Tokeitai
Encyclopedia
The was the Imperial Japanese Navy
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...

's military police
Military police
Military police are police organisations connected with, or part of, the military of a state. The word can have different meanings in different countries, and may refer to:...

, they were equivalent to the Imperial Japanese Army
Imperial Japanese Army
-Foundation:During the Meiji Restoration, the military forces loyal to the Emperor were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū...

's Kempeitai
Kempeitai
The was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945. It was not an English-style military police, but a French-style gendarmerie...

. They were also the smallest military police service.

The original Tokkeitai was known as the General Affairs Section and concerned itself with police and personnel work within the Navy: personnel, discipline and records. It took a more active role, partly to keep the Kempeitai and Army from meddling in Navy affairs. Smaller and more low-key than its rival, it was no less brutal. It was especially active in the areas of the South Pacific
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...

, the Naval Control Area, as well as maintaining a presence as pervasive as the Kempeitai had. It had the same 'commissar
Commissar
Commissar is the English transliteration of an official title used in Russia from the time of Peter the Great.The title was used during the Provisional Government for regional heads of administration, but it is mostly associated with a number of Cheka and military functions in Bolshevik and Soviet...

' roles, in relation to exterior enemies or suspicious persons, and watching inside units for possible defectors or traitors, under the security doctrine of "Kikosaku".

Attached to Navy units, they served as Colonial police in some occupied Pacific areas. Later accusations of war crimes were made against them in that role for such acts as coercion of women from Indonesia, Indochina and China into sexual slavery
Comfort women
The term "comfort women" was a euphemism used to describe women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II.Estimates vary as to how many women were involved, with numbers ranging from as low as 20,000 from some Japanese scholars to as high as 410,000 from some Chinese...

. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070418a5.html

In addition to the aforementioned police responsibilities the Tokkeitai was the operative branch of the Secret Service Branch of the Imperial Japanese Navy ( which was responsible for recovering and analyzing information and for the execution of undercover operations. Its members also provided local security near naval base
Naval base
A naval base is a military base, where warships and naval ships are deployed when they have no mission at sea or want to restock. Usually ships may also perform some minor repairs. Some naval bases are temporary homes to aircraft that usually stay on the ships but are undergoing maintenance while...

s. In the final weeks of the Pacific War
Pacific War
The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...

, they were amongst the security units prepared for combat against the invasion of Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.
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