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obtain intelligence from the crews. The Japanese recruited an American in San Pedro, two hours drive up the California coast, and also the location of U.S. shipping and naval units. This American was detected by the U.S. [[Office of Naval Intelligence]] (ONI) and was later sentenced to 15 years in prison.
obtain intelligence from the crews. The Japanese recruited an American in San Pedro, two hours drive up the California coast, and also the location of U.S. shipping and naval units. This American was detected by the U.S. [[Office of Naval Intelligence]] (ONI) and was later sentenced to 15 years in prison.


Japanese spies had assumed the cover of diplomats, businessmen, fisherman and other mundane occupations and frequently relied on the cooperation of, or the blind eyes of top officials of supposedly neutral governments. The Japanese attempted to subvert U.S. politics and foment unrest among minorities with overtures to the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] (NAACP). This practice was repeated in [[Mexico]] and in [[South America]] and was patterned after Japan's subversive activities throughout Asia.
Japanese spies had assumed the cover of diplomats, businessmen, fisherman and other mundane occupations and frequently relied on the cooperation of, or the blind eyes of top officials of supposedly neutral governments. The Japanese attempted to subvert U.S. politics and foment unrest among minorities with overtures to the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] (NAACP).{{fact}} This practice was repeated in [[Mexico]] and in [[South America]] and was patterned after Japan's subversive activities throughout Asia.


*'''Japanese intelligence and Secret societies underground actions'''
*'''Japanese intelligence and Secret societies underground actions'''

Revision as of 22:35, 26 March 2008


The Kempeitai pronounced roughly "kem-pay-tie"(憲兵隊, "Corps of Law Soldiers") was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945. It was not an English-style service police, but was a French-style gendarmerie. Therefore, whilst it was institutionally a part of the Imperial Japanese Army, it also discharged the functions of the military police for the Imperial Japanese Navy under the direction of the Admiralty Minister (although the IJN had its own Tokeitai), those of the executive police under the direction of the Interior Minister, and those of the judicial police under the direction of the Justice Minister. A member of the corps was called a kempei (gendarme).[1]

History

Kenpei officers aboard a train in 1935

This article does not deal with the pre-modern Japanese military history.

The Kempeitai was established in 1881 by a decree called Kempei Jourei, literally "articles concerning gendarmes".[2] Its model was la Gendarmerie Nationale of France. The details of the Kempeitai's military, executive and judicial police functions were defined by the Kempei Rei ("Decree on Gendarmes") of 1898[3] which was subsequently amended twenty-six times before Japan's defeat in August 1945.

The force initially consisted of 349 men. The enforcement of the new conscription legislation was an important part of their duty, because many peasant families did not want their young men to be taken away from them. As regards the Kempeitai's internal administrative structure, its general affairs branch was in charge of the Kempeitai policy, personnel management, internal discipline, as well as liaison (sicsic) with the Ministries of the Admiralty, the Interior, and Justice. The operation branch was in charge of the distribution of military police units within the army, general public security and intelligence. [citation needed]

In 1907, the Kempeitai was ordered to station in Korea.[4] Its main duty in Korea was legally defined as preserving the (Japanese army's) peace in Korea, although it also functioned as a military police for the Japanese army stationed in Korea. This formality remained basically unchanged after Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910.

The Kempeitai maintained public order within Japan under the direction of the Interior Minister, and in the occupied territories under the direction of the Minister of War. Japan also had a civilian secret police force, Tokko, which was the Japanese acronym of Tokubetsu Koto Keisatsu ("special higher police"). Tokko was a part of the Interior Ministry. However, the Kempeitai, too, had a Tokko branch of its own, and through it discharged the functions of a secret police. As such, the Kempeitai assumed the power to arrest, often without warrant of any kind whatsover, those whom it regarded as subversive to "good" public order, such as communists, liberals and anti-war people. The Kempeitai often did not hesitate to torture those whom they had arrested, especially during the 1930s and the early 1940s.

