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Post by jodak on Mar 15, 2016 8:38:33 GMT -6
March 15, 1941
FDR's "Arsenal of Democracy" speech at the White House Correspondence Association Dinner. While it lacked specifics, particularly regarding Japan, it no doubt garnered the attention of our future foes and likely served to firm up and accelerate Japanese war plans.
www.ibiblio.org/pha/7-2-188/188-24.html
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Post by jodak on Mar 18, 2016 8:01:38 GMT -6
March 18, 1941
Admiral Raeder's notes from a meeting with Hitler:
Japan must take steps to seize Singapore as soon as possible, since the opportunity will never again be as favorable (whole English fleet contained; unpreparedness of USA for war against Japan; inferiority of US fleet vis-a-vis the Japanese). Japan is indeed making preparations for this action, but according to all declarations made by Japanese officers she will carry it out only if Germany proceeds to land in England. Germany must therefore concentrate all her efforts on spurring Japan to act immediately. If Japan has Singapore all other East Asiatic questions regarding the USA and England are thereby solved (Guam, Philippines, Borneo, Dutch East Indies). Japan wishes, if possible, to avoid war against the USA. She can do so if she determinedly takes Singapore as soon as possible.
Note: This points out the importance of Singapore to the thinking and planning of both the Axis and Allies. It was considered to be the lynchpin to the Southwest Pacific and Indian Ocean areas, much more so than the Philippines and other locations.
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Post by dave on Mar 18, 2016 14:18:54 GMT -6
The Americans must not have gotten copies of Hitler's briefings as they did not know all was lost when Singapore fell. Those pesky Yanks. Regards Dave
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Post by jodak on Mar 28, 2016 10:44:35 GMT -6
March27, 1941
Takeo Yoshikawa arrived in Honolulu to beginning spying for the Japanese. Due to the large ethnic Japanese population of Oahu and American liberties, he was able to move about and observe freely without arousing suspicions, giving him a tremendous advantage over American intelligence gathering efforts in Japan - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takeo_Yoshikawa
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Post by edavids on Mar 28, 2016 12:29:01 GMT -6
March27, 1941
Takeo Yoshikawa arrived in Honolulu to beginning spying for the Japanese. Due to the large ethnic Japanese population of Oahu and American liberties, he was able to move about and observe freely without arousing suspicions, giving him a tremendous advantage over American intelligence gathering efforts in Japan - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takeo_Yoshikawa
Good thing he never figured out the US cracked the Japanese Naval Code!
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Post by dave on Mar 28, 2016 16:27:23 GMT -6
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Post by jodak on Mar 30, 2016 7:24:27 GMT -6
A few comments in regard to the above several posts -
It was the Japanese diplomatic code, not their naval code, that the U.S. was able to read in early 1941. The naval code was not cracked until early 1942. Most of the messages that were being read throughout 1941 were routine diplomatic traffic, and while many dealt with the strained relations between Japan and the U.S. and ongoing negotiations, there was little of military significance to be gleaned. There were of course the messages to various consulates instructing them to report on ship movements and things of that nature, but there was nothing pertaining to Japanese plans. About the closest that the Japanese came to tipping their hand was in the last few days of peace when they informed their diplomats that things were going to happen very soon and that they should burn their codes, etc., but there was nothing to indicate exactly what and when these things were going to be. As it relates to Yoshikawa's activities in Hawaii, the majority of the information that he reported was not urgent and did not necessitate immediate transmittal, so it was simply placed in the "diplomatic bag" for delivery to Japan. As such it avoided the possibility of being intercepted and read, and, even in those situations in which it was, it was fairly innocuous. In that sense Yoshikawa did not really engage in spying as we would normally think of the term, but he basically just played tourist - going where he was freely allowed to go and seeing what he was freely allowed to see - and filed reports on his observations. As it related to the fleet and harbor, all he had to do was drive along the hills surrounding the harbor and observe whatever he could. There was nothing clandestine, or illegal for that matter, about it. Also, he had counterparts doing the same thing in many other locations, such as at the San Francisco consulate, so, even though we at least had suspicions about what he was doing, there was nothing that really set Hawaii apart from the others as a place of special focus.
As an aside, the decrypted diplomatic messages were filed in purple binders and thus became known as the "Purple Code", and that is the way that we often see it referenced. Also, technically speaking we misapply the word "code" when what we mean is the "cypher" by which the messages were encrypted. To illustrate the difference, it was alleged that a Japanese dentist on Oahu used coded references to U.S. ships in his phone calls back to Japan. He was said to have used flower names as code words for ships, along the lines of "the hyacinths are in bloom", meaning that carriers were in port. That was a code. On the other had, if the word carrier was encrypted as something like qltdgsm, that would be a cypher and is really what we are talking about when we say that the Japanese code(s) was broken.
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Post by jodak on Mar 30, 2016 7:26:47 GMT -6
March 29, 1941
From notes of a meeting between Ribbentrop and the Japanese Foreign Minister, Matsuoka, in Berlin:
(Ribbentrop) did not know how the situation would develop. One thing was certain, however, namely that Germany would strike immediately, should Russia ever attack Japan. He was ready to give Matsuoka this positive assurance so that Japan could push forward to the South on Singapore without fear of possible complications with Russia. The largest part of the German Army was on the Eastern frontiers of the Reich anyway and fully prepared to open the attack at any time. He (the RAM), however, believed that Russia would try to avoid developments leading to war.
