Chapter 10: 10. Significant Information Known in Washington U.S. War[1] Plans Published

On December 4, 1941, a front-page story in the Washington Times Herald and its parent newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, sent shockwaves throughout the nation:

F.D.R’s WAR PLANS

GOAL IS 10 MILLION ARMED MEN:

HALF TO FIGHT IN AEF

PROPOSED LAND DRIVE BY JULY 1, 1943, TO SMASH NAZIS

The nation was still officially neutral. Yet here was evidence that plans had been made to build an army to fight abroad, that is, to create an American Expeditionary Force (AEF), “to smash” the Nazis. The people were stunned.

The war plans announced here were those prepared under Marshall’s orders by Lt. Col. Albert C. Wedemeyer. Wedemeyer had been assigned the task in May 1941 of compiling a “complete statement of Army needs—not for 1941 and 1942 but for the actual winning of a war not yet declared.” Then in July 1941, almost immediately after Hitler attacked Russia, Roosevelt had expanded the scope of Wedemeyer’s assignment to include not only the needs of the Army, but also those of the Navy and Air.^[2] On August 30, FDR had enlarged it still further to encompass also the “distribution of expected United States production of munitions of war as between the United States, Great Britain, Russia and the other countries to be aided.”^[3]

The project had been carried out in utmost secrecy, and Wedemeyer had completed his Herculean task by September 10. The result of his efforts was known as the “Victory Program.” To preserve the security of the project, the number of copies and their distribution were strictly limited.^[4] Nevertheless, rumors had circulated in October that “the Army was currently preparing an expeditionary force for duty in Africa.” To protect the secrecy of the plans, Marshall had “categorically” denied their existence. “There is no foundation whatsoever,” he stated, “for the allegation or rumor that we are preparing troops for a possible expedition to Africa or other critical areas outside this hemisphere.”^[5] And now, to the chagrin of all involved, the security surrounding the program had been breached.

The military’s war plans had been leaked and published for all the world to see in the anti-administration Chicago Tribune. There was consternation and embarrassment in the administration. An investigation was launched to discover who had been responsible for the leak.

Japanese “Winds Code” Executed: War with England; War with the U.S.; Peace with Russia

On November 28, we had intercepted the November 15 Japanese “Winds Code” setup (Tokyo Circular #2353), a message announcing special weather code words to be used by the Japanese “[i]n case of emergency (danger of cutting off our diplomatic relations), and the cutting off of international communications.”^[6] By introducing these weather words, each with a hidden meaning, into daily Japanese language news broadcasts, the Japanese would be able to communicate secretly to their diplomatic officers throughout the world, even if they could no longer transmit via their cryptographic channels. Also on November 28, we had intercepted a Japanese message with the schedule of Japanese news broadcasts and the kilocycles on which transmissions were to be made.^[7] The significance of the “Winds Code” message became apparent when on December 1 we translated a Japanese intercept ordering the Japanese diplomatic offices in some countries to destroy their codes and code machines.

When Captain Safford, director of the Security Section of Navy Department’s Communications, read the cable giving the times and frequencies of Japanese news broadcasts in conjunction with the Japanese “Winds Code” message, he put two and two together. According to him,

everyone in authority from the president down believed that this [a “Winds Execute”] would be the Japanese Government’s decision as to peace or war announced to their own officials overseas.

We looked on it as “our chance of a tip-off, [our chance] to gain the necessary time to prevent a surprise attack on our fleet.”^[8]

Interception of a “Winds Execute” was given top priority. Safford immediately alerted U.S. intercept stations to monitor Japanese-language weather and news broadcasts at the scheduled times.^[9] It was expected that the message would be transmitted in Japanese Morse code. Those monitoring the broadcasts were given cards with the three Japanese phrases listed in the “Winds Code” message—HIGASHI NO KAZE AME, KITA NO KAZE KUMORI, and NISHI NO KAZE HARE—and were instructed to listen closely for an “Execute,” i.e., for an actual broadcast of any one of the three crucial Japanese weather phrases.^[10]

“Our prospects for interception looked somewhat dubious,” Safford said later.^[11] The Navy even feared that “this winds execute might have been sent out before the 28th, when we began listening for it^[12] and that we might have missed it entirely. After all, the Japanese message had gone out on November 15, almost two weeks before we decoded and translated it. All these uncertainties made the Navy “very jittery.”^[13] Moreover, radio reception was not only poor but unpredictable.

