[43] The facilities in the area were designated Base G. Several higher headquarters were moved to the area, including those of the Sixth Army, Eighth Army, Fifth Air Force, and Seventh Fleet. The landings took place at dawn on 22 April after a supporting naval bombardment at each site. 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. A complete list of the names of all officers and noncommissioned officers of the Japanese 222nd Infantry Regiment was captured on May 28, 1944. The documents were then sent on to ATIS, SWPA, for final examination. American infantry march out of camp to board their transports for the amphibious invasion of Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea, 16 April 1944. Interrogation of a prisoner confirmed the fact that supplies were being unloaded at Lae from enemy submarines. [56] On the other hand, the Allied operation had been over-insured; concerns over the strength of the Japanese garrison had left the Allies with a four to one advantage in the event. [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). He told soldiers that ATIS personnel had told him that they had seen Japanese . 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. West Papua: Forgotten War, Unwanted People. 39 with Navy Operations, Plans and Orders (1941-1944). Many of the captured documents provided significant intelligence to General Douglas MacArthurs forces in the SWPA. The Americans landed at Hollandia and Aitape simultaneously on 22 April with the aim of bypassing the Japanese stronghold at Wewak and thus leaving the Japanese 18th Army isolated and cut off there. For example, in the fall of 1944, Task Force Galahad, commanded by Brig. By December 27, 1942, 1,100 Japanese documents had been received at the Advanced Land Headquarters, Brisbane, from the New Guinea area. [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. 84 dealt with The Japanese and Bacterial Warfare. [5] During the Guadalcanal campaign a large quantity of documents were captured, including ones retrieved from the Japanese submarine I-1, just offshore.[6]. [27] As the Japanese ground forces pressed toward Port Moresby, the Allied Air Forces struck supply points along the Kokoda Track. At 177 planes, this was the largest Japanese air attack since Pearl Harbor. The Navy played a crucial role in operations to take Japanese airfields. During July and August 1944 the Japanese 18th Army, based on Wewak, mounted an attack on Aitape, employing more than 20,000 troops in the forward area. Documents captured during the Philippine operations also proved useful. The National Archives at College Park as well as other United States and foreign archival institutions hold copies of these publications. There were also other ATIS publications, based on captured documents and interrogations, such as Advanced Echelon Reports, Philippine Series Translations, and Interrogation Spot Reports. 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. 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 campaign was long and arduous, but by the end of 1944 the Japanese threat was contained in New Guinea. 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. [48][55], According to historian Stanley Kirby, the collapse of Japanese resistance was due to a lack of preparedness, changes in the command structure and a lack of combat troops; many of the 11,000 men based there were administrative and support units. [5], Allied intelligence successes led to the decision to land at Hollandia. [citation needed], Three factors conspired to create disaster for the Japanese. This procedure called for all documents to be briefly examined, and those of operational value segregated from those having probable or general value and those having no apparent military value, and provisions were made for the translation on a priority bases of those sections of documents containing information of operational value. [28], "Thenceforth, the Battle of Milne Bay became an infantry struggle in the sopping jungle carried on mostly at night under pouring rain. 3 (Fall 2005). Most regrettable!!' Subsequently, Supplements No. As the body of available material continued to grow, individual studies based on information available to ATIS were produced as Information Bulletins on subjects of general interest. The most important find was a set of plans and specifications for some of the defenses encountered on the island. 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. However, using 27 tons, at 40 lbs. 6, The Exploitation of Japanese Documents, dated December 14, 1944. Researchers should, of course, use the National Archives Catalog. [51] Eight waves landed at White 1 after two LCIs fired rockets at the high ground overlooking the beach where several Japanese antiaircraft guns were located. Two months after JICPOA was formed US forces invaded the Gilbert Islands. 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. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger, previously commander of the U.S. Pre-War New Guinea The Japanese Invasion The Turning Point The Long Allied Advance 1943 1944 The New Guinea campaign (January 1942-September 1945) was one of the longest campaigns of the Second World War. The air defences consisted of P-39 and P-40 fighters. 