Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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The Last Survivor

The message: “Air Raid, Pearl Harbor. This is no drill” came at 0755 on December 7, as Japanese planes swept overhead in an attempt to cripple the Pacific Fleet.  Taney, moored alongside Pier 6, Honolulu Harbor, stood to her antiaircraft guns when word of the surprise attack reached her.

The US Coast Guard Cutter Taney (originally launched as the Roger B Taney) was named for Roger Brooke Taney, who was born on March 17, 1777 in Calvert County, Maryland.  Roger Taney was a lawyer and later served in President Andrew Jackson’s administration as Attorney General and Secretary of the Treasury – he was later appointed as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.

Roger B Taney, Coast Guard Builders No. 68, was laid down on May 1, 1935 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.  She was launched on June 3, 1936.   The Roger B Taney departed Philadelphia on December 19, transited the Panama Canal from the 27th to the 29th, and arrived at her home port, Honolulu, Territory of Hawaiʻi, on January 18, 1937.

The Taney had arrived in the Pacific at a time when the US, and Pan-American Airways in particular, was expanding its commercial air travel capabilities.  The “Clipper” flights across the Pacific to the Far East made islands like Hawaiʻi, Midway, Guam and Wake important way-stations.

In the 1930s, the US Bureau of Air Commerce (later known as Department of Commerce) was looking for islands along the air route between Australia and California to support trans-Pacific flight operations (non-stop, trans-Pacific flying was not yet possible, so islands were looked to as potential sites for the construction of intermediate landing areas.)

To affirm a claim on remote Pacific islands, international law required non-military occupation of all neutral islands for at least one year.  An American colony was established at Canton (Kanton) and aney transported and supplied colonists on the island (1938-1940.) (Canton was picked by Pan-Am for its trans-Pacific flight flying boat operations.)

The 327-foot Secretary class cutter Taney was designed and initially missioned to interdict opium smugglers and carry out search and rescue duties from the Hawaiian Islands through the central Pacific Ocean.  In 1940 and 1941, Taney received successive armament upgrades in anticipation of war, with 3- and 5-inch guns capable of shooting at both surface and airborne targets, additional .50 caliber machine guns, depth charge racks and throwers, and sonar for locating submarines.

On the eve of Pearl Harbor, Taney was officially assigned to the US Navy’s Destroyer Division 80, though she retained her Coast Guard crew. When Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor and other American military installations in Hawaiʻi on December 7, 1941, she was tied up at Pier 6, Honolulu Harbor, where she was able to repeatedly engage Japanese planes which flew over the city.

When the attack subsided, Taney immediately commenced anti-submarine patrol duties off Pearl Harbor and was at sea for 80 of the first 90 days of the war.

After service in the Pacific and a major retrofit, Taney was sent into the Atlantic serving as the Flagship of Task Force 66, US Atlantic Fleet and command vessel for six convoys of troop and supply ships between the US and North Africa. Returning to the Pacific after a dramatic reconfiguration as an Amphibious Command Ship in 1945, Taney participated in the Okinawa Campaign and the occupation of Japan.

Immediately after the end of the Pacific war in September 1945, Taney steamed into Japanese home waters where she assisted with the evacuation of Allied prisoners of war.

Following World War II, Taney was reconfigured for peacetime duties and from 1946 until 1972 she was home ported in Alameda, California. Known as “The Queen of the Pacific,” Taney carried out virtually every peacetime Coast Guard duty including decades of Ocean Weather Patrol throughout the Pacific, fisheries patrols in the Bearing Sea and countless search and rescue missions.

During the Korean War, Taney received additional anti-submarine weapons and frequently carried out plane-guard duties off Midway Island and Adak, Alaska.

The mid-1970s were a period of transition for the Coast Guard with the passage of the Fisheries Conservation and Management Act and the nation’s shift towards increased interdiction of narcotics smugglers.  These operations called for off-shore patrols of up to three weeks.