[T]he radio frequencies used between Japan and the United States were quite erratic in performance. . . . It is not at all surprising that the frequency used [by the Japanese] to reach Washington, Rio, and Buenos Aires skipped over the West Coast and Hawaii.^[14]

Even the Japanese themselves in Washington and Rio “objected to the new frequency assignments and Rome complained about the poor quality of the Tokyo Voice Broadcasts.”^[15]

In view of the urgency of intercepting the “Winds Execute” and the uncertain nature of radio reception, Navy communications took the exceptional precaution of alerting all stations with any possibility of intercepting this important message. Nevertheless, the Navy Department was “very much worried” that, even with “all the stations which were known to be listening for it, by some freak chance we might fail to catch it.”^[16]

Since reception of Tokyo transmissions was often clearer on the east coast of the United States than on the west coast, “Station M” at Cheltenham, Maryland, was one of the several interception stations to which the alert was sent. Station chief Daryl Wigle “put a notation in the supervisor’s instruction file,” and Radioman Ralph T. Briggs, then assistant supervisor on his particular watch, saw the report. Briggs had been especially trained by the Navy in the interception of Japanese communications, and he recognized the three Japanese phrases as weather phrases. They were the kinds of phrases Briggs had often picked up when searching various radio spectrums at random to practice interception and to see what kind of traffic was being transmitted.

Briggs wondered why Navy intelligence was all of a sudden targeting weather reports, and, being on good terms with his station chief, he asked why. Wigle was reluctant to explain, but he finally showed Briggs the card with the three phrases and their hidden coded meanings. Wigle couldn’t give Briggs all the details, “but [he said] it’s important that we get those. . . . [I]f you get any of them, if any of those shows up in any broadcast, be sure and transmit them immediately to OP-20-G,” Captain Safford’s office in Washington, D.C.

The only broadcast on which such weather phrases might appear was the “Tokyo scheduled weather and news broadcast,” transmitted at different hours of the day and on different frequencies to Japanese ships and stations worldwide. The Cheltenham communication intelligence trained radiomen began to monitor that broadcast. To each of the five watch sections Wigle assigned at least one operator who was qualified in Katakana, the difficult written form of squarish Japanese characters based on Chinese ideographs, as contrasted with the simpler Kanji.

On December 4 Briggs had the “mid-watch,” from midnight to 8:00 a.m. Some time after midnight, probably between 3:00 and 8:00, when he was to be relieved, Briggs intercepted in Japanese Morse code a message containing the phrase “Higashi no kaze ame.” He excitedly rushed down the corridor to the OP-20-G teletype terminal and sent the message off immediately to OP-20-G in Washington. He then phoned Wigle, who lived on the station, got him “out of the sack,” and told him what had happened. When Wigle checked the log sheet and the station copy of the intercept later, he confirmed to Briggs that he had gotten “the real McCoy.”^[17]

The “Execute,” forwarded by teletype (TWX) from Cheltenham, was received in the Navy Department in Washington by the watch officer, who notified Lieutenant Commander Kramer, who was in charge of the translation section of the Navy Department communication intelligence unit. As soon as Kramer saw the TWX from Cheltenham, he rushed into Safford’s office with the long yellow teletype paper in his hands.^[18] The time was shortly before 9:00 a.m. on December 4.^[19]

“This is it!” Kramer said, as he handed the message to Safford. “This was the broadcast we had strained every nerve to intercept. This was the feather in our cap. . . . This was what the Navy Communication Intelligence Division had been preparing for since its establishment in 1924—War with Japan!”^[20]

As Safford later recalled,

The Winds Message broadcast was about 200 words long, with the code words prescribed in Tokyo Circular 2353 appearing in the middle of the message. . . . Kramer had underscored all three “code phrases” on the original incoming teletype sheet. Below the printed message was written in pencil or colored crayon in Kramer’s handwriting, the following free translations:

War with England (including NEI, etc.)

