South West Pacific Area (command) - Intelligence

Intelligence

In April 1942, Brigadier General Spencer Akin and his Australian counterpart at LHQ, Major General Colin Simpson, agreed to pool their resources and establish a combined intelligence organisation, known as the Central Bureau. The Australian, British, and US Armies, as well as the RAAF and the RAN all supplied personnel for this formation, which worked on codebreaking and decrypting Japanese message traffic. This Magic and Ultra intelligence was vitally important to operations in SWPA.

To handle other forms of intelligence, Blamey and MacArthur created the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB). This included the Services Reconnaissance Department with its Z Special Unit that carried out special operations like Operation Jaywick; Secret Intelligence Australia; the Coastwatchers, who watched for Japanese aircraft and ships from observation posts behind Japanese lines; and the propaganda specialists of the Far Eastern Liaison Office (FELO). Two other important combined organisations, not part of AIB, were the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS), which translated Japanese documents, and the Allied Geographical Section, which prepared maps and charts, and drafted appreciations of the terrain.

Since quality tended to be more important than quantity in intelligence, this proved to be a fruitful field in which the minor Allies, Australia and the Netherlands, could play an important part. Good intelligence enabled the Allied forces to minimise the risk of failures and maximise the chances of success. Moreover, the organisation built up in Australia proved to be useful after the war as well. David Horner later wrote that "it may prove that present day intelligence cooperation has proved to be the most lasting and important legacy of Australia's experience of coalition warfare in the Second World War."