Stationed in Virginia, Taney completed the last Coast Guard ocean weather patrol in 1977, and from 1977 to 1986 carried out search and rescue duties, training cruises for the Coast Guard Academy and drug interdiction in the Caribbean.

She was formally decommissioned on December 7, 1986 (after more than 50-years of continuous service) and turned over to the city of Baltimore, Maryland for use as a museum ship in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.  Over her distinguished career, Taney received three battle stars for World War II service and numerous theatre ribbons for service in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

Since the 1960s, Taney is the last ship still afloat that fought in the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Consequently, from that time on she was often referred to as “The Last Survivor of Pearl Harbor.”  A plaque memorializing her participation in the attacks is at Pier 6, Honolulu Harbor.  (Lots of information here from USCG.)

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Mitchellism

World War I, also known as the Great War or the War to End All Wars, began in 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. His murder catapulted into a war across Europe.

During the conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers).

Four years later, when Germany, facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on the homefront and the surrender of its allies, was forced to seek an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War I.  (The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919.)

At the dawn of WWI, aviation was a relatively new field; the Wright brothers took their first sustained flight just eleven years before, in 1903.  WWI was the first major conflict to use the power of planes, though not as impactful as the British Royal Navy or Germany’s U-boats.

The use of planes in WWI presaged their later, pivotal role in military conflicts around the globe.  During WWI, there was no ‘Air Force’ as we identify it today; the aviation forces were under the US Army Air Service, created during WWI by executive order of President Woodrow Wilson after America entered the war in April 1917.

Later, Congress created the Air Corps on July 2, 1926, and it was abolished with the National Security Act of 1947, establishing the United States Air Force on September 18, 1947.

Gen. William ‘Billy’ Mitchell, a staunch advocate and visionary of air power, became regarded as the ‘Father of the United States Air Force,’ because he was instrumental in bringing to the forefront the need for air superiority.

“Mitchellism” was coined by the press to symbolize the concept that airpower was now the dominant military factor and that sea and land forces were becoming subordinate.

In the intervening years, the correctness of his thinking, the accuracy of his predictions, the risks he took, the sacrifices he so willingly made of his health and his career, and, by far the most important, the influence he had on his successors have conferred a new, higher, and entirely contemporary meaning on “Mitchellism.” (AF Mag, Boyne)

Born Dec. 29, 1879 in Nice, France, Mitchell was the eldest of John and Harriet Mitchell’s ten children. John Mitchell was a representative and a senator from Wisconsin.

Billy Mitchell grew up in Wisconsin and enlisted in the Army in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. He served in Cuba, the Philippines, Alaska and in Europe.  In 1913, Mitchell was promoted to captain and became the youngest officer to serve on the general staff.

In 1916, he transferred to Virginia to become interim commander of Army Aviation, which at that time was a division of the Army Signal Corps.  After the new commander arrived, Mitchell was promoted to the rank of major, and assumed the position of deputy commander of Army Aviation.

Army Aviation is where Mitchell got his first taste of flying, and where his passion for aviation began to grow, so much so that he decided to become an Army pilot; he enrolled in a civilian flying school and paid for flying lessons.

In 1917, Mitchell was already in France studying the production of military aircraft, when the US declared war on Germany. He was promoted to the war-time rank of Brigadier General and given command of all of the American aerial combat units in France.

Putting his knowledge into practice at the Battle of St. Mihiel, Mitchell commanded 1,481 American and Allied airplanes. There he demonstrated what air power could do by massing an assault that sent wave after wave of planes to attack the Germans across battle lines destroying their ground power.

His strategy proved to be successful. Mitchell was the first American Army aviator to cross enemy lines and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for valor. In 1919, Mitchell was awarded the Legion of Honor by France.

After World War I, Mitchell returned to the US and despite his achievements was reverted back to his permanent rank of colonel, due to Air Service drawdown in manpower.

