For ease of navigation this site is broken up into four main sections. Use the menu at the top of each page or the following links.

Organisation
Operations
Technology
Personnel

Special Operations Australia, Z Special Unit, Services Reconnaissance Department, Inter-Allied Services Department, 200 Flight, Allied Intelligence Bureau … all are names which are unfamiliar to most modern readers. During the Second World War, they were names that nobody outside a select group of Allied military intelligence insiders even knew existed, but the men and women of these special units did their part, directly impacting the outcome of WWII.

This website is their story.

Z Men at Labuan at the end of the war.

It is now almost 70 years since the defeat of Imperial Japan and the end of the Second World War. Memories dim as our elderly WWII Veterans pass on, leaving the door open for revisionist historians to influence the public perception of that war. The deeds of all of the men and women of Allied Special Operations and Intelligence organisations operating in the Southwest Pacific during WWII are remarkable enough that they do not require embellishment and it would certainly be a grave injustice if they were to be downplayed or distorted for commercial gain.

It is with this in mind that I have created this website. The content is drawn from official records of training and operations and from the memories of the Veterans themselves.

The content of this site includes training materials, photographs, official records and extracts from Veteran memoirs, all of which I have gathered in the course of my research, many never before seen in the public arena. Throughout 2011 and the early part of 2012, I interviewed many of the surviving Z Men and 200 Flight Veterans. It is hoped that as the site grows, more material will become available and the full story of Special and Intelligence operations in the Pacific will become apparent.

I would like to thank the Veterans and their families as well as fellow researchers and authors who have contributed to my understanding of this important and fascinating period in Australia’s history.

This website is dedicated to the men and women of the Services Reconnaissance Department and all branches of the Allied Intelligence Bureau.

This site is one writer’s attempt to gather and display as much information as possible on these wartime secret operations and organisations. The information presented here is by no means complete, but it is hoped that it will become a permanent reminder to younger generations of the service and sacrifice of the Z Men during those dark days of WWII.

I take full responsibility for any errors of fact and if such errors are proven, I will of course correct them.

If you have anything you would like to contribute to the site, please send me an email.

C. Brown

Melbourne, 2012

This site is continually under construction and I can be difficult to contact, so thanks in advance for your patience.