The Allied victories in 1943 set the stage for the strategic advances of 1944, but they did not determine the exact lines of attack. 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. [14] The 18th Army did not plan for the defense of Hollandia, and the Army Air Force and Naval units stationed there had little opportunity to develop plans due to the rapid turnover of their leadership. Once the war ended, Southeast Asia Command Field Security Sections were assigned to seize records that, among other things, could be used for the prosecution of war criminals. Even before the war ended, ATIS was exploiting captured records for war crimes purposes. [47], I-Go demonstrated that the Japanese command was not learning the lessons of air power that the Allies were. [1] Among them were the Southeast Asia Translation and Interrogation Center (SEATIC)[2]; the Sino Translation and Interrogation Center (SINTIC)[3]; and, the Joint Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Areas (JICPOA). The submarine picked up the documents on May 11th and sailed to Darwin. . 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. It was not just ATIS that was engaged in captured Japanese records operations. 5, Bibliographic Subject Index for Enemy Publications 1-200 (November 30, 1944), with a supplementary index from 201-300 (March 1945); No. Documents recovered from the bodies of dead Japanese, members of a Special Suicide Penetration Unit, killed near San Fabian, Luzon, on January 19, 1945, gave full accounts of the units and personnel involved. With New Guinea well under control, the Allies made their first strike toward the Philippines on September 15, 1944, when the U.S. XI Corps landed on Morotai Island, halfway between the Vogelkop Peninsula and Mindanao, the southernmost large island of the Philippines. As their number grew, and the volume of available intelligence increased, such a procedure became unnecessary, and also impossible due to the limited number of linguists available. 6, The Exploitation of Japanese Documents (December 14, 1944); No. Due to USAAF doctrine and a lack of long-range escorts, long-range bomber raids on targets like Rabaul went in unescorted and suffered heavy losses, prompting severe criticism of Lieutenant General George Brett by war correspondents for misusing his forces. This contest produced a number of valuable documents and propaganda leaflets. On March 1, 1944, soldiers found on the body of the commander of Baba Battalion a copy of a field order issued by him in which he ordered an attack on American positions for that same afternoon. After the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, in March 1943, an abandoned lifeboat at Goodenough Island (northeast of New Guinea) from the Teiyo Maru was recovered and found in it was The Japanese Army List, dated October 15, 1942. ", Samuel Eliot Morison, Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, p. 120, The first strike, on 7 April, was against Allied shipping in the waters between Guadalcanal and Tulagi. Late in the summer, Lieut. [54] There was little resistance initially, but further inland there was some opposition as elements of the 186th Infantry reached the lake by 24 April. The Joint Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Areas (JICPOA), had its origins in the Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Areas (ICPOA) which had been established on July 14, 1942 in Hawaii as Admiral Chester W. Nimitz intelligence center. [3] Of these, only one was considered to be complete. One company landed on White 2 and secured Cape Tjeweri, after which a group of 18 LVTs crossed the sandspit to land two more companies near Pim inside Jautefa Bay. the strategic base on New Britain (now part of Papua New Guinea), on January 23, 1942. Todays post is by Dr. Greg Bradsher, Senior Archivist at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland. Today known as Jayapura, in 1941 Hollandia (140.707E 2.543S) was the largest settlement in the Dutch half of New Guinea.It was located on the only really first-class natural harbor on the north coast of Dutch New Guinea, Humboldt Bay, though it had only primitive port facilities. [33], Operation Lilliput (18 December 1942 June 1943) was an ongoing resupply operation ferrying troops and supplies from Milne Bay, at the tip of the Papuan Peninsula, to Oro Bay, a little more than halfway between Milne Bay and the BunaGona area. [13], Due north of Port Moresby, on the northeast coast of Papua, are the Huon Gulf and the Huon Peninsula. American military leaders knew that while the number of prisoners (and thus information) taken in the Pacific would be relatively small, compared to the war in Europe, Japanese records would become all that more important as an intelligence source. The campaign was long and