Kempeitai - Japanese Secret Services and The Axis Powers

Japanese Secret Services and The Axis Powers

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Kempeitai forged various connections with certain pre-war European intelligence services. Later when Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, the Japanese Secret Services formed formal links with these intelligence units, now under German and Italian fascists, known as the Abwehr and the Italian SIM. Along these lines, the Japanese Army and Navy, contacted their corresponding Wehrmacht intelligence units, Schutzstaffel (SS), or Kriegsmarine concerning information regarding Europe and vice versa. Europe and Japan realized the benefits of these exchanges (for example, the Japanese sent data about Soviet forces in the Far East and in Operation Barbarossa from the Japanese Embassy, and Admiral Canaris offered aid in respect to the Portuguese neutrality question in Timor).

One important contact point was at the Penang Submarine base, in British Malaya. This base served Axis submarine forces: (Italian Regia Marina, German Kriegsmarine, and the Dai-Nippon Teikoku Kaigun, or Imperial Japanese Navy). Here at regular intervals, technological and information exchanges occurred. Until the end of conflict, Axis forces used the bases in Italian occupied Ethiopia, the Vichy France territory of Madagascar and some "officially" neutral places like the Portuguese Colonies of Goa in India.

This intelligence collaboration was maintained until early 1945, though continued in a greatly reduced form until circa August 1945.

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