A Quora that touches on WWII Japanese in USA security concerns.
William Pellas
Studied at American Military University Updated 16h
Why didn't the Japanese in World War II think that the Allies could break their communications codes?
There were several reasons.
The first was that most Japanese at that time believed that the
fundamentally alien nature of their language relative to the great
majority of the languages spoken by their likely enemies guaranteed a
layer of security for their crucial communications.
It must be said that there was a grain of truth to this perspective,
because the many nuances of the insular culture that had existed for many centuries on the cramped Japanese Home Islands were very difficult for outsiders to grasp. These same nuances (such as the practice of haragei) affected the Japanese language in a myriad of ways that would not often be apparent even to foreigners who had mastered that language from a
grammatical standpoint.
. [5] In negotiation, haragei is characterised by euphemisms, vague and >indirect statements, prolonged silences and careful avoidance of any
comment that might cause offense.
https://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2013/02/secrets-abroad-a-history-of-the-japanese-purple-machine.html
Type B Cipher Machine - Wikipedia
Japanese diplomatic code named Purple by the US This article is about a
World War II era cipher used by the Japanese Foreign Office for diplomatic communications.
The Navy believed the Purple machine was sufficiently difficult to break
that it did not attempt to revise it to improve security.
Japanese signals sent through this architecture were not penetrated to a comprehensive extent for more than two years—just in time for the pivotal Battle of Midway in June, 1942.
Decryption reports were known as “MAGIC” and classified “Above Top Secret”,
with the great majority not declassified until 1995 and beyond. Although
at least one IJN officer voiced his suspicion in the aftermath of Midway
that Japanese codes had been broken, the high command still persisted in
its belief that this was impossible. Thus the treasure trove of
intelligence that came to the Allies through their cryptanalysis continued
to flow until the end of the war. To this day, MAGIC intercepts are not particularly well known to most students and even many scholars of the Pacific War, and they have direct and profound bearing on the history of
the conflict.
For Further Reading:
Why Truman Dropped the Bomb
HOME > JAPAN > TRUMAN'S DECISION Why Truman Dropped the Bomb [It's now the 70th anniversary of Little Boy. Mr Frank's article is from the August 8, 2005, issue of the Weekly Standard ] by Richard B. Frank The sixtieth anniversary of Hiroshima seems to be shaping up as a subdued
affair--though not for any lack of significance. A survey of news editors
in 1999 ranked the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, first
among the top one hundred stories of the twentieth century. And any thoughtful list of controversies in American history would place it near
the top again. It was not always so. In 1945, an overwhelming majority of Americans regarded as a matter of course that the United States had used atomic bombs to end the Pacific war. They further believed that those
bombs had actually ended the war and saved countless lives. This set of beliefs is now sometimes labeled by academic historians the
"traditionalist" view. One unkindly dubbed it the "patriotic orthodoxy."
But in the 1960s, what were previously modest and scattered challenges of
the decision to use the bombs began to crystallize into a rival canon. The challengers were branded "revisionists," but this is inapt.
Any historian who gains possession of significant new evidence has a duty
to revise his appreciation of the relevant events. These challengers are better termed critics. The critics share three fundamental premises. The first is that Japan's situation in 1945 was catastrophically hopeless. The second is that Japan's leaders recognized that fact and were seeking to surrender in the summer of 1945. The third is that thanks to decoded
Japanese diplomatic messages, American leaders knew that Japan was about
to surrender when they unleashed needless nuclear devastation.
https://warbirdforum.com/dropbomb.htm
William Pellas
I Live in the United States of AmericaUpdated Jul 16
What happened to US citizens of Japanese descent who were convicted of espionage during WW2?
To my knowledge there were no US citizens of Japanese descent who were convicted of espionage during WWII.
But this is not because none of them were spying for Japan.
Rather, there were no trials because the US was trying to keep its
greatest weapon a secret.
No, that weapon was not the atomic bomb, which would not be developed and fielded until 1945. Rather, it was…MAGIC. “MAGIC” was the code word for the summary reports produced by the highest level of American crytanalysis and codebreaking. This effort began in earnest when US Navy spooks and translators first broke a significant portion of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s JN-25 cipher and related codes in 1940, with another significant breakthrough in 1941.
