The Japanese Intelligence Service and its Mistakes during the Pacific War. Which Mistakes Should Be Avoided Cover Image

Japoński wywiad i jego błędy podczas wojny Pacyfiku. Jakich błędów należy unikać
The Japanese Intelligence Service and its Mistakes during the Pacific War. Which Mistakes Should Be Avoided

Author(s): Michał Pozorski
Subject(s): History, Military history, Recent History (1900 till today), WW II and following years (1940 - 1949)
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego
Keywords: intelligence service; the Second World War; the Imperial Japan; the Pacific War; spy activities; Hong Kong

Summary/Abstract: The article presents three important questions concerning the Japanese intelligence service and its operations during the Second World War. The first question is how the service gained information and codes, which were used in the agency. The first question includes two interesting threads. According to the Allies all the imperial codes had been broken and efficiently used; and according to the Japanese the Allied and Soviet codes had been broken, but later they turned out to be difficult to process. The second question concerns the operations – important from the Japanese point of view – which resulted in capturing Hong Kong and in attacking Pearl Harbor. The last question is the notorious hatred and open hostility between the ground and naval forces. Those emotions were present on all the planes, the intelligence service including. Valuable information was hardly shared, inconvenient agents were sometimes eliminated, problems were multiplied to delay the rival, etc. It caused total chaos during the war and finally it brought about the collapse of the land of the rising sun. The changing fortunes of the Japanese intelligence are a good lesson to teach present intelligence agencies how to behave in the initial phases of a conflict, how to avoid creating too many intelligence units and how to eliminate unfair competition.

  • Issue Year: 33/2018
  • Issue No: 03
  • Page Range: 95-107
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Polish