Mitchell became an advocate of an independent Air Force, and promoted the small Army Air Service with border patrols, forest fire patrols, aerial mapping missions and any other activity that demonstrated the value of aviation.

Mitchell asked to do a test/demonstration to confirm that airplanes could bomb ships.  Congress and the Navy gave in and on July 20 and 21, 1921, Mitchell and the 1st Provisional Air Brigade demonstrated to the world the superiority of air power.

He and his unit sank the famous, ‘unsinkable,’ Ostfriesland, a captured German battleship. That proved that battleships were vulnerable to bombing attacks by aircraft (the enemy’s and your own).

Then, the Navy began developing aircraft carriers.

Mitchell was transferred to Fort Sam Houston, where he was assigned as the aviation officer of the Eighth Corps in 1925.  He lived on Fort Sam and resided in Quarters 14 (now designated as the Billy Mitchell House) on Staff Post Road. His office was in the Quadrangle.

He was concerned about the lack of priority to air power. Mitchell’s frustration climaxed after the Navy’s airship Shenandoah crashed due to weather in September 1925. Mitchell publicly accused the Navy and War Departments of “incompetence and criminal negligence.”

In November 1925, Mitchell was called to Washington D.C. and court-martialed on the charge of “Conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline and in a way to bring discredit upon the military service.”

Mitchell was convicted of insubordination, but rather than serve a five-year suspension, Mitchell decided to resign his commission.  During retirement in Virginia, he continued to be outspoken on the importance of air power. He wrote books, newspaper and magazine articles, and gave lecture tours until his death, Feb. 11, 1936.

Mitchell received several honors following his death including a posthumous promotion to major general by President Harry Truman.  A military aircraft bomber, the B-25 Mitchell, was named after him. In 1979, Mitchell was inducted in the International Hall of Fame.

Mitchell predicted that one day rockets would travel across continents and oceans and people would zip between New York and London in as few as six hours on fast commercial airliners.

He foresaw air forces attacking targets with unmanned aerial vehicles – he didn’t call them drones – and cruise missiles. He predicted that someday planes would be used for firefighting, evacuating the sick and wounded, photographing terrain, crop dusting and spying on enemies. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

One notable action by Mitchell was his prediction that a war between Japan and the US was inevitable.  After visiting Japan while stationed with the Army in the Philippines, Mitchell wrote in 1910, “That increasing friction between Japan and the US will take place in the future there can be little doubt, and that this will lead to war sooner or later seems quite certain.”

In 1924, Mitchell toured Hawaii and Asia to inspect America’s military assets. After touring China, Korea, Japan, Siam, Singapore, Burma, Java, the Philippines and India, Mitchell wrote a 340-page report warning that the Asia-Pacific Rim could soon rival Europe in military might and America’s security depended on its foothold in the region.

To Mitchell, Japan was the country that posed the greatest threat because of its growing military strength and its quest for external sources of oil and iron for Japanese industries.

In a report he submitted after a trip to Japan in 1924 Mitchell predicted the attack on Pearl Harbor. He discussed Japanese expansionist ambitions and his belief that a Pacific War would begin with an attack at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines.

He wrote in 1924, “The Japanese bombardment, (would be) 100 (air) ships organized into four squadrons of 25 (air) ships each.  The objectives for attack are: Ford Island, airdrome, hangers, storehouses and ammunition dumps; Navy fuel oil tanks …”

“… Water supply of Honolulu; Water supply of Schofield; Schofield Barracks airdrome and troop establishments; Naval submarine station; City and wharves of Honolulu.”

“Attack will be launched as follows: bombardment, attack to be made on Ford Island at 7:30 a.m.” “Attack to be made on Clark Field (Philippine Islands) at 10:40 a.m.”

