Tokeitai
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Tokeitai ( 特警隊 ,more exact pronunciation of this word is “tokkeitai”, Naval Secret Police) was the Imperial Japanese Navy's police equivalent to the Imperial Japanese Army's Kempeitai military police service.
The original Tokeitai 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, the Naval Control Area, as well as maintaining a presence as pervasive as the Kempeitai had. It had the same 'commissar' 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;additionally, mentioned police service, was the operative branch of Naval Secret Services of Japanese Navy, for recover and analyzed information and making undecover operations.
They also provided local security in near naval bases. In the final weeks of the Pacific War, they were amongst the security units prepared for combat against invasion of Japan.
