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Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London

Microform: OSS/State Department: Intelligence and Research Reports, part 1: Japan and its Occupied Territories during World War II


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0099 KCLMA MF 494-509

Held at: Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London

Title: Microform: OSS/State Department: Intelligence and Research Reports, part 1: Japan and its Occupied Territories during World War II

Date(s): 1942-1947, 1977

Level of description: Collection (Fonds)

Extent: 16 reels

Name of creator(s): Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the United States State Department, 1942-1947

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the approximate US counterpart of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, and Special Operations Executive (SOE), with which it co-operated throughout World War Two and its immediate aftermath. The OSS was created by Presidential Military Order on 13 Jun 1942 and it functioned as the principal US intelligence organisation in all operational theatres. Its primary function was to obtain information about enemy nations and to sabotage their war potential and morale. From 1940-1942, the US had no central intelligence agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of information bearing on national security, these services having been dispersed amongst the armed services and regional desks in the US State Department. In Jul 1941 Maj Gen William Joseph Donovan was appointed by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the civilian post of Co-ordinator of Information (COI) and was instructed to consolidate a regular channel of global strategic information. Under Donovan's leadership, the COI claimed the functions of information gathering, propaganda, espionage, subversion, and post-war planning. The overt propaganda functions of the COI were eventually severed and the COI was re-organised as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1942. The OSS was instructed by the President to collect and analyse such strategic information as might be required to plan and operate special military services in theatres of operation directed by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The first OSS presence in the Far East was in China, where units gathered intelligence from Chungking and the communist capital of Fushih. However, OSS operations in other Japanese occupied territories were often paralysed by differences amongst the Allies over European colonial interests in the post-war configuration of South-East Asia. Following the end of hostilities in Europe, a considerable number of OSS units were transferred from Europe to China and French Indo-China, where they established contacts with nationalist and communist partisan forces. Elsewhere in the South-East Asia theatre, the OSS trained nationals in intelligence collection, internal propaganda and unconventional warfare. The OSS was terminated by Executive Order 9620 on 20 Sep 1945, its functions later assumed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The US State Department's primary function during World War Two was to provide the US President and the US Joint Chiefs of Staff with intelligence relating to the civil structure of foreign states. During the war, the US State Department relied on OSS intelligence to prepare summary research reports concerning the social structure, strategic interests, resources, government, and economic stability of Japan and its occupied territories.

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

OSS/State Department: Intelligence and Research Reports, part 1: Japan and its Occupied Territories during World War II is a themed microfilm collection relating to US Office of Strategic Services and US State Department intelligence analyses concerning Japan, and the occupied territories of Formosa, the Philippines, the Netherlands East Indies, Borneo, Java, New Guinea, Sumatra, French Indo-China, Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Burma, Korea, and China, 1942-1947. Reports include information relating to the social structure of Japan, 1942-1947; morale in the Japanese military services, 1942-1945; Japanese psychological warfare programmes, 1944-1945; the iron and steel industry in Japan, 1944-1945; geography of Japan; the Hikari Kikan, the Japanese espionage and sabotage organisation, 1944-1945; air raid precaution in Tokyo, 1944-1945; biographical information on Japanese generals and admirals killed in the Far East from 7 Dec 1941-1 Mar 1945; Japanese attempts at indoctrination in the occupied territories, 1944-1945; the services of the Kempei, the Japanese police, in occupied territories, 1945; selection of US and Allied special operations targets on the South- East Asia theatre, 1945; the social conditions in Malaya, 1942-1945; psychological warfare in Burma, 1943-1945; political and economic changes affected by the Japanese in Malaya, 1943-1945; Singapore under the Japanese administration, 1944; the Japanese use of industrial installations in Hong Kong, 1944; Philippine agriculture under Japanese control, 1942-1945; the organisation of the Japanese-controlled Government of the Philippines, 1944; guerrilla resistance movements in the Philippines, 1944; biographical information on members of the Japanese-controlled Government of the Philippines, 1944; Japanese civil programmes in Java and Bali 1945; the government of French Indo-China, 1945; social conditions in Thailand, 1942-1945; territorial conflicts between Thailand and French Indo-China, 1945; Japanese administration of Burma, 1942-1945; vulnerability of the Japanese fortification systems in China, 1942-1945; structure and personnel of the Nanking Government, China, 1945; Japanese civil and military programmes in Manchukuo (Manchuria), 1945; the Korean independence movement, 1945.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English

System of arrangement:

Arranged into geographical categoroes and chronologically therein.

Conditions governing access:

Open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies may be printed off the microfilm for research purposes and are charged at the cost to the Centre. Enquiries concerning the copyright of the original material should be addressed to University Publications of America, Inc, 4520 East-West Highway, Bethesda, MD, 20814, USA.

Physical characteristics:

Finding aids:

Published detailed catalogue available in hard copy in the Centre's reading room, University Publications of America, Inc, OSS/State Department: Intelligence and Research Reports, part 1: Japan and its Occupied Territories during World War II (University Publications of America, Inc, Washington, DC, 1977).

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:

Accruals:

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

University Publications of America, Bethesda, MD, USA

ALLIED MATERIALS

Existence and location of originals:

National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC, USA

Existence and location of copies:

Related material:

Publication note:

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Note:

Date(s) of descriptions: Aug 1999


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