Allied Intelligence Bureau

Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB). Established at Brisbane, Australia, in July 1942 this co-ordinated all Allied intelligence services in MacArthur'sSouth-West Pacific Area. Its controller was an Australian officer, Col. C. Roberts, who had a US deputy. Initially, it had four sections: A, was Special Operations Australia (SOA), which collected information and mounted sabotage behind enemy lines. B, a part of MI6 known as Secret Intelligence Australia, was funded and controlled from London and was responsible for espionage and subversive warfare in Japanese-held territories. C, called a field intelligence unit, was the Australian Coast Watchers Service. When this became part of the AIB it was divided into three regional sub-sections which covered the north-east area, the Philippines, and the Netherlands East Indies (NEI). The head of the last was a Dutch naval officer who, for sabotage and intelligence-gathering operations in the NEI, was responsible to the head of SOA. D, was responsible for propaganda, but in September 1942, as the Far Eastern Liaison Office, it was put under the Australian Chiefs of Staff and the Australian Department of External Affairs.

In April 1943 the AIB was reorganized on a regional, not a functional, basis and Section C's sub-sections became independent field intelligence sections answerable directly to the controller. Consequently, the NEI section (later, Division III of the Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service) no longer came under SOA for clandestine operations in the NEI.