Fukudome was still carrying the Z Plan and the cipher codes. It began with the easy Japanese conquest of most of the north coast of the massive island. [9], The Japanese 8th Area Army (equivalent to an Anglo-American army), under General Hitoshi Imamura at Rabaul, was responsible for both the New Guinea and Solomon Islands campaigns. In the final days of March, the Fast Carrier Force (Task Force 58) attacked Japanese airbases on Palau and islands in the Carolines. Allied planners believed that the two beaches were connected by a road, and that another road suitable for vehicle traffic ran inland towards Lake Sentani. This translation aided materially in speeding up the execution of the subsequent attack on Saipan and other Japanese bases in the Pacific, which occurred shortly thereafter. In 1944, a CIC officer was detailed for liaison with ATIS for eventual duty as an instructor for CIC units. Joseph J. Rochefort (of the Battle of Midway code-breaking fame). After July 1944, however, documents, including published translations, were prepared under the imprint of CINCPAC-CINCPOA, and the title JICPOA was used only for administrative purposes. They immediately sent back to Australia approximately 3,500 pounds of records, letters, and other documentary material. Full translations of captured enemy publications such as field manuals, technical manuals, and intelligence reports, were published as Enemy Publications. Current Translations were publications containing complete translations of documents classified A, B, C, or D in ATIS Bulletins. Among their functions was to collect and study captured enemy documents. Adachi ignored this order, and instead decided to concentrate his troops at Hansa Bay and Wewak. Late in the summer, Lieut. Late the next month at Biak, an island in Geelvink Bay, New Guinea, CIC agents seized the records of the finance office, post office, bank, and Japanese headquarters. They were discontinued with the dissolution of the Philippine Island Research Section of ATIS on October 9, 1944. 3 (Fall 2005). Free shipping for many products! 84 dealt with The Japanese and Bacterial Warfare. West Papua: Forgotten War, Unwanted People. Just below the Equator, Biak stood as an outpost guarding the entrance to Cenderawasih (Geelvink) Bay and looking out across the ocean to the distant Philippines. Beleaguered, the survivors of the Japanese garrison were evacuated by submarine on the night of 26 October. Gen. Robert C. Richardson became commanding general of U.S. Army Forces, Pacific Ocean Area, in which capacity he remained subordinate to Nimitzs operational control. Report No. If the transports succeeded in staying behind a weather front and were protected the whole way by fighters from the various airfields surrounding the Bismarck Sea, they might make it to Lae with an acceptable level of loss, i.e., at worst half the task force would be sunk en route. From there the documents were immediately sent to Brisbane for translation by ATIS personnel. Also produced were ATIS Publications. The Aussies were fighting mad, for they had found some of their captured fellows tied to trees and bayoneted to death, surmounted by the placard, 'It took them a long time to die'. [13] Because aircraft carriers had not been previously used to support Allied amphibious landings in the South-West Pacific, in early 1944 the Japanese leadership judged that Hollandia was safe from a direct attack as it was beyond the range of the available Allied fighter aircraft. Todays post is by Dr. Greg Bradsher, Senior Archivist at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland. Blog of the Textual Records Division at the National Archives. On April 29, 1944, ATIS Research Report No. Often, they consisted of combined translations of several documents relating to the same subject, such as (No. I want you to take Buna, or not come back alive. [42], " 'The Boeing [B-25] is most terrifying,' wrote one survivor in his diary. Other organizations were established throughout the Pacific Theater to translate and exploit the records. [13] See Seventy Years Ago: Colonel Sidney F. Mashbir and the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS), September-October 1942.. At wars end it moved to Tokyo. It was occupied by the invading Japanese during the invasion of the Dutch East Indies in 1942 and became a base for their expansion to the east towards the Australian mandated territories of Papua New Guinea. 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. [59], Operation Reckless was an unqualified success, as were the landings around Aitape under the guise of Operation Persecution. Japanese forces began to land on the island of Luzon in the Philippines on December 10. . It was occupied by the Japanese during their invasion of the Dutch East Indies in 1942, who planned to use it as a base for their expansion towards the Australian mandated territories of Papua and New Guinea. He was thrown into his own jail.[15]. The Japanese defended Biak valiantly, even managing at one point to bring in 1,100 reinforcements, but they were finally overcome in early August. The Japanese also planned to capture other strategic areas where they could establish advance posts and raise an outer barrier against an Allied counteroffensive. Base G played an important role as a staging area for subsequent operations in New Guinea and the Philippines. 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. Their noses had been refitted with eight 50-caliber machine guns for strafing slow-moving ships on the high seas. 4, to acquire Japanese records, staged a contest, making awards to Burmese or Chinese turning in the most documents. Japanese forces to the west were reconfigured to form a defense line through Biak and Manokwari,[62] while the Japanese 18th Army, still in defensive positions around Wewak, to the east, were faced with a long retreat west through the jungle having been ordered to bypass Hollandia and Aitape and reinforce the 2nd Army in western New Guinea. Backed by a swamp just 30 yards from the shoreline, and with just one exit trail unsuitable for vehicles, it quickly became congested. The Battle for Milne Bay was a small one as World War II engagements went, but very important. It made the term amphibious a household word throughout the English-speaking world. 