| Abstract: | Very little study has been done of the role of US Intelligence in the South Pacific command in the Second World War. Collection of information on the civilian population concentrated mainly on settlers, sojourners and migrant labour, but military personnel also come under scrutiny. US intelligence collecting was at its most intense in New Caledonia, a major base for the US forces and a country rated as highly strategic by the Allies, especially in the early phases of the war with Japan. Because of the Vichy‐Free French divide from 1940 on, the US was especially wary of possible subversion of the war effort there, but its purview also took in the Asiatic and Melanesian population though the latter, as in the Southwest command, were not considered a major threat. Even so, the magnitude and detail of the intelligence carried out suggests that post‐war political considerations were never far from the US government's wider concerns and aspirations. |