JN-25 Fact Sheet
War of Secrets: Cryptology in WWII
The most notable success produced as a direct result of this American
signals intelligence was the Battle of Midway, which was probably the
single most decisive encounter in the entire Pacific War. Certainly it was the one that finally stopped the onrushing Japanese juggernaut, which had been running wild for nearly seven months ever since Pearl Harbor, in its tracks.
US Navy Aircraft Carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) Under Attack by Imperial Japanese Navy Bombers During the Battle of Midway, 4 June - 7 June 1942. Yorktown Was Lost During the Battle, But the USN Won an Overwhelming
Tactical and Strategic Victory, Sinking Four Japanese Aircraft Carriers
and Two Heavy Cruisers. Midway Was Largely the Product of US Navy Codebreaking.
How Did the U.S. Break Japanese Military Codes Before the Battle of
Midway?
But prior to the war, MAGIC had revealed another vitally important piece
of information: Japanese officials were caught red handed in several transmissions during which the mobilization of Japanese-Americans for espionage was discussed in detail.
In addition, literally hundreds of MAGIC intercepts contained intelligence (spy) reports obtained from surveillance of targets in the US, though the identities of the agents were usually not provided.
Nominally “neutral” Spain subsequently ran a wide-ranging spy network in North America with German and Japanese input and logistical support, and
it is known that there was also considerable sympathy for the Axis cause
in South America—where future Argentine leader Juan Peron was also
involved in espionage aimed at the United States. But again this came
later, in 1942–43, after the intelligence intercepts described immediately above.
A Declassified MAGIC Intercept of a Spanish Espionage Report Regarding an Allied Convoy Spotted as it Sailed Past Gibraltar During WWII. The Report
Was Sent From Lisbon, Portugal, to a Japanese Intelligence Operative in Berlin, Germany. I Took This Photo Myself in Person at the US National Archives in Suitland, MD, in 2012.
Further, according to a May, 1983 article in the New York Times:
“A cable from the Tokyo Government to its Washington embassy, dated Jan. 30, 1941, asked the embassy and Japanese consulates to arrange for ''utilization of our 'second generations' and our resident nationals.''
But it added, in parentheses, ''in view of the fact that if there is any
slip in this phase, our people in the U.S. will be subjected to
considerable persecution, the utmost caution must be exercised.''
On May 9, 1941, the Los Angeles consulate sent Tokyo a message marked ''strictly secret'' that seemed to assert that cooperation was being
obtained from some ethnic Japanese.
The cable said strong efforts were being made to recruit white and black agents ''through Japanese persons whom we can trust completely.''
''We have already established contacts with absolutely reliable Japanese
in the San Pedro and San Diego area, who will keep a close watch on all shipments of airplanes and other war materials, and report the amounts and destinations of such shipments,'' the message said. ''We shall maintain connection with our second generations who are in the army, to keep us informed of various developments in the army. We also have connections
with our second generations working in airplane plants for intelligence purposes.''
A cable from the Seattle consulate dated May 11 told Tokyo that
intelligence would be collected on United States naval ships in the Bremerton, Wash., Naval shipyard; on mercantile shipping; on aircraft manufacturing, and on troop and ship movements.
David Lowman, who was previously the special assistant to the director of
the National Security Agency, was personally responsible for the declassification and subsequent publication of some of the MAGIC
documents. In the Times piece, he is quoted as saying:
''Anyone reading this flow of messages during 1941 could easily conclude
that thousands of resident Japanese were being organized into subversive organizations…Today we know that the Japanese Government misjudged the loyalty of Japanese Americans completely. But at that time no one knew for certain.''
However, it seems that he was toeing the politically correct line at the time, because later in life he became quite outspoken about the threat to
US security posed by some Japanese Americans (and also by Japanese
nationals living in the US and its overseas territories) during WWII. So
much so, in fact, that he wrote a book, MAGIC: The Untold Story of U.S. Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents from the West Coast during World War II, in which he argued vociferously that the internment camps were justified given what the US knew because of its above top
secret codebreaking. Note that Lowman’s book was not published until after his death.
Among Lowman’s biggest complaints was that both federal and California state government money was (and still is) being spent to perpetuate the narrative of the Japanese Americans as completely innocent and the victims
of fearmongering and racism. Murphey summarizes:
"California presently appropriates millions of dollars in support of the ‘official' history of Japanese evacuation." Such continued funding of a skewed telling of history by federal and state governments and by
tax-exempt organizations, all propelled by politics and ideology,
exacerbates a problem that in lesser forms has long bedeviled serious scholars. When prior generations, for example, have enshrined specific and often highly partisan perceptions in monuments, cemeteries, and public commemorations of all kinds, they have promoted a certain "received
history." That version has then become the mythology of the age that has followed.
