XII. INTELLIGENCE IN WASHINGTON—THE INTERCEPTION AND DECODING OF SECRET JAPANESE COMMUNICATIONS

 

A. ONI DISTRIBUTION AND ACQUISITION OF INTELLIGENCE IN GENERAL

 

Captain McCollum, officer‑in‑charge of the Far Eastern Section of the Office of Naval Intelligence, Navy Department, Washington, D. C., said that his duties consisted of evaluating all forms of intelligence concerning the Far East, correlating it, and informing the Director of Naval Intelligence and through him the Chief of Naval operations. (p. 10) In case information of serious import

 

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was received, it was his responsibility to immediately bring it to the attention of the Director of Naval Intelligence and recommend necessary action. Usually direct access was available to Admiral Turner Director of the Plans Division, and to the Chief of Naval Operations himself.(p. 20)

Speaking of the dissemination of information to the fleet commanders, Captain McCollum said that the Office of Naval Intelligence was responsible for preparing from the information available to it factual statements, which did not make an estimate of enemy intention. These statements were then submitted by the Intel­ligence Division to the Plans Division and to CNO, who made the decision as to what, if anything, was to be disseminated to the fleet. (p. 20) He said that prior to about February, 1941, the Division of Naval Intelligence had occasionally submitted estimates of probable enemy intentions, but that at about that date its authority to do so was removed. Thereafter, ONI was restricted to presenting the facts of the situation, and higher echelons made and disseminated the esti­mates as to enemy intentions. (p. 41‑42)

Captain McCollum made the following general statement as to the organization of the office of Naval Intelligence: (p. 40‑41)

"The ONI was not an omnipotent and over‑all intelligence center for the fleet as a whole. It operated primarily as an intelligence center for the Chief of Naval Operations in the Navy Department; equipped to supply combat type of intel­ligence, which prior to outbreak of war is nearly always closely related with diplomatic negotiations. Each of our major commanders in the Pacific was equipped with a staff of intelligence and with a radio intelligence staff which served him directly. With the exception of more static types of intelligence, such as the design of a Japanese battleship, and so on, your combat intelligence was designed to function in the Navy Department to advise the Chief of Naval Opera­tions, at Pearl Harbor to advise the Commander‑in‑Chief, Pacific Fleet, through his fleet intelligence officer, . . . and in the Asiatic Fleet, which in some respects, from an intelligence point of view, was our strongest organization, to keep the CinC. Asiatic Fleet advised.

"The Division of Naval Intelligence, in addition to that, did try to make [available] certain over‑all intelligence agencies in foreign countries which would produce intelligence. In each case in the Asiatic Theatre those intelligence agencies operating out there were made known to the CinC Asiatic Fleet, and their reports in every case funneled to him and to the Commander‑in‑Chief, Pacific Fleet. Our naval attachés, for instance, were under orders to submit copies of every report that they made both to the Commander‑in‑Chief, Asiatic Fleet, and to the Commander‑in‑Chief, Pacific Fleet, as well as to the Department. So, you had in effect a three point system in which combat intelligence common to any one of them was common to all the others, with each Commander‑in‑Chief supreme in his own area. And that is essentially the way it has functioned throughout the war."

Captain McCollum said that there was close cooperation between the Far Eastern Section of ONI and the Far Eastern Section of the Military Intelligence Division (Army). He stated (p. 20‑21):

"The Far Eastern Section of the Military Intelligence Division had full information of the situation. We were in daily consultation. I saw Colonel Bratton or one of his assistants daily. They usually came to my office in the afternoon. They had full access to my charts showing the location and move­ments of ships, and they had full access to all of the radio intelligence information available in the Navy Department. That was given by me personally and verbally and the situation discussed from day to day with officers of the Far Eastern Section of MIS in the War Department, and that had been true for some months past. We made no major move, for instance, such as withdrawing our naval language officers from Japan or sending a dispatch out to destroy all codes and ciphers without notifying my opposite number in the War Department what we intended to do."

