Posted on 06/05/2017 4:00:36 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
... an intriguing side story: "Navy Had Word of Jap Plan to Strike at Sea."
It was a fascinating, and detailed, description of much of what American intelligence knew beforehand of the enemy's fleet and plans. Indeed, it was too detailed.
The report - 14 paragraphs long - suggested a secret U.S. intelligence coup, and became one of the biggest and potentially damaging news leaks of World War II.
"This is the only time in American history that the United States government has ... taken steps toward prosecuting a member of the media under the Espionage Act,"
The story went on to describe the three parts of the planned Japanese attack: a striking force, a support force and an occupation force. It detailed how many ships were involved, and named the ships and their types.
Johnston landed in San Diego on June 2, and was in Chicago on June 4. When he heard about the unfolding battle, he told his editor he had some "dope" on the Japanese fleet, according to a 1942 report to the Navy and the Justice Department by former U.S. attorney general William D. Mitchell, who was handling the investigation.
Carlson said Johnston's story did not help the Japanese. "They never heard of the article," he said. The Japanese did soon change their code, but not because of the leak. They changed it because it was due to be changed."
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
The Justice Department had argued against unsealing it, saying that such testimony should always remain sealed to protect witnesses and the innocent.
The media always has been slime.
It’s outed slime now, thanks to Drudge and the net.
Your time is coming, MSM.
It will not be a pleasant time.
For you.
The story of the Japanese WWII codes is a cautionary tale about reasoning from a conclusion. There were several other spectacular successes from codebreaking, such as shooting down Yamamoto. But in every case the Japanese concluded since their code was unbreakable it couldn't have been codebreaking. So, they blamed their disasters on spies, bad luck, anything other than American intelligence reading their radio traffic.
Sherman was correct on two statements. One, war is hell and two, the press is full of liars and scoundrels.
Mark Twain said: “If you don’t read the newspapers you are uniformed; if you do read the newspapers you are misinformed”
The media always has been slime.
It’s outed slime now, thanks to Drudge and the net.
Yes. I wish more cookie-cutter conservatives would get this:
The media has been anti-American (i.e., anti-conservative, anti-Christian, anti-nationalist, anti-liberty) since at least the 1930s.
They loved Stalin, an overt communist, and Roosevelt, a covert communist.
In a just world a few examples would already be swinging from lampposts.
And they LOVED Fidel Castro, the NYSlimes heaping praise on this “hero for the poor” in Cuba, along with Che Guevara, another vile Marxist butcher, that two generations of stupid Americans have worn on their tee shirts.
Bkmrk.
During WW2, if you had a big mouth, you were locked in a mental institution for the duration of the war.
BTW, I believe the best history of Midway was Jonathan Parshall's "Shattered Sword". It seems that Fuchida's account, which everybody used for the Japanese side of the battle was debunked decades ago by Japanese historians but kept being repeated by American authors. Contrary to Fuchida, the planes our pilots saw taking off from the flight decks of the of the Japanese carriers were not going to attack the US task force. They were just augmenting the combat air patrol which was running low on ammo after slaughtering torpedo planes for the better part of an hour. The attack force was still below decks being re-armed.
Great post, DG!
That is something that deserves a good dusting off.
Shattered Sword is a great addition to my books on Midway. One thing I did not expect was a discussion of the trade offs that had to be made in building carriers.
That's how it really was.
Hmmm...Doesn't that sound a lot like someone we know from the last election?
“Johnson’s role was known and the incident is included in either Walter Lord or Gordon Prang’s history of the battle.”
Two further examples:
In Gerhard Weinberg’s 1994 book “A World At Arms — a Global History of World War 11” (Cambridge University Press), p. 260 — there is this treason:
“The leakage by an air force officer of the American program for building up and deploying forces if the country were drawn into the war to the ‘Chicago Tribune’ in early December caused a flurry in Washington but extraordinarily little reaction in either Germany or Japan*.”
*In his footnote, Weinberg adds: “I have not been able to locate any reference to Japanese reactions to this most dramatic leak from the U.S. government in World War II.”
And then on page 339:
“Yamamoto became generally more cautious hereafter [i.e., after the defeat at Midway].
“Fortunately for the Americans, this caution did not extend to the codes used by the Japanese. Neither a careful analysis of the Midway battle itself, which could have raised suspicions about code security, nor a significant hint from the Germans, nor a ‘Chicago Tribune’ story about the use at Midway of the breaking of Japanese codes by the American navy*, registered in Tokyo.”
His footnote here reads: “The chapter on this in Lewin, “American Magic,” is entitled: “The Stab in the Back.”
Japanese communications kept referring to a location code-named "AF." The Navy guessed it was Midway, but it had to be sure. To find out, Navy Com. Joseph J. Rochefort, a code breaker, suggested a ruse. Midway was instructed to issue an emergency call in plain English saying that its water distillation plant had broken down. The report was duly picked up by enemy eavesdroppers, who radioed superiors that "AF" was running short of water, according to Costello.Converted for the Web from: Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II - Originally published: 2000 Stephen Budiansky
Or if you bad mouthed the Navy Brass for f***ing up Pearl Harbor.
The Japanese are still like this to a degree. I had a friend that worked for NEC and was sent to Japan to learn their telephone Switch. He said that their troubleshooting methods are exactly the opposite of our American companies. We learn to logically look for the simplest faults and then check successively up to the most difficult trouble. The Japanese are trained to look for the most difficult fail point first. My friend said it was a matter of pride with them. The would never insult anyone by asking them to look for the obvious. They would spend all day checking every component before finally checking to see if the power switch was turned on.
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