User:Aeonx/Allied Translator and Interpreter Section

The Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS), also known as the Allied Translator and Interpreter Service or Allied Translator and Intelligence Service, was a joint Australian/American World War II intelligence agency which served as a centralized allied intelligence unit for the translation of intercepted Japanese communications, interrogations and negotiations in the Pacific Theater of Operations between September 1942 – December 1945. During the last few months of operation ATIS primarily focused on investigation of Japanese war crimes. The section was officially disbanded on 30 April 1946.

Formation

Allied military translation and intelligence efforts in the pacific primarily operated via attachés and the various offices within the G-2 Intelligence Section until February 1942, when Lt. Colonel Sidney Mashbir was re-enlisted to head a new Translator and Interpreter Unit as apart of General Douglas MacArthur's headquarters in the South-West Pacific Area under Major General Charles A. Willoughby commander of the US G-2 Intelligence Section. However, by August 1942, it became apparent to General Douglas MacArthur that there was need for a greater unified allied intelligence unit, and he instructed that a new section be formed as a "centralized intelligence organization composed primarily of language personnel ... designed to systematize the exploitation of captured documents and the interrogation of prisoners of war", and oversee the collation and distribution of this information to Allied military forces in the South-West Pacific Area.

On September 19, 1942 the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section was formed from the union of US personnel from the Translator and Interpreter Unit, G-2, GHQ, SWPA, which consisted of nine men, with Australia's Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC), which consisted of 17 personnel. The Allied Translator and Interpreter Section was an inter-allied, inter-service organisation which began operation at the Advanced Land Headquarters in Brisbane, Australia. The headquarters for ATIS then moved its base each time the General Headquarters(GHQ SWPA) moved over the course of the war, transferring from Melbourne, Australia, to Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea, then to Leyte Island and Manila in the Philippines, and finally to Tokyo in October 1945 to assist with the occupation campaign.

The Allied Translator and Interpreter Service originally consisted of 25 officers and 10 enlisted men, and grew rapidly along with the scope of it's operations. By September 1944, 767 personnel were assigned to ATIS and at it's height of operations in 1945 almost 4000 men and women were employed, most of which were second generation Japanese Americans, known as Nisei. From its beginnings ATIS suffered from a lack of qualified translators and language personnel. In September 1942, Life magazine asserted that optimistic estimates were that fewer than 100 non-Japanese Americans could function as linguists, and quoted Archibald MacLeish of the US Office of War Information as stating that there were only 'three Americans with full command of the language' at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

In the United States, efforts to find and train Japanese linguists for military intelligence work had scarcely begun when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred.

Lieutenant-Colonel John W Weckerling, a US Army intelligence officer who served as a Language Officer in Tokyo, Japan from 1928, and later military attache between 1936-37. , argued that the absence of linguists and an intelligence network in Japan might be debilitating to the army in the event of war. A belief shared by a fellow intelligence officer Captain Kai E Rasmussen.

They believed, given the complexities of the Japanese language, it would take months or even years to train enough language specialists to fulfill the army's wartime needs. Consequently, Weckerling and Rasmussen began to search for Americans with some knowledge of Japanese. They rapidly came to the conclusion that Nisei (second generation Japanese Americans) were the most likely candidates for language training. It soon became clear, however, that even among Japanese Americans, there were few who knew more than a little Japanese, and only a handful who were familiar with Japanese military terminology. Of the 3,700 Nisei initially interviewed by Rasmussen and Weckerling, only 10% were admitted to the US Army's language training program.

" Most of the US Army's translators in the Pacific underwent intensive language training at the Fourth Army Intelligence School, later renamed the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS). Initially established at the Presidio in San Francisco, its first class of 60 students (only two of whom were Caucasians) began intensive language training in November 1941, just five weeks prior to the Pearl Harbor attack. In the spring of 1942 the school was moved to Minnesota (Camp Savage in 1942 and then Fort Snelling in 1944) and placed under the direct supervision of the War Department. By war's end MISLS had graduated nearly 4,200 linguists for service in combat areas throughout Asia and the Pacific. In all, approximately 6,000 Nisei and 600 non-Nisei completed MISLS training.

