CHAPTER 24

Human Intelligence in the Attack, 1943–45

In New Guinea, with Australian and US forces moving to the offensive in early 1943, FERDINAND was required to supply parties to assist formations advancing up the coast towards New Britain. With the winding-down of the Guadalcanal campaign and the rapid advance of the US Navy north through the Pacific, the work of FERDINAND lessened dramatically. The AIB had by this time firmly taken control of FERDINAND, which was now Section C of the AIB. Feldt’s organisation had no defence against the growing demands from GHQ and the US and Australian armies for a more aggressive approach to reconnaissance.

The units of the AIB, FERDINAND and SRD jockeyed for control of intelligence operations with a number of other groups, including ANGAU, and the Australian Army and RAAF observation organisations providing early warnings back to Port Moresby. Under the surface at AIB, there was a strange mix of emotions colouring perceptions of FERDINAND and ANGAU. On the one hand, there was disdain for the civilian mentality that permeated FERDINAND and ANGAU, and on the other jealously that FERDINAND and ANGAU possessed the cream of the experienced field operators in the region. AIB wanted their expertise, but it wanted them to use it as commandos, saboteurs or guerrilla leaders.¹ It was the antithesis of good intelligence collection.

This lack of operators who fully understood the environment and the local people was one of the reasons there was more trouble in New Guinea than in other areas. The truth was that even in 1943, there were large regions of New Guinea where a white man was only a rumour or a legend, and no outsider understood the local inhabitants, their customs or their potential response to trespass. Thus, many of the attacks on AIB parties were not pro-Japanese, but just defensive actions by remote villagers prepared to fight first and talk later with trespassers.2

In 1943, ANGAU, which was supposed to handle civilian affairs in New Guinea on behalf of the Australian Army, began to insert itself into intelligence collection behind enemy lines.³ ANGAU’s activities at this time were a good example of what would later be called mission creep, and it caused further ructions within AIB.

AIB, SRD and FERDINAND were also being pressured by a growing number of commanders as more units were fed into the offensive campaigns. These commanders wanted intelligence on their intended areas of operations, areas that the Japanese were busy preparing for defence. The effect of this activity was that by April 1943, as we have seen for other islands, the Japanese in New Guinea no longer simply despatched foot patrols from their bases in the general direction of a suspected FERDINAND or SRD party. Instead, they rapidly deployed numerous patrols at intervals along the coast and moved them in a sweep that drove the FERDINAND and SRD parties deeper into the jungle and away from the possibility of rescue from the sea. Another major Japanese improvement was that they now used local villagers, whose tracking ability was second to none. Another benefit the Japanese derived from using locals was their collection of more accurate information from other locals. Once the local trackers had identified signs of a FERDINAND or AIB party, their local knowledge meant they could predict the routes their quarry would take.

It did not take long for the Japanese to progress from patrols to establishing strong garrisons at Wewak, Ubia, Madang, Rai Coast, Finschhafen and Lae, using them as bases for conducting reconnaissance patrols of the Ramu and Markham valleys.⁴ These areas became extremely dangerous for any SRD, FERDINAND or ANGAU party.

In May 1943, Lieutenant George Greathead’s party clashed with Japanese patrols near the Lower Ramu and had to withdraw to Bena Bena.⁵ Captain L.E. Ashton’s party was chased from the Sepik River towards Wewak and then back to Sepik until flown out by a Catalina that landed on Waskuk Lake on 21 May. In July, locals in the Lumi area south of the Torricellis attacked Lieutenant H.A.J. Freyer’s party. This party had been tasked with taking a NEI group, led by Sergeant H.N. Staverman, NEI, part of the way to its area of operations at Hollandia. Staverman and Corporal D.J. Topman, NEI, commanded this Dutch party, with Sergeant Leonard (Len) G. Siffleet, AIF, and two Indonesians, H. Pattiwal and M. Raharing. After crossing the Sepik River, the Dutch party headed off for Hollandia.6 Freyer’s party settled into the area around the Sepik River and sent out carriers to collect as much information as possible.