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. The Japanese 18th Army (equivalent to an Anglo-American corps), under Lieutenant General Hataz Adachi, was responsible for Japanese operations on mainland New Guinea. Later, the procedure was altered again to cope with the tons of documents captured at main Japanese bases. [14] Some sources indicate the figure was 50 tons. 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. The experience of the green US 32nd Infantry Division, just out of training camp and utterly unschooled in jungle warfare, was nearly disastrous. [5], According to John Laffin, the campaign "was arguably the most arduous fought by any Allied troops during World War II". Instances were noted of officers completely out of their depth, of men eating meals when they should have been on the firing line, even of cowardice. Interestingly enough, among these records was a complete listing of the Japanese Imperial Army Ordnance Inventory. In December 1943, an operational order indicating the times and dates at which Japanese submarine were scheduled to appear in designated spots in the Arawe area, New Britain, was translated by ATIS and immediately forwarded to Naval Intelligence where prompt action was taken. Consequently, Japanese efforts to develop the area were delayed throughout 1943 and 1944. [2] SEATIC was part of the South East Asia Command, established at New Delhi, India in November 1943 and moved to Kandy, Ceylon, on April 15, 1944. This involved air attacks and naval bombardments on the Wewak area, and faked landings of reconnaissance patrols. [16] See The National Archives Arthur Evarts Kimberly and the Allied Translator and Interpreter Sections Document Restoration Sub-Section, 1944-1945.. 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. Document numbers and a brief description including authority, title, date, area of reference and similar essential data were set forth under seventeen headings, such as 1) Diaries, Field; 5) Letters, Postcards; and 16) Technical Documents. He told soldiers that ATIS personnel had told him that they had seen Japanese documents held as souvenirs of earlier battles in New Guinea, which contained information of tactical value which if had been turned in at the time, would have saved lives and shortened battles. In January 1943 the Allied and the Japanese forces facing each other on New Guinea were like two battered heavyweights. Two major moves were planned for the end of June: Eventually, the Joint Chiefs of Staff realized that a landing and siege of "Fortress Rabaul" would be far too costly, and that the Allies' ultimate strategic purposes could be achieved by simply neutralizing and bypassing it. By 1944 there were over 200 translators serving with JICPOA. First, with completion of the reduction of Rabaul, the South Pacific Area was closed as an active theatre, and Halsey left to take command of the U.S. 3rd Fleet. Excerpts from the citation indicate that he, with great risk to his life made reconnaissance in a number of caves which had been occupied by Japanese, approaching dangerously close to enemy fire and recovered more than 11 cases of enemy documents vitally needed for the successful conclusion of the operation.. Current Translation No. Documents were first captured from a Japanese plane downed in the Pearl Harbor attack. Allied troops set up 105mm howitzer in Depapre New Guinea 1944. The battle took place between 22 April and 6 June 1944 and formed part of the New Guinea campaign. The plan called for the establishment of a two-battalion front, with troops landed in seven waves at two beaches: Red 1 around the Depapre Inlet and Red 2 on the eastern side of the bay. In New Guinea, U.S. and Australian infantry were moving along the northern coast, pushing the Japanese before them. U.S. Military forces began capturing records almost as soon as the war began and started exploiting them immediately. It would commit all the remaining Japanese naval power to one last major battle with the Allies. [30], The D'Entrecasteaux Islands lie directly off the northeast coast of the lower portion of the Papuan peninsula. Neither Kitazono nor Endo had been able to prepare a comprehensive defensive plan, and in any event had neither the men nor the resources to carry it out. Except for some fairly heavy air raids, the Japanese reacted feebly to this penetration of their last defenses before the Philippines. During the first week of March 1945, I Corps ATIS Advanced Echelon on Luzon translated four top secret Japanese operational orders made between February 26th-March 2nd. [11] For the same reasons, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander Allied Forces South West Pacific Area was determined to hold it. Lieut. 92). [11] Adachi continued to plan to make a last stand at Hollandia if he was defeated at Hansa Bay. CIC personnel were constantly engaged in providing lectures to soldiers about the importance of captured Japanese documents. [60] A total of 7,200 Japanese troops assembled at Genjem and then attempted to withdraw overland to Sarmi; only around 1,000 reached their destination. (1944), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_Guinea_campaign&oldid=1136220909, 44,000 on Bougainville (politically a part of New Guinea), 30,500 on New Britain, New Ireland, and the Admiralty Islands. In February 1943, the first contingent of twenty graduates from the Navys Japanese Language School at Boulder, Colorado arrived at ICPOA and began interrogating prisoners of war and translating captured documents. Although the quantity of documents captured in South East Asia and China were not as voluminous as those found elsewhere, nevertheless there were major collections captured. Over 120 of these Research Reports were published. The quantity and type of documents captured from the Japanese varied widely. formId: "13b57390-1d3c-43b8-b8c2-4570bb51abe4", In March 1944, plans were developed for ATIS to be located in closer proximity to combat operations. Nimitz offered to assign eight small escort carriers to support the landing at Aitape, with these vessels then proceeding to support operations at Hollandia until 11 May. ATIS was directed to make available to the board any and all information having to do with the identification of Japanese war criminals. [18] For more information regarding the Z Plan see my article The Z Plan Story: Japans 1944 Naval Battle Strategy Drifts into U.S. Hands, Part I and Part II in Prologue, Vol. [8] ICPOAs first officer in charge was Cmdr. 