arduous, but by the end of 1944 the Japanese threat was contained in New Guinea. [13] See Seventy Years Ago: Colonel Sidney F. Mashbir and the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS), September-October 1942.. Also that summer, the 441st CIC unit established a clinical laboratory, which, among other things, restored charred documents. Australian ground units operated under Gen. Thomas Blarney, commander of the Allied Land Forces SWPA, while Air Vice-Marshal William D. Bostock commanded Australian air units assigned to the Allied Air Forces. Rabaul became the forward base for the Japanese campaigns in mainland New Guinea, including the pivotal Kokoda Track campaign of July 1942 - January 1943, and the Battle of Buna-Gona. 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. Only 30 percent of the captured documents needed no treatment; the rest needed cleaning, drying, and/or other conservation treatment. On 5 March, Imperial General Headquarters by Navy . The large majority of the defending Japanese troops there had uncharacteristically abandoned their positions and fled inland. The attack force comprised 84,000 personnel, including 52,000 combat troops, 23,000 support personnel, and a naval task force of 200 vessels of 7th Fleets Task Force 77 under Rear Admiral Daniel Barbey. Round one had gone to the Americans and Australians who had ejected the. 16 dealt with interrogation of captured American B-24 air crews; No. Two months after JICPOA was formed US forces invaded the Gilbert Islands. This success was attributable to Milne Bay's Australian and US defenders together with the crews of the (mostly Dutch) merchantmen that had delivered vital supplies and reinforcements to the garrison. When the Japanese invaded New Guinea in early 1942, they began a struggle for control of the island which would last until the end of the Second World War. Furthermore, the Milne Bay affair demonstrated once again that an amphibious assault without air protection, and with an assault force inferior to that of the defenders, could not succeed. [9] See Seventy Years Ago: The Makin Island Raid, August 1942., [10] The Armys Counter Intelligence Corps faced similar problems with souvenir hunters. The Japanese at Rabaul and other bases on New Britain would have easily overwhelmed any such effort (by mid-September, MacArthur's entire naval force under Vice Admiral Arthur S. Carpender consisted of 5 cruisers, 8 destroyers, 20 submarines, and 7 small craft). The campaign between Allied and Japanese forces commenced with the Japanese assault on Rabaul on 23 January 1942. Before June, between 20 and 25 P-39s had been lost in air combat, while three more had been destroyed on the ground and eight had been destroyed in landings by accident. [8] At the start of 1943, ICPOA was basically dealing with intercepted messages because not that many prisoners of war or documents had been captured. [63][64], Meanwhile, the Allies quickly made the Sentani airfields operational and were able to mount bombing raids on Japanese positions as far west as Biak, making them useless for air operations. [7], MacArthur met with the commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, at Brisbane between 25 and 27 March to discuss the role of the Navy in the operation. 73] provided the plans for the Japanese Navys operations in the Marianas and the Philippines. Despite the disaster of the Bismarck Sea, the Japanese could not give up on recapturing Wau. 8, Kanji Abbreviations, Variants, and Equivalents; No. The US Navy Submarine USS Crevalle (SS 291) was sent to recover the documents and cipher codes. In mid-July 1944, near Moemi, soldiers recovered three cases of buried records, including seven important documents that a Japanese deserter had led them to. [12], As an attack on Hollandia was not expected, no plans were prepared to defend the area prior to the Allied landing. Most important of all, the bombers of MacArthur's air forces, under the command of Lieutenant General George C. Kenney, had been modified to enable new offensive tactics. In the meantime another landing was made at Aitape in Australian New Guinea, about 125 miles (roughly 200 km) southeast of Hollandia, where Australian engineers soon completed an airstrip. [23] The Australian and American anti-aircraft gunners of the Composite Anti-Aircraft Defences played a crucial part. Japan's threatened military encroachment closer to Australia hinted at some type of potential invasion of the northernmost frontiers. The forces of the Southwest Pacific Area were ready to move on to the Philippines. ATIS Inventories were also prepared. 