“Japanese pursuit aviation will meet bombardment over Clark Field, proceeding by squadrons, one at 3000 feet to Clark Field from the southeast and with the sun at their back, one at 5000 feet from the north and one at 10,000 feet from the west. Should U.S. pursuit be destroyed or fail to appear, airdrome would be attacked with machineguns.” (Mitchell; City on a Hill)

On December 7th, 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor at 7:55 A.M. and the Philippines’ Clark field at 12:35 P.M.

Mitchell’s claims about naval power being vulnerable to air power were ultimately proven true at Pearl Harbor when Japan sank or severely damaged nineteen U.S. warships, including eight battleships.

The minor differences include the actual number of aircraft (110 instead of 100), their launch from carriers instead of from Niihau, and the reduction of Wake Island instead of Midway.  (Billy Mitchell Court-Marshal-Mulholland)  (Information here is from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; US Army; NC Historical Marker Program; American Heritage; Air Force Museum; Air Force Magazine.)

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Edward LaVaun Clissold

Edward LaVaun Clissold was born in Salt Lake City April 11, 1898.  He grew up in Salt Lake City and attended East High School. After high school he received at least some education from the University of Utah. World War I apparently cut short his education.

Clissold served in the Navy along with his brother Albert aboard the battleship USS Arkansas in the Atlantic. Returning from the Navy at age 22, he married Irene Picknell.

While still barely a newlywed, he made a monumental decision that would affect the rest of his life. At age 23, a war veteran, a husband and soon to be father, he chose to serve a Mormon mission in a time when only a few served missions.

As a brand new missionary, he sailed for Hawaii on the S.S. Manoa alone. When he arrived in Honolulu a week later on July 27, 1921, there was no one to meet him.

He sat alone with his trunk on the dock not knowing what he should do next. A baggage man approached him, asking if he were a Mormon Missionary. He replied yes and asked how he knew.

The man replied “Well, we have a forlorn-looking group come in here every once in awhile. I take their baggage up to the mission home.” And so the baggage man took Elder Clissold to the mission home.

Elder Clissold was assigned to the Oahu Conference (zone) and two months later to Laie where he would serve from August to November of 1921. The Temple in Laie, which was less than two years old.

He left on November 15, 1921 for Kona (Big Island) where he would spend the next 13 months.   It was there that he learned to speak Hawaiian.

Elder Clissold spent the remainder of his mission in the Honolulu area, serving in leadership positions for the Sunday Schools, as was often the practice for missionaries in those days.

Clissold returned to Salt Lake City in 1924 following his mission. When he returned home to his wife, he met a two-and-a-half year old daughter he had never seen before.

Clissold started working for American Savings in Salt Lake City; they wanted to open a branch in Honolulu and Clissold was offered the job of running the Honolulu Branch.

Clissold arrived in Hawaii in January 1925, with Irene following a few months later. In August of 1926 he moved to State Savings and remained there until 1970.

During the 1920s and 30s, he was involved with the Lions Club; in addition to his other responsibilities, becoming the president at age 33 and District President at age 42.

Associated with his business activities at the time was his desire to learn to speak Japanese. He had observed that approximately half of Hawai‘i’s population at the time was first and second generation Japanese.

He thought it made good business sense to learn their language and hired a tutor to teach him the language from 1926-34. His Japanese apparently was not as good as his Hawaiian.

However, the fact that a haole businessman could speak both Hawaiian and Japanese was most unusual, and earned him respect from the speakers of these languages. Additionally, the Clissold children attended the Makiki Japanese School from 1934 to 1936.

Ten years after he moved to Honolulu, the Oahu Stake was created, and Clissold was called as 1st counselor to Stake President and served as such for 9-years.  In 1936, Clissold became the Hawai‘i Temple President; he served as the president until 1938.

Clissold resumed his association with Navy in 1936 by joining the Navy reserve as a Lieutenant. He soon went on a shakedown cruise to the South Pacific on the destroyer USS Maori, DD-401.  Then came war.

1942 found him serving as the Hawai‘i Temple President again due to the departure of the former president and the lack of replacements to serve because of the war.

