Missing Pieces: - Royal Australian Navy

aPPendix
practices and personnel, bringing to the new organisation many of the strains that
marked the struggle between the US Army and the USN for primacy over intelligence.
However, the majority of the changes were both positive and necessary, as the United
States brought to the war in the South West Pacific its greater personnel and technical
resources, particularly those required to exploit Sigint.
Some of the pre-MacArthur agencies were swallowed up or transformed, others worked
in collaboration with GHQ SWPA. The development of new skills and the emergence
of new requirements bred new agencies, but others continued virtually unchanged,
regardless of MacArthur. For many, the British influence on their operations remained
strong, while for others, such as the NID, residual responsibilities to the Imperial
organisation remained. The result was an interesting, and sometimes confusing,
patchwork of intelligence agencies, all competing for money, manpower and materiel.
A diagram of the organisation prepared by the author is at Figure 12.
naval intelligence
The USN intelligence staff attached to the CANF/C7F headquarters was responsible
for supporting not only their commander but also forces under his command. It was
set up in 1942 as the USN Intelligence Section, but in 1943 Commander (later Captain)
McCollum, USN, reshaped it as 7th Fleet Intelligence Center, and as a replica of the
Joint Intelligence Center in Pearl Harbor. This was separate from GHQ SWPA, and took
its intelligence from naval sources as well as from GHQ COIC, Allied Air Forces and
from Central Bureau. 869 All task force and task group commanders received the bulk of
their intelligence from the centre, except for that provided from local sources. CSWPSF
was responsible for distributing intelligence to NOICs, who had the responsibility of
providing intelligence support to ships under their command.
FRUMEL passed product directly to the two US submarine commanders in Australia
and also provided the nucleus of a number of mobile radio intelligence units that were
posted to 7th Fleet ships.
central Bureau
Shortly after his assumption of command, General MacArthur’s authorised the
establishment of a new Sigint organisation that would be directly subordinated to
GHQ SWPA. The outcome was the Central Bureau, formed round a nucleus of
experienced US and Australian officers and using, initially, the services of the
Australian Army and RAAF special wireless units. 870 Its tasks were coordination and
operational control of the theatre’s Sigint activities (but not those of FRUMEL or the
RAN), cryptanalysis, traffic analysis and DF. As a true Allied operation, CB was not
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