The Wrens based at HMS Anderson were soon to be sent home. But not before being enlisted to help with what one of them described as ‘the most moving and satisfying job in my whole life’. Thousands of prisoners of war released from camps across the Far East were being brought back to Britain, stopping off in Colombo on their way home, recalled Dorothy Robertson.
Among many others, I worked in a mock-up Post Office hut where three of us sorted mail for any incoming ex-PoWs and helped any of them who wanted to send a message home. It was hard to remain dry-eyed when a lad would open and read the first letter he had had from home for several years, from a mother, wife or sweetheart; one chap read out to me: ‘She says, “I am still waiting,” ’ as he broke down and wept.
There were civilians, too, some very emaciated indeed; I remember an elderly looking gentleman, who could perhaps have been much younger than he appeared, shuffling along in jungle-made shoes, tied with jungle creepers, and a similar wide-brimmed hat; he and his friends were pathetically polite and grateful for the smallest favour that we were only too glad to show them. We were all very moved and felt immensely humble in the presence of the PoWs who had suffered so much and for so long.
Life afterwards in post-war Britain was really grey and cheerless and one felt sorry for those who had not enjoyed any of the fun and colour and excitement that we had had. There were innumerable shortages, and ration cards and clothing coupons were to continue for some time yet. People had gone through a ghastly time, but the knowledge that we, incredibly, had won this six-year war when at times this seemed impossible was everything. It truly was a David and Goliath story.
In truth, the real Goliath had been America. Hirohito and Yamamoto had recognized before the war began that the might of American resources would beat the Japanese in the end, and so it did. But the assistance given by the codebreakers was immense. The influence exerted by Ultra on the war in the Far East and Pacific only rarely matched its effect on the European War. Nevertheless, historians have argued that it shortened both by around two years, saving many lives on both sides of the conflict. Yet it is impossible to make this claim with regard to the war in the Far East without also accepting that the difficulties placed in the way of co-operation, both with the British and their own military, by elements within the US Navy must have cost lives, the majority of them American.
Counter-factual history can be a dangerous thing. Wars are by their very nature full of mistakes that lead to unnecessary loss of life. But the effects of the rows over co-operation and the refusal of FRUMEL to share their material with Central Bureau were not momentary mistakes. They were the result of a sustained and deliberate policy based only partly on security concerns. It was clearly also motivated by a desire to ensure that the US Navy's signals intelligence hierarchy received the credit for any successes.
The codebreakers themselves should be absolved from any blame for this policy. Its architects and proponents were administrators, some of whom had little respect for those who achieved the successes, as demonstrated most clearly by the appalling treatment meted out to Joe Rochefort. The Pearl Harbor codebreaking operation that he put in place was one of the most efficient operating anywhere and, irrespective of its effect on the war, the breaking of the Yamamoto operational orders prior to the Battle of Midway was a truly spectacular success. Only very rarely were the Allied codebreakers able to decode more than stereotypical JN25 traffic; reading Yamamoto's complicated operational orders was therefore an amazing cryptographical achievement.
Rochefort, who retired from the navy in 1953, never did receive the Distinguished Service Medal that Admiral Nimitz had recommended him for in the wake of Midway, but it was belatedly awarded to him posthumously in 1986.
Frank B. Rowlett, who broke the Purple diplomatic cipher machine, one of the greatest codebreaking achievements of the war, was awarded the US Legion of Merit and the Order of the British Empire in 1946. He continued to work as a codebreaker with the National Security Agency, the American post-war signals intelligence agency, until his retirement in 1965. He died in 1998.
The leading British codebreaker John Tiltman, the pioneer in breaking the Japanese superenciphered codes and the man who broke JN25, stayed with GC&CS when it changed its name at the end of the war to the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). He had already been appointed OBE in 1930 and Commander of the British Empire in 1944. He was awarded the US Legion of Merit in 1946 and appointed Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1954. The extent of his codebreaking abilities can be discerned less from the honours he was awarded than from the fact that he was, exceptionally for a civil servant, allowed to continue working at GCHQ until his seventieth birthday. But even then he transferred to NSA, where he worked as a codebreaking troubleshooter for a number of years. He died in Hawaii in 1982.