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. Aerial resupply brought some relief, and on 30 April a group of 12 LCTs, towed by several LSTs, arrived at Humboldt Bay. Admiral Nimitz exploited the same intelligence advantage when he planned the next stage of the Navys campaign in the central Pacific. However, this is contradictory to the total number of Japanese combat deaths calculated across most individual battles in the campaign. [34][35] During the same period, American air and naval forces sank many of the Japanese ships which were attempting to transport reinforcements to the Hollandia and Wewak areas; these attacks were guided by intelligence gained from breaking the Japanese codes. After the Japanese invasion of New Guinea the Americans, aided by Australian troops, organized a series of landings and other offensive actions against the Japanese in New Guinea. Combined Fleet, Third Fleet and Southeast Area Commanders. By the end of the war, ATIS had processed over 350,000 documents (or 1,680 cubic feet of records).[17]. West Papua is the western half of the island of New Guinea, formerly known as Dutch New Guinea. The attack failed, and the Japanese were driven back toward Wewak. Interestingly enough, among these records was a complete listing of the Japanese Imperial Army Ordnance Inventory. Historians acknowledge that the deciphering of the Z Plan was one of the greatest single intelligence feats of the war in the South West Pacific Area. It is important to note that all ATIS units maintained close relations with the CIC units and Australian Army Field Security Service, since these units were largely responsible for the collection and dispatch of captured documents in forward areas to the language personnel stationed with tactical units. The battle of Hollandia (22-27 April 1944) was part of Operation Reckless and saw the Americans leapfrog past a series of Japanese bases to capture a key position on the northern coast of New Guinea, catching the Japanese almost entirely by surprise and winning an unexpectedly easy victory.. per cubic foot, this works out to 1,350 cubic feet of records. For example, in the fall of 1944, Task Force Galahad, commanded by Brig. 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. On December 7, 1941, Japan staged a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, severely damaging the US Pacific Fleet. In New Guinea, U.S. and Australian infantry were moving along the northern coast, pushing the Japanese before them. None of the senior officers present had been in post more than a few weeks and the senior air officer had been relieved following the destruction of his air forces at the beginning of April. At Sanananda the swamp and jungle were typhus-ridden crawling roots reached out into stagnant pools infested with mosquitoes and numerous crawling insects every foxhole filled with water. In early April 1943, a Japanese map was captured showing hidden positions of 87 barges at Labu, New Guinea. While military planners argued the merits of one approach over another, two main lines of attack were actually followed during 1944: (1) MacArthurs ground forces (including Army, Marine, and Navy elements) strengthened their hold in New Guinea and eventually invaded the Philippines; (2) Nimitzs naval forces drove across the central Pacific from the Gilberts to the Marianas and then covered the landing in the Philippines. [14] Some sources indicate the figure was 50 tons. Their scheme of conquest envisaged control of the Aleutians, Midway, Fiji and Samoa, New Britain, eastern New Guinea, points in the [2] Dutch Indies Japan Nava Occupation Sulawesi GORONTALO with orange disc (2X) $3.25 . On 24 April, the beach became more congested with the arrival of scheduled reinforcements and further equipment, as well as two transports and seven LSTs carrying troops, including the corps commander and his headquarters, which had been diverted from Tanahmerah Bay. graduate Hollandia. Combat boundaries were listed. Philippine Series Bulletins represented special reports of items pertaining to the Philippine Islands. Over 170 were published, including many extracts from diaries and notebooks. They totaled 104 in number. ATIS received and translated in April 1944 the diary of prisoner of war Hiroshi Horikoshi, a civilian employee (interpreter) with the Japanese 14th Army, who was captured at the same time. The Japanese occupied the village with an initial force of 1,500 on 21 July and by 22 August had 11,430 men under arms at Buna. 3, Glossary of military terms encountered in Japanese documents; No. To ensure that all involved in captured records activities had an appreciation for records and information, the Allied Translation and Interpreter Section (ATIS) (Southwest Pacific Area [SWPA]) published, at the specific direction of the War Department, Publication No. By the time the Allied bombers and PT boats finished their work on 3 March, Kimura had lost all eight transports and four of his eight destroyers. During