won the war. Let's hear it for the Commander Joseph Rochefort and his team of crypto nerds at Station HYPO.
Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!
Posted on 06/04/2023 9:32:16 AM PDT by US Navy Vet
A Great Talk on the Battle;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9rkKtK1b44&t=193s
US Navy Crypto Group and the battle of Midway.
As in any great endeavor, luck did indeed play a role, but Nimitz’s “Incredible Victory” was no
miracle. Gordon Prange, the distinguished historian, noted that “Midway was a positive
American victory not merely the avoidance of defeat.” General George Marshall, the U.S. Army
Chief of Staff, in his comments on the victory, perhaps said it best, “ as a result of Cryptanalysis
we were able to concentrate our limited forces to meet their naval advance on Midway when we
otherwise would have been 3,000 miles out of place.”
In the end, Yamamoto’s worst fears had become a reality. Due to an impressive mix of
leadership, determination and skill on the part of Admiral Nimitz, the officers and men of Station
Hypo, and the pilots soldiers, sailors and marines who carried the fight to the enemy, Japan
would be on the defensive for the rest of the war.
Bittersweet.
From my perspective, it was a foreign country that won at Midway. To me, it’s like reading about battles from antiquity.
America is vastly weaker now, declining and on the ropes at the hands of the Communists - democrats and republicans.
I’ve watched this a couple of times. Good series on other battles as well.
I just finished reading Prange’s book.
Three GREAT Midway Books(Avail on Audible too);
https://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Sword-audiobook/dp/B07QFB2BLX/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3LX5WIXDR9C2J&keywords=jon+parshall&qid=1685899801&sprefix=Jon+Parsh%2Caps%2C300&sr=8-2
Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!
Also highly recommended, ‘And I Was There’ by Edwin T. Layton who was the Pacific Fleet Intelligence Officer based in Pearl Harbor (if you haven’t read it already). Details a lot of behind the scenes activity in the various intelligence offices. An interesting and pretty easy read, you’ll come away dismayed, but maybe not surprised, at some of the officers who put their career before the well being of the country.
Thanks, his book is on my to order list:
Elliot Carlson’s biography of Captain Joe Rochefort is the first to be written of the officer who headed the U.S. Navy’s decrypt unit at Pearl Harbor and broke the Japanese Navy’s code before the Battle of Midway.
Listeners will share Rochefort’s frustrations as he searches in vain for Yamamoto’s fleet prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and share his joy when he succeeds in tracking the fleet in early 1942 and breaks the code that leads him to believe Yamamoto’s invasion target is Midway.
His conclusions, bitterly opposed by some top navy brass, are credited with making the U.S. victory possible and helping change the course of the war.
The author tells the story of how opponents in Washington forced Rochefort’s removal from the decrypt unit at Pearl and denied him the Distinguished Service Medal recommended by Admiral Nimitz.
In capturing the interplay of policy and personality and the role played by politics at the highest levels of the Navy, Carlson reveals a side of the intelligence community seldom seen by outsiders.
For a full understanding of the man, Carlson examines Rochefort’s love-hate relationship with cryptanalysis, his adventure-filled years in the 1930s as the right-hand man to the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Fleet, and his return to code-breaking in mid-1941 as the officer in charge of Station Hypo at Pearl Harbor.
He traces Rochefort’s career from his enlistment in 1918 to his posting in Washington as head of the Navy’s code-breaking desk at age 25, and beyond. In many ways a reinterpretation of Rochefort, the book makes clear the key role his codebreaking played in the outcome of Midway and the legacy he left of reporting actionable intelligence directly to the fleet.
An epilogue describes efforts waged by Rochefort’s colleagues to obtain the medal denied him in 1942, a drive that finally paid off in 1986, when the medal was awarded posthumously.
Thanks!
Another book for my to read list.
Midway was a victory not only of courage, determination, and excellent bombing technique, but of intelligence, bravely and wisely applied.“
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