Hugh Alexander was awarded an OBE at the end of the war and initially returned to his pre-war post as Director of Research at the John Lewis chain of department stores. But he evidently missed codebreaking and rejoined GCHQ. He was appointed Commander of the British Empire in 1955 and Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1970. When he finally retired in 1971 he was two years past the standard civil service retirement date and as with Tiltman, NSA made determined efforts to recruit him as a code-breaking éminence grise. He turned them down in favour of a retirement writing about chess. He died in 1974.
Eric Nave, the Australian codebreaker whose work on Japanese codes and ciphers provided the early start for the British, was appointed OBE in 1946 and later joined the Australian Security Intelligence Organization. His reputation was damaged in 1991 by an ill-fated attempt to publish his memoirs which fuelled the conspiracy theories over Pearl Harbor. It is now clear from a copy held in the Australian War Memorial that James Rusbridger, his coauthor on Betrayal at Pearl Harbor, distorted the original to make it conform to his own conspiracy theories. Nave died in 1993.
Hugh Foss, who worked with Nave to break the original Japanese naval attaché machine cipher and almost certainly the original Red diplomatic machine cipher, retired to Scotland after the war. He died in 1971. Agnes Driscoll, who broke the same ciphers for the Americans, ended the war as OP-20-G's Principal Cryptanalyst. She went on to work for the NSA and retired in 1959. She died in 1971.
Francis A. Raven, the US Navy machine cipher specialist who broke Jade and worked on Coral with Alexander, received a Legion of Merit. He too worked for NSA after the war, winning a number of further awards for his work, and retired in 1974. He died in 1983.
Joseph E. Richard, who broke the Water Transport Code, the first of the mainline army superenciphered codes to be broken, while he was based at Central Bureau, also served with the NSA for many years, latterly as a member of the same cryptanalysis consultancy team as Tiltman. He retired in 1973. Wilfrid Noyce, who broke the same code simultaneously at the Wireless Experimental Centre, Delhi, worked as a master first at Malvern and then Charterhouse before becoming a full-time poet and author. He was a member of the team that made the first successful assault on Everest in 1953 and was killed climbing in the Pamir Mountains of Soviet Central Asia in 1962.
These codebreakers were, of course, only the most prominent of the many thousands of men and women who intercepted or decoded Japanese messages during the Second World War. The historians’ estimate that the actions of all these men and women shortened it by two years and the countless lives they must have saved in so doing remain the most fitting testament to their remarkable achievements.
NOTES
CHAPTER 1
Pages 9–13 Interviews with John Burrows, Hettie Cox (née Marshall), Geoff Day, Joan Dinwoodie (née Sprinks), Lillie Feeney (née Gadd), Phil Puttick and Rene Watson (née Skipp) conducted September 1999–April 2000; unpublished memoirs of Geoff Day; Attiwell, Kenneth, The Singapore Story (Frederick Muller, London, 1959); Elphick, Peter, Singapore, The Pregnable Fortress: A Study in Deception, Discord and Desertion (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1995); Elphic
k, Peter and Smith, Michael, Odd Man Out: The Story of the Singapore Traitor (Hodder and Stoughton, London,1993); Simson, Ivan, Singapore: Too Little, too Late: Some Aspects of the Malayan Disaster in 1942 (Leo Cooper, London, 1970)
CHAPTER 2
Page 14 History of codebreaking up to end of First World War see PRO HW3/15; Andrew, Christopher, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (William Heinemann, London, 1985); Smith, Michael, New Cloak, Old Dagger (Victor Gollancz, London, 1996)
Page 15 Clarke on setting up of GC&CS from PRO HW3/1; HW3/3; HW3/16
Page 15 Background to setting up of GC&CS from PRO HW3/33
Page 15 Denniston on early days of GC&CS from Denniston, A.G., The Government Code and Cipher School between the Wars (Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1986)
Pages 15–16 Curzon from Jeffery, Keith (ed.), The Government Code and Cypher School: A Memorandum by Lord Curzon (Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1986)
