Allied Intelligence in Japan

[MakeeLearn]

And this way, just a boring landing on a C-141 Starlifter of the Arkansas Air National Guard

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Many drugs have enter the US this way...

LAPES - Low-Altitude Parachute Extraction System

I did LAPES rigging during my time. The Canadian AF abandoned LAPES as too dangerous after losing two aircraft during training and having some near misses. The instructors told us about one drop with tandem platforms (joined by two articulating metal links) loaded with barrels. The DZ ground was soft and there were some minor bumps that the load should have ridden over because the front of the platform has a curve upward like a sled. On this occasion it dug into a hump and the front platform stopped dead. The back of the front platform lifted up from all the forward energy left, and slingshot the rear platform over top. The rigging was never designed to take that kind of load through the top so the barrels (loaded with sand to simulate fuel weight) came flying off and were chasing the plane as it left the DZ, nearly catching it!

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Many drugs have enter the US this way...

LAPES - Low-Altitude Parachute Extraction System

I did LAPES rigging during my time. The Canadian AF abandoned LAPES as too dangerous after losing two aircraft during training and having some near misses. The instructors told us about one drop with tandem platforms (joined by two articulating metal links) loaded with barrels. The DZ ground was soft and there were some minor bumps that the load should have ridden over because the front of the platform has a curve upward like a sled. On this occasion it dug into a hump and the front platform stopped dead. The back of the front platform lifted up from all the forward energy left, and slingshot the rear platform over top. The rigging was never designed to take that kind of load through the top so the barrels (loaded with sand to simulate fuel weight) came flying off and were chasing the plane as it left the DZ, nearly catching it!

In US Army (Rigging) LAPES in one of the few times that the "book" is ignored and knots such as a "Truckers Hitch" are used.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

In US Army LAPES in one of the few times that the "book" is ignored and knots such as a "Truckers Hitch" are used.

Never had problem with our knots. In the case I mentioned the rigging straps snapped because the loads were rigged for standard vertical G loads and the slingshot probably went at least 10X that much. The webbing used for straps was all secured by buckles, which did not fail.

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

In US Army LAPES in one of the few times that the "book" is ignored and knots such as a "Truckers Hitch" are used.

Never had problem with our knots. In the case I mentioned the rigging straps snapped because the loads were rigged for standard vertical G loads and the slingshot probably went at least 10X that much. The webbing used for straps was all secured by buckles, which did not fail.

Battle of Khe Sanh is THE EXAMPLE in US Rigging School. Our Demyansk Pocket.
The rigging system is so that the load is not leaving the aircraft... the aircraft is leaving the load.

[jmalter]

Not sure what you're looking for here, but the only 'secret source' that I've read of was Richard Sorge, a Russian spy who was a diplomat IIRC.

The USN had personnel based in Japan pre-war, of 2 types. Naval attaches, part of the diplomatic mission; & 'language officers' charged w/ learning the Japanese language. Both types made regular reports to US Naval Intelligence, based on whatever they could glean from Japanese newspapers, official government sources, visits to shipyards, airbases & public events, & cultivation of friendships with Japanese naval officers. The first chapters of John Prados' "Combined Fleet Decoded" would prob'ly interest you.

[Mike Dubost]

ORIGINAL: jmalter

Not sure what you're looking for here, but the only 'secret source' that I've read of was Richard Sorge, a Russian spy who was a diplomat IIRC.

The USN had personnel based in Japan pre-war, of 2 types. Naval attaches, part of the diplomatic mission; & 'language officers' charged w/ learning the Japanese language. Both types made regular reports to US Naval Intelligence, based on whatever they could glean from Japanese newspapers, official government sources, visits to shipyards, airbases & public events, & cultivation of friendships with Japanese naval officers. The first chapters of John Prados' "Combined Fleet Decoded" would prob'ly interest you.

This discussion prompted me to begin re-reading And I was There by Rear Admiral Edwin T. Layton and Roger Pineau. Admiral Layton was fleet intelligence officer from December 1940 to the end of the war.

I remembered him saying something about human intelligence operation in Japan pre-war. It has been a few years since I read the book, so I was really off in my recollection of what he said. I had thought he’d done a bit of work in Japan when posted there to learn Japanese in the 1930s. Turns out, I was wrong about that. The mentions I recalled were from his later tour as Assistant Naval Attaché. He had a beach house underneath the flight path of a Naval Aviation station and was able to see some info on the planes. He also mentioned having seen a new cruiser when his passenger ship was stopped to allow the cruiser Tone to enter harbor ahead of her. In this context, he regretted not having a camera, since he was officially discouraged from having “the sure sign of a spy”!

He mentioned that the British were less limited, one new Attaché having snapped a photo of the seaplane carrier Chiyoda from his passenger ship.

As for the overall level of human intelligence in the Home Islands pre-war he states on page 67: “Our Naval Attaché Captain Bemis frequently warned me in ominous tones. ‘Keep your hands out of that, boy!’ This gave me the impression that we must have extensive undercover intelligence operations in Japan – which I later learned was just not so. The Kempeitai managed to eliminate every one of our prewar undercover agents.”

I am only a little ways into my re-reading. If I come across any mention of wartime agents, I will post again.

NOTE Edited to add space between paragraphs so it is not a complete wall of text.

[geofflambert]

When it came to the home islands, the only useful sources would have been Korean. There were a whole lot of them there, laboring in different areas, and having useful information. Not about the Yamato program perhaps, but shipping generally and unit deployments specifically. And the Koreans, generally, were not fond of the Japanese and vice versa.

[MakeeLearn]

Homeland Japan was just too much of a closed society to risk such missions.

