"M" Special Unit, Allied Intelligence Bureau

On 21 June 1943, Murray was the Commandant of "M" Special Unit. At that time it comprised 5 officers, 7 other ranks, and 14 natives. About 50 more natives arrived in Brisbane on 27 June 1943.

An ex "M" Special Unit member from Hobart in Tasmania contacted me in September 2001. He had earlier been a member of the 105th Light Field Ambulance. He was based near Higgins Airfield (Jack Jacky) near the top of Cape York. He remembers that he and his mates would visit a nice tomato farm at the Cape near where the communications cable went under the sea to New Guinea.

He was a very fast short hand writer and touch typist. He later became personal assistant to the Australian Quartermaster General, Major J. Whitmore.

He then spent some time at Merauke in Dutch New Guinea. He received a cable from MacArthur to leave Merauke Force and to report to Advanced Land Headquarters at Morotai in 1945. He then became a member of "M" Special Unit and operated a teletype machine in an intelligence tent with about 6 other Americans. The tent was well guarded and surrounded by a barbed wire fence. The nature of the work ensured that everything was on a "need to know basis". He would work his shift in the tent with very little conversation. He did not know the names of the other people in the Intelligence tent nor did he know the names of the people he shared quarters with.

He would be given a coded message which he would type into the Teletype machine which would automatically transfer the coded message to Morse Code. He would also received coded messages from units operating behind enemy lines. So at no stage was he ever aware of the content or the importance of the coded messages. They would apparently spend about half an hour in the middle of the day cooling off in the Lagoon near their tent.

When the war ended in August 1945, he was still a member of "M" Special Unit at Morotai. Prior to the war ending, his unit was scheduled to go to the Philippines. A week after the war ended, news came through that they were to disband the Intelligence HQ as soon as possible. He and about 6 others from his unit were loaded on to a B-24 along with all their paperwork in numerous filing cabinets. They moved into AIB's headquarters at Heindorff House at 171 Queen Street in Brisbane, where they had the job of sorting out all the paperwork into two categories. The information that belonged to Australia and that which belonged to the Americans. He was based at Heindorff House from about mid August 1945 until about Christmas 1945.

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