Courtesy Photo | A fruit can booby trap found in a captured Japanese ration dump in the Philippines....... read more read more
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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
On March 26, 1945, the 5250th Technical Intelligence (TECHINT) Company (Separate) (Provisional) completed its move from Finschafen, New Guinea, to Manila in the Philippine Islands. For the next eight months, Manila served as the hub for all TECHINT activities throughout the Philippines.
In the early years of the war in the Pacific, staff officers with the various U.S. Army technical services, particularly ordnance, conducted TECHINT operations in conjunction with the Australian Army. The effort, however, was poorly coordinated across the theater. Consequently, on January 3, 1944, the 5250th TECHINT Company (Sep) (Prov) was organized under the general supervision of the assistant chief of staff (ACoS) G-2, U.S. Army Services of Supply (USASOS) at Finschafen, New Guinea. In addition to a coordination and administrative section, the new company was comprised of six technical sections, each manned by personnel on detached service from their respective services: signal, engineer, transportation, ordnance, chemical warfare, and medical. Each of these sections included a laboratory analysis element and a varying number of enemy equipment intelligence teams.
As the U.S. Army battled the Japanese in the Philippines in the early part of 1945, the 5250th, under the command of Maj. Eugene H. Manley (Corps of Engineers), and its associated Technical Intelligence Depot, prepared to move to Manila once that city was secured. Major Manley, who was also the technical intelligence coordinator within the ACoS G-2, USASOS, arrived in Manila on March 12, to prepare for the arrival of the rest of the company. He located appropriate accommodations for the unit and depot in two abandoned warehouses of the Oriental Printing Company about four miles east of downtown Manila. The company’s personnel and equipment arrived two weeks later. Manley’s company consisted of 90 officers and 185 enlisted service members organized into 72 field teams operating with the divisions of the Sixth and Eighth Armies.
The 5250th personnel had several missions. First, they evaluated captured enemy materiel. From this analysis, they determined the state of Japanese resources, developed effective countermeasures to Japanese weapons and tactics, and exploited enemy technologies for American benefit. Second, because much of the serviceable Japanese equipment was turned over to American tactical units, the company provided training in its use and maintenance. Third, they also wrote detailed reports on newly introduced ordnance and described improvised mines and booby traps. These reports were disseminated to the tactical troops for awareness. Finally, the company provided overall supervision of the retention and disposition of enemy materiel.
By July 1945, the company’s field teams had captured food, weapons, protective clothing, ammunition, radios, medical supplies, and a significant amount of documents, the latter of which they turned over to the Allied Translator and Interpreter Service for exploitation. In just three months, they recovered more than 950 new items of intelligence significance, including new types of mines, gasoline tank trucks, airplane drop containers, and emergency rations. Further, the company noted that because the Japanese were short of equipment and supplies, they had a “marked ability at improvising weapons from other cannibalized equipment.” The Japanese used any conceivable item available to create mortars, land mines, Molotov cocktails, and even made hand grenades out of hollowed out blocks of wood wrapped with wire.
As the campaign in the Philippines wound down, 5250th personnel began to prepare for operations in Japan, initially as part of the planned invasion force and later, after the Japanese surrender, as part of the occupation force. The first field teams departed Manila for Tokyo on August 24, 1945. Meanwhile, the disposal of captured equipment at the depot continued. In August alone, the company shipped, by either air or sea, more than 196,000 pounds of materiel to the United States. By November 20, the TECHINT Depot in Manila closed and the rest of the company arrived in Tokyo to begin its new mission with the occupation forces.
| Date Taken: | 03.21.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 03.21.2022 14:33 |
| Story ID: | 416858 |
| Location: | FORT HUACHUCA, ARIZONA, US |
| Web Views: | 142 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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