Code Breakers' Midway Role Recalled at Pensacola Ceremony

AP ^ | June 4, 2002 | Bill Kaczor

[jpthomas]

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) - Code breakers who played a crucial role in winning the first major U.S. victory of World War II were the focus of a ceremony Tuesday on the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Midway.

The Navy's Blue Angels punctuated the event by leaving a trail of white smoke over Corry Station Naval Air Technical Training Center where Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force cryptographers learn their craft.

The work of their World War II predecessors in breaking a Japanese code made it possible for a smaller U.S. naval force to ambush an enemy fleet on June 4, 1942 near Midway Island. Naval aviators sank four Japanese aircraft carriers and turned the tide of the war in the Pacific.

"It was a remarkable bit of early Navy cryptography and some pretty cagey analysis," said Capt. Ned Deets, Corry's commanding officer.

A pair of Midway veterans, seaplane radio operator Jack Bohner, 80, and USS Enterprise anti-aircraft gunner Nick Varazo, 79, both of Pensacola, were honored at the ceremony.

"We lost a lot of good men, a lot of good friends were left behind," Varazo said, fighting back tears. "The music gets me. The flag gets me."

Sailors, soldiers airmen, and Marines stood in formation as the U.S. flag was hoisted atop a towering pole where it could be seen across of the base. A Navy band played the national anthem, "Anchors Aweigh," the "Marine Corps Hymn" and other military music.

U.S. losses at Midway included an aircraft carrier, the USS Yorktown, and all but one of 30 pilots and gunners from Torpedo Squadron 8, who had taken off from the USS Hornet.

Bohner was a member of the seaplane crew that rescued Torpedo 8's sole survivor, Ensign George Gay. He was shot down in the middle of the Japanese fleet and was able to give a detailed account of the U.S. victory. It may not have been possible, though, if not for the code breakers.

"We knew the Japanese forces coming, their commanders, their intentions and their intended arrival times," said retired Master Chief Petty Officer William Lockert, a volunteer at Corry's small cryptography museum.

Petty Officer 2nd Class William Trembly, from his post in Melbourne, Australia, was the first to decipher the order "attack AF" in coded Japanese messages.

Cmdr. Joseph Rochefort and his staff at Station Hypo, the Navy's code breaking organization at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, suspected "AF" was the Japanese designation for Midway.

To test their theory, the U.S. commander on Midway Island sent an uncoded message to Hawaii, reporting that he was running low on water. Japanese intelligence intercepted the report and then sent a coded message that "AF" was getting short on water.

The code breaking that led to victory at Midway has served as an inspiration to Navy cryptographers ever since.

The work, however, was highly classified and most Midway veterans never learned of it until long after the battle.

"That was beautiful," Varazo said. "Oh boy, without that I don't know what would have happened."

AP-ES-06-04-02 1849EDT

Capt. Ned Deets presents caps to Battle of Midway veterans Nick Varazo (left) and Jack Bohner during a ceremony commemorating the World War II victory on Tuesday at Corry Station Naval Technical Training Center in Pensacola. Deets is commading officer of the center that trains military cryptographers who played a key role in the battle by breaking a Japanese code, something veterans such as Varazo and Bohner didn’t find out about until much later because the code work was highly classified.

[jpthomas]

Remember our veterans.

[Gumlegs]

BTTT.

And remember the people responsible for the codebreaking that made Midway possible had to fight official Washington every step of the way.