THE RELOCATION OF THE JAPANESE-AMERICANS DURING WORLD WAR II : Dwight D. Murphey
Dwight D. Murphey Collection
Internment Archives — Link goes to the section “MAGIC: The Untold Story”
on the Internment Archives website.
Internment Archives— Link goes to the article, A NATIONAL DISGRACE:
The Story of the Japanese Evacuation From the West Coast During WW II,
Based on Contemporary Evidence Not Racial Demagoguery. By Lee Allen,
Lt.Col. U. S. Army (Ret.) with help from William J. Hopwood, Cmdr.
U.S.N.R. (Ret.)
Internment Archives— Link goes to the article, “Critique of the Smithsonian Institution's Exhibit: "A More Perfect Union: Japanese
Americans and the U.S. Constitution”, by Lee Allen and Sam Allen.
American Military Bases, Equipment, Soldiers, and Sailors Under Attack
During the Japanese Air Raid on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 7 December 1941. The Assault Was Aided Greatly By Information Gathered From Espionage by Both Japanese Military Personnel and Japanese Americans Living in Hawaii.
In the end, no Japanese Americans were charged with spying, treason, or
fifth column activities as a result of being discovered through MAGIC, and
as far as I know there were no legal or court proceedings to that
effect—at least not publicly. But that was not because none of them were guilty. It was because, as Richard Frank writes, “By the summer of 1945, Allied radio intelligence was breaking into a million messages a month
from the Japanese Imperial Army alone, and many thousands from the
Imperial Navy and Japanese diplomats.” This intelligence was by far America’s greatest and most important advantage over its Japanese adversaries in the death struggle that was the Pacific War. It was an advantage, and a secret, that had to be protected at all costs, even to
the point of accepting blame from postwar academic leftists and activists
for crimes that were either nothing of the sort, or at minimum were far
less than they have been made out to be ever since the 1960s.
Were the Japanese internment camps justified?
An argument can be made that they were, and it is a strong one. It turns
out that Japan was actively trying to recruit espionage and sabotage
agents from among the ranks of both its own nationals and first generation Japanese-Americans who were living and working in the US or its
territories, like Hawaii.
This effort was evidently fairly successful. There are literally hundreds
of MAGIC SIGINT (signals intelligence) intercepts of spy reports by these recruits and other Japanese operatives that prove it.
As it happened, several thousand German and Italian foreign nationals who
had been in the United States during the Pearl Harbor attack and afterward were rounded up by the FBI and other government agencies and put in camps, themselves.
Hoover apparently had no problem with this policy,
Is there any way to justify the forcible internment of Japanese Americans during WWII?
Yes. It’s right here: 1941 CABLES BOASTED OF JAPANESE-AMERICAN SPYING Throughout 1941, US counterintelligence intercepted, decrypted, and translated numerous transmissions (“cables”, though also radio traffic) in
which Japanese government and military officials discussed active and apparently successful attempts by Japan to recruit spies and possible
future saboteurs from among both Japanese-American citizens—that is, 1st and even 2nd generation Americans born in the US—and Japanese nationals living and working in the US and Hawaii.
A cable from the Tokyo Government to its Washington embassy, dated Jan.
30, 1941, asked the embassy and Japanese consulates to arrange for ''utilization of our 'second generations' and our resident nationals.''
But it added, in parentheses, ''in view of the fact that if there is any
slip in this phase, our people in the U.S. will be subjected to
considerable persecution, the utmost caution must be exercised.''
On May 9, 1941, the Los Angeles consulate sent Tokyo a message marked ''strictly secret'' that seemed to assert that cooperation was being
obtained from some ethnic Japanese.
Japan in fact succeeded in organizing and running at least a handful of
spy networks in the continental United States during the war, and also operated a “SIGINT” (signals intelligence) station in Mexico that listened
in on American radio traffic.
William Pellas's answer to Did the Japanese know that atomic bombs were
being built? US agents were also able to identify a number of Japanese,
both Japanese-Americans and Japanese nationals, who provided essential
intel on American forces in and around Pearl Harbor.