the war, the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS), as it came to be called, grew dramatically. [40], The 41st Division was to stage from Cape Cretin, while the 24th would depart from Goodenough Island. The first major collection of captured Japanese documents in the Pacific Theater was made in August 1942 when the 1st Marine Raider Battalion, under Col. Evans Carlson and Lt. Col. James Roosevelt, made a harassing raid on Makin Island in the Gilberts. He had planned to move first to Hansa Bay, but with airfields operational in the Admiralty Islands, the Hansa Bay assault was deemed unnecessary. [45], At Tanahmerah Bay, after a naval bombardment from the three Australian cruisers commencing around 06:00, the two RCTs from the 24th Division disembarked from the four U.S. and Australian transports Henry T. Allen, Carter Hall, Kanimbla and Manoora and moved ashore aboard 16 LCIs. After four days under these conditions the two units had reached the western airfield and on 26 April it was secured. In the spring of 1944, ATIS received a document which, after being translated, proved to be of exceptional value and probably considerably shortened the war. In addition, their bomb bays were filled with 500-pound bombs to be used in the newly devised practice of skip bombing. 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. On September 6, 1943, ICPOA was designated a joint Army-Navy-Marine organization by a CINCPAC directive and was given the name Joint Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Areas (JICPOA). An airfield had been built there during an area gold rush in the 1920s and 1930s. Opposing these forces were the Australian 2/5th, 2/6th and 2/7th Battalions along with Lieutenant Colonel Norman Fleay's Kanga Force. They immediately sent back to Australia approximately 3,500 pounds of records, letters, and other documentary material. [9] Few combat units were stationed at Hollandia in early 1944. The timing of the landings at Hollandia were moved back to 22 April at around this time due to logistical problems and the Pacific Fleet's other commitments, and it was decided to conduct the landing at Aitape simultaneously with the main assault. [28], "Thenceforth, the Battle of Milne Bay became an infantry struggle in the sopping jungle carried on mostly at night under pouring rain. This document was immediately translated and subsequently provided new bombing targets for the B-29s over Japan and during the early occupation provided a means of quickly locating and seizing armaments. Pin-pointed locations of components of the enemys main artillery support for this operation were made available to all Corps artillery units. [25] But fighters did provide cover for the transports, and for bombers when their targets were within range. Simultaneous operations from these two locations, one amphibious and one overland, would converge on the target city. [39] It is indicative of the extent to which Japanese ambitions had fallen at this point in the war that a 50% loss of ground troops aboard ship was considered acceptable. [11] For the same reasons, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander Allied Forces South West Pacific Area was determined to hold it. Pre-landing reconnaissance efforts were hampered by the destruction of the Australian scouting party that was landed in the area by submarine in late March, and the reality of the terrain was only discovered through aerial intelligence that arrived too late. They were discontinued with the dissolution of the Philippine Island Research Section of ATIS on October 9, 1944. Also produced were ATIS Publications. Bypassing the Japanese base at Halmahera, south of Morotai, the XI Corps quickly established a defensive perimeter behind which airfields were constructed to provide air support for further advances. At midnight on 19-20 December 1941 the Japanese attacked the island of Timor. Historian Samuel Eliot Morison summed up the results this way: the enemy had shot his bolt; he never showed up again in these waters. A map, also captured on March 21st, and quickly translated, proved to be more accurate than maps possessed by the attacking forces. It was a grisly task, but a military necessity since Japanese soldiers do not surrender and within swimming distance of shore, they could not be allowed to land and join the Lae garrison. The Japanese had already captured Rabaul, the capital of the Australian-controlled territory of New Guinea, on 23 January 1942, and early in February Australian and Dutch forces surrendered the island of Ambon in the Netherlands East Indies (modern Indonesia). These provided the first clues to breaking the Japanese Navys operational codes. 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. 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