Captain McCollum said that so far as he knew all Army information was made available to his section in ONI. He said, however, that the Army radio intelligence organizations did not furnish information of value regarding the Jap Fleet, since "they didn't touch the Jap Navy systems." Any radio intelli­gence organizations were working on Jap diplomatic ciphers and on certain minor Japanese Army systems. (p. 28‑23)

The cooperation between the Far Eastern Section of ONI and the Far Eastern section of the Military Intelligence service was "unofficial," but had the sanction and approval of both the Director of Naval Intelligence and the Director of Military Intelligence, Assistant Chief of Staff, G‑2. (p. 23)

 

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Vice Admiral Wilkinson, Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence on 7 December, 1941, and for about 2 months prior to that date, named the following as, in general, the sources of information available to the Far Eastern Section of the foreign branch of ONI: Naval Attaché reports from Japan and China, ob­servers reports from various ports in the Far East, reports from the Commander­-in‑Chief of the Asiatic Section, collateral items of interest produced by the inves­tigations of the domestic branch of ONI, particularly from Honolulu, radio intelligence, State Department reports from diplomatic agents and reports from the Commander‑in‑Chief of the Fleet at Pearl Harbor with respect to searches and radio intelligence (p. 390).

Admiral Wilkinson stated that it was his understanding, confirmed by Admiral Ingersoll, Assistant Chief of Operations, that final evaluation of information received from the Office of Naval Intelligence was the function of War Plans or the Chief of Naval Operations. Dissemination of information outside of the Navy Department and to the Pacific Fleet was, likewise, understood to be the responsibility of War Plans or the Chief of Naval Operations following their evaluation and selection of those items which they believed should be forwarded. (p. 392)

Admiral Wilkinson said that such analyses as were made in the office of Naval Intelligence were submitted to War Plans and the Chief of Naval Operations to use as they saw fit. (p. 392)

Questioned regarding the exchange of intelligence in Washington between the Army and the Navy, Admiral Wilkinson replied that ONI and G‑2 were in constant communication with each other and that in fact General Miles, Head of Military Intelligence was dining with him on the night of 6 December. (p. 408‑409) Admiral Wilkinson stated that through this steady and effective liaison, all the information the Navy had regarding movements of the Japanese fleet was furnished the Army. (p. 409)

 

The organization of the Office of Naval Intelligence had been revised on August 11, 1941. It consisted of a Director, Assistant Director, Domestic Branch, Foreign Branch, Administrative Branch, and field offices (page 461). Captain Heard was in charge of the Foreign Branch of ONI from October 9, 1941 to June 30 1942 (page 461).

He stated that Intelligence was distributed as follows: Urgent, by oral report; usually a daily Japanese summary to the Director of Naval Intelligence by the head of the Far East Section, which was relayed to CNO; a daily summary of State Department dispatches; weekly reports of dispositions of foreign fleets; a daily bulletin for the Naval Aide to the President; fortnightly summaries of current international situations and sometimes special summaries; and dispatches to foreign posts and naval attachés. Generally, the information was evaluated as to credibility and to a less degree as to the conclusions to be drawn. War Plans made the final evaluation of enemy intentions. Copies of all reports and oral reports were directed to the Chief of Naval Operations. A daily report of political information was made to CNO (page 462). Military information was promptly passed to CNO (page 463). (1)

 

Admiral Ingersoll recalled receiving frequent visits from a Naval Communi­cations Officer who had Japanese messages, but whether he saw all of the messages or not he did not know. (p. 417‑8)

 

In the exchange of information as to United States‑Japanese relations, there was close cooperation between the State Department and the Navy, according to Maxwell M. Hamilton, who during the latter part of 1941 was Chief of Division of Far Eastern Affairs in State Department. He stated that he had frequent contact with Admiral Schuirmann (page 1070) which involved questions which came up for decision involving foreign policy and naval policy (page 1071). The methods of furnishing information to the Navy on matters of United States-­Japanese relations were: (1) the liaison office forwarded copies of paraphrases of telegrams or mail reports of interest to the Navy; (2) the Division of Far Eastern Affairs transmitted paraphrases of telegrams and mail reports from the Far East of interest to the Navy Department; (3) Conferences between Navy sad State Department officials and meetings of the war council and Cabinet (page 1071). In general, he said, diplomatic information was transmitted to the Navy (page 1073).

One of the sources of Japanese military and naval information was Captain Smith‑Hutton, who in 1941 was naval attaché in Tokyo and who, as part of his

 

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duties, was part of ONI. Ambassador Grew, he said, expected him to keep advised as to the Japanese Navy and they exchanged information (page 1079).

He had great difficulty in obtaining Japanese military and naval information (page 1077). He had informed the Navy Department by implication in a report that they could not depend on him to keep them informed concerning the Jap­anese Navy. He had to report to the Japanese Navy whenever he left Tokyo and his movements were restricted (page 1080).

