Battle of Midway Really a Turning Point?

by Bill Doughty

Capt. Tameichi Hara, author of “Japanese Destoyer Captain,” says a series of mistakes by senior leaders in the Imperial Japanese Navy -- including ignorance or misuse of intelligence reports -- brought about catastrophic failures after the Battle of Midway (the first week of June, 1942), and especially as the war moved across the Pacific to Truk and Guadalcanal.

Hara writes with great candor about Admirals Nagumo, Yamamoto, Nagano, Ijuin, and others in his book, subtitled, “Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Midway -- The Great Naval Battles as Seen Through Japanese Eyes.”

“The Midway Battle is termed the point at which the tide of the Pacific War turned in favor of the United States.  Nagumo suffered a crushing defeat at Midway, to be sure, but that did not mean the entire collapse of the Navy.  Yamamoto’s Combined Fleet was intact, and Japan still had at least four carriers to match those of the U.S. Navy.

What really spelled the downfall of the Imperial Navy, in my estimation, was the series of strategic and tactical blunders by Yamamoto after Midway...”

Published by the U.S. Naval Institute Press, the book is a classic and no-holds-barred memoir by the so-called unsinkable Captain.  It is a reprint, originally published in Japan in 1961, of his account of events, battles and life at sea from the early 1900s till after the war.

The book includes a first-person account of the sinking of John F. Kennedy’s PT-109, although there was no awareness at the time of that event’s signficance.

Not as comprehensive or technical as another Japanese perspective on the Battle of Midway, “Shattered Sword,” by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully, “Japanese Destroyer Captain” nevertheless offers in-depth and invaluable context to plans, battles and consequences of war.

Loyal to his mentor and friend Adm. Chuichi Nagumo, who led the attack on Pearl Harbor but who was defeated at Midway, Hara also writes poignantly about Nagumo’s bushido-like suicide in the face of surrender at the Battle of Saipan, July 6, 1944.  

According to Hara, Yamamoto deserves the blame for key Japanese naval defeats.  Hara calls some of the strategies and plans by Imperial Japan’s military “stupid blunders.”  Writing about mistakes at Guadalcanal, Hara says, “the real blame must rest with Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto who held his Combined Fleet in home waters.”

Pearl Harbor’s Combat Intelligence Unit Station Hypo’s then-Ensign, now retired Rear Adm. Donald “Mac” Showers, said the biggest mistake by Imperial Japan, was that “senior officers, including Admiral Nagumo, in many cases ignored intelligence.  They thought they could outwit us.”

Yamamoto's death. (USAF painting.)

Operational intelligence literally proved to be the death of Yamamoto.  U.S. military intelligence -- codebreakers, analysts and linguists -- pinpointed  his location, and his plane was shot down April 18, 1943.

As to whether the Battle of Midway was a turning point in the war -- and in world history, as Showers contends, the reader can imagine “what if.”

What if Imperial Japan had succeeded in winning a toehold at Midway, a foot wedged in the door to a corridor to Oahu?  The Combined Fleet had failed to deliver a knockout punch six months earlier, but their sights were still set on the islands.  Hawaii could have been the next to fall, to serve as Imperial Japan’s own “gateway” -- eastward to California.

The United States Navy indeed turned the tide at Midway.

“There would not have been a victory at Guadalcanal without victory at Midway. The Battle of Midway was the turning point,” Showers said at Pearl Harbor this past weekend (see the following Navy Reads post for his in-depth perspective.)

A sacred tea ceremony aboard USS Arizona Memorial for peace July 19, 2011.
(U.S. Navy photo by MC2(SW) Mark Logico)

Perhaps the most important legacy of the Battle of Midway and the outcome of World War II is that today, more than seventy years after the start of the war, the United States now has a strong ally and friend in former enemy Japan, cooperating together, committed to freedom and peace.