This information contributed greatly to the overwhelming Japanese success
in the air raid of 7 December, 1941, in which more than 2,200 Americans
were killed.
So, in light of this, I have some questions for all of the retroactive pseudomoral handwringers who love to make great hay of this issue. 1. If Roosevelt had ignored this intelligence and Japanese-American spies and saboteurs had succeeded in killing other American civilians on US soil, and/or in causing critical damage to US war industry through sabotage,
and/or in providing crucial intelligence that paved the way for additional Japanese military victories that killed additional thousands of American servicemen, would all that have been perfectly alright with you?
2. What if this additional Japanese fifth column activity won the war for Japan?
3. Do you think you would like the postwar world that Japan would have
built as well as the one the US built, had the Japanese won the war?
4. And, what would you think of Roosevelt’s Constitutional responsibility to his nation had he refused or failed to act on the intelligence he was receiving?
Gee, I guess maybe it’s not quite so simple as plain old white male
racism, now, is it? Hint: No, it’s not.
William Pellas
· Jul 16
Why is FDR considered a great leader when he is responsible for thousands
of Asian-Americans being sent to internment camps?
One of the many tragedies resulting from the New Left - PC takeover of the public education system in the West in general—and in the United States in particular—is the politicization and general destruction of the history of the Second World War.
For the record, there were a number of Japanese spies at Pearl Harbor, and they provided crucial intelligence in the runup to the attack against the
US Pacific Fleet on 7 December 1941. Some of these, to be sure, were
Japanese nationals and military professionals as opposed to American
citizens of Japanese descent—most of whom, certainly, were loyal to the US—but nevertheless, they were there. For example, this man: Imperial Japanese Navy Ensign Takeo Yoshikawa, the Top Japanese Spy in Hawaii in
the Years Immediately Prior to the Attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December
1941.
After the war, Yoshikawa would claim that he never used Japanese-Americans living in Hawaii as sources for his espionage, but this is certainly
false.
Japanese American Richard Kotoshirodo and Japanese national John Mikami
are known to have spied for Japan (if in fairness not necessarily directly for Yoshikawa), and they gathered extensive amounts of information that
was very useful to the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor.
In addition, a Japanese American couple—Yoshio and Irene Harada—joined a Japanese pilot in his one man reign of terror when he crash landed at
Niihau island, Hawaii after being shot down by American fighters.
A combined Spanish fascist - Japanese spy network code-named “TO” (pronounced “toe” and also known as “Span-Nap”) may have managed to penetrate the eastern branch of the Manhattan Project before it was
smashed by a joint US-Canadian counterintelligence sting in 1943.
The FBI informs you that known Japanese spies, including at least a few Japanese-American citizens more sympathetic to Tokyo than they are loyal
to Washington, are operating in Hawaii and on the US mainland. Do you
really have time to develop detailed dossiers and interview every one of these people to figure out who is loyal and who is not?
Therefore, the President ordered that they be rounded up and essentially quarantined from the rest of the population until there was reasonable assurance that some among them were not providing material aid,
assistance, and intelligence to a hostile foreign power that had already killed more than 2,200 Americans—and that would kill many, many more
before the War was decided.
Was this a draconian solution to a difficult problem? Yes. Were any Japanese-Americans killed in the process? Even a single one? No (although
a handful did perish in various incidents in the relocation camps).
A number of Japanese Americans in fact went on to serve with valor and distinction in the US armed forces against the Axis powers.
Did the Japanese send spies to USA during WW2?
Yes. During the interim between the first and second world wars, Japanese espionage operations included SIGINT (signals intelligence) conducted by
at least one spy ship which sailed off the US west coast, and clandestine break-ins at various western nation consulates.
Bernard Julius Otto Kuehn (sometimes referred to as Kuhn ) and his family were spies in the employ of the Abwehr for Nazi Germany who had close ties
to Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels .
[1] In 1935, Goebbels offered Kuehn a job working for Japanese
intelligence in Hawaii ; he accepted and moved his family to Honolulu on August 15, 1935.
Dr. Kuhn would flash coded messages from the attic of the Kuhn household—a >system that went undetected until the end.
"a425couple" <a425c...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:EEBCK.421213$ssF.1...@fx14.iad...
A Quora that touches on WWII Japanese in USA security concerns.
William Pellas
Studied at American Military University Updated 16h
Why didn't the Japanese in World War II think that the Allies could break their communications codes?