Staverman’s party appears to have been a disaster waiting to happen. Corporal Topman had refused to go on with Staverman, whom he later formally accused of being lazy, arrogant and inexperienced, and, disastrously, of bastardising and humiliating the party’s carriers.⁷ Other people were saying the same things, including Captain Schroeder, Royal Army Medical Corps, who called Staverman ‘clearly irresponsible, lazy and vain’.⁸

According to Topman, Staverman’s behaviour resulted in Lieutenant Freyer splitting the party and allowing Staverman to lead his own four-man group to Woma. This party met with disaster. The Japanese killed Staverman and an Indonesian soldier, and Siffleet died in Japanese custody on 24 October 1943 after signalling in early October that Staverman and one of the Indonesian soldiers had been killed.⁹ What Feldt had called the ‘Boy’s Own Annual’ attitude to intelligence collection behind enemy lines was proving lethal.

Already by June 1943, the Japanese using local guides, bribes and fear had made the operational environment for any FERDINAND or SRD group extremely hazardous and the increased risk was soon apparent.

As 1943 progressed, there were a series of close contacts with the Japanese. In February, at Maibang near Saidor, on the Rai Coast, Captain B. Fairfax-Ross’s party was attacked and three men were killed, including Lieutenant L.J. Bell, RANVR.¹⁰ In March, Captain Lloyd Pursehouse’s party was involved in a skirmish with Japanese troops in the mountains west of Finschhafen when Lieutenant Ken McColl, RANVR, exchanged fire with a Japanese patrol after the locals had informed the Japanese of the party’s location. They had to be extricated to Bena Bena.¹¹

Despite the increasingly aggressive Japanese tactics in New Guinea, the AIB planners did not start thinking more carefully; rather this had the opposite effect. There were many examples of this amateur attitude within AIB. Parties were being inserted into New Guinea without essential equipment like binoculars or watches.12 One AIB party was even put in with radios that could only function on the naval coastwatch frequency of 6900 kilohertz, for which AIB only had permission until 31 August 1943. This may seem like a small issue, but the presence of the AIB station on the coastwatcher net disrupted the activity of that net.¹³

Unsurprisingly, these schemes originated in the army and envisaged sabotage operations being conducted by the SRD as well as propaganda activities designed and conducted by FELO, and ANGAU-led patrols of twenty to 30 armed locals taking on the Japanese in ambush and counter-ambush warfare. This was to be supported in the Sepik River area by arming a thousand or so locals with shotguns.¹⁴

What is still striking about this scheme is the lack of any appreciation of what this would mean for the people of the Sepik River. The army officer who put this proposal did not understand that in any guerrilla war, the Japanese would use brutal tactics and win. What is more startling is that by the time this suggestion was being floated, the AIB’s campaign of sabotage, insurrection and intelligence collection in Timor had become a farce. The Japanese had brutally torn the local population apart in what was effectively an area of no tactical or strategic interest. It also ensured that no further intelligence could be derived from the area affected.

Nevertheless, the AIB began preparing its patrols for the Sepik River. Captain W.A. Money and Corporal Monfries from ANGAU were made available because of their local knowledge. Between 18 and 23 May 1943, 9th Operational Group, RAAF, conducted five sorties to drop supplies. The sortie on 18 May to Maimai failed due to bad weather, and the stores were finally dropped there on 20 May. On 21 May, an aircraft landed on Waskuk Lake, Sepik River, and picked up one of the field parties for return to Port Moresby. Two further successful supply drops were conducted on 22 and 23 May to the party at Maimai. The importance of this series of sorties was that, with the exception of the one on 21 May, the aircraft was guided by Lieutenant G.A.V. Stanley, RANVR, who was then able to inform Major J.K. McCarthy, the officer commanding C Section, AIB, of the difficulties involved.¹⁵

