Coast Watching in World War II
Allied Coast Watchers Provided Valuable Intelligence During WW II
The Allied coast watching network in the Solomon Islands, about 800 miles north-east of Australia, was one of the most successful intelligence gathering operations of World War II. From portable radio transmitters on islands like Burka and Bougainville, coast watchers, whose numbers were comprised largely of Australian civilians, monitored Japanese shipping, and sent warnings of impending air raids.
Coast watchers played a crucial role in the 1942 Battle of Guadalcanal. Their intelligence assisted the U.S. Navy in intercepting and destroying twelve Japanese transports.
Secret Coast-Watching Activities
Not surprisingly, the coast watchers’ existence was denied during the war, but now their stories are told in A.B. Feuer’s Coast Watching in WWII: Operations against the Japanese on the Solomon Islands, 1941-1943.
About 100 coast watchers operated in the South Pacific, 24 of them in the Solomon Islands. Two of these men were stationed in Bougainville only 200 miles from the Japanese air and naval base at Rabaul.
BraveCoast Watchers in the South Pacific
Jack Read, who covered the northern end of Bougainville, served in the New Guinea public service, was demanding of both colleagues and underlings, and loved his island home and neighbors. When the war broke out he coordinated the evacuation of the European planters and missionaries living on the island.
Paul Mason covered the Southern end of Bougainville. He was manager of the Inus plantation on the east coast, was a skilled radio technician, and knew and understood the native population. At one point during the war, he turned-down military protection in order to do a more thorough hob of coast watching.
First-Hand Accounts of World War II
Feuer compiles edited first hand accounts from these two coast watchers. He allows them to stand as written, with a few judicious notes and omissions, giving a sense of immediacy no second-hand account could convey.
The coast watching network was already a smooth running operation when the Australian government ordered the evacuation of all European women and children from Bougainville on December 12, 1941. Read and Mason were just two of dozens of men involved as coast watchers or their native helpers. There were 23 people left, most of them natives, when Read was forced to evacuate on July 30, 1943. (Mason evacuated prior to this date.) The events that took place between were like something only Ian Fleming could conceive.
The coast watchers were told early in the war to never engage the enemy, but encroaching Japanese forces pressured Read and Mason until they had no choice. The men never boast about their heroic actions, but their gripping narratives repeatedly demonstrate their courage against overwhelming odds and almost certain capture.
A.B. Feuer is a military historian and freelance journalist. His books for the Stackpole Military History Series also include Australian Commandos: Their Secret War against the Japanese in WWII.
Coast Watching in WWII
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A.B. Feuer
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