There were several reasons.
The first was that most Japanese at that time believed that the fundamentally alien nature of their language relative to the great majority of the languages spoken by their likely enemies guaranteed a layer of security for their crucial communications.They had a fundamental point, there were few non Japanese who
could speak the language fluently and even fewer considered
trustworthy enough to work on code breaking. It took years to build
up the system given the low base.
It must be said that there was a grain of truth to this perspective, because the many nuances of the insular culture that had existed for many centuries on the cramped Japanese Home Islands were very difficult for outsiders to grasp. These same nuances (such as the practice of haragei) affected the Japanese language in a myriad of ways that would not often be apparent even to foreigners who had mastered that language from a grammatical standpoint.Why the need for code breaking when the messages themselves
. [5] In negotiation, haragei is characterised by euphemisms, vague and >indirect statements, prolonged silences and careful avoidance of any >comment that might cause offense.
will be difficult to understand by the intended recipients? Writing
loses lots of information, low bandwidth communication requires
clear precise wordage. More so when it becomes legal language
for things like treaties.
https://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2013/02/secrets-abroad-a-history-of-the-japanese-purple-machine.htmlNot really surprising as the IJN was not using it. Their main fleet
Type B Cipher Machine - Wikipedia
Japanese diplomatic code named Purple by the US This article is about a World War II era cipher used by the Japanese Foreign Office for diplomatic communications.
The Navy believed the Purple machine was sufficiently difficult to break that it did not attempt to revise it to improve security.
code was what the allies called JN-25
John Prados' combined fleet decoded.
Page 439 on the Random House hard back edition, part of chapter
seventeen. The IJN had a naval attaché code the US called Coral,
it used a machine using the same operating principles as the
"Purple" devices, which the Japanese called the 97 Siki Romazi Inziki.
It was introduced in September 1939 and was more complicated
than the "Purple" devices and there were few messages sent using
it before December 1941. Coral was first read on 13 March 1944.
A similar 97 Siki Romazi Inziki machine was used by IJN shore
stations from either August or December 1942 to around August
1944, see page 344, this had been broken in August 1943, the
USN called this Jade and breaking it helped break Coral
Japanese signals sent through this architecture were not penetrated to a comprehensive extent for more than two years—just in time for the pivotalSo now the IJN is using Japanese diplomatic codes within the fleet?
Battle of Midway in June, 1942.
The IJN had the JN-25 system, which was introduced in 1939 and
upgraded at the end of 1940. It was a classic code book system.
The allies managed to know enough from it to send a second aircraft
carrier to the Coral Sea for example.
Decryption reports were known as “MAGIC” and classified “Above Top Secret”,Actually the IJN knew from interrogation of captured USN aircrew how
with the great majority not declassified until 1995 and beyond. Although at least one IJN officer voiced his suspicion in the aftermath of Midway that Japanese codes had been broken, the high command still persisted in its belief that this was impossible. Thus the treasure trove of intelligence that came to the Allies through their cryptanalysis continued to flow until the end of the war. To this day, MAGIC intercepts are not particularly well known to most students and even many scholars of the Pacific War, and they have direct and profound bearing on the history of the conflict.
much the USN knew about the IJN Midway plan, the prisoners were
later executed. The cover was the IJN knew parts of the Midway fleet
were spotted by USN submarines leaving Japan.
For Further Reading:
Why Truman Dropped the BombThe labels being used suggest modern opinion shaping and
HOME > JAPAN > TRUMAN'S DECISION Why Truman Dropped the Bomb [It's now the 70th anniversary of Little Boy. Mr Frank's article is from the August 8, 2005, issue of the Weekly Standard ] by Richard B. Frank The sixtieth anniversary of Hiroshima seems to be shaping up as a subdued affair--though not for any lack of significance. A survey of news editors in 1999 ranked the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, first among the top one hundred stories of the twentieth century. And any thoughtful list of controversies in American history would place it near the top again. It was not always so. In 1945, an overwhelming majority of Americans regarded as a matter of course that the United States had used atomic bombs to end the Pacific war. They further believed that those bombs had actually ended the war and saved countless lives. This set of beliefs is now sometimes labeled by academic historians the "traditionalist" view. One unkindly dubbed it the "patriotic orthodoxy." But in the 1960s, what were previously modest and scattered challenges of the decision to use the bombs began to crystallize into a rival canon. The challengers were branded "revisionists," but this is inapt.
revisionism for WWII has a quite specific meaning, the attempt
to have Hitler as the good guy.
