea and Battle of Milne Bay. Japanese expansion in East Asia began in 1931 with the invasion of Manchuria and continued in 1937 with a brutal attack on China. The Japanese 18th Army (equivalent to an Anglo-American corps), under Lieutenant General Hataz Adachi, was responsible for Japanese operations on mainland New Guinea. They were discontinued with the dissolution of the Philippine Island Research Section of ATIS on October 9, 1944. All elements, with the exception of the twenty-man garrison had returned to Bantam Bay by 3 April. This information was put to immediate tactical use and resulted in the capture of the position by the US 7th Cavalry Squadron. ", John Vader, New Guinea: The Tide Is Stemmed, p. 93, The Australian 7th Division under the command of Major General George Alan Vasey, along with the revitalized US 32nd Division, restarted the Allied offensive. Red 1 was found to be better, allowing LVTs and LCMs to come ashore with their infantry charges, but the approaches had to be cleared by engineers to allow the passage of the larger LCMs and even after this had been completed. The town itself was on the shore of Humboldt Bay, with a first-class anchorage. [17] The Allied Translation and Interpreter Section (ATIS) estimated the average size of a captured document at 12 pages. [1] All of the various organizations widely disseminated the information contained in the captured records. It was not just ATIS that was engaged in captured Japanese records operations. Incidence of malaria was almost one hundred per cent. Aerial resupply brought some relief, and on 30 April a group of 12 LCTs, towed by several LSTs, arrived at Humboldt Bay. [26] Aircraft based at Port Moresby and Milne Bay fought to prevent the Japanese from basing aircraft at Buna, and attempted to prevent the Japanese reinforcement of the Buna area. During the initial phase in early 1942, the Empire of Japan invaded the Australian -administered Mandated Territory of New Guinea (23 January) and the Australian Territory of Papua (21 July) and overran western New Guinea (beginning 29/30 March), which was a part of the Netherlands East Indies. JICPOA personnel also served, beginning in January 1945, at the Advance Intelligence Center (AIC), established at the CINCPAC Advance Headquarters at Guam. Wrecked Japanese planes litter Hollandia field, largely the victims of USAAF attacks earlier in the month (80-G-325109). In many instances these organizations were staffed with translators trained in military and naval language schools in the United States. However, using 27 tons, at 40 lbs. In late 1943, the Information Section was given the task of writing Briefs consisting of a summary and highlights of Enemy Publications and Current Translations. Many of the captured documents provided significant intelligence to General Douglas MacArthurs forces in the SWPA. [41] After rehearsals and loading, on 16 to 18 April the amphibious forces sailed from their bases at Finschafen and Goodenough Island; they joined up with other ships carrying troops bound for Aitape from Seeadler Harbour and then rendezvoused with the escort aircraft carriers providing air cover off Manus Island early on 20 April. It held what turned out to be a gold mine of valuable documents, including battle plans, codes and letters. [citation needed]. Forward positions would first be established at Milne Bay, located in the forked eastern end of the Papuan peninsula, and at Buna, a village on the northeast coast of Papua about halfway between Huon Gulf and Milne Bay. [39] This operation had no effect on the Japanese, as the air units were being held in reserve for a planned major attack on American naval forces in the Central Pacific. The campaign was long and arduous, but by the end of 1944 the Japanese threat was contained in New Guinea. U.S. Military forces began capturing records almost as soon as the war began and started exploiting them immediately. Meanwhile, on 30 March and continuing to 3 April these air forces attacked Hollandia itself and the airfields on the Sentani plain. After the cessation of hostilities, the War Crimes Echelon, a separate part of ATIS, was established. [47], I-Go demonstrated that the Japanese command was not learning the lessons of air power that the Allies were. The loss of Hollandia made the Japanese strategic defense line at Wakde, to the west, and all Japanese positions to the east untenable. [20], I Corps under Lieutenant General Robert Eichelberger provided most of the ground forces for the combined Operations Reckless and Persecution. It would commit all the remaining Japanese naval power to one last major battle with the Allies. Classes began November 1, 1941, with four instructors and 60 students in an abandoned airplane hangar at Crissy Field. More than 6,000 graduates served throughout the Pacific Theater during the war and the subsequent occupation of Japan. [17], After this failure, the Japanese decided on a longer term, two-pronged assault for their next attempt on Port Moresby. While MacArthur sought eight days worth of support from the fleet's powerful fleet carriers, Nimitz would only agree to commit this force for two days after the landings. It showed the units to which they belonged. Two months after JICPOA was formed US forces invaded the Gilbert Islands. [7] The attack was designated Operation Reckless in recognition of the risks involved in carrying it out. Cushing, realizing the possible significance of the documents, notified his superiors who in turn notified the Allied Intelligence Bureau in Brisbane. Task Force 74, under British Rear Admiral Victor Crutchley, consisted of the cruisers HMAS Australia and Shropshire plus several destroyers, while Task Force 75 was made up of three U.S. cruisers, Phoenix, Nashville and Boise under Rear Admiral Russell Berkey. They arrived off Hollandia during the night of 21/22 April and about 20 miles (32km) offshore, the convoy split again with the Central Attack Group preceding for Humboldt Bay while the Western Attack Group turned towards Tanahmerah Bay. Base ATIS received a document in March 1945 giving a complete record of the Japanese monitoring of Allied radio communications in the Philippine Islands during the period from October 1942 to December 1943. Late in the summer, Lieut. Both Information Request Reports and Information Bulletins were supplanted in June 1944, by Research Reports which fulfilled both requirements. 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