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. This plan was eventually reversed in favor of a counterattack on U.S. forces around Aitape. No. Current Translations were publications containing complete translations of documents classified A, B, C, or D in ATIS Bulletins. Earlier, during the Leyte campaign, important documents and diaries were captured by CIC detachments indicating the collaboration of a prominent police officer. White 1 would be the main landing, as it provided the only spot where the larger LSTs could land, while White 2 would be secured with smaller LVTs and DUKWs, which would be used to cross the shallow entrance to Jautefa Bay. Possibly the most important translations published by the 6th Army ATIS Advanced Echelon in February 1945, were files of orders of the Japanese 58th Independent Mixed Brigade. [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. See Appendix I for information about the ATIS publication program. the strategic base on New Britain (now part of Papua New Guinea), on January 23, 1942. [18] A large number of Japanese aircraft were stationed at airfields near Hollandia in March 1944. (Map 2) Invasion of Dutch New Guinea. At the same time, two sketches were captured at Tacloban, Leyte, which showed the disposition of the Japanese 16th Division. MacArthur, the supreme commander in the area, also commanded all U.S. Army troops in the Southwest Pacific in his capacity as commanding general, U.S. Army Forces in the Far East. [20], Since Port Moresby was the only port supporting operations in Papua, its defence was critical to the campaign. Background. Gen. Millard F. Harmon, who was also subordinate to Nimitz. [13], Due north of Port Moresby, on the northeast coast of Papua, are the Huon Gulf and the Huon Peninsula. The westernmost island of this group, Goodenough, had been occupied in August 1942 by 353 stranded troops from bombed Japanese landing craft. This airfield was of great value to the Australians during the fighting for northeast Papua. ATIS was established on September 19, 1942, and was headquartered in a suburb of Brisbane, Australia. I and II were published on March 19, 1945 and June 23, 1945, respectively. 117, Infringement of the Laws of War and Ethics by the Japanese Medical Corps, contains information on violations of the Geneva Convention on the rules of warfare and points out how, time and again, medical personnel put to death their own patients. [18], "[T]he Owen Stanley Range is a jagged, precipitous obstacle covered with tropical rainforest up to the pass at 6500-foot elevation, and with moss like a thick wet sponge up to the highest peaks, 13,000 feet above the sea. 102103, The Japanese drive to conquer all of New Guinea had been decisively stopped. hbspt.enqueueForm({ [8] ICPOAs first officer in charge was Cmdr. The Allied Air Forces acted promptly on this information and sank both Japanese submarines and supply barges. Gen. Frank D. Merrill, captured 2 tons of documents at Myitkyina, Burma. 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. 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. 1, List of Japanese Military Conventional Signs and Abbreviations (March 4, 1943); No. 76) and Japanese efforts to fight Plague and Cholera (No. The survivors were rescued by local villagers and handed over to Lieutenant Colonel Jim Cushing, US Army, the leader of the Philippine Guerrillas. [41] Through the afternoon of 1 March, the overcast weather held at which point everything began to go wrong for the Japanese. The beach quickly became congested, as it had also been the center of a Japanese supply dump prior to the assault, and engineers had to work to clear the area with bulldozers and construct a roadway to the beach's only exit. Similar JICPOA teams participated in succeeding amphibious assaults to examine prisoners and documents for intelligence of immediate tactical value. The majority of the Allied force was provided by the United States, with the bulk of two United States Army infantry divisions being committed on the ground. All of these factors had to be taken into account in determining the lines of advance in 1944. At wars end it moved to Tokyo. [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. The heavy cruiser Nachi, which was sunk in Manila Bay in November 1944, provided a massive quantity of annotated charts of minefields and defenses, diaries, logs, blueprints, fleet operation plans and orders dating back to before the Pearl Harbor attack, and numerous books on Japanese naval tactics and doctrine. While it was beyond MacArthur's capabilities to deny Buna to the Japanese, the same could not be said of Milne Bay, which was easily accessible by Allied naval forces. graduate Hollandia. [9] Few combat units were stationed at Hollandia in early 1944. 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. [46] Yamamoto then turned his attention to New Guinea: 94 planes struck Oro Bay on 11 April; 174 planes hit Port Moresby on 12 April; and in the largest raid of all, 188 aircraft struck Milne Bay on 14 April. 