Page 15–16 Denniston on interception of diplomatic cables from Denniston, The Government Code and Cipher School between the Wars
Page 16 Senate subcommittee investigates British arrangement with American cable companies from NARA RG457, SRH-012; Rusbridger, James and Nave, Eric, Betrayal at Pearl Harbor: How Churchill Lured Roosevelt into War (Michael O'Mara, London, 1991)
Page 17 Denniston on early days of Japanese codebreaking from Denniston, The Government Code and Cipher School between the Wars
Page 17 Clarke on early days of Japanese codebreaking PRO HW3/1; HW3/3; HW3/16
Pages 17–18 Denniston on Maine and Hobart-Hampden from Denniston, The Government Code and Cipher School Between the Wars
Page 18 British interception of Japanese ciphers during the 1921 Washington Conference from PRO HW14/15; Denniston, The Government Code and Cipher School between the Wars
Page 19 Clarke on Curzon and Sinclair from PRO HW3/1; HW3/3; HW3/16
Page 20 Japanese language explanation courtesy of Hilary Jarvis
Page 20 Clark on difficulties experienced by Royal Navy wireless telegraphists attempting to read Japanese Morse from PRO HW3/1; HW3/3; HW3/16
Pages 20–1 Problems recruiting Japanese interpreters from PRO HW3/55
Page 21 Navy sends officers to Japan for cryptographic section and shortage of Japanese-speaking naval officers from PRO ADM116/2349
Page 21 Nave details and quotes from Nave, Eric, An Australian's Unique Naval Career, Unpublished Memoir, Australian War Memorial, MSS 1183; National Australian Archives (Melbourne) MP 1049, 1997/5/196
Page 22 Clarke on Nave from PRO HW3/1; HW3/3; HW3/16
Page 22 Nave already working on Japanese messages from National Australian Archives (Melbourne) MP 1049, 1997/5/196 (I am grateful to Joe Straczek for drawing my attention to this file)
Pages 22–3 Admiralty instructions from National Australian Archives (Melbourne) MP 1049, 1997/5/196
Pages 23–5 Nave progress and assistance of Flintham from Nave, An Australian's Unique Travel Career
Pages 25–6 Codebreaking techniques from Smith, Michael, Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park (Channel 4 Books, London, 1998); Rowlett, Frank, The Story of Magic: Memoirs of an American Cryptologic Pioneer (Aegean Park Press, Laguna Hills, 1998)
Page 27 Parlett from Denniston, The Government Code and Cipher School between the Wars
Page 27 Nave recalled from Nave, An Australian's Unique Naval Career; PRO FO366/978
CHAPTER 3
Page 28 Nave arrives in London from Nave, An Australian's Unique Naval Career
Pages 28–9 Background from Best, Antony, Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbor: Avoiding War in East Asia (Routledge, London, 1995); Elphick, Peter, Far Eastern File: The Intelligence War in the Far East 1930–1945 (Coronet, London, 1997)
Page 29 Nave progress on codes from Nave, An Australian's Unique Naval Career; PRO FO366/978
Pages 29–30 Introduction of new Japanese naval code and Nave return to Far East from Nave, An Australian's Unique Naval Career
Page 30 Manchuria Incident and effect on interception from PRO HW3/1; HW3/3; HW3/16; Elphick, Far Eastern File
Page 30 Red forms from National Australian Archives (Melbourne) MP 1049, 1997/5/196
Page 30 Return of Nave to London and exchange with Shaw from PRO FO366/978; Nave, An Australian's Unique Naval Career
Pages 30–2 Singapore spy scandal from PRO ADM223/495
Page 32 Dickens's concern from PRO ADM223/495; Elphick, Far Eastern File
Pages 32–3 Rutland from Nave, An Australian's Unique Naval Career; Elphick, Far Eastern File
Pages 33–4 Dickens quotes from PRO ADM223/495
Pages 34–5 Japanese naval attaché machine cipher broken by Foss and Strachey from Nave, An Australian's Unique Naval Career
Page 35 US break of Orange from Stafford, L.F., History of Japanese Cipher Machines, NARA RG 457 HCC 2344
Pages 35–6 Meeting of Y Committee and decision to set up naval codebreaking centre in Hong Kong from HW3/33; ADM223/495; HW4/24; HW4/25; Nave, An Australian's Unique Naval Career. Overseas signals intelligence coverage at this time was divided between the British and Indian armies and the Royal Navy with the British Army taking responsibility for ‘the Near East, including Arabia; Persia; Turkey and South Russia’; the Indian Army was responsible for the Indian sub-continent and Burma; and the Royal Navy covered the Far East.