When the Kempeitai arrested a civilian under the direction of the Justice Minister, the person so arrested was expected to be subject to civilian judicial proceedings. In practice, it was very difficult to prove one's innocence once arrested: Japan had very few procedural safeguards against forced confessions at least before 1948.

The Kempeitai's brutality was particularly notorious in Korea and the other occupied territories. The Kempeitai were abhorred in Japan's mainland, too, especially during the World War II when Prime Minister General Hideki Tojo, the Commander of the Kempeitai of the Japanese Army in Manchuria from 1935 to 1937[5], used the Kempeitai extensively in order to make sure that everyone was committed to his (or in his view, His Majesty's sacred) war. Under Tojo, the Kempeitai reduced Japan to a police state.

According to United States Army TM-E 30-480, there were over 36,000 regular members of the Kempeitai at the end of the war; this did not include the many ethnic "auxiliaries". As many foreign territories fell under the Japanese military occupation during the 1930s and the early 1940s, the Kempeitai recruited a large number of locals in those territories in order to supplement the force. Taiwan and Korea seem to have been their favourite sources of auxiliaries to police the newly occupied territories in Southeast Asia, but the Kempeitai recruited some in French Indochina (especially, from among the Cao Dai religious sect), Malaya and elsewhere. In this context, the Kempeitai may have trained Trinh Minh The, a Vietnamese nationalist and military leader. Some sources report that the Kempeitai recruited even criminals as law enforcers. The Kempeitai might have paid their meticulous attention to the conduct of the prisoners of war and local population in the occupied territories, but they generally failed to police and detect very serious violations of the then Japanese military criminal codes and military disciplinary regulations, especially when these were committed by Japanese military personnel against prisoners of war and civilians.

The Kempeitai was disarmed and disbanded after the Japanese surrender in August 1945.

Today, the post-war Self-Defence Forces' internal police is called Keimutai (See Japanese Self-Defence Forces). Each individual member is called Keimukan. The Keimutai, or a service police, is definitely not a gendarmerie, but like an English-style military police.

Japanese Secret Services and the Axis Powers

In the 1920's and 1930's, the Kempeitei 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 Malaysia. 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, and in a greatly reduced from then until circa August 1945.

Organization

The Kempeitai maintained a headquarters in each relevant army area, comprising two or three field offices, each with approximately 375 personnel.

The field office in turn was divided into 65-man sections called 'buntai', which were further divided into sub-sections called bunkentai, with approximately 25 personnel.

Each sub-section contained three squads: a police squad or keimu han, an administration squad or naikin han, and a special duties squad or Tokumu han.

Wartime mission

The Kempeitai was responsible for the following:

  • Travel permits
  • Labor recruitment
  • Counterintelligence and counter-propaganda (run by the Tokko-Kempeitai as 'anti-ideological work')
  • Supply requisitioning and rationing
  • Psychological operations and propaganda
  • Rear area security
  • Running prisoner of war and forced labor and special camps (The Kempeitai apparently provided guards for several 'human experimentation' units which housed 'difficult' prisoners, including over 3,500 Americans, Chinese, Europeans, Koreans and Russians sent to Unit 100 and Unit 731.}
  • Provision of "comfort" women (jugun ianfu) for the "comfort houses" (These were brothels maintained by the IJA for the use of its troops. Originally Japanese volunteers were used but as these became rare or limited to the use of officers, many Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, and some European women were kidnapped and placed in these facilities to be "used" by members of Japan's military. The Kempeitai also regulated the accommodation facilities of the brothels, checked the identities of their customers, and controlled the violence and drunkenness within.)
  • Managed esoteric sciences,alternative energy sources and advanced technologies for media of Unit 831 special section joining with Black Dragon/Green Dragon Societies and Tibetan Green Men Order.[dubious – discuss]

Uniform

Personnel wore either the standard M1938 field uniform or the cavalry uniform with high black leather boots. Civilian clothes were also authorized but badges of rank or the imperial chrysanthemum were worn under the jacket lapel. Uniformed personnel also wore a black chevron on their uniforms and a white armband on the left arm with the characters ken (憲, "law") and hei (兵, "soldier").