Midway Perspective from “Mac” Showers

by Bill Doughty

Rear Adm. (ret.) Donald “Mac” Showers spoke yesterday at Pearl Harbor.  An ensign at Station Hypo with Rochefort, Layton, Holmes and Dyer, he worked with “dozens of the Navy’s finest cryptographers and linguists,” part of the intelligence team that intercepted, interpreted and confirmed Imperial Japanese Navy’s secret plan to attack Midway Atoll 70 years ago this week.

"Mac" Showers was an ensign at Station Hypo in 1942. 

Like most other veterans of his generation, Showers is extremely humble.

“I was sent to Pearl Harbor in February 1941 as a naval investigator.  I didn’t know the first thing about investigations,” he said.  An open billet needed to be filled with Lt. Cmdr. Joe Rochefort’s Combat Intelligence Unit team at Station Hypo, so Showers was reassigned.

“I was introduced for the first time to radio intelligence.  It began a 42-year career in intelligence,” he said. “At Station Hypo we had the ability to read and understand the context of Japanese messages.  We provided communications intelligence to guide operations.”

Admiral Nimitz relied on the information and context provided by codebreakers and analysts at Station Hypo and other Navy intelligence units, including Fleet Radio Unit Melbourne in Australia, Showers explained.

Mac Showers said, “It was the birth of Operational Intelligence -- get it to the commander in time to succeed in battle.”

After a distinguished career in the Navy, Showers continued in public service with the Central Intelligence Agency, but Station Hypo was a seminal, pivotal place and time -- not just for him but also for the nation.  In his foreward to Elliott Carlson’s “Joe Rochefort’s War” he writes:

“My experiences during that early and critical period of the war are clearly the most memorable of my forty-two years of service to the intelligence arms of the Navy and the Federal government.”

Midway was a “history-changing battle,” writes Showers, who believes Rochefort was the individual most influential in cracking the code and providing the intelligence needed to win the battle.

Themistocles

“That puts him in lofty company, with men like Themistocles at Salamis, Admiral de Grasse in the Chesapeake Bay, and Colonel Joshua Chamberlain at Little Round Top.  But Rochefort stands out even among that noble company; for he achieved his triumph without even firing a shot or even coming within sight of the enemy.”

I spoke with Admiral Showers about Carlson’s book, Symond’s “The Battle of Midway,” and Layton’s “And I Was There.”  Showers also recommends “Combined Fleet Decoded” by John Prados.

“Joe Rochefort’s War: The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway” was reviewed on Navy Reads last month on Rochefort’s birthday.

Happy Birthday Joe Rochefort - Midway Legacy

by Bill Doughty

Today is the 112th anniversary of the birth of Joseph John Rochefort.  Tomorrow, May 13, 2012, is the 70th anniversary of Rochefort’s discovery of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s plan to attack Midway Atoll.

The Battle of Midway altered the course of World War II and saved Hawaii, Australia and perhaps the West Coast of the United States from further attacks by Japan.

With a reporter’s skills, Elliott Carlson shows the influence of one man on the outcome of Midway in “Joe Rochefort’s War: The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway.”

Carlson employs dogged research, personal interviews, presentation of facts and a resistance to speculate.  Thanks to his access to Rochefort’s family members and Navy archives he is able to paint a picture of the complicated man and the political intrigue that marked his naval career.

Rochefort is revealed as a “restless maverick” -- caustic, acerbic, sarcastic.  But he was also gifted with extraordinary memory, able to solve puzzles and synthesize complex shifting information.

These abilities proved indispensable in the Pacific War.  Rochefort implemented actionable intelligence in an independent, decentralized setting at Pearl Harbor’s Station Hypo -- predicting the future for Adm. Nimitz and Adm. King and allowing them to develop strategies to defeat the enemy.

Rochefort, the youngest of seven children, was born May 12, 1900 to Irish immigrant parents.  To put things into historical context: his father, Frank, was born in Dublin 160 years ago (1852), only forty years after the War of 1812 and nine years before the American Civil War.  One hundred years ago (1912), the Rochefort family moved from Dayton, Ohio to Los Angeles, where Joe would be recruited into the Navy.