Page 36 Request for more staff for opening of Hong Kong Bureau from PRO FO366/1004
Pages 36–40 Organization and operations of FECB from PRO HW4/24; HW4/25; ADM233/494; HW3/102; AIR20/374; National Australian Archives (Melbourne) MP1185 2021/5/529; MP1185/8 1945/2/6
Pages 40–1 Tiltman from Tiltman, John H., Some Reminiscences, NARA RG457 OD4632; Erskine, Ralph, Brigadier John H. Tiltman: One of BP's Finest (forthcoming, in Global Intelligence Monthly)
CHAPTER 4
Page 42 Denniston on recruitment of language experts from Denniston, The Government Code and Cipher School between the Wars; PRO FO366/978
Pages 42–3 Kennedy from Ferris, John, From Broadway House to Bletchley Park: The Diary of Captain Malcolm D. Kennedy, 1934–1946 (Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 4, No. 3, July 1989)
Page 43 Shaw on drop copies, diplomatic telegrams and interception from PRO HW4/25
Page 44 Denniston on Maine from Denniston, The Government Code and Cipher School
Page 44 Kenworthy on co-option of Metropolitan Police unit from PRO HW3/163 and C.L. Sinclair Williams, unpublished personal account of Kenworthy's wartime work with Bletchley Park and the Metropolitan Police Intercept Unit
Pages 45–6 Red machine from Kelley, Steve, Big Machines: The Relative Cryptographic Security of the German Enigma, the Japanese PURPLE, and the US SIGABA/ECM Cipher Machines in World War II (Joint Military Intelligence College, Washington, 1999); Deavours, Cipher, and Kruh, Louis, Machine Cryptography and Modern Cryptanalysis (Artech, London, 1985)
Pages 46–7 Kenworthy progress on Red machine from Johnson, John, The Evolution of British Sigint: 1653–1939 (HMSO, Cheltenham, 1997) and PRO HW3/163
Page 47 American attack on Red machine and methods of approach from Rowlett, Frank, The Story of Magic: Memoirs of an American Cryptologic Pioneer (Aegean Park Press, Laguna Hills, 1998); Alvarez, David, Secret Messages: Codebreaking and American Diplomacy (University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, 2000). Professor Alvarez suggests that US files stating that the US codebreakers broke Red in October 1936 must be wrong, since the same files contain decrypts of messages dating from November 1934. But, as Rowlett explains, this is because they went back over old intercepts, decoding them.
Page 47 Clarke and Cooper on British decision to ignore German codes from PRO HW3/1 and HW3/83
Page 48 Information on Oshima from PRO WO208/4703; WO106/5606; Boyd, Carl, Hitler's Japanese Confidant: General Oshima Hiroshi and Magic Intelligence, 1941–1945 (University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, 1993)
Page 49 British military intelligence analysis of Os
hima BJs from PRO WO106/5530
Pages 49–51 Kennedy from Kennedy Papers, University of Sheffield Library, quoted by kind permission of the School of East Asian Studies
Page 51 Sir Eric Drummond and Sujimura from PRO FO371/21183; FO371/21176; FO371/20279
Page 51 Secretary on Foss from various interviews with Barbara Eachus (née Abernethy) October–December 1999
Page 52 Browning on Foss from Hawken, Elizabeth, Recollections of Bletchley Park, her unpublished memoirs kindly provided to the author by her daughter Miss S. C. J. Hawken
CHAPTER 5
Pages 53–4 Background on China Incident, Rape of Nanking, Chamberlain and US attitude from Elphick, Peter, Far Eastern File: The Intelligence War in the Far East 1930–1945 (Coronet, London, 1997); Best, Antony, Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbor: Avoiding War in East Asia (Routledge, London, 1995)
Pages 54–5 Tiltman on military codes from Tiltman, Some Reminiscences; Erskine, Brigadier John H. Tiltman
Pages 55–6 Sinclair and purchase of Bletchley Park from Smith, Station X
Page 56 Tiltman gets Hong Kong to take over military codes and takes Marr-Johnston and Stevens to Hong Kong from Tiltman, Some Reminiscences; PRO HW4/25
Page 56 Number of RAF operators at Stonecutters from PRO AIR20/374
Page 57 De Grey on RAF move to Hong Kong from PRO HW3/102
Page 57 Nave return and breaking of cipher from Nave, An Australian's Unique Naval Career; PRO HW4/25; HW14/48
Page 57–8 Setting up of commercial section from Denniston, The Government Code and Cipher School between the Wars
The Emperor's Codes Page 34