The British, Australians, and Canadians likewise established language training programs in hopes of spanning the linguistic gaps in the Allies' intelligence apparatus. The British created a 14-16 month intensive Japanese language course to train army personnel as Japanese speakers and translators, while the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force opted to train only translators. In 1944, the British government projected that its programs would produce 100 army, 30 navy, and 120 air force linguists during 1945, and similar numbers for 1946. These linguists would contribute little to the war in SWPA, however, as they were all earmarked for assignments in Southeast Asia. Australia, which created a combined language course for army, navy and air force personnel, projected that it would train 50 graduates in the first six months of 1945 and thereafter 50 Japanese linguists annually. By 1945, Canada's Japanese language school was training 70 students and had plans to increase its output of trained linguists to 100 per year in 1946 and thereafter. These numbers reveal both the scarcity of the human resources available to serve as Japanese translators and interpreters, and the Allied awareness of the ongoing need for linguists. "

Operations

The Allied Translator and Interpreter Section adhered to three main operating principles:

• All linguist and translation resources in the pacific theatre would be pooled;
• All allied service and national distinctions would be eliminated;
• All intelligence accumulated would be released simultaneously to all allied services.

The core function of the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section, was to unify and centralize allied intelligence in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) however the scope of operations soon extended to other pacific areas in cooperation with the Joint Intelligence Center - Pacific Ocean Area (JICPOA) and the South East Asia Translator & Interrogation Center (SEATIC) which also operated in the Pacific Theater. Additionally, the types of operations extended to providing detailed analysis of Japanese military objectives and capabilities, as well as political and psychological interpretations of Japanese military and civilian activities. Later ATIS also played a critical role in Propaganda creation and Psychological warfare.

The Japanese presumed that the Allies would be unable to read the contents of such papers and had taken few security precautions. This fact was vital in the success of decoding intercepted messages, and consequently the effectiveness of ATIS. During the operation of the ATIS, linguists interrogated over 14,000 prisoners; scanned, summarised or translated two million documents; and distributed over 20 million pages of intelligence reports on the Japanese. In its efforts to acquire documents and examine prisoners within moments of their capture, ATIS linguists participated in every Allied assault from Papua to the Philippine Islands, and at least 17 linguists died as a consequence.

Several notable events occurred during the operation of the Allied Translator and Interpretor Section, including the translation and analysis of the captured Z-Plan in 1944, which outlined Japan's defensive plans against Allied attacks on its Pacific territory, such as the Mariana Islands in the north west Pacific. The United States wanted to capture these islands for use as a bombing base to raid the Japanese mainland. The Z-Plan also contained a strategy for engaging the Allied forces in a decisive battle.

ATIS created an advanced unit in September 1944 as the result of successful Allied counter-offensives in SWPA and the forward movement of MacArthur's headquarters to Hollandia, New Guinea. Known as Advanced ATIS (ADVATIS), this unit was a 'miniature ATIS' designed to extract intelligence of immediate operational value ('spot information') from documents and POWs, classify it as to potential value, then forward it to Base ATIS in Brisbane for processing. As MacArthur's forward headquarters advanced toward the Japanese home islands, ATIS personnel went with it, moving to Manila in May 1945, and then

ATIS's primary function was to provide Allied commanders with intelligence about the whereabouts, capabilities, and intentions of Japan's armed forces. Yet ATIS translations of captured documents and interrogations played a prominent role in the Allied propaganda war as well, for they revealed much about enemy morale and the factors that affected it. Together, ATIS publications and personnel contributed to a better understanding of Japanese military psychology, pinpointed the enemy's vulnerabilities, and provided propagandists with current intelligence that proved critical to the Allied assault against enemy morale. ATIS linguists also critiqued Allied propaganda, wrote Japanese language leaflets, served as interpreters at POW encampments, and through prisoner interrogations provided much-needed feedback on the impact of Allied propaganda.

See also

• Sidney Mashbir
• Z Plan (Japan)
• Military Intelligence Division
• Military Intelligence Service