A full dress uniform comprising a red kepi, gold and red waist sash, dark blue tunic and trousers with black facings was authorised for officers of the Kempeitai to wear on ceremonial occasions until 1942. Rank insignia comprised gold Austrian knots and epaulettes.

Personnel were armed with either a cavalry sabre and pistol for officers and a pistol and bayonet for enlisted men. Junior NCOs carried a shinai (竹刀, "bamboo kendo sword") especially when dealing with prisoners.

Officer ranks and strengths

  • Area Army: This would be the relevant army to which the Kempei Tai unit was attached and technically subordinate to.
  • Kempei Tai Headquarters: The headquarters staff of the Kempei Tai for each army or area. Commanded by a Shosho (Major General) with a Taisa (Colonel) as Executive Officer.
  • Field Kempei Tai: These were the largest organizations of Kempei Tai in the field and there were 2-3 assigned to each army. Each consists of a Chusa (Lieutenant Colonel) as commander, 22 Field Officers and 352 other troops.
  • Buntai (Sections): These are the next smaller units of the Kempei Tai that make up the Field Kempei Tai groups. Each is commanded by a Tai-i (Captain) with a Chu-i (1st Lieutenant) as his Executive Officer and has 65 other troops.
  • Bunkentai (Detachments): The smallest unit of Kempei Tai, these were commanded by a Sho-i (2nd Lieutenant) with a Junshikan (Warrant Officer) as Executive Officer and 20 other troops.
  • Kempeitai Auxiliary units: consisting of regional ethnic forces in occupied areas. Troops supplemented the Kempei Tai and were considered part of the organization but were forbidden by law to rise above the rank of Shocho (Sergeant Major).
  • Strengths: The Kempei Tai had grown to 315 officers and 6000 enlisted men by 1937. These were the members of the known, public forces. Allies estimated that by the end of World War Two, there were at least 75,000 members of the Kempei Tai, figuring in undercover personnel and so on. This number might be even higher.

Japanese Secret Services and Conquest Planning

Japanese Secret Services provided the Imperial High Command, the Army and the Navy with intelligence information which had some bearing on their strategy of conquering the "Southern Theatre".

The Japanese Army General Staff obtained such information through their channels in China and the Soviet Union under the Japanese strategic planning for mainland Asia (1905-1940). The Army strategists saw detailed data in their Intelligence headquarters in Manchukuo and Kwantung.

For the Japanese Navy Staff, the information came from western colonies in Southeast Asia, and the Pacific area. Navy experts analyzed all aspects of these countries in their Intelligence HQ at Taihoku, Formosa.

At the same time, another important point in planning was in relation to future confrontation with the United States linked to these conquest strategies. These details were studied at Imperial House and Central Government Intelligence organizations in Tokyo.

When all intelligence organizations analyzed the Japanese Army defeats in their strategy in the Russian-Japanese Incidents during 1929-39, the situation stayed in favour of the Japanese Navy ideologists in their proposed South Seas conquest strategy. This changed the political balance in favour of the Navy in 1941, using their proposals in the Southern Area.

The Japanese Secret Services provided important economic, industrial, and social data to help in the organization of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere economic conquest doctrine, with Japanese conquest planning. This recovery of information continued during the Japanese occupation period until August 1945.

After World War I, Japan sided with the Allies, and Japanese Intelligence then monitored the German colonies in the Pacific. Japan occupied Palau Island, the Marshall Islands, and the Caroline Islands. They used the islands as sea and air bases for their intelligence operations, spying on shipping lanes. Dutch New Guinea was a hotbed of Japanese espionage.

