DECIPHERED MESSAGES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXVI, Issue 10, 10 December 1945, Page 5

DECIPHERED MESSAGES

HELPED WIN PACIFIC WAR. WASHINGTON, Dec. 8. Chief of the United States General Staff'- (General Marshall) testified at the Pearl Harbour inquiry that he and* other high officers early' in December, 1941, assumed that the Japanese would take Guam and probably Wake and possibly strike at the Panama Canal and aeroplane plants in-Seattle and San Diego, but thought it most improbable that the form of the assault would be a blow at Hawaii. He said the British supplied the United States navy at Pearl Harbour with information obtained from the enemy, but they were not willing to reveal how the information was obtained until the United States was well into the war, because they feared that leaks might ruin their sources. General Marshall said it had been discovered that German agents listened in to trans-Atlantic conversations between President Roosevelt and Mr Churchill; hence the telephone was not used to warn the Hawaii commanders that Japan would apparently move at dawn. General Marshall explained that the use of the telephone was hazardous because the Japanese might have deduced that their code had been broken; also the Japanese might have seized on the warning as an overt act by the United States, and they would have grasped any straw to convince a section of the American people that they were being forced into war. . ■ _: ■' The Associated Press recalls that, owing to transmission difficulties, the warning to Hawaii was sent by commercial telegraph and radio and reached General Short seven hours after the attack.

THOUGHT HAWAII WAS ALERT. General Marshall said that on December 7, 1941, Admiral Stark, who was then Chief of Naval Operations, first opposed the sending of warnings to the Pacific commanders on the ground that he thought the warning would only confuse them, although it was clear that trouble was brewing for the United States. That day warnings were despatched, but only after witness insisted. General Marshall said he-thought the Hawaiian forces were on the alert and equipped to handle an attack before the Japanese struck, but the most careful plans could go The committee released the text of a letter General Marshall sent to Governor Dewey during the Presidential election campaign. The letter, which was marked "For Governor Dewey's eyes only," and written without the knowledge of any other person, said, in. part: "Our cryptograph people have analysed the character of a machine the Japanese are using for encoding their diplomatic messages. A corresponding machine was built by us, which deciphers their messages. Therefore, we possessed a wealth of information regarding their moves in the Pacific which, unfortunately made no reference to whatever intentions thev had towards Hawaii until the last message before December 7, which did not reach us until the following day, December 8. SHIPS IN RIGHT PLACE. "We have gone ahead with the business of deciphering their codes until we possess other codes, German as well as Japanese. The Coral Sea battle was based on deciphered messages and therefore our few ships were in the right place at the right time. Further, we were able to concentrate our limited forces to meet the Japanese advances on Midway, when otherwise we almost certainly would have been 3000 miles out of place. "Operations in the,Pacific are largely guided by. the information we obtain of Japanese deployments. "A secret search of the Japanese Embassy offices in Portugal was instituted without our being told, resulting in the entire military attache Japanese code all oyer the world being changed. We were unable to break the new code and thus lost this invaluable source of information, particularly regarding the European situation. . :')