With no college or even a high school diploma, Joe Rochefort joined the Navy in 1918.  His science and math abilities propelled him to the rank of ensign, and he served on training ships, tankers, a mine sweeper, and a destroyer.  He served aboard the cruisers USS New Orleans and USS Indianapolis, as he was recruited into the intelligence field, and on several battleships, including USS Maryland, USS California, USS Pennsylvania and USS Arizona.

Author Carlson shows how Rochefort was haunted by the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.  Rochefort felt a sense of guilt for not being able to predict the attack.  But Pearl Harbor motivated him, as it did for the rest of the nation.

Rochefort redoubled his efforts to crack the JN-25(b) code, analyze radio transmissions and track the Imperial Japanese Navy.  Carlson provides just enough information about the art of codebreaking -- in an era of nascent computing and related technology -- to show how daunting the task was for Rochefort’s team: 50,000 possible meanings of 33,333 5-digit codes with an indeterminate, shifting beginning.

Despite the challenges, Rochefort correctly predicted the location of the Imperial Fleet in the western Pacific as early as January 1942.  He gave Nimitz information that proved correct in the Battle of the Coral Sea, setting the stage for Midway.

“Gains registered in cryptanalysis and codebreaking permitted Rochefort to practically look over Yamamoto’s shoulder as he moved his forces around the Pacific,” Carlson writes.

On May 13, 1942, Rochefort decrypted information that the IJN was focusing on areas near Midway and the Aleutians.  Rochefort analyzed the information and made a case for an impending attack on Midway, suspected as being “AF” in the Japanese code.  He presented his analysis on sheets of paper on plywood and wooden sawhorses; PowerPoint would not be available for decades.

With help from former submariner, engineer and University of Hawaii faculty member Jasper Holmes, who knew Midway’s infrastructure, Rochefort devised a ruse so the Japanese would reveal their plans.  Nimitz approved the plan, and a fake message was issued that Midway was running short of fresh water.  The IJN then sent out their own message about the water shortage in code, thus confirming that “AF,” “Affirm Fox,” was indeed Midway.

Scene on board USS Yorktown (CV-5) during Battle of Midway. (Navy photo) 

Nimitz carried out his own subterfuge, directing fake carrier transmissions in the Coral Sea and a bombing of Tulagi by PBYs that fooled the Japanese into thinking that U.S. aircraft carriers were still on location.

With intelligence, guts and luck the United States Navy defeated the Imperial Japanese Navy at Midway.

Carlson writes: “Eventually the Battle of Midway would be compared with Trafalgar, Jutland, and other major campaigns at sea that turned the tide of history.  The battle transformed the conflict between the United States and Japan.  Many agonizing years of combat loomed ahead, but after Midway the United States would remain on the offensive.  ‘Midway was the crucial battle of the Pacific War, the engagement that made everything else possible,’ Nimitz said after the war.”

Rochefort’s contributions continued despite political intrigue and infighting within the intelligence community and a resistance to innovation and free-thinking by some leaders and colleagues.

Rochefort tracked Japanese action in Guadalcanal, acoustic mines, oil supplies and access to sea lanes and even the Japanese view of the situation in Germany late in the war.  He had other challenging assignments, as well, including working on floating drydocks, but he soon retired on Jan. 1, 1947 at the rank of captain and at 46 years old, returning to the Navy briefly during the Korean War.

The attack of Dec. 7, 1941 brings inevitable comparisons to Sept. 11, 2001, and, though he does not make the comparisons himself, several jump out in Carlson’s book.  Among the biggest: a lack of imagination in predicting the attack and a failure for agencies to share information, what Carlson quotes as “fatal defects in the Army-Navy relationship.”

Interservice rivalry continued to challenge Rochefort when the Army’s 7th Air Force doubted Hypo’s information analysis and resisted the evidence that Midway would be a target in June 1942.

Another 9/11 comparison comes after the war when consipiracy theories abounded.  Groups targeted FDR, accusing former President Roosevelt of knowing about the attack on Oahu and allowing it to happen in order to push the country into WWII.

