Welcome to the fifth Chicagoboyz post (Feb 23, 2021) in the “Section 22 Week” count down to the 24 Feb 2021 Bilge Pumps podcast with the Section 22 Special Interest Group e-mail list. Today’s post will include slides 61 through 72 of 82 of the Section 22 Powerpoint information packet.
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These slides cover Section 22’s part of the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands called “Operation Olympic,” the last RCM flight of WW2 by the successor of Field Unit #6 that ended in tragedy, the “Defenestration” (being “thrown out the window” of the official historical narrative) of Section 22 by the American Joint Chiefs of Staff with the “Seventeen guys on an e-mail list” credits and resource links for further research for naval history academics.
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The 82 slides worth of material being published in “Section 22 Week” are a “picture book highlights reel” of what the between 500 to 1000 men involved in Section 22 radio counter measures operations did between May 1943 and August 1945. Tomorrow’s concluding post will include the back up slides explaining the role of the Mark III identification in the Pacific war and other elements not central to the Section 22 story but important to the war for the electromagnetic spectrum from March 1944 to August 1945.
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Today’s “extra” involves the dysfunctional intelligence system inside World War II’s Washington DC that lead to Section 22’s “Defenestration.”
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The following are screenshots from SRH-130, MIS Intelligence Processes Relating to Japanese, Science Branch Project No. 2528A, 14 Sept 1945. This “SRH-130” was the smaller of the two documents with the “SRH-130” cover page at 83 pages vice the 975 of the other. I’m going to use “Project No. 2528A” to refer to the smaller document and SRH-130 to the larger document.
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First, see the conclusion on how effective the War Department’s G-2 Military Intelligence Division (MID) electronics section that did “Scientific intelligence” which was the official D.C. name for the radar intelligence Section 22 provided:
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Next, this is the recommendations section in “Project No. 2528A” where they list all the things they did wrong in WW2:
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And finally this is the floor plan of the MID “Science Branch” from “Project No. 2528A” on VJ-Day to give you an idea of the scale of effort put into radar intelligence work at the War Department G-2 compared to Section 22 in Brisbane, Tacloban and Manila.
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The defenestration of Section 22 from the public eye in the immediate post-war makes a great deal of sense, given the level of effort demonstrated by that office plan . Section 22’s offices in May 1943 Brisbane were larger than the electronics section you see above.
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The War Department was facing Congressional accountability hearings & investigative reports for the Pearl Harbor intelligence failure. That level of “Scientific Intelligence” performance about radar for the duration of WW2 cannot be in anyway excused, if the story of Section 22 in the SWPA was generally known. There were assets to cover, budgets to shield, and careers to protect. So “out the window” of public acclaim and deep, deep, into the unaccountable hidey hole of decades long classification Section 22 went.
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Now today’s slides:
Today’s Twitter social media cross post is here:
https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1364346306496393216
Today’s Facebook social media cross post is here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1414345762215538/?multi_permalinks=2823069911343109¬if_id=1614026507331307¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic&ref=notif
I had wondered how WINDOW was deployed. I had read it was by packets that would be torn apart by the prop way, and would then bloom.Now, after seeing the illustration, I understand. Thank you!