War with the U.S.

Peace with Russia^[21]

Safford immediately sent the original teletype of the “Winds Execute” with one of his officers up to the office of his superior, Rear Admiral Noyes, director of naval communications. Safford did not explain the message or its significance to the courier; he only told him “to deliver this paper to Admiral Noyes in person.” If Noyes wasn’t there, the officer was “to track him down and not take ‘no’ for an answer.” If Noyes could not be found within a reasonable time, the officer was to let Safford know. In a few minutes, however, Safford received a report that the message had been successfully delivered to Noyes.^[22]

Meanwhile over at the Japanese embassy in Washington, Japanese Petty Officer Ogimoto, an intelligence officer posing as a code clerk, had been on the alert since November 19, when the government in Tokyo had announced the “Winds Code.” We knew, of course, that the Japanese embassies and legations throughout the world must have been listening for the “Winds Execute” just as intently as we had been, although we had no way of knowing just what arrangements they had made. However, in the naval attaché room, Ogimoto had been straining his ears listening to shortwave broadcasts on their sophisticated radio. At about 4:00 p.m. on December 4, Ogimoto heard what he had been waiting for, “East Wind Rain.” He shouted out, “The wind blew.” Ogimoto heard the phrase “East Wind Rain” repeated several times. In the next room Assistant Naval Attaché Yuzuru Sanematsu heard Ogimoto’s shout and rushed into the radio room. The room was electric with excitement. The two men looked at one another and said, “What had to come has finally come.” They immediately started making preparations for the destruction of the embassy’s secret codes, ciphers, and code machines.^[23]

Safford (Naval Communications, Security) Alerts U.S. Outposts to Destroy Classified Documents

Indications were mounting that some form of aggressive action by the Japanese was imminent. But when? Where?

Safford was concerned for the safety of the cryptographic equipment and all the classified documents at our mid-Pacific stations. The U.S. Naval Station on Guam was only 60 miles or so from Saipan, one of the islands mandated to Japan after World War I, and “according to War Plans [Guam was] not to be defended except against sabotage.” So Safford thought we should “clean house early there.”^[24] Therefore, when the “Winds Execute” came in on December 4, he prepared four messages to our stations in the far-western Pacific which were dispatched that afternoon.

The first of Safford’s four messages was released by his superior, Noyes, and the other three by Admiral Ingersoll. Safford’s first message ordered Guam (more than 3,000 miles west of Hawaii) and Samoa (2,260 miles south and west of Hawaii) to destroy certain codes immediately and to substitute a new code, RIP 66, for RIP 65, then in use. It was sent Priority to Kimmel at Pearl Harbor, Hart in Manila, the commandants of their respective naval districts, and the Naval Stations at Guam and Samoa. Because military intelligence, that is, the analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of information, was the prerogative of the Office of Naval Intelligence, it was outside the jurisdiction of Safford’s Security Section of Naval Communications. Therefore, Safford’s cable was drafted in technical terms and refrained from interpretation.^[25]

Safford then drafted a second message ordering Guam to

destroy all secret and confidential publications and other classified matter except that essential for current purposes. . . . Be prepared to destroy instantly in event of emergency all classified matter you retain.

It was directed to the naval station at Guam for action, with information copies to the commanders of the fleets and naval districts in the Philippines and Hawaii, who might have occasion to communicate with Guam.^[26] It was imperative that Safford’s first message get there first, as the second message “was sent in the new RIP 66, which had just been made effective by the previous message.” Noyes revised Safford’s draft somewhat and softened the “degree of warning” it contained, and it was dispatched 17 minutes after Safford’s first message. However, it was sent Deferred Priority, thus downgrading its urgency.