Any historian who gains possession of significant new evidence has a duty to revise his appreciation of the relevant events. These challengers are better termed critics. The critics share three fundamental premises. The first is that Japan's situation in 1945 was catastrophically hopeless. The second is that Japan's leaders recognized that fact and were seeking to surrender in the summer of 1945. The third is that thanks to decoded Japanese diplomatic messages, American leaders knew that Japan was about to surrender when they unleashed needless nuclear devastation.The answer to the above is the big 6 voted 3 to 3 war to peace from
early 1945 through the atomic bomb and USSR declaration of war.
The hope being that an invasion of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Marianas,
Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Kyushu would cost the enemy so much they
would agree to letting Japan continue with its current power structure,
and territory, certainly no occupation. As the war came closer to
Japan the military power balance moved towards Japan, it had a
much bigger army and Kamikaze force ready in Japan than deployed
at Okinawa and the aircraft could come in low over land, not have to
travel the over water distances to the allied fleet. All citizens
encouraged to take one allied soldier with them.
https://warbirdforum.com/dropbomb.htm
William Pellas
I Live in the United States of AmericaUpdated Jul 16
What happened to US citizens of Japanese descent who were convicted of espionage during WW2?
To my knowledge there were no US citizens of Japanese descent who were convicted of espionage during WWII.
But this is not because none of them were spying for Japan.Actually it was a lack of Japanese spies.
Rather, there were no trials because the US was trying to keep its greatest weapon a secret.
No, that weapon was not the atomic bomb, which would not be developed and fielded until 1945. Rather, it was…MAGIC. “MAGIC” was the code word forThe 1941 effort was a joint one, Philippines and Singapore and it was
the summary reports produced by the highest level of American crytanalysis and codebreaking. This effort began in earnest when US Navy spooks and translators first broke a significant portion of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s JN-25 cipher and related codes in 1940, with another significant breakthrough in 1941.
a steady accumulation.
So the only way to prosecute a person of Japanese origin for espionage
in WWII was to reveal codebreaking?
JN-25 Fact Sheet
War of Secrets: Cryptology in WWII
The most notable success produced as a direct result of this American signals intelligence was the Battle of Midway, which was probably the single most decisive encounter in the entire Pacific War. Certainly it was the one that finally stopped the onrushing Japanese juggernaut, which had been running wild for nearly seven months ever since Pearl Harbor, in its tracks.Guadalcanal?
US Navy Aircraft Carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) Under Attack by Imperial Japanese Navy Bombers During the Battle of Midway, 4 June - 7 June 1942. Yorktown Was Lost During the Battle, But the USN Won an Overwhelming Tactical and Strategic Victory, Sinking Four Japanese Aircraft Carriers and Two Heavy Cruisers. Midway Was Largely the Product of US Navy Codebreaking.One heavy cruiser.
How Did the U.S. Break Japanese Military Codes Before the Battle of Midway?
But prior to the war, MAGIC had revealed another vitally important piece of information: Japanese officials were caught red handed in several transmissions during which the mobilization of Japanese-Americans for espionage was discussed in detail.Having taken part in the creation of the electronic copy of the messages,
so more than just read them, the messages reporting the lack of
success and the lack of information need to be mentioned.
In addition, literally hundreds of MAGIC intercepts contained intelligence (spy) reports obtained from surveillance of targets in the US, though the identities of the agents were usually not provided.Like the usual military attaches etc. or people talking about what
they were seeing.
Nominally “neutral” Spain subsequently ran a wide-ranging spy network in
North America with German and Japanese input and logistical support, and it is known that there was also considerable sympathy for the Axis cause in South America—where future Argentine leader Juan Peron was also involved in espionage aimed at the United States. But again this came later, in 1942–43, after the intelligence intercepts described immediately
above.
A Declassified MAGIC Intercept of a Spanish Espionage Report Regarding an Allied Convoy Spotted as it Sailed Past Gibraltar During WWII. The Report Was Sent From Lisbon, Portugal, to a Japanese Intelligence Operative in Berlin, Germany. I Took This Photo Myself in Person at the US National Archives in Suitland, MD, in 2012.Right so the Japanese in Berlin were given a message from
Spain and this relates to Japanese activity in the US in what way?