At the same time, he became the acting president of the Japanese Mission. It was during this time that the mission name was changed to the Central Pacific Mission.

In 1943 the war finally carried him away from Hawai‘i as he was sent to the Mainland, first to Charlottesville, Virginia and then to the University of Chicago, to teach the US occupational forces who were preparing for post-war Japan.

His military service overseas saw him participating in the military government in Philippines, Okinawa and Japan. While in Japan, he surveyed the situation in anticipation for reopening missionary work there. He finally returned home to Hawai‘i in 1946.

He became the Oahu Stake President, from 1951 until 1963; his responsibilities included forming a school, the Church College of Hawai‘i (now known as Brigham Young University – Hawaii), which opened in 1955. 

In addition, Clissold became the manager and then chairman of Zions Securities (now known as of Hawai‘i Reserves) during the years 1953 to 1970.  He also served on the Hawaiian Homes Commission from 1954 to 1958.

Simultaneous with these activities, he was also laying out the foundation of what would become the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC).  (It opened on October 12, 1963.)  He served a third term as Hawai‘i Temple President from 1962 to 1965.

Clissold’s personality has been described by himself and numerous others as quiet, humble, private, self-effacing, with a tendency to detail. He held an unprecedented number of callings and responsibilities, simultaneously.

Because of his multiple responsibilities, he has been referred to as ‘Mr. Everything,’ or in the words of one Hawaiian man,  ‘the second most powerful man in the Church’ (Church President David O. McKay being the single most powerful). (All here is from a summary by Brian O’Brien)

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Hickam

The first successful air flight was in a hot air balloon in 1783; since heated air is lighter than cool air, the balloon would rise into the sky. The pilot would ride in a basket attached to the balloon and control the height by adding and subtracting more heat.

The problem with hot air balloons is that you cannot go the way you want. If the wind is blowing west, that means you would have to go west, too.

Flight took a new turn with the invention of the airplane in 1903; the military quickly became aware of its use in combat. “It can go faster and higher than horses,” said one Army aviator. The US War Department bought its first plane in 1909 and it was assigned to the new Army Air Corps.

It wasn’t until the National Security Act of 1947 became law on July 26, 1947 that a separate, independent Department of the Air Force was created, headed by a Secretary of the Air Force.

In Hawaiʻi, the US Army built Luke Field on Ford Island (constructed in 1917;) by 1928, they recognized the benefit of an expanded air presence, including in Hawaiʻi, and they began looking for a new site for modernizing the national defenses here.

Site selection narrowed to about 2,200-acres of land bordered by Pearl Harbor channel on the west, Pearl Harbor Naval Reservation on the north, John Rodgers airport on the east and Fort Kamehameha on the south.

The land was acquired from Bishop, Damon and Queen Emma Estates and on May 31, 1935 Hickam Air Field was dedicated (it was named in honor of Lt. Col. Horace Meek Hickam, a distinguished aviation pioneer who was killed in an aircraft accident on November 5, 1934, at Fort Crockett in Galveston, Texas).

In naming boulevards and avenues on Hickam Field, the War Department deemed it appropriate to remember those early aviation pioneers who were killed in the Hawaiian Islands as a result of airplane accidents: Fox Blvd. -1st Lt. Robert E. Fox, killed 1920; Cornet Ave. -Pvt. Harman J. Cornet, 1920; Boquet Blvd. -1st Lt. Ulric L Boquet, 1921; Manzelman Circle -1st Lt. Earle R Manzelman, 1921; Vickers Ave. -SSgt. Vernon Vickers, 1921; Owens St. -Sgt. Ross Owens, 1922; Julian Ave. -1st Lt. Rupert Julian, 1923; Monthan St. -1st Lt. Oscar Monthan, 1924; Moore St. -1st Lt. William G. Moore, 1924; Catlett St. -2nd Lt Carter Catlett, 1925; Porter Ave. -TSgt. Aaron A. Porter, 1925; Worthington Ave. -1st Lt. Robert S. Worthington, 1927; Signer Blvd. -Capt. John A Signer, 1927; Kuntz Ave. -1st Lt Clyde A. Kuntz, 1929; Atterbury Circle -2nd Lt. Ivan M. Atterbury, 1930; Mills Blvd. -SSgt. Ralph O. Mills, 1930; Scott Circle -2nd Lt William J. Scott, 1931; Baker St. -2nd Lt. George C. Baker, 1931; Wilson St. -Pfc Hicks G. Wilson, 1935 and Beard Ave. -1st Lt. William G. Beard, 1936.