[B]y Navy regulations or by communication instructions deferred messages are not expected to be delivered until the beginning of working hours the next morning. In other words, any message which comes in in deferred priority automatically is not going to be considered a war warning, regardless of how you stated it.^[27]

Safford’s third December 4 message was sent to Hart in Manila, which lay on the flank of the route the Japanese convoys were traveling. It ordered that the communications room be “stripped of all secret and confidential publications and papers which in the hands of an enemy would be of disadvantage to the United States.”^[28]

The fourth message was directed for action to the U.S. naval attaches in Tokyo, Peiping, Bangkok, and Shanghai, with an information copy to Hart. No copy of this message was sent to Kimmel in Pearl Harbor. This message, also prompted by our receipt of the “Winds Execute,” ordered our outposts in the western Pacific to destroy secret and confidential materials “which in the hands of an enemy would be a disadvantage to the United States.”^[29]

Safford was proud of the Navy crew at Cheltenham for having intercepted the vital “Winds Execute,” and he did not forget them. In the midst of the growing tension, he took time to send them a message: “Well done. Discontinue coverage of the target.” A day or so later, he followed that up with a bouquet of roses, not exactly the traditional gift for one man to give a group of men. But “cryppies” (cryptologists) had the reputation for being odd balls, and Safford was a “cryppy.”^[30]

Safford recognized that our interception of the “Winds Execute” had been due partly to “good luck,” the fact that the Japanese hadn’t transmitted it between November 15, when their “Winds Code” setup message had gone out, and November 28, when we decoded and translated it. It had been due “partly to foresight,” the ability of Intelligence to put several clues together so as to anticipate it. But our successful interception had also been due to “the high quality of the Navy operators and receiving apparatus at Cheltenham.”^[31]

Tokyo to Honolulu: Investigate “Ships in Harbor;” Tokyo to Embassy: Destroy Codes

Also intercepted and translated on December 4, was a significant J-l9 Tokyo-Honolulu cable. Honolulu was asked to “investigate comprehensively the fleet bases in the neighborhood of the Hawaiian military reservation.”^[32]

The usual procedure for handling Japanese J-19 messages—interception in Hawaii and airmailing to Washington as picked up, still encrypted and untranslated—had been followed in this case. As a result, it was not until two weeks after its transmission from Tokyo that this cable was decoded and translated in Washington. However, it was available there on December 4, well before the attack. And it provided confirmation of the “Ships in Harbor” messages.^[33] In light of the other intercepts, this new reminder that the Japanese in Hawaii had our fleet at Pearl Harbor under close surveillance should have set off flashing lights and piercing alarms among those in military intelligence, arousing them to alert the commanders in Hawaii. Yet no hint of either the earlier “Ships in Harbor” messages, or of this follow-up, was forwarded to Pearl Harbor.

A “Purple” December 4 Tokyo cable added to the crisis atmosphere in Washington. This cable instructed the Japanese ambassadors in Washington how to dispose of their codes. The key, or guide to deciphering the code, however, was to be kept “until the last moment” and then sent to the Japanese ministry in Mexico.^[34]

Tokyo to Ambassadors: Maintain Pretense that Negotiations Continue

Also on December 4, the Navy translated the Japanese government’s instructions to their ambassadors in Washington as to how to quiet Roosevelt’s concern, as expressed in his December 2 press conference, over Japanese troop movements in Indochina. The ambassadors were told to point out, while maintaining the pretense that the negotiations were continuing, that the movements in the southern part of the country, as well as in the north, have been in response to “an unusual amount of activity by the Chinese forces in the vicinity of the Sino-French IndoChina border.” The movements, they maintained, “have in no way violated the limitations contained in the Japanese-French joint defense agreement.”^[35]

Nevertheless, the Japanese ambassadors in Washington were still concerned. If Japan’s troop movements into Indochina continued, they feared the United States might take steps to close down the Japanese consulates. So they wired Tokyo again: “[C]onsideration should be given to steps to be taken in connection with the evacuation of the Consuls.”^[36]

