What a terrible intel failure
****************
how would that intel have been gained?
there were no satellites to track ships from space. Photography from aircraft is very limited when the enemy can put up clouds of fighters over the target to be photo’d.
Spies? And how would those have been put into place?
At the time of the fall of Rabal, the US and allies where seriously on the back foot. losses everywhere. I doubt there were even assets in place for air photo.
So, for it to be a failure, there had to be some sort of chance for a success. None existed.
Presentism.
Just because we have global coverage now, doesn’t mean we always did.
Not an "intel" failure!
It is the usual "fog of war"...
There are many hundreds of American sailors sleeping at the bottom of Iron Bottom Sound or were injured as a result of "friendly" fire resulting from the American Navy's night-battle incompetence...
There many other POW transports attacked or sunk by friendly fire...
One, off the coast of Portugal. was attacked by an American bomber AFTER a German U-boat captain had negotiated a truce to allow the allies to save the allied survivors...
The Italians (Germany's principal ally) lost about 2000 POWs when a German sub sank a transport ship off the coast of Africa...
Throughout the war in the South Pacific, intel had many major victories, while friendly fire (unrelated to intel) on both land and sea was common and cost thousands of American, Australian, Indian, Chinese, and British lives...