Carlson shows the lack of evidence for the conspiracy theories and gives credit to Rochefort for resisting political and peer pressure to fix blame.

Author Elliot Carlson speaks at the National WWII Museum.

Time and perspective, combined with evidence and good sources, are a strong combination, and Carlson wields a deft pen in describing the life and impact of Joe Rochefort and his role in winning the Battle of Midway.

The book is made even better with the inclusion of photos, including rare family pictures.  Among the more fascinating are photos of a young Rochefort in Tokyo, 1929-32, where he studied Japanese and gained an understanding of the culture.

“Joe Rochefort’s War” is a tour de force and a top ten read for the history of the Battle of Midway.

From Battle of the Coral Sea to Victory at Midway

(Craig Symonds, author of “The Battle of Midway” was one of five authors recommended by distinguished historian Eric Foner in his post to Navy Reads last February.  Foner called Symonds’s “Lincoln and this Admirals” “the first full study of Lincoln’s relationship to the war at sea and it reveals him mastering the nuances of naval warfare...”  Dr. Symonds, professor emeritus of history at the U.S. Naval Academy, brings his own nuanced insights and context to a full study of the Battle of Midway.  In this blog post we’ll look briefly at a key event leading up to Midway but in another corner of the Pacific Ocean almost exactly 70 years ago.)

by Bill Doughty

Craig Symonds devotes an entire chapter of his great work “The Battle of Midway” to the Battle of the Coral Sea, one of the key sea battles of World War II, occurring in early May, one month before Midway.

“The Coral Sea is one of the world’s most beautiful bodies of water,” writes Symonds.  “Named for the coral reefs that guard Australia’s northeast coast, it is bordered by Australia on the south, New Guinea on the west, the Solomon Islands on the north, and the New Hebrides on the east.”  That area was key to Imperial Japan’s attempt to control the sea lanes for commerce and logistics.

By April 1942 Imperial Japan controlled a wide area of the Pacific.

On May 1, 1942, Adm. Halsey’s Task Force 16 left Pearl Harbor, while the Yorktown and Lexington carrier task forces joined to become Task Force 17 southeast of Guadalcanal.  On that same day the Imperial Japanese aircraft carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku and their escorts got underway from Truk and headed toward the Coral Sea.

“Also on that busy May 1st, eighteen hundred miles further north, a group of senior officers met on board the Combined Fleet flagship Yamato, anchored in Hashirajima Harbor near Hiroshima, to participate in a war game for the attack on Midway.”

Symonds shows how logistics-related issues -- particularly access to fuel oil -- were among the biggest challenges for the American fleet, who didn’t have the same proximity to island footholds and captured foreign ports as their enemy. 

The author dissects the battle of May 7 and the death of USS Lexington on May 8.  He analyzes the strategy, tactics and mixed result: despite the significant losses to the Americans, the United States Navy had stopped the Imperial Japanese Navy’s advance toward Port Moresby.

“Over time, the assessment of historians has been that the Battle of the Coral Sea was a tactical victory for the Japanese but a strategic victory for the Americans.”

Navy pilots gained experience.  Japanese aircraft were destroyed.  The United States gained a better advantage in the Pacific, where carrier-based aviation surpassed battleship-firepower in strategic importance.

The Battle of the Coral Sea also proved the value of radio intelligence, particularly as interpreted in the Pacific.  Symonds shows how Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Rochefort demonstrated his superior codebreaking abilities and analysis to Adm. Nimitz, first by predicting  an invasion of Rabaul in January and then revealing the Japanese fleet’s plans in the Coral Sea in May.

Credibility created confidence.

The credibility earned by Pearl Harbor’s Station Hypo, the team of codebreakers under Rochefort, would lead directly to success in the Battle of Midway June 4-7, 1942.  

(The well-written and well-researched “Battle of Midway,” published in 2011 by Oxford University Press, was also recommended to Navy Reads by the Naval History and Heritage Command as one of the top ten books published about the Battle of Midway.)