FDR and British Ambassador Discuss Warning Japanese Against Attacking British Malaya and NEI

Roosevelt followed the Japanese situation closely, insofar as it was revealed by the MAGIC intercepts he saw.^[37] Judging from the clues to Japan’s intentions revealed in the messages we were intercepting, it was apparent the Japanese were preparing to strike. “[T]he only question that remained was when and where.”^[38] Without revealing his reasons, on December 4 FDR “asked Congressional leaders not to recess for more than three days at a time.”^[39] He was keeping the door open so that he could address Congress should he decide events and public opinion warranted it.

Late that evening, British Ambassador Lord Halifax called on the president to express his government’s “very deep appreciation” for his promise the evening before of “armed support.” The two men discussed whether or not it would be advisable for the British, Dutch, and the U.S. governments to issue jointly a “simultaneous warning” to the Japanese against attacking Thailand, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, or the Burma Road through Indochina. FDR was “doubtful about including the Burma Road, but otherwise agreed to the warning.” However, he did not believe the warning should be a joint one. He

thought that each of the three Governments should give it independently, and that the American warning should come first, since he wanted to assure opinion in the United States that he was acting in the interest of American defence, and not just following a British lead.^[40]

FDR “had not given up all hope of a temporary agreement with the Japanese.” He led Halifax to believe that

Mr. Kurusu had let him know indirectly that an approach to the Emperor might still secure a truce, and even lead to a settlement between Japan and China. Mr. Kurusu’s plan was that the President should try to act as an “introducer” between China and Japan with a view to their dealing directly with each other.

Roosevelt suggested that the “lines of settlement” in such an agreement “might be the withdrawal of the bulk of Japanese troops from Indo-China, and a similar withdrawal from North China on an agreed timetable.”^[41]

FDR also told Halifax that the Japanese would have to have “some economic relief.” Actually, he said, he “did not put too much importance on Mr. Kurusu’s approach, but he could not miss even the chance of a settlement.” Besides FDR believed “his own case [that the U.S. was negotiating in sincerity with Japan] would be strengthened if he had been in communication with the Emperor.”^[42]

There was “some danger,” Halifax believed, “in postponing the warning.” He even “suggested that the communication to the Emperor might serve as a definite warning.” The president agreed but said he would decide on December 6, “after getting the Japanese reply to his enquiries [concerning the Japanese troop movements], whether to approach the Emperor.” FDR told Halifax that he hoped that, if he did contact the Emperor, “the three-Power warning might be postponed until he had had an answer.”^[43]

British Forces in Southeast Asia Told of Promised U. S. Armed Support

On December 5 in southeast Asia (December 4 in the United States)

the Dominions received from the United Kingdom Government information that it had received assurance of armed support from the United States (a) if Britain found it necessary either to forestall a Japanese landing in the Kra Isthmus or to occupy part of the isthmus as a counter to Japanese violation of any other part of Thailand; (b) if Japan attacked the Netherlands East Indies and Britain at once went to their support; (c) if Japan attacked British territory.^[44]

Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, British commander-in-chief in the Far East stationed in Singapore, had finally received the authority he had been requesting; he was free to launch “Matador,” the operation intended to forestall a Japanese landing on the Kra Isthmus. However, London’s instructions were worded in such a way as to require that he withhold any action until he was absolutely “sure that a Japanese expedition was making for the Isthmus of Kra.” Such a delay would mean that “the chances of its [a British operation] succeeding were greatly reduced, for it would be too late to take action.”^[45]

The volume of Japanese intercepts being decoded and translated in Washington during this time was almost overwhelming. The purpose of such cryptanalysis is, of course, to use the intelligence effectively to gain an advantage over one’s adversaries. The record reveals that our cryptanalysts and translators were doing a remarkable job; they were intercepting, decoding, translating, and disseminating promptly countless Japanese messages. Thus, a great deal of information was coming into Washington. However, precious little “intelligence” was going out—to the men in the field who might have been able to use it.