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/fe ... intel.html



"The military abandoned initial plans to send the Nisei to Japan when it was deemed too dangerous to put the linguists at risk of capture on enemy soil. Five Nisei, Chiyoki Ikeda, Takao Tanabe, Susumu Kazahaya, George Kobayashi, and Tad Nagaki were sent to China. Dick Betsui and Wilbert Kishinami went to India. Calvin Tottori, Tom Baba, Fumio Kido, Shoichi Kurahashi, Ralph Yempuku, Junichi Buto, and Dick Hamada were sent to Burma. In an oral history, Hamada said, “Knowing that we were not going to Japan was a great relief. Thus, when we were shipped to Burma, I felt, or even our group felt, we could do more to aid the Americans, fight the enemy."

[MakeeLearn]

US submarines did conduct Land Raiding Missions on Homeland Japan.

[MakeeLearn]

Tokyo Rose could have been a "Mother Night"

[mind_messing]

Thanks for the replies.

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

From reading Silent Service, I know agents were dropped off on mainland Japan. I have never seen what they were about. Curiously, now that I think on it, I don't recall off the top of my head any mission to pick an agent up. Troops, and civvies caught up in the war etc., yes. But I don't recall seeing any agent pickup reports.

What book is this, and can you elaborate on the nature of the missions?

https://www.amazon.com/Silent-Service-U ... nt+service

Missions were to drop off agents, then proceed on a war patrol. While not common, they were not altogether uncommon. The book never described the agents mission, just the boat who dropped the agent.

My particular interest is in operations wherein USN submarines were tasked to drop off agents on the Home Islands.

Is there anything out there regarding who these agents were, the organization behind them and what their mission was?

I've heard it told that the USN submarines were tasked to drop agents off, but the actual agents themselves seem to be shrouded in mystery. If the information is out there, then I'd like to inform myself. If it's still in the classified realm, then I can live with it.

[Macclan5]

Many Allied spies outside of Japan, especially in the Philippines.

Claire Phillips

Thanks [8D]

Proves you learn something here on these boards all the time. I was not aware of Ms Phillips till now.

The Japanese went to extraordinary lengths to hide the Yamato BB program.

Indeed agreed.

My statement of Yamato was a proxy of a sort.

I do know that the Imperial Govt went to great lengths to hide the program ; all of which you have extensively covered.

However they did sail ! Prior to 44 ! To various places not the least of which was Truk and the South China seas in so far as I know [:D]

I think that the mere fact the BB class sailed speaks to:

1) Lack of strong qualified intelligence sources within the home islands

2) Lack of strong qualified intelligence sources within the Co-Prosperity Sphere - coastwatchers and Claire not withstanding

At least in so far as being able to spot these enormous Battleships, record their passing, place context in front of the Allied Supreme Command - i.e. these Battleships are bigger than you have, and be headed and believed.

Compare the relative attention on Yamato for example to Bismark or Tripitz ~ by way of context.

[GI Jive]

mind_messing - You may want to contact the Submarine Force Library in New London. They have a huge archive of WW2 submarine records and they should be able to find an answer regarding agent insertion missions to Japan. http://ussnautilus.org/library/index.shtml

[Lecivius]

I poked around trying to find anything. I saw where some members of the 442 were trained (they asked for volunteers, over 100 volunteered, 12 were accepted. Those guys never cease to amaze me). But AIB decided direct infiltration to the home islands was to dangerous even for people with family members still in Japan. The fact that Japan was still very much a closed society made infiltration extreme, to say the least. Missions were directed to Burma, Malaysia, and the PI.

It does make one wonder what the sub missions to the home islands were [&:]

[MakeeLearn]

USS Barb SS-220 : The Sub That Sank a Train

http://www.eugeneleeslover.com/USNAVY/USS_Barb.html

[spence]

Poking around I came across this site:

http://www.subsowespac.org/the-patrol-zone.shtml

From what I can see it describes various special missions by submarines but in reading things over I haven't found anything (organized by ship rather than mission). It seems a lot of submarines were assigned to use their new-fangled FM sonar to chart the Japanese mine defenses of the Sea of Japan towards the end of the war. The sub force then exploited the info to enter the Sea of Japan and sink a lot of what was left of the Japanese merchant marine in 1945.

[Barb]

As far as I know most of the submarine "agent" missions of the US subs were directed to Philippines with frequent supply/leader/radiomen/medical supplies and evacuations took place (this mostly covers subs based at Fremantle-Perth). I suppose many "secret" missions were also directed to DEI.

Subs based at Brisbane were tasked with supporting "Coast Watchers" at Solomons-New Guinea area at first, later probably served the Philippines too. Their missions were also of "beach reconnaissance" prior to invasions - this included sending a recon teams on boats to the beaches and beyond (just two examples, prior to Torokina, Bougainville, both east and west coast of Bougainville were reconed by subs, also Hollandia beaches).

Subs based at Pearl (forward bases at Midway and Guam) could have been tasked with intelligence gathering around Japan and island holdings in Marshalls, Marianas, etc.) - these were mostly depth/current/thermal layer/minefield/shipping routes mappings as well as supporting the fleet actions, pilot rescue, penetrations to the Sea of Japan and Inland Sea.

British subs (based at Ceylon or Exmouth mostly) were sometimes performing agent missions in Burma, Thailand, Malaya, Vietnam and Sumatra.

The "Train Busting by Barb" mentioned was actually the only "commando" raid mission on Japanese Home Island during the war. Barb was also innovative in using sub based rockets! They fired several salvos on Kuriles IIRC. Eugene Fluckey being one of the more "unconventional" skippers around.

[GI Jive]

As far as I know most of the submarine "agent" missions of the US subs...

Barb - Good research & analysis! Thank you.