Allied military intelligence and early warning operatives during the 1940s
For the former aviation division of the Australian Customs Service, see Coastwatch. For the UK's National Coastwatch Institution, see National Coastwatch Institution. For the 1959 film, see The Coastwatchers (film). For the coastwatching programme in New Zealand's sub-Antarctic islands from 1941 to 1945, see Cape Expedition.
Captain Martin Clemens (rear centre), a coastwatcher on Guadalcanal, provided intelligence to Allied forces during the battle for the island (August 1942 – February 1943). The men with him were all members of the Solomon Islands police force.
The Coastwatchers, also known as the Coast Watch Organisation, Combined Field Intelligence Service or Section C, Allied Intelligence Bureau, were Allied military intelligence operatives stationed on remote Pacific islands during World War II to observe enemy movements and rescue stranded Allied personnel. They played a significant role in the Pacific Ocean theatre and South West Pacific theatre, particularly as an early warning network during the Guadalcanal campaign.
and missionaries. During the war the civilian coastwatchers were augmented with about 400 coastwatchers who were Australian military officers, New Zealand...
Netherlands New Guinea. Described by Commander Eric Feldt, director of the Coastwatchers, as "the best type of N.C.O. of the A.I.F., young and competent", Siffleet...
site of a massacre by beheading of New Zealand military and civilian coastwatchers by Japanese forces prior to US landings in 1943. See Anzac Day#France...
during the Battle for Guadalcanal, recognised the coastwatchers' contributions by stating "The coastwatchers saved Guadalcanal and Guadalcanal saved the South...
search radar at Henderson Field, which, along with reports from the coastwatchers, helped provide early warning of incoming Japanese warplanes. By 3 September...
and coastwatchers who were ill or injured and placing new coastwatchers in their stead.[citation needed] To Feldt, the needs of his coastwatchers were...
become an important source for historians regarding the history of the coastwatchers. Read was born on 18 September 1905 in Hobart to William George Read...
scene of a massacre by beheading of New Zealand military and civilian coastwatchers by Japanese forces prior to the US landings. The massacre was in retaliation...
provide sufficient warning of Japanese attacks, so reliance was placed on coastwatchers and spotters in the hills until an American radar unit arrived in September...
soothe dental pains in traditional medicine of Cambodia. In World War II, coastwatcher scout Biuku Gasa was the first of two from the Solomon Islands to reach...
the Fleet, William F. Halsey, paid tribute to Australian Coastwatchers: "The Coastwatchers saved Guadalcanal, and Guadalcanal saved the South Pacific...
northern Gilbert Islands. Japanese immediately seized the New Zealand Coastwatchers of Makin. Within two days, a seaplane base was built on Makin lagoon...
among New Zealand, the Chatham Islands, and the coastwatchers in the Pacific Islands. Coastwatchers established by Royal Australian Navy Intelligence...
Japanese beachhead in early 1943. Allied forces became aware through coastwatchers of a Japanese airfield under construction at Guadalcanal. On 7 August...
of Dracula as a guitarist in the Count Downes. In 1978, he portrayed coastwatcher Peter Buckley in an episode of the World War II drama series Baa Baa...
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, where the sighting could be attributed to the Coastwatchers. During the Vietnam War, trucks attacked on the Ho Chi Minh trail were...
slot machine from Japan; and a 70-pound pair of World War II-era Nikon Coastwatcher binoculars taken from Guam in 1944. 138 12 "Help Wanted" January 2, 2012 (2012-01-02)...
(Cressman, p. 84), but Lundstrom says that the sighting was most likely by a coastwatcher in the Solomons. Morison (1949, p. 24) speculates that Fitch should have...
see its home. "Ferdinand" was the code name chosen for the Australian Coastwatchers in World War II by Eric Feldt, the organization's commander: Ferdinand...
Battle of the Coral Sea Battle of the Treasury Islands Commanded the Coastwatchers. The British Resident Commissioner of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate...
be used to launch attacks on the Australian mainland. Detachments of coastwatchers were also stationed in the Bismarck Archipelago and Solomon Islands...
persona to play a grizzled beachcomber who is coerced into serving as a coastwatcher on an uninhabited island in the World War II romantic comedy Father Goose...
the Japanese executed an elderly planter as a spy in March 1942, the Coastwatchers were commissioned as officers in the RAAF or Royal Australian Navy to...
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