TheTokkeitai (特警隊; short for特別警察隊,Tokubetsu Keisatsutai, "Special Police Corps", or NavalSecret Police) was theImperial Japanese Navy'smilitary police, equivalent to theImperial Japanese Army'sKempeitai.[1]
The originalTokkeitai was known as the General Affairs Section and concerned itself with military police and personnel work within the Navy: personnel, discipline and records. It took a more active role, partly to keep theKempeitai and the Army from meddling in Navy affairs.
It was especially active in the areas of theSouth Pacific and the Naval Control Area and was as pervasive as theKempeitai. It had the samecommissar roles in relation to exterior enemies or suspicious persons, and it watched inside units for possible defectors or traitors under the security doctrine ofKikosaku.
Attached to navy units, they served as Colonial police in some occupiedPacific areas. Later accusations ofwar crimes were made against them in that role for such acts as coercion ofcomfort women from Indonesia, Indochina and China into sexual slavery.[2]
In addition to its military police responsibilities, it was the operative branch of the Secret Service Branch of the Imperial Japanese Navy (Information Office (情報局,Jōhō-kyoku), which was responsible for counterintelligence, executive protection, force protection, recovering and analyzing information for the execution of undercover operations, and supporting ground combat operations (if necessary). Its members also provided local security near naval bases. In the final weeks of thePacific War, it was among the security units prepared for combat against the proposed Allied invaded Mainland Japan inOperation Downfall.
 Japanese intelligence agencies | |
|---|---|
| Cabinet Intelligence Council |
|
| Cabinet Office | |
| Ministry of Foreign Affairs |
|
| Ministry of Defense |
|
| Police organizations | |
| Ministry of Justice | |
| Japan Coast Guard |
|
| Ministry of Finance |
|
| Defunct agencies |
|