Overseas services and collaborators

  • Japanese undercover actions in United States and Mexico

Japanese Secret Services used some "covers" to protect their activities. For example, The Molino Rojo (Red Mill) in Tijuana, Mexico as a brothel used by Japanese intelligence agents for conferences and as a meeting place. The Molino Rojo is located in Tijuana's notorious Zona Norte, with its many bars and brothels. The interesting thing about Tijuana is that it is less than 15 miles from the U.S. Navy's San Diego Destroyer Base (now Naval Station San Diego) and the North Island Naval Air Station. An Imperial Navy Lieutenant Commander and subervsive agent, a former exchange student at California's Stanford University, had recruited an American spy, former Navy yeoman. Starting with a $500 lure and $200 monthly payment, Japanese agents persuaded the American to board U.S. Navy ships dressed in a yeoman's uniform, to obtain intelligence from the crews. The Japanese recruited an American in San Pedro, two hours drive up the California coast, and also the location of U.S. shipping and naval units. This American was detected by the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and was later sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Japanese spies had assumed the cover of diplomats, businessmen, fisherman and other mundane occupations and frequently relied on the cooperation of, or the blind eyes of top officials of supposedly neutral governments. The Japanese attempted to subvert U.S. politics and foment unrest among minorities with overtures to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).[citation needed] This practice was repeated in Mexico and in South America and was patterned after Japan's subversive activities throughout Asia.

  • Japanese intelligence and Secret societies underground actions

The Japanese, like their counterparts in China, developed espionage programs by linking secret societies with ultranationalist aims--such as Genyosha (Dark Ocean Society), Kokuryu-ku (Amur River Society), the Black Dragon Society--and organized criminal enterprises--such as Yakuza crime syndicates. Indeed, Dark Ocean and the Black Dragons supplied espionage and subversion services to the Empire in Korea in 1895 and perhaps earlier. Dark Ocean founder and Black Dragon mentor Mitsuru Toyama, as well secret society links to the Japanese Kempei Tai, a functional equivalent to Hitler's Gestapo that relied upon the secret societies for manpower and support.

The Black Dragons were the Amur River Society (Kokuryu-kai) in 1930s and 1940s Japan. The Black Dragons were ultra-nationalists heavily involved in the conquest of China, and as spies and fifth columnists subverting nations targeted for conquest. The Black Dragons were active up and down the Pacific Coast of North and South America.

Black Dragons were a concern to Lieutenant Commander K. D. Ringle of U.S. Navy Intelligence and other security officials. They were a secret society with political aims. Many of its members served in industry and government including diplomatic posts and bureaucratic and military roles such as the Kempei Tai secret political police. The veiled relationship of secret societies such as Black Dragon to government and business exemplifies a Japanese social phenomena.

Secret Japanese documents titled "The Three Power Alliance and the American/Japanese War" were alleged to have been stolen from an intelligence officer of the Black Dragon Society by an anti-Japanese Korean patriot. The documents were purported to detail Japanese war plans for the simultaneous invasion of the Panama Canal Zone, Alaska, California and Washington State. He was said to have obtained the documents by clandestine means in a Los Angeles hotel room in 1940.

In the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines, as in the U.S. and Mexican west coasts, throngs of Japanese fishermen pulled nets and took notes and pictures for the Empire. Japan's fishing fleets were augmented by farmers, mining engineers, industrialists and merchants, barbers, house-boys, maids and prostitutes, especially in those areas designated as part of Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In this sea of ordinary Japanese was submerged a potent fifth column of spies, subversives and saboteurs. There is a story of a French writer travelling worldwide, observing Japanese spy rings operating in Malaya, India, Burma, Ceylon, Thailand and as far away as Middle East, Morocco, Port Said, Egypt and Italian-occupied Ethiopia [citation needed].

  • Japanese secret services operations in Europe

In neutral Spain, spy masters operating under the aegis of Japan's Ambassador controlled TO spy rings worldwide and coordinated exchanges of intelligence with the other Axis powers through Germany's Abwehr general staff intelligence agency and Italy's Military Secret service. In neutral Portugal, the Japanese Ambassador provided a vital link and source of intelligence for the Axis. In Germany, the Japanese Ambassador outranked both the Japanese diplomat in Madrid and in Lisbon, and much of the TO intelligence was funneled through Japan's Embassy.

