Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD), also known as Special Operations Australia (SOA) and previously known as Inter-Allied Services Department (ISD), was an Australian

military intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...

and

special reconnaissance Special reconnaissance (SR) or Recon Team is conducted by small units of highly trained military personnel, usually from special forces units or military intelligence organizations, who operate behind enemy lines, avoiding direct combat and detec ...

unit, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Foundation

Authorised by Prime Minister

John Curtin John Curtin (8 January 1885 – 5 July 1945) was an Australian politician who served as the 14th prime minister of Australia from 1941 until his death in 1945. He led the country for the majority of World War II, including all but the last few ...

in March 1942, following the outbreak of war with Japan, the Inter-Allied Services Department was formed on 17 April 1942 having been given approval by General

Thomas Blamey Field Marshal Sir Thomas Albert Blamey, (24 January 1884 – 27 May 1951) was an Australian general of the First and Second World Wars, and the only Australian to attain the rank of field marshal. Blamey joined the Australian Army as a regul ...

and modelled initially on the British

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its p ...

(SOE); it was organised initially by SOE

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkha ...

officer, Lieutenant Colonel G. Egerton Mott. For security reasons it was named ISD and its existence was to be only known by the Prime Minister and the High Command.

Operations

On 6 July 1942, a controlling body Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB) was formed to co-ordinate the operations of ISD and other similar organisations and became fully functional in December 1942. ISD was known as Section A within AIB. In February 1943, ISD was disbanded and a new body called Special Operations Australia was formed in April 1943 not under the control of the AIB. Shortly afterwards the cover name of Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD) was given to SOA in May 1943. This was done because of the similarity of the initials SOA to SOE, whose security was likely to compromised.

Z Special Unit Z Special Unit () was a joint Allied special forces unit formed during the Second World War to operate behind Japanese lines in South East Asia. Predominantly Australian, Z Special Unit was a specialist reconnaissance and sabotage unit that i ...

was transferred to SOA from AIB, and it was decided to form

M Special Unit M Special Unit, was a joint Allied special reconnaissance unit, part of the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD), in the South West Pacific theatre of the Second World War. A joint Australian, New Zealand, Dutch and British military inte ...

for the AIB. SOA oversaw intelligence-gathering, reconnaissance and raiding missions in Japanese-occupied areas of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

, the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, whic ...

(Indonesia),

Portuguese Timor Portuguese Timor ( pt, Timor Português) was a colonial possession of Portugal that existed between 1702 and 1975. During most of this period, Portugal shared the island of Timor with the Dutch East Indies. The first Europeans to arrive in th ...

(East Timor), the

Malayan Peninsula The Malay Peninsula ( Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area ...

British Borneo British Borneo comprised the four northern parts of the island of Borneo, which are now the country of Brunei, two Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, and the Malaysian federal territory of Labuan. During the British colonial rule before Wor ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

Notes

References

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Foundation

Operations

See also

Notes

References

Further reading