Further, according to a May, 1983 article in the New York Times:
“A cable from the Tokyo Government to its Washington embassy, dated Jan. 30, 1941, asked the embassy and Japanese consulates to arrange for ''utilization of our 'second generations' and our resident nationals.'' But it added, in parentheses, ''in view of the fact that if there is any slip in this phase, our people in the U.S. will be subjected to considerable persecution, the utmost caution must be exercised.''
On May 9, 1941, the Los Angeles consulate sent Tokyo a message marked ''strictly secret'' that seemed to assert that cooperation was being obtained from some ethnic Japanese.Right so mobilise the citizens and then comes "seems" to have
happened, no chance the people in the embassies putting a gloss
on their efforts for example?
The cable said strong efforts were being made to recruit white and black agents ''through Japanese persons whom we can trust completely.''So in other words probable US citizens as spies who are initially
screened by Japanese citizens known to the embassy.
''We have already established contacts with absolutely reliable Japanese in the San Pedro and San Diego area, who will keep a close watch on all shipments of airplanes and other war materials, and report the amounts and destinations of such shipments,'' the message said. ''We shall maintain connection with our second generations who are in the army, to keep us informed of various developments in the army. We also have connections with our second generations working in airplane plants for intelligence purposes.''
A cable from the Seattle consulate dated May 11 told Tokyo that intelligence would be collected on United States naval ships in the Bremerton, Wash., Naval shipyard; on mercantile shipping; on aircraft manufacturing, and on troop and ship movements.So where are all the reports to Tokyo?
David Lowman, who was previously the special assistant to the director of the National Security Agency, was personally responsible for the declassification and subsequent publication of some of the MAGIC documents. In the Times piece, he is quoted as saying:
''Anyone reading this flow of messages during 1941 could easily conclude that thousands of resident Japanese were being organized into subversive organizations…Today we know that the Japanese Government misjudged the loyalty of Japanese Americans completely. But at that time no one knew for certain.''Anyone unaware of how subordinates like to report only good news
to their far away superiors, and the lack of hard information going
back in the diplomatic traffic.
However, it seems that he was toeing the politically correct line at the time, because later in life he became quite outspoken about the threat to US security posed by some Japanese Americans (and also by Japanese nationals living in the US and its overseas territories) during WWII. So much so, in fact, that he wrote a book, MAGIC: The Untold Story of U.S. Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents from the West Coast during World War II, in which he argued vociferously that the internment camps were justified given what the US knew because of its above top secret codebreaking. Note that Lowman’s book was not published until after
his death.
Among Lowman’s biggest complaints was that both federal and California state government money was (and still is) being spent to perpetuate the narrative of the Japanese Americans as completely innocent and the victims of fearmongering and racism. Murphey summarizes:
"California presently appropriates millions of dollars in support of the ‘official' history of Japanese evacuation." Such continued funding of a skewed telling of history by federal and state governments and by tax-exempt organizations, all propelled by politics and ideology, exacerbates a problem that in lesser forms has long bedeviled serious scholars. When prior generations, for example, have enshrined specific and often highly partisan perceptions in monuments, cemeteries, and public commemorations of all kinds, they have promoted a certain "received history." That version has then become the mythology of the age that has followed.The lack of a similar round up of Italian American and German American citizens or just their exclusion from coastal areas where the U-boats
were sinking large numbers of ships and also landing the occasional
agent needs to be explained. The community did have some spies.
THE RELOCATION OF THE JAPANESE-AMERICANS DURING WORLD WAR II : Dwight D. Murphey
Dwight D. Murphey Collection
Internment Archives — Link goes to the section “MAGIC: The Untold Story”
on the Internment Archives website.
Internment Archives— Link goes to the article, A NATIONAL DISGRACE:
The Story of the Japanese Evacuation From the West Coast During WW II, Based on Contemporary Evidence Not Racial Demagoguery. By Lee Allen, Lt.Col. U. S. Army (Ret.) with help from William J. Hopwood, Cmdr. U.S.N.R. (Ret.)
Internment Archives— Link goes to the article, “Critique of the Smithsonian Institution's Exhibit: "A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the U.S. Constitution”, by Lee Allen and Sam Allen.
