Services Reconnaissance Department

The Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD), also known as Inter-Allied Services Department (IASD), Special Operations Australia (SOA) and Section A, Allied Intelligence Bureau was an Australian military intelligence and special reconnaissance unit, during World War II. Authorised by General Thomas Blamey in March 1942, following the outbreak of war with Japan, the unit was formed in April 1942 and modelled initially on the British Special Operations Executive (SOE); it was organised initially by a British Army officer, Major G. Egerton Mott. When the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB) was established in June 1942, SRD became a branch of AIB. SRD oversaw intelligence-gathering, reconnaissance and raiding missions in Japanese-occupied areas of New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Portuguese Timor (East Timor), the Malayan Peninsula, British Borneo and Singapore.^[1][2]

See also

• Coastwatchers
• M Special Unit
• Pacific War
• Z Special Unit
• Netherlands East Indies Forces Intelligence Service
• Secret Intelligence Australia
• Allied Intelligence Bureau

Notes

1. Dennis et al 2008, pp. 23–24.
2. Powell 1996, pp. 16–21.

References

• Dennis, Peter; Grey, Jeffrey; Morris, Ewan; Prior, Robin; Bou, Jean (2008). The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History (Second ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195517849.
• Powell, Alan (1996). War by Stealth: Australians and the Allied Intelligence Bureau 1942–1945. Carlton South, Victoria: Melbourne University Press. ISBN 0-522-84691-2.

Further reading

• Gin, Ooi Keat (October 2002). "Prelude to Invasion: Covert Operations Before the Re-occupation of Northwest Borneo, 1944–45". Journal of the Australian War Memorial (Canberra: Australian War Memorial) (37). ISSN 1327-0141.
• Horton, Dick (1983). Ring of Fire: Australian Guerilla Operations Against the Japanese in World War II. London: Leo Cooper/Secker and Warburg. ISBN 9780436201578.
• The Official History of the Operations and Administration of] Special Operations - Australia [(SOA), also known as the Inter-Allied Services Department (ISD) and Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD)], Volume 2 - Operations (scan) (1st. ed.). 8 March 1946. Retrieved 29 November 2015 – via National Archives of Australia. 606 pages