92). The Allied victories in 1943 set the stage for the strategic advances of 1944, but they did not determine the exact lines of attack. [21] Japanese bombers were often escorted by fighters which came in at 30,000ft (9,100m)too high to be intercepted by the P-39s and P-40sgiving the Japanese an altitude advantage in air combat. He was thrown into his own jail.[15]. Later, the procedure was altered again to cope with the tons of documents captured at main Japanese bases. 4, Bibliographic Index used for all ATIS publications; No. The Battle of Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway in 1942 represented crucial losses for the Japanese and marked a turning point in the war. The Kokoda Trail [was] suitable for splay-toed Papuan aborigines but a torture to modern soldiers carrying heavy equipment", Samuel Eliot Morison, Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, p. 34, Buna was easily taken as the Allies had no military presence there (MacArthur wisely chose not to attempt an occupation by paratroopers since any such force would have been easily wiped out by the Japanese). Land-based aircraft of the Allied air forces softened up the Hollandia area, destroying more than 300 enemy aircraft during the weeks preceding the attack. [33], Initial operations commenced in the second week of March 1944 with air raids by aircraft of the U.S. 5th Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force attacked Japanese airfields along the New Guinea coast from Wewak to the Vogelkop and on Biak Island. On April 29, 1944, ATIS Research Report No. Key Terms He was succeeded in September 1942, by Capt. 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. ", 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. Joining JICPOA once it became an inter-service organization were some 50 US Army Military Intelligence Service (MIS) Nisei linguists. [17], After this failure, the Japanese decided on a longer term, two-pronged assault for their next attempt on Port Moresby. [6] The Joint Chiefs of Staff also directed the United States Pacific Fleet to assign aircraft carriers to provide air support for the landings. Reports were issued when sufficient information on any subject had been collated to warrant publication. The beach was narrow, though, and only allowed two LCMs to land at a time, while the even bigger LSTs had to remain offshore where they were cross loaded on to LVTs. Consequently, Japanese efforts to develop the area were delayed throughout 1943 and 1944. ATIS Inventories were also prepared. First, they had woefully underestimated the strength of the Allied air forces. 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. In addition, about 5,400 survivors of the Japanese defeat at Buna-Gona were moved into the Lae-Salamaua area. Classes began November 1, 1941, with four instructors and 60 students in an abandoned airplane hangar at Crissy Field. Tweet. Ultimately, a major air and staging base was developed in the Hollandia area and most of the higher headquarters in the Southwest Pacific area established their command posts there during the summer of 1944. Their scheme of conquest envisaged control of the Aleutians, Midway, Fiji and Samoa, New Britain, eastern New Guinea, points in the [2] In the second half of 1943 the main Allied concern in the south Pacific was the major Japanese base at . For this, he ordered the air arm of Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa's Third Fleet carriers to reinforce the Eleventh Air Fleet at Rabaul. Three weeks later, on March 21, 1944, a captured field order disclosed the Japanese strength at Rossum, New Britain. [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. 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.. The three supporting U.S. cruisers and destroyers began their bombardment around 06:00, concentrating on targets around the entrance to Jautefa Bay and Hollandia. 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. 25 with Anti-Japanese activities in Java; and No. 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. 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. [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. It was captured and was found to be carrying a Japanese message. They totaled 104 in number. The Japanese defended Biak valiantly, even managing at one point to bring in 1,100 reinforcements, but they were finally overcome in early August. They included plans, charts, air defense details on all Japanese-held Pacific islands, and battle orders. 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. These documents, contrary to American intelligence, indicated that the Japanese were strongly entrenched on Parry and Eniwetok islands. The diary covered the period January 1942-January 1944. [30][31] The decision to undertake these operations simultaneously stretched Allied shipping and logistics resources, and necessitated reallocating resources from other theaters and roles. In response, on 8 March General Douglas MacArthur sought approval from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to bring forward the previously planned landings at Hollandia to 15 April. In favor of a counterattack on U.S. forces japanese invasion of dutch new guinea Aitape 25 with Anti-Japanese in... 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