In Berlin, where the Japanese Ambassador enjoyed a close friendship with the chief of Germany's secret services, a diplomat relayed TO information to Tokyo along with messages coordinating policies and operations between the three Axis powers. Japan's diplomats in Afghanistan spied on Russia, Iran and India and fed information into the Japanese Madrid center. This pattern of diplomatic cover and use of neutral third countries and Japanese people of ordinary backgrounds was repeated around the world.

The TO network even operated in Great Britain, where an eyewitness said that he had run TO operations from England and stated that the "Spanish leader knew every detail of our activities with the Axis". Early on, the Japanese Ambassador in Spain established a successful spy ring in the U.S. aided by a Spanish operative introduced by Spain's Foreign Minister Suñer. In this net were some Japanese spies operating in a U.S. City in Pacific area.

  • Japanese intelligence services and Japanese communities in overseas

In the period from about 1895 to 1941, Japan encouraged emigration of its citizens to nations bordering the Pacific Ocean, including the United States.[citation needed] These Japanese were often referred to as doho, or "compatriots". The position taken by Tokyo was that the doho held dual citizenship, with loyalty to Japan, and loyalty to the Emperor first and foremost. While unknown numbers of Japanese citizens rejected the demands of being doho, many did not. The doho created security problems for Asian nations, the Pacific islands and for the United States and Canada. Routinely denied by Japanese-Americans, doho performed espionage and subversive duties for Japan on U.S. soil.[citation needed] Japanese men returned to Japan to serve the Tenno. Thousands of Japanese-American men renounced their loyalty to the U.S. and demanded repatriation to Japan during World War II. Black Dragons disrupted U.S. internment camps.[citation needed] Declassification of U.S. security files including top secret intercepts of Japanese Code Machine and other ciphers has confirmed and added to the body of information on doho.

There were among the Japanese both alien and United States citizens certain individuals, either deliberately placed by the Japanese government or actuated by a fanatical loyalty to that country, who acted as saboteurs or agents. This number is estimated to be less than three percent of the total, or about 3500 in the entire United States.[citation needed]

The most dangerous of these people were either in custodial detention or members of such organizations as the Black Dragon Society, the Kaigun Kyokai (Navy League), or the Hoirusha Kai (Military Service Man's League), or affiliated groups. The membership of these groups was already fairly well known to the Naval Intelligence Service or the FBI and could be immediately placed in custodial detention, irrespective of whether they were alien or citizen.[citation needed] Another example, in the Southeast Asia area, were Japanese living in Malaya before World War II carrying out subversion and providing intelligence information, troops and war materiel. These Japanese immigrants, or first generation descendants of Japanese born in Malaya, were considered doho, or compatriots by Japanese traditions and law. Their allegiance to the Emperor and Japan was assumed by Japan's leaders. The doho in Malaya included the Japanese Editor of a local journal[citation needed], a Japanese diplomat (arrested for espionage)[citation needed], thousands of Japanese prostitutes, businessmen, dentists, photographers and barbers. The policy of this editor was to oppose the pro-England, pro-Southeast Asia policies of local newspapers and soften public opinion in Japan's favor. The prostitutes, passed on pillow talk, and the businessmen, dentists, photographers and barbers were all well-placed to collect intelligence, take photos and glean intelligence while hearing the chatter of their customers and social contacts.[citation needed]

Political Department

The Political Department refers to the political and ideological section of the Kempei Tai military police of pre-Pacific War Japan. It was meant to counter hostile ideological or political influences, and to reinforce the ideology of military units.

It worked through political propaganda and as an ideological representative of the Imperial Japanese Army's Kodoha (Imperial way faction, or war party). In the first phase this section drove against communist propaganda, but extended its responsibilities in other directions, at home and overseas.

It acted in Manchukuo and other areas on the Asian mainland. It was a rough equivalent to the NKVD political sections and or politruk (political commissar) units of the Soviets; or the German Nazi SS propaganda departments. They promoted racial superiority, racialist theories, counterespionage, intelligence, political sabotage and infiltration of enemy lines. They liaised with the Manchukuo military police, intelligence service, regular police, 'Residents' committees, local Nationalist Parties and the Japanese Secret Service detachment in Manchukuo. The section in Manchukuo used some agents from White Russian, Chinese, Manchu, Mongol and other foreign backgrounds for special services or covert actions at home and abroad.