American Military Bases, Equipment, Soldiers, and Sailors Under Attack During the Japanese Air Raid on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 7 December 1941. The Assault Was Aided Greatly By Information Gathered From Espionage by Both Japanese Military Personnel and Japanese Americans Living in Hawaii.
In the end, no Japanese Americans were charged with spying, treason, or fifth column activities as a result of being discovered through MAGIC, and as far as I know there were no legal or court proceedings to that effect—at least not publicly. But that was not because none of them were guilty. It was because, as Richard Frank writes, “By the summer of 1945, Allied radio intelligence was breaking into a million messages a month from the Japanese Imperial Army alone, and many thousands from the Imperial Navy and Japanese diplomats.” This intelligence was by far America’s greatest and most important advantage over its Japanese adversaries in the death struggle that was the Pacific War. It was an advantage, and a secret, that had to be protected at all costs, even to the point of accepting blame from postwar academic leftists and activists for crimes that were either nothing of the sort, or at minimum were far less than they have been made out to be ever since the 1960s.Right so the US investigation system, given the tip offs from Magic
was totally unable to build a case against any Japanese person for
spying without revealing the decrypts, even in wartime, but did so
for some other spies. Were the Japanese just that much better?
Were the Japanese internment camps justified?You mean like the other axis powers?
An argument can be made that they were, and it is a strong one. It turns out that Japan was actively trying to recruit espionage and sabotage agents from among the ranks of both its own nationals and first generation Japanese-Americans who were living and working in the US or its territories, like Hawaii.
This effort was evidently fairly successful. There are literally hundreds of MAGIC SIGINT (signals intelligence) intercepts of spy reports by these recruits and other Japanese operatives that prove it.Not in the diplomatic traffic unless of course "other Japanese
operatives" are added, you know, the embassy staff doing their
professional duty.
As it happened, several thousand German and Italian foreign nationals who had been in the United States during the Pearl Harbor attack and afterward were rounded up by the FBI and other government agencies and put in camps, themselves.Yes, the expected policy is to intern foreign citizens. Not round up
the entire community of axis-Americans.
Hoover apparently had no problem with this policy,Like everyone else.
Is there any way to justify the forcible internment of Japanese Americans during WWII?Apparent success? Did they or did they not? And what about the
Yes. It’s right here: 1941 CABLES BOASTED OF JAPANESE-AMERICAN SPYING Throughout 1941, US counterintelligence intercepted, decrypted, and translated numerous transmissions (“cables”, though also radio traffic) in
which Japanese government and military officials discussed active and apparently successful attempts by Japan to recruit spies and possible future saboteurs from among both Japanese-American citizens—that is, 1st and even 2nd generation Americans born in the US—and Japanese nationals living and working in the US and Hawaii.
ideas to recruit non ethnic Japanese?
A cable from the Tokyo Government to its Washington embassy, dated Jan. 30, 1941, asked the embassy and Japanese consulates to arrange for ''utilization of our 'second generations' and our resident nationals.'' But it added, in parentheses, ''in view of the fact that if there is any slip in this phase, our people in the U.S. will be subjected to considerable persecution, the utmost caution must be exercised.''Results?
On May 9, 1941, the Los Angeles consulate sent Tokyo a message marked ''strictly secret'' that seemed to assert that cooperation was being obtained from some ethnic Japanese.Co-operation meaning telling what they saw or what?
Japan in fact succeeded in organizing and running at least a handful of spy networks in the continental United States during the war, and also operated a “SIGINT” (signals intelligence) station in Mexico that listenedSo where were the rings and what did they do. The move to
in on American radio traffic.
Mexico was a long standing plan, neutral country.
William Pellas's answer to Did the Japanese know that atomic bombs were being built? US agents were also able to identify a number of Japanese, both Japanese-Americans and Japanese nationals, who provided essential intel on American forces in and around Pearl Harbor.Yet none are named and when the IJN officer who took part in the
route proving voyage, come in from the north, arrived he simply took
a joy flight for a complete view of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese
consulate was quite able to keep a watch on USN activities.
This information contributed greatly to the overwhelming Japanese success in the air raid of 7 December, 1941, in which more than 2,200 Americans were killed.So who were the non Japanese consulate staff supplying this key
information? What was the vital stuff the consulate could not discover?
So, in light of this, I have some questions for all of the retroactive pseudomoral handwringers who love to make great hay of this issue. 1. If Roosevelt had ignored this intelligence and Japanese-American spies and saboