Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

The Pacific and Far East
strengths. Whitehead and his men found the information invaluable in planning
their daily flying a~tivities.2~
The G-2 office at GHQ SWPA was far more comprehensive, collecting
information within the theater and from outside sources. After the June 15,
1944, amalgamation of Thirteenth Air Force into the new FEAF, the Fifth and
Thirteenth A-2s operated in the same associated and subordinated fa~hion.’~
In the SWPA, the main responsibility for escape and evasion lay with the
GHQ’s G-2, MIS-X, a covert Australian-American group in Brisbane that
trained selected AAF personnel in escape methods. The organization also aided
in POW escapes and assisted in the recovery of airmen downed in neutral or
friendly but hard-to-reach territory. At every opportunity, MIS-X agents also
collected and reported intelligence data. Escape and evasion training given by
MIS-X or the Fifth Air Force staff included distributing escape and evasion kits
and establishing how evaders could reach one of the prepositioned, presupplied
locations. Working with coast watchers, MIS-X activities returned several
hundred flyers left afoot in the jungles of New Guinea.26 The chart on the next
page depicts the organization of the office of the G-2 SWPA.
In the Philippines, MIS-X joined with local guerrilla units to recover
stranded flyers and rescue inmates of some of the more isolated Japanese prison
camps. As the Allies moved into the Philippine Islands, General Kenney’s men
began to operate adjacent to and at times in coordination with the Fourteenth
Air Force in China. With those operations came the prospect of aircraft being
lost over China and coastal Chinese waters. A MIS-X annex to an AAF
intelligence summary noted the cooperation between the commands and the fact
that the strong anti-Japanese attitude among the Chinese made evading capture
in China avery good possibility. Airmen had been rescued from such seemingly
unlikely places as downtown Hong Kong. Many such rescues were effected
through agents or teams of the U.S. Naval Group China, the Fourteenth Air
Force, or a British unit formed from Hong Kong escapees and operating in
south China. Although some bandit chiefs in China caused trouble for
Americans who were forced down, communist and nationalist guemllas were
prepared to aid Americans afoot in the country. Most of the operators of small
sailing boats in the waters off China’s coast were friendly. The rather spotty
control by the Japanese of Chinese lands meant that Allied escape and evasion
efforts throughout most of the area near the SWPA and China Theater junction
stood a good chance of success.”
One of Kenney’s most important early sources of information was the
coast-watcher section of the Allied Intelligence Bureau. Although well known
for their work in the Solomons and islands as far north as New Britain, coast
watchers also patrolled New Guinea and reported regularly on Japanese air
movements. An invaluable resource early in the war, the coast watchers
supplemented radar, often providing information for areas where radar sets did
not exist or long before radar could pick up a Japanese raid. Radar’s improve-
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