Tokeitai, The Naval Secret Police

Main article: Tokeitai
Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Imperial Japanese Navy also formed a smaller and more low key police and intelligence group, the Tokeitai (Naval Secret Police), to keep the Kempeitai and the Army from meddling in Navy affairs. They were no less brutal than their Kempeitai counterparts. The Tokeitai was especially active in the areas of the South Pacific, the Naval Control Area. In 2007, historians Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Hirofumi Hayashi discovered, in the archives of the Tokyo tribunal, documents suggesting that Tokeitai members coerced women into sexual slavery in Indonesia, Indochina and China [6]

Special equipment

In line with their particular functions, Japanese secret agents utilized specialized equipment:

Radios

  • Long-range wave radio
  • Short-range wave radio

Electronic devices

  • Certain Asdic or Sonar equipment
  • special radar equipment
  • other types of electronic devices

Special Code Handbooks

  • Japanese Navy Code Handbook
  • Japanese Army Code Handbook
  • Diplomatic Services Code Handbook

Cipher Machines

  • Japanese Navy
    • "JADE" Cypher Machine
    • "CORAL" Cypher Machine
    • "Type 91" or "RED" cypher Machine
  • Diplomatic service
    • "PURPLE" or "J" cypher Machine
    • "GREEN" cypher Machine as Japanese Enigma version
  • Special Codes:
    • Purple Code
    • Red Code
    • J Code

Weapons

Uniforms

Depending upon the secret mission, the Japanese Secret Services wore regular uniforms, special forces uniforms, police uniforms, captured enemy military or police uniforms, or simply civilian clothing.

Transport

During special operations, the Japanese Secret Services used various local or captured types of transport:

Aircraft

Vessels and Submarines

Japanese Secret Services also used merchant vessels, transport cruisers, coastal or modern high sea fishing vessels, sea or river patrols, Surface Navy War Vessels, regular or modified light boats, and modified or regular Midget or larger Submarines between another vessels types.

Land Transports

During land operations, the Japanese Secret Services used cars, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles/sidecars, bicycles, armed or unarmed armored troops transports, light or medium tanks or railway services.

Structure of Japanese Secret Services

(The author of this section is advised to provide the audience with sources and to transfer this section and any relevant section below to another article.)

Japanese Secret Services Supreme Commander and associated Operative Chiefs

  • The Supreme Commander (possibly nominally) of intelligence services is the Tenno in the post of commander of Imperial Armed Forces.

Beneath the Supreme Commander was:

National Defense

Japanese national defense organization

Both perform similar work to German Military Intelligence units Abwehr im Oberkommando der Wehrmacht ("Abwehr"), the Brandenburg Unit and the German Naval Intelligence section.

The Japanese Intelligence Services also organized a spy network code named "TO" and others. The system collected any relevant intelligence data for future objetives or anything related to national defense and the Japanese Army or Navy military plans.

Other Complimentary Military Intelligence units:

  • In Chisima Archipielago:
  • Imperial Navy General Staff (General Staff's Intelligence Division)
  • Navy Third Department (Intelligence unit)
  • Tokeitai (Naval Military Police)
  • Intelligence Office (previously known as the General Affairs Section)
  • Japanese Naval Intelligence Staff
  • 8th unit "Yashika"
  • Tokyo Gimusho ("The Australian Research Section")

Kempeitai Intelligence Section

  • Decoding & Codebreaking Department
  • Political Department (linked with Kodoha party)
  • Counterespionage/Counterintelligence Department
  • Propaganda and Indoctrination Department
  • Subversion and Sabotage Department
  • Kempei Tai (Army Secret Security) (previously known as the Service Section)

Security Doctrine

  • Kempeitai and Tokeitai used Kikosaku as a method of punishment.
  • In Manchukuo, one "native" Manchu Military and police intelligence section worked alongside the Tonari Gumi (the native equivalent organization).