He transmitted information by Japanese cable to the 4th Marine Radio in Shanghai and thence to the United States; and also by reports to Ambassador Grew and to the Navy Department by diplomatic pouch (page 1078).

By far the most important source of information in Washington as to the Japanese, however, was communications intelligence, which is discussed in the following paragraph.

 

B.         THE INTERCEPTION AND DECODING OF SECRET JAPANESE COMMUNICATIONS

 

Captain Safford made the following statements regarding the methods of obtaining and decoding Japanese diplomatic and consular dispatches during 1941. (p. 103‑104):

"They were initially obtained from intercepts of Japanese diplomatic mes­sages between Tokyo and foreign points; mostly radio intercepts and occasionally land wire or cable. Some were photographs of station copies as they passed through the various commercial communication facilities, but roughly ninety‑five per cent, were obtained by radio intercept of the U. S. Army and U. S. Navy at various points. They were all decoded by means of reconstructed Japanese systems. The principal was the 'purple,' which is a complicated electrical machine solved by the Army and machines made both by the Army and the Navy and two machines, in fact, sent to London for the use of the British. The Jig-­19 at this period was solved by cryptographic analysis. That had to be done over again each day, and it really took more time and effort to keep abreast of the Jig‑19 than it did the 'purple' once we had the machine reconstructed. In all these systems, 'purple,' Jig‑19, and the minor systems, we had an exchange between Washington, Singapore, Corregidor, and London. We pooled our efforts on that.

Captain Safford said that after Japanese messages were decoded they were evaluated and distributed as follows (p. 104‑106):

"They were translated in the translation sections of the Navy Department unit and the War Department unit and the senior translator decided which were of relative unimportance, not worth writing up smooth, mostly connected with financial matters and visas and things like that; and the others were all typed smooth and turned over to Military Intelligence and Naval Intelligence, re­spectively. Originally the two intelligence organizations had prepared briefs or memorandums giving a summation or a paraphrase of the messages and they were distributed to the higher officials in the War and Navy Departments and to the Secretary of State and to the President.

"In the Navy Department the people that saw them were, specifically, the Chief of Naval Operations and his aide usually saw them; the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations, the Director of Naval Intelligence, the Director of Naval Communications, and the Director of the War Plans Division. The Secretary of the Navy also saw them and usually his aide saw them. The Naval Aide to the President saw them and took them in to the President.

"In the War Department they went to the Military Intelligence, Chief Signal Officer, Director of the War Plans Division, and the Chief of Staff, War Depart­ment, and also to the Secretary of War.

"Later on, in November, when things became critical, at the request of the President and after conference agreement between Military Intelligence and Naval Intelligence, the system of summaries and briefs was dropped and the original messages were prepared in folders and each day the folder was taken through. By agreement, all dissemination to the White House was handled through the Navy Department, and in return all dissemination to the State Department was handled through the Army, but the two things were duplicates. Anything the Navy was sending around, the copy was sent to the Army, and anything the Army was sending around, a copy was sent to the Navy; and they put on a serial number. Ours were JD‑1 and the Army's were SI‑X, with a serial; so they were substantially duplicates unless something went wrong.

 

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"In addition, it was the habit to put notations on the bottom as to references, and Kramer, when he took his stuff around, everything that was referenced to anything bearing on this subject was put on the off side of the page, so that you had the message on one side and the references on the other side, the left hand side, of the folder. Then, anybody seeing them had a complete picture. And Kramer went with them and stood in the doorway or outside and if there was any doubt, he could be called in to explain further to anybody who was interested in the subject. Kramer also went to the White House, I believe twice. Normally he would explain things to the Naval Aide to the President and the aide would depend on his memory to answer any questions the President might want to ask. The President insisted on seeing the original messages because he was afraid when they tried to condense them, some one would change the meaning."

Admiral Wilkinson stated that with regard to the exchange of ratio intelligence with the Army, that complete liaison existed between the decrypting agencies and complete exchange of actual texts immediately after their translation (p. 408).

 

A vitally important Japanese code had been broken. This source of intelligence was handled jointly by Naval Communications and the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes, who was Director of Naval Communications, said that Communications handled the interception and crypto‑analysis of Japanese code messages and the information derived was turned over to ONI. This was a special procedure followed because this information was most secret, and would be useless if any inkling reached the enemy that we could read his communications (page 1026).