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. These provided the first clues to breaking the Japanese Navys operational codes. To the invaders from Japan, and the occupiers from Australia and the United States, however, New Guineans appeared as colonial subjects at best, and as slaves at worst. Base ATIS was closed at Brisbane on June 4, 1945, and established several weeks later in Manila. They were special works, compiled for general reference purposes. These documents, contrary to American intelligence, indicated that the Japanese were strongly entrenched on Parry and Eniwetok islands. [46], On landing, the U.S. troops came under sporadic small arms and machine gun fire, but this was quickly suppressed. Having been organized along lines completely unorthodox, these were invaluable documents to the G-2 Section, especially as this Force was a major enemy unit on the left flank near La Union, Luzon, at that time. In March General Hatazo Adachi, the commander of the Japanese 18th Army, was ordered by the Second Area Army to withdraw his forces west from the Madang-Hansa Bay area to Hollandia, with one division to be dispatched there immediately. [58], Japanese casualties amounted to 3,300 killed and 600 wounded in combat;[59] a further 1,146 were killed or died in the area up to 27 September 1944. The following month at least 20 fighters were lost in combat, while eight were destroyed in July. Some of the research reports dealt with military and naval matters, such as No. The Eastern Fleet's British and American aircraft carriers raided Sabang on 19 April. This information was given to the 163rd Infantry Regiment of the 41st Infantry Division who used it in subsequent offensive operations. Limited Distribution Reports were special reports, highly classified, consisting of translations of documents possessing information of the highest intelligence value or of immediate importance, issued from time to time as directed. Although one line of attack was carried out primarily by ground forces and the other by naval forces, the main feature of both undertakings was the close coordination of land, sea, and air power. When Germany and Italy declared war on the United States days later, America found itself in a global war. 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. [56] Historian Edward J. Drea attributed the success of the operation largely to MacArthur's bold decision to exploit intelligence gained through code breaking, and judged it was "MacArthur's finest hour in World War II and ULTRA's single greatest contribution to the general's Pacific strategy". Urgent information was extracted before rushing the documents on to the Advanced Echelon where they were sorted, stamped, examined, and translated as necessary. ", Samuel Eliot Morison, Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, p. 38. The brief spurt of books in 1943 and 1944, when Japanese were able to visit the occupied Dutch East Indies, dealt mainly with Dutch New Guinea, and then only in a very rudimentary way. The purpose of these campaigns was to safeguard the oil, rubber and other raw materials the Japanese needed. Interrogation of a prisoner confirmed the fact that supplies were being unloaded at Lae from enemy submarines. At Anguar Island in the Western Carolinas in early September 1944, agents from the 81st CIC Detachment, with the 81st Infantry Division, captured a large volume of records, including blueprints, books, miscellaneous documents, files, 40 pounds of mail, and Japanese currency and coins. The submarine picked up the documents on May 11th and sailed to Darwin. To ease the congestion on White 1, 11 LSTs were landed off White 2, while engineers from the 2nd Engineer Special Brigade worked to clear the beach, shifting stores and equipment into Jautefa Bay. 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. [18] A large number of Japanese aircraft were stationed at airfields near Hollandia in March 1944. [34], Wau is a village in the interior of the Papuan peninsula, approximately 50 kilometres (30mi) southwest of Salamaua. [citation needed], Three factors conspired to create disaster for the Japanese. 37, No. Tweet. [5] During the Guadalcanal campaign a large quantity of documents were captured, including ones retrieved from the Japanese submarine I-1, just offshore.[6]. [14] It was occupied by the Japanese during their invasion of the Dutch East Indies in 1942, who planned to use it as a base for their expansion towards the Australian mandated territories of Papua and New Guinea. Hollandia was a port on the north coast of New Guinea, part of the Dutch East Indies, and was the only anchorage between Wewak to the east, and Geelvink Bay to the west. The Japanese entered Lae and Salamaua, two locations on Huon Gulf, on 8 March 1942 unopposed. The Royal Australian Air Force and Dutch air units remained under Kenneys control as part of the Allied Air Forces, while the Royal New Zealand Air Force, together with certain U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy land-based air units, continued to operate along the Solomon Islands axis. Seven LSTs were also assigned. I am estimating that a cubic foot of records is 2,500 pages. During the period of October 1942-July 1943, the work of indexing, abstracting and collating information from captured documents and prisoners of war, answering internal queries, and providing information to assist translators and examiners, was carried on by a staff consisting of six officers and ten enlisted personnel. 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