Hickam Field, as it was then known, was completed and officially activated on September 15, 1938. It was the principal Army airfield in Hawaiʻi.

By the end of 1939, the Air Corps organization located at Hickam Field were, Headquarters, 18th Wing; 5th Bombardment Group; Headquarters Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group; 23rd Bombardment Squadron; 31st Bombardment Squadron; 72nd Bombardment Squadron; 4th Reconnaissance Squadron and 17th Air Base Commando (shortly after, the 11th Bombardment Group was included.

In connection with defense plans for the Pacific, aircraft were brought to Hawaii throughout 1941 to prepare for potential hostilities.  The only airfield large enough to accommodate the B-17 bomber (the Flying Fortress, at the time, the Air Corps’ most-modern airplane,) in May 1941, Hickam received the first mass flight of bombers (21 B-17s) from Hamilton Field, California.

When the Japanese attacked Oahu’s military installations on December 7, 1941, Hickam Field was an important objective; because the success of the Japanese attack was dependent on eliminating air opposition and precluding US planes from following their aircraft back to their carriers and bombing the task force.  Hickam suffered extensive damage, about half of its planes had been destroyed or severely damaged, and personnel casualties totaling 139 killed and 303 wounded.

During the war years, the base played a major role in pilot training and aircraft assembly work, in addition to serving as a supply center for both air and ground troops. Hickam served as the hub of the Pacific aerial network, supporting transient aircraft ferrying troops and supplies to, and evacuating wounded from, the forward areas.

On March 26, 1948, Hickam Field was renamed Hickam Air Force base.   After World War II, Hickam was the US primary mobility hub in the Pacific comprised of the Air Transport Command and its successor, the Military Air Transport Service, until July 1957 when Headquarters Far East Air Forces completed its move from Japan to Hawaiʻi and was redesignated the Pacific Air Forces.

Hickam Air Force Base supported the Apollo astronauts in the 1960s and 1970s; Operation Homecoming (return of prisoners of war from Vietnam) in 1973; Operation Babylift/New Life (movement of nearly 94,000 orphans, refugees and evacuees from Southeast Asia) in 1975; and NASA’s space shuttle flights during the 1980s and into the 1990s.

The 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) Report to the President combined the once-independent Pearl Harbor Naval Station (Navy) and Hickam Air Force Base (Air Force) management functions with the establishment of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (effective October 1, 2010.)

Hickam now consists of 2,850 acres of land and facilities sharing its runways with the adjacent Honolulu International Airport as a single airport complex, operated under a joint-use agreement.

In October 1980, the Secretary of the Interior designated Hickam AFB as a National Historic Landmark, recognizing it as one of the nation’s most significant historic resources associated with World War II in the Pacific. A bronze plaque reflecting Hickam’s “national significance in commemorating the history of the United States of America” took its place among other memorials surrounding the base flagpole. (Lots of information here is from NPS and ‘Hickam’)

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Codebreakers – Secret to Success at Battle of Midway

Around 7:20 Sunday morning, a single-engine Japanese reconnaissance plane entered the cloud-streaked airspace over Pearl Harbor.  Launched earlier that morning from the heavy cruiser Chikuma, the plane circled as the pilot studied the ground below.