According to Admirals Redman and Ingersoll, it was the function of the Office of Naval Intelligence to evaluate and to distribute this information (pages 1102, 818).

Admiral Ingersoll stated that there was no set routine for the distribution of this information., It was distributed by Commander Kramer when there was anything important involved. The Director of War Plans kept a current estimate of the military‑political situation and conferred frequently with the Chief of Naval Operations (page 819). He said that Commander Kramer almost daily brought quite a number of intercepts to him (page 824). These were given to Admiral Stork's Aide and were also shown to,. the Secretary of the Navy and possibly to the Assistant SecNav, the President, the Secretary of State the Director of War Plans, the Director of Naval Intelligence, and to Captain Schuirmann.

Commander A. D. Kramer testified that between October 1 and December 7, 1941, he was attached to ONI and loaned to Op‑20‑G, Naval Communications. He was head of a translation section of communication security. This consisted of translating decrypted intercepts and delivering them to ONI or to any persons named by DONI or CNO. Fourteen copies were made and seven went to the Army. The other seven copies were for delivery to officers in the Navy Depart­ment and also to the White House or State Department. He had the responsibility for delivery to the White House and Army for delivery to the State Department. Addressees in the Navy Department who normally got copies were the Aide to SecNav, CNO, DONI, Head of Far East Section of ONI, Director Naval Com­munications, and Head of War Plans Division (page 950). The seventh copy was a file copy. A complete copy went to each addressee, delivery being made daily or oftener if urgent. Earlier in 1941 he had attached a summary with asterisks to indicate important documents as the daily volume was so heavy (sometimes 130 messages a day) that the addressees would not have time to read all the mes­sages. He marked and delivered the messages and it was up to the addressees as to what they would read. All decrypted Japanese traffic was passed to his section. He knows the Japanese language (page 951).

The decision as to whether translated messages should be passed to higher authority was made by ONI and he acted for DONI. As a rule an attempt was made to show the messages to McCollum and DONI before distributing them. Nothing was eliminated from the books of messages, but occasionally DONI would indicate something as being of greater or lesser interest to CNO or SecNav (page 953‑4). During the latter part of the year he discontinued making summaries (page 954). As Japanese‑United States relations were then strained, he used clips to indicate the important matter so as to get the information to those con-

 

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cerned as swiftly as possible. He left the folder of messages for CNO with CNO's aide customarily. On "hot" messages, he often gave it to CNO personally (page 955).

 

C. FAILURE TO SEND THIS SECRET INFORMATION TO ADMIRAL KIMMEL

 

The information obtained from the interception and decoding of secret Japanese communications was not sent, as such, to Admiral Kimmel. It will be recalled that he had earlier requested that he be kept promptly advised of developments and that the responsibility for furnishing secret information to him be fixed by Admiral Stark; and, that he had been advised that ONI was aware of its responsibility in this connection.

Information of the greatest importance, as will later appear, was obtained from secret Japanese communications, particularly after the resignation of the Japanese Cabinet and the arrival of the special Japanese emissary, Kurusu.

In his testimony, Admiral Kimmel asserted that he had not been adequately informed of this information; Admiral Stark asserted that Admiral Kimmel had been kept adequately informed by the various dispatches sent to him.

Admiral Redman said that although none of the intercepted messages were sent to Admiral Kimmel, as intercepted and decoded, they were used as the basis of the dispatches sent to him. He said that it was beyond the capabilities of his organization to encode and transmit all this traffic to CincPac. This information could not be sent by air mail. Its security was important as the source of intelligence would be jeopardized if the enemy knew of our success in inter­preting it. The secrecy of this material has been vital to war effort since December 7, 1941 (page 1102). His section could have handled sending briefs of these messages to CincPac (page 1105). Admiral Noyes said that it would have been a physical impossibility to keep CincPac informed of the contents of all "purple" messages (page 1045) and, according to Admiral Ingersoll, it would have been too much of a burden on naval communications to repeat all the intercepts to CincPac, although selections therefrom might have been sent (page 839).

Admiral Turner said that Admiral Kimmel was kept adequately informed and that the information not sent to him would have been of no help to him (page 1014). Moreover, he had thought that CincPac had the same intelligence that CNO did, including the "super‑secret" class of information (page 1018).

It may be noted that General Marshall said that he did not see all of the intercepts, nor was the decision as what should be passed on to the field com­manders always instituted by him (pages 874‑7).