Headquarter Locations

The Japanese Navy Intelligence Center was located in Taiwan and the Japanese Army Intelligence Headquarters was in Manchukuo.

Intelligence Departments by Region

Special Services

Such sections were under the command of Joho-Kikan (Japanese Army intelligence), Tokumu Kikan (Japanese Army Espionage service) and Kempei Tai Intelligence unit. The Japanese Navy has some similar intelligence units.

For tactics operations of Special Forces commandos look at the actions of the Giretsu special forces operations during the last stages of conflict in 1944-45 against the American bases in Marianas.

Central Government

Annex Intellligence units outside Japan

Korea (Chosen)

  • Kempeitai Training school in Keijo (Seoul)
  • Kempei Tai Chosen unit (Japanese/Korean units)
  • Japanese Army Chosen Army Intelligence Branch
  • Japanese Navy Chosen detachment Intelligence unit
  • Tokko Chosen Intelligence section
  • Chosen Criminal Police services
  • Tonarigumi Chosen organization

Manchukuo & Kwantung

Mengchiang

Reformed Chinese state

Formosa

  • Imperial University of Taihoku
  • Superior Commerce Institute of Taihoku
  • Kempeitai Formosa unit
  • Japanese Army Taiwan Army Intelligence Branch
  • Japanese Navy Taiwan detachment Intelligence unit
  • Tokko Formosa Intelligence section
  • Taiwan Criminal Police services
  • Tonarigumi Formosa organization

South Pacific Mandate

  • Kempeitai South Pacific Mandate unit
  • Japanese Army South Seas Army Intelligence Branch
  • Japanese Navy South Pacific Mandate Intelligence unit
  • Tokeitai Japanese Navy Secret Services
  • South Pacific Mandate local Police services
  • Tonarigumi South Pacific Mandate organization

Southeast Asia

  • Kempeitai branches in area (Japanese/native units)
  • Kempeitai Training Singapore School branch
  • Kempeitai Training Manila School branch
  • Possibly local equivalent of Tonarigumi

organized by Japanese in occupied lands with native collaboration

Other Intelligence sections

  • Kempeitai (Imperial Japanese Gendarmerie)

and Tokeitai (Japanese Navy's own police force) had responsibilities similar to German

("SD") (German Security Service) or Soviet Russian NKVD, and Politruk unit, for watching exterior enemies or suspicious persons and watching inside of own unit for possible defectors or traitors; and used the security doctrine of "Kikosaku".

During the Second World War, the Kempeitai had units in:

  • Unlike the Nazis and the Schutzstaffel ("SS"), the Kempeitai has received very little notice in literature and films regarding the subject. In the Clint Eastwood film, Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), one of the main characters is a former Kempei, from whom the other soldiers maintain distance, fearing that he was sent to their quarters to spy on them lest they think of desertion or mutiny. It ultimately transpires that he was shipped to fight on the frontlines during the battle of Iwo Jima after he had deliberately failed to follow an order from his commanding officer to shoot a family dog that was barking and thus "cause[d] a threat to military privacy and silence."

References

  1. ^ Masae Takahashi (editor and annotator), Zoku Gendaishi Shiryo ("Materials on Contemporary History, Second Series"), Volume 6, Gunji Keisatsu ("Military Police"), (Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 1982), pp. v-xxx.
  2. ^ Dajokan-Tatsu (Decree in Grand Council of the State) of 11 March 1881 (14th Year of Meiji), No. 11. This decree was subsequently amended by Chokurei (Order in Privy Council) of 28 March 1889 (22nd Year of Meiji), No. 43.
  3. ^ Order in Privy Council of 29 November 1898 (31st year of Meiji), No. 337.
  4. ^ Order in Privy Council of 1907 (40th Year of Meiji), No. 323.
  5. ^ Naohiro Asao, et al. ed., Simpan Nihonshi Jiten ("Dictionary of Japanese History, New Edition", (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1997) p. 742 ("Tojo Hideki"), and pp. 348-9 ("Kempei").
  6. ^ Evidence documenting sex-slave coercion revealed http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070418a5.html

See also

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