Having seen all he needed to see, at precisely 7:35 the recon pilot radioed his report to the striking force, which quickly relayed the information to the Japanese planes now approaching Oahu from the north: “Enemy formation at anchor; nine battleships, one heavy cruiser, six light cruisers are in the harbor.”

The attack on Pearl Harbor set in motion a series of battles in the Pacific between the Japanese and the United States.

With the fall of Wake Island to the Japanese in late-December 1941, Midway became the westernmost US outpost in the central Pacific.

Midway occupied an important place in Japanese military planning. According to plans made before Pearl Harbor, the Japanese fleet would attack and occupy Midway and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska as soon as their position in South Asia was stabilized.

Defenses on the atoll were strengthened between December and April.  Land-based bombers and fighters were stationed on Eastern Island.  US Marines provided defensive artillery and infantry.

Operating from the atoll’s lagoon, seaplanes patrolled toward the Japanese-held Marshall Islands and Wake, checking on enemy activities and guarding against further attacks on Hawaiʻi.

The turning point in the Pacific came in June 1942, when the US surprised and overpowered the Japanese fleet in the Battle of Midway.

That victory was possible, in large part, because of the work of a little-known naval codebreaker named Joe Rochefort.  (Rochefort, responsible for the Pacific Fleet’s radio intelligence unit at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, felt immense guilt at the failure to predict the Pearl Harbor attack.)

The Japanese Combined Fleet depended on a complex system of codes to communicate by radio. The codes were regularly modified to avoid detection, but in the confusion of the rapid Japanese expansion in the South Pacific the change scheduled for early-1942 was delayed.

The course to Midway started not on a map in a top secret chart room with top strategists and tacticians contemplating Japan’s next move, but was set by the deciphering of messages from the Japanese Fleet.

This was done by a handful of US Navy intelligence officers stationed at Pearl Harbor.

In the spring of 1942, it took cryptanalysts in Australia, Washington, DC and Hawai‘i to achieve the breakthrough that made an American victory at Midway possible.

The Japanese naval code, known as JN 25, consisted of approximately 45,000 five-digit numbers, each number representing a word or a phrase.

Breaking this code, which was modified regularly, meant finding the meanings of enough of these numbers that a whole message could be decrypted by extrapolating the missing parts.

According to one of the leading codebreakers involved, it was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with most of its pieces always missing.

Leading the codebreaking effort was Station Hypo, the code name for the combat intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor under Commander Joseph Rochefort.

Rochefort included members of the band from the battleship ‘California,’ damaged at Pearl Harbor.  He thought their musical skills might make them adept codebreakers in much the same way that Marine bandsmen used to serve as fire control technicians on ship — the ability to quickly read and play music made them excellent mathematical problem solvers.

By May 8, Rochefort knew that a major enemy operation, whose objective was sometimes called AF, was in the offing and that it would take place somewhere in the Central Pacific.

When they checked this against their partially solved map grid, the found that “A” represented on coordinate of Midway’s potion and “F” represented the other.

His superiors in Washington weren’t convinced; they devised a test that would flush out the location of AF.

The radio station on Midway dispatched an uncoded message falsely reporting that the water distillation plant on the island had broken, causing a severe water shortage.  Within 48 hours, a decrypted Japanese radio transmission was alerting commanders that AF was short of water.

Several days later, he was sure the target was Midway.  As a result, the Americans entered the battle with a very good picture of where, when and in what strength the Japanese would appear.

On June 4, 1942, armed with information from Rochefort and his team, American planes caught the Japanese by surprise and won the decisive battle – it marked the turning point in the war in the Pacific.

In the four-day sea and air battle, 292 aircraft, four Japanese aircraft carriers – Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, all part of the six carrier force in the attack on Pearl Harbor six months earlier – and a heavy cruiser were sunk.  There were 2,500 Japanese casualties.

The US lost the carrier Yorktown, the destroyer USS Hammann, 145 aircraft and suffered 307 casualties. (The inspiration and information in this summary comes from NPS, NPR and Naval History) 

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