Should Germany, however, enter into a conflict with Russia, the USSR would be finished off within a few months. In this case Japan would have, of course, even less reason to be afraid than ever, if she wants to advance on Singapore...
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Post by jodak on Mar 30, 2016 10:00:34 GMT -6
To elaborate further on the U.S. "code" breaking activities -
1. Although we don't hear about it like we do the German Enigma, the Japanese had a somewhat similar encryption device. Both used a typewriter like keyboard for typing in entries, but, whereas the Enigma used a series of dials or gears to effect the encoding, the Japanese device used patch cords along the lines of a telephone switch board. With the Enigma the dials were turned to whatever the specified setting for the time period was, and the information was typed in and encoded based on the settings, so an "L" became a "J" for example. The Japanese system accomplished the same thing by changing the holes that the cords were plugged into. I don't know what sort of systems the U.S. used, other than the Navy which used a manual "strip cypher" that was a sort of slide rule type device.
2. Even after the Japanese codes were broken, that is a relative concept. For example, many things that I buy come with directions in both English and Spanish, and I sometimes attempt to apply my very rudimentary Spanish skills (two years of high school Spanish many years ago) to attempt to determine what it means before reading the English. I can usually understand the general gist, but I nowhere near understand every word and there are a lot of holes. Likewise, we should not misconstrue the fact that we had broken the Japanese codes to mean that we could necessarily read every word verbatim. Instead, we often only got the general gist and had to fill in the missing pieces with educated guesses. Complicating that was the fact that the information was conveyed in a foreign, very strange to us, language that had to also be translated. In that sense we might think of the language itself as being a code of sorts, meaning that the information that we were trying to understand was both "encrypted" and "encoded", greatly exacerbating the difficulties. There were a great number of Americans/British that could understand German, which was not that much different from English anyway, so the pool of people that had both the necessary language and analytical skills was relatively large. On the other hand, Japanese was very much a "foreign" language to us, and there were much fewer resources to call upon in our code breaking efforts, which were hampered accordingly.
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Post by dave on Mar 30, 2016 10:28:58 GMT -6
jodak Great post with a wonderful explanation of cypher and code plus the example of breaking a code in a foreign language. Regards Dave
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Post by jodak on Mar 31, 2016 6:47:55 GMT -6
March 31, 1941
In one of the most important actions during 1941, the Hawaiian air defense commanders, General Martin and Admiral Bellinger, release their joint report detailing the overall situation, threats, and countermeasures. It includes -
I. Summary of the Situation. (a) Relations between the United States and Orange are strained, uncertain and varying. (b) In the past Orange has never preceded hostile actions by a declaration of war. (c) A successful, sudden raid, against our ships and Naval installations on Oahu might prevent effective offensive action by our forces in the Western Pacific for a long period. (d) A strong part of our fleet is now constantly at sea in the operating areas organized to take prompt offensive action against any surface or submarine force which initiates hostile action. (e) It appears possible that Orange submarines and/or an Orange fast raiding force might arrive in Hawaiian waters with no prior warning from our intelligence service.
and
III. Possible enemy action.
A declaration of war might be preceded by 1. A surprise submarine attack on ships the operating area. 2. A surprise attack on Oahu including ships and installations in Pearl Harbor. 3. A combination of these two. (b) It appears that the most likely and dangerous form of attack on Oahu would be an air attack. It is believed that at present such an attack would most likely be launched from one or more carriers which would probably approach inside of three hundred miles. (c) A single attack might or might not indicate the presence of more submarines or more planes awaiting to attack after defending aircraft have been drawn away by the original thrust. (d) Any single submarine attack might indicate the presence of a considerable undiscovered surface force probably composed of fast ships accompanied by a carrier. (e) In a dawn air attack there is a high probability that it could be delivered as a complete surprise...
Full text: www.ibiblio.org/pha/timeline/410331apw2.html
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Post by jodak on Apr 5, 2016 6:18:46 GMT -6
April 5, 1941
From notes of a meeting between Hitler, Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka and Ribbentrop:
Matsuoka then spoke of the general high morale in Germany, referring to the happy faces he had seen everywhere among the workers during his recent visit to the Borsig. works. He expressed his regret that developments in Japan were not yet as far advanced as in Germany and that in his country the intellectuals still exercised considerable influence. The Reich Foreign Minister replied that at best a nation which had realized its every ambition could afford the luxury of intellectuals, some of whom are parasites, anyway. A nation, however, which has to fight for a place in the sun must give them up. The intellectuals ruined France; in Germany they had already started their pernicious activities when National Socialism put a stop to these doings; they will surely be the cause of the downfall of Britain, which is to be expected with certainty...
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Post by jodak on Apr 11, 2016 6:18:00 GMT -6
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Post by jodak on Apr 13, 2016 6:02:20 GMT -6
April 13, 1941
Japan signs a five year neutrality agreement with the Soviet Union. This represents a significant change in Japanese policy and causes them to increasingly focus their attentions southward in their quest for resources.
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Post by jodak on Apr 19, 2016 6:01:59 GMT -6
April 19
As a result of growing concerns about Japanese intentions in the region, the U.S. begins construction of an airfield on Wake Island. Previously Wake had served as a way station for the Pan American Clipper flying boats, and this was an expansion into land based facilities.
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