The first of the problems faced by the RAAF crews was the weather, which was bad during the entire period and made worse by the local terrain, in which the high ridges stopped sunlight from burning off the fog, causing the drop zones to remain obscured. Added to the weather, the Japanese airbase at Wewak was just 65 miles (105 kilometres) away from the drop zones, and the Japanese at Aitape, only 40 miles (65 kilometres) from the drop zones, had now probably been equipped with radio DF equipment. As Major McCarthy wrote to the commanding officer of 9th Operational Group, the missions were hazardous, and his implication was that they would become even more so.16

Allied planners now prepared to advance in New Guinea, with a plan to capture Lae and Salamaua, and the AIB was asked to assist. This envisaged an amphibious landing of the 9th Australian Division at the mouth of the Basu River and near Malahang, close to Lae. The AIB committed five FERDINAND parties led by G.C. Harris, L. Pursehouse, L.C. Noakes, A. Kirkwall-Smith and W.J. Reid.¹⁷ The AIB passed operational control of these intelligence parties over to Major General G. Wootten’s 9th Division, a formation with no experience of conditions in New Guinea, as it had only just arrived in theatre after performing a significant role at the Battle of El Alamein and in the Middle East. The 9th Division’s planners prepared the landings using the 8th Army’s staff tables for ammunition, supplies and equipment, rather than the tables developed by the US Marines or even the US Army, and they had no idea as to the role of the intelligence parties.¹⁸

At this critical juncture, the AIB allowed Major McCarthy, the officer-in-charge of FERDINAND in Port Moresby, to be detached to HQ, 6th US Army, which was planning an amphibious landing at Cape Gloucester on the west of New Britain. McCarthy as we have seen above, was extremely familiar with the area, which was his old district. The loss of this experienced officer contributed to the tensions as FERDINAND parties worked to support the 9th Division’s operations at Salamaua and Lae, and to the breakdown in the relationship between FERDINAND and the operational staff of the division.

The speed with which offensive operations were being developed was forcing a further dilution of experience on the ground in New Guinea. With McCarthy heavily committed to supporting the 6th US Army, Lieutenant J.H. Paterson, RANVR, and Flight Lieutenant Harold Koch were despatched to Milne Bay to support the Lae–Salamaua landings. Captain B. Fairfax-Ross, who had recently arrived back from sick leave, temporarily took over Port Moresby before being relieved by Lieutenant K. Eglington and Sergeant A. Leydin.

The expansion of offensive operations and the concurrent changes of FERDINAND personnel led to a situation where the organisation was overwhelmed by the demands being placed upon it by operational staffs unversed in intelligence collection. The result was the rapid deployment of parties into areas of operation with which they were completely unfamiliar, and their reticence to seek out and close with the enemy to kill or capture them led to a loss of confidence among the officers of the US Amphibious Force at Cape Gloucester and the 9th Division at Lae–Salamua when the coastwatchers attached to them appeared hesitant to take part in fighting patrols. In his book The Coastwatchers, Eric Feldt is frank in his description of inexperienced combat commanders, both Australian and US, attempting to use coastwatchers as forward scouts for fighting patrols. This was not what coastwatchers were trained to do, and neither was it something they were experienced in. It is unsurprising that they felt they were not being used appropriately and that their commanders were not ensuring their safety.19

On New Britain, where FERDINAND remained independent and Major McCarthy commanded, the established practices put in place by Feldt at Guadalcanal and in the Solomons were maintained and again proved successful. The FERDINAND parties led groups of technical and operational specialists from the US combat formations on reconnaissance missions at Grass Point, just south of Cape Gloucester and, later in October, at Gasmata. All of these operations were successful. There was no contact with the Japanese, no casualties suffered and the US units were very happy with the support given and the results obtained.

The problem in New Guinea, as Feldt tells it, was that the inexperienced staff of the 9th Division simply threw FERDINAND parties ashore and hoped for the best. It is obvious from the documentary evidence that the members of FERDINAND did not trust the planning or the concept of operations under which they were to operate at either Lae or Salamaua. The coastwatcher parties were unwilling to take anything approaching a risk in such an environment, and it appears they may have staged a bit of a sit-down strike.²⁰ The situation then descended to a point where the 9th Division no longer wanted FERDINAND involved and FERDINAND’s parties wanted no part in the operation. At this point FERDINAND withdrew and the role was taken up by ANGAU.²¹

As the war began to wind down in New Guinea, coastwatchers still had successes. One of these was the capture of Long Island in November 1943 and Rooke Island on 19 November 1943 by the FERDINAND party led by Lieutenant B.G. Hall. The Japanese garrison precipitously evacuated after hearing a landing had occurred. What they didn’t know was that it was a landing by Lieutenant Hall’s small FERDINAND party, not a landing in force by US troops.22

After the ‘capture’ of Rooke Island, operations against the Japanese on New Britain began on 15 December 1943 with the landing of the 112th Cavalry Regiment at Arawe, to the south-west of Cape Gloucester. This was a preliminary operation intended to block the main Japanese supply line and reinforcement route to Cape Gloucester itself. The main US landings would follow on 26 December at Cape Gloucester, in the vicinity of the Japanese airfields at Poini. Accompanying the troops going ashore would be a FERDINAND party led by L.E. Ashton, whose job was to immediately pass FERDINAND reports to the US commanders on the spot.²³ These reports were primarily air-raid warnings and intelligence on Japanese forces moving to reinforce the Cape Gloucester area.

FERDINAND was required to place three parties onto New Britain, in the areas of Open Bay, Gasmata and Nakanai, by 1 November. Despite this date being five weeks before the intended landing at Arawe, the timings were very tight for parties to make their overland trips, especially to Gasmata, and then establish secure hides, observation posts and establish communications.²⁴

The parties being inserted onto New Britain were going onto an island where the Japanese had had their main base in the archipelago for one year and ten months. It was an area they now knew very well. The danger seems to have been downplayed, and whereas FERDINAND had assessed the life expectancy of any party on Bougainville as a maximum of three weeks, they were putting parties onto New Britain five weeks ahead of the proposed landings. All of this boded ill.

The parties involved arrived in two groups. One, the main party, led by Lieutenant M.H. Wright, RANVR, and consisting of Captain P.E. Figgis and Lieutenant H.L. Williams, thirteen other Europeans and 27 locals, was disembarked from a US submarine on the night of 28–29 September 1943 at Cape Orford.²⁵ Things went wrong from the beginning, when Lieutenant A. McLean, AIF, fell from a ladder on the submarine, injuring his back, and could not continue.26 More serious was the loss of three of their portable radios, which had not been properly packed and were soaked by sea water. As the radios were the most important equipment on the mission, the commander of the party should have supervised their packing, double-checked by the second-in-command and the despatching staff at FERDINAND. This is utterly astounding and an indicator that standards at FERDINAND were dropping.²⁷

With his party ashore, Wright moved inland and established a temporary base camp where others, including Captain Ian Skinner, AIF, joined them. Once all were assembled, Wright broke them into parties destined for Wide Bay on the southern coast, Open Bay on the northern coast, and an area south of Awungi midway between these two bays. Other parties were tasked for Gasmata and Nakanai.

One party, under Captain Figgis, with Lieutenant C.K. Johnston and signaller Corporal A.D. Bliss, remained at Cape Orford. The Wide Bay party under Major A.A. Roberts included Captain Malcolm English, Sergeant J.G. McEvoy and five locals.²⁸ Captain C.D. Bates, Sergeant J. Gilmore and six locals made up the party to watch the area south of Awungi.²⁹ The Open Bay party, led by Captain Skinner, included Lieutenant John Stokie, Signaller Matt Foley and five locals. Captain J.J. Murphy with Lieutenant F.A. Barrett and Sergeant L.T.W. Carlson and eight locals led the Gasmata Party. The Nakanai party, led by Wright, included Williams, Sergeant J.W. March, Sergeant P. Simogun, Corporal ‘Son’ Godamin and fourteen locals.³⁰

The six parties departed for their assigned areas in early October, with Wright’s party moving on 1 October. As Wright moved up the coastal road that day, reports began to arrive via local messengers that friendly headmen had been arrested and released, and that at least one Japanese patrol was heading in their direction. There were no local carriers available to carry the supplies and equipment as the Japanese had dragooned the local workforce to work on the southern road, their main line of communications to the west of the island. Wright’s solution was to call in Beaufighter strikes on the roadworks. These strikes consisted of strafing runs designed to make the workers desert and become available as carriers.³¹ It apparently worked.

Murphy’s party had to reach Gasmata, which was quite a distance to cover in fourteen days. This forced Murphy to take the quick route via the coast, the area containing the most pro-Japanese population. The risk involved in this was high; in fact, it was extreme. In his book, Eric Feldt describes the decision of Murphy, Barrett and Carlson to take this route as ‘above the average in courage’.32 This above-average courage might be admirable in a soldier in battle, but it is a failing in an intelligence operative. Moreover, Murphy’s batteries were dead and he failed to retrieve the replacement batteries sent to him, rendering his radios utterly useless.³³ Murphy’s party should have aborted their mission.

The only members of the party who escaped were the local carriers and police, who melted into the jungle and ran for their lives when the Japanese and hostile locals fell upon the party. Lieutenant Barrett and a carrier were killed immediately, then Carlson was killed and Murphy captured.³⁴

The capture of Murphy was the biggest blow of all to the operations FERDINAND hoped to carry out on New Britain. Rabaul was the main Japanese base, and Murphy would have been delivered into the experienced hands of the Kempeitai and Tokkeitai. Within a very short time, ‘the Japanese extracted a complete account of the coastwatching parties in New Britain from Murphy’.³⁵

FERDINAND’s parties on New Britain were literally saved by the cavalry. The 112th US Cavalry Combat Team landed at Arawe on 15 December 1943 and this drew all available Japanese forces, including those searching for FERDINAND’s parties.

It should not be thought that all of the locals on New Britain were hostile to the Allies. At least seven locals died protecting the FERDINAND parties in late 1943, and many more met untimely and brutal deaths at the hands of the Japanese because of the disruption caused by the presence of FERDINAND parties. One local, an old Malay man named Johannes, had been passing information to the FERDINAND party about which village headmen were friendly and what the Japanese were doing. Somehow, the Japanese got Johannes’s name, most likely from Murphy. The Kempeitai arrested and executed Johannes, and then executed his entire family, including his wife, children and grandchildren.³⁶

As the campaign on New Britain continued, the mission of the US forces changed. They were no longer charged with the capture of Rabaul, but rather its containment. The campaign now settled down into semi-siege, with FERDINAND’s parties and their local supporters dominating the country between the US and Japanese lines. At this point, the role of the FERDINAND parties on New Britain and Bougainville started to morph into something Feldt called, ‘a complete reversal of FERDINAND policy’.³⁷ They were no longer operating as intelligence collectors, but conducting the sabotage and guerrilla warfare to which the AIB and SRD were so addicted. The local population paid the price for this pointless activity, as payback fighting spread among the pro-Allied mountain locals and pro-Japanese coastal locals.

It may appear harsh to call the guerrilla fighting on New Britain pointless, but the fact is that the strategic policy towards Rabaul was now containment, not conquest. The strategic plan was to encircle the Japanese in the area and leave them alone until they surrendered. The hard reality was that the area was no longer of strategic value as the war moved north to the Philippines and the Home Islands of Japan itself. Given this situation, it is hard to see what value the guerrilla fighting on New Britain had.

The last portion of our HUMINT story involving the coastwatchers of FERDINAND brings us back to the work of the AIB at the western end of the archipelago. There, the legitimacy of the FERDINAND parties’ concerns was soon confirmed. With the departure of the FERDINAND party from 9th Division, Captain Pursehouse and a sergeant from ANGAU were left under the control of 9th Division for the push from Finschhafen to Sio. On 17 January 1944, Pursehouse led a unit of Australian troops to Sio Mission.38 At the mission, the troops rested, sending Pursehouse and his sergeant to obtain carriers for their equipment and supplies from Sio Village. Pursehouse was killed and his sergeant wounded. Little wonder that Feldt writes of the coastwatchers accompanying the 7th and 9th Divisions as having little or no confidence in the ability of these formations to use them properly.³⁹ They were not just being sent on ‘adventures’, they were being used for jobs others were paid to do.⁴⁰

In May 1944, the Australian Army contemplated mounting operations in the North West Area of Dutch New Guinea to provide time-sensitive reporting of Japanese activities. Until that time, AIB reporting on this area had been by letter back to Melbourne or Brisbane, and from there back to commanders in New Guinea. It was very slow, and while it was acceptable for long-term planning, it was useless for tactical commanders on the ground.⁴¹ It was decided that the answer lay in setting up a network of co-located radio stations in a project called Comonitor.

Comonitor consisted of a control station at Finschhafen, and receiving stations at Hollandia (modern Jayapura), Tadji, Madang, Talasea and Nadzab, servicing all of the important operational commands. To facilitate the exchange and speed of information, the SRD’s and SIA’s radio stations were to be collocated with the NEI Army stations. This was to be coordinated by Lieutenant Colonel Ind, US Army, and the deputy controller, AIB.42 The location of the station was to be Inrim Plantation, 7 miles (11 kilometres) west of Lorengau.⁴³ It proved another disaster.

The Comonitor project failed because the intelligence parties it was to serve were already deployed and operational, and it was being developed far too late in the war in New Guinea to be of any use. The war was now a long way away in the Philippines, on Peleliu and in Burma. Another reason it failed was that the AIB thought someone else was building them ready-made stations they just had to turn up at and man. Finally, no one had expended much thought on how three different high-powered HF stations were going to be able to operate within the ground waves and electrical interference of one another. That this was happening at the end of 1944 demonstrated amazingly poor judgement by the AIB.

It was also in May 1944 that one of the final operations, the landings near Hollandia in West Papua, were planned. This provided the AIB with one last operation for their volunteers who wanted to contribute. Although it was well outside the area for which FERDINAND was responsible, FERDINAND agreed to be part of it, as no Dutch personnel were available following the disaster of the Staverman mission.

The risk entailed in this operation was substantial, because, although FERDINAND’s personnel were highly experienced in New Guinea and the Solomons, they were not familiar with West Papua. The intended operation had all the hallmarks of an AIB disaster and none of the characteristics of the more successful FERDINAND operations in the eastern archipelago.

The party selected comprised Captain G.C. (Blue) Harris, leader, with Lieutenant R.B. Webber, the second-in-command, Sergeant R.J. Cream and Privates J.I. Bunning, G. Shortis and P.C. Jeune, Able Seaman J.B. McNicol, RANVR, and Sergeants Yali, Mas and Buka and Private Mariba, all PNG soldiers.⁴⁴ Sergeant Lancelot, a Bahasa Indonesian interpreter, was also attached to the party. In support of this party, another led by Captain C.J. Millar was inserted 100 miles (160 kilometres) south of Hollandia in the area of the Idenburg (Taritatu) River to act as a radio relay station for Harris’s party.

The planned duration of Harris’s operation was fourteen days, with insertion and extraction by submarine. The party embarked on USS Dace on 18 March 1944 and began their voyage to their area of operations. They only received the final briefing about the terrain for the area of operations after they boarded the submarine, meaning they had four days to assimilate this vital information.45

On 22 March, Dace arrived off the landing place and tried to examine the landing area through the periscope to little avail. Harris decided to take a small party, comprising Lancelot, Mas, Shortis and Webber ashore. This put both the party commander, Harris, and the second-in-command, Webber, in the initial reconnaissance group, exposing the mission to the loss of both commanders in one high-risk activity.

The reconnaissance group’s rubber raft grounded on a reef they hadn’t been able to see through the periscope, and men and equipment were pounded out of the raft and into the sea. They dragged the swamped raft and their sodden selves and equipment 100 metres or so onto the beach. The radio was inoperable, so now they were on an enemy-controlled beach with a ruined raft and no radio. It was at this point that they became aware there were huts with lights in them near the beach.

Harris decided there was no way they could avoid contact with the residents of the huts so they made their presence known, but Harris’ instincts told him they were not welcome. He attempted to flash his abort signal back to the Dace, but in the meantime someone had decided to disembark the party, and the two rafts were attempting to make landfall, only to suffer the same fate as Harris’s raft. One member of the party, Sergeant R.J. Cream, had remained on the Dace suffering from malaria.

When they finally got themselves ashore, they found they had two carbines and nine pistols left, the latter being useless in any contact with the Japanese. They had some hand grenades, maps, codes, a medical kit and one week’s rations.⁴⁶ They decided they would walk to Captain Millar’s position on the Idenburg River.

The Japanese fell on them in strength the next morning, using mortars and machine-gun fire. Bunning and Shortis were wounded and subsequently died. Harris, also wounded, was taken alive, tied to a tree and bayoneted to death after a perfunctory interrogation. Sergeant Lancelot stayed in one hiding place for four days before making his way to safety. Jeune and Webber survived and hid, before making their way to the US forces at Hollandia. The PNG soldiers did better. One, Sergeant Yali, walked 120 miles (190 kilometres) to Aitape, where he reported to Lieutenant B. Hall, the ANGAU officer there. All the rest of the party were killed during the fight or later by the Japanese.47

Of the eleven men who landed at Hollandia, six died or disappeared, and the entire operation was a disaster, the worst ever suffered by a FERDINAND party. That this occurred in Dutch West Papua is not surprising. That it occurred on an operation under AIB auspices was par for the course. There can also be little doubt that this operation led the ACNB, most likely on Commander Long’s recommendation, to sever all ties between the RAN and AIB.

On 6 June 1944, the ACBN informed the army and GHQ that it required the return of all naval officers and ratings, including WRANS, to the control of the ACNB. The list provided to the army included the entire naval contingent of FERDINAND, from Commander J.C.B. McManus, RAN, to Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt, Lieutenant Commander H.A. Mackenzie, 38 officers and nine WRANS.⁴⁸ The fate of Harris’s party at Hollandia had been the last straw.

Despite the demise of FERDINAND, the fact remained that this small HUMINT organisation created out of the Admiralty’s Reporting Officer system was one of the most effective HUMINT organisations of World War II. FERDINAND’s coastwatchers earned from the United States four Distinguished Service Crosses, nine Silver Stars, ten Legion of Merits and one Bronze Star; and from the British four Knight Commanders of St Michael and St George, one Distinguished Service Order, eleven Distinguished Service Crosses, eleven Military Crosses, seven Distinguished Service Medals, five Military Medals, four British Empire Medals, 21 Mentioned in Despatches, four MBEs and two OBEs, a total of 94 significant awards to a unit in which just 407 personnel served between 8 December 1941 and 15 August 1945.⁴⁹ Of these, however, 33 were killed and many, many more local inhabitants died or suffered at the hands of the Japanese because of FERDINAND’s activities.

FERDINAND’s success lay in its strict adherence to simply collecting intelligence and not stirring up trouble by trying to implement a guerrilla war or conduct sabotage operations. The comparison to FERDINAND’s approach is the subject of our next chapter, where direct action—sabotage and guerrilla operations—was mixed with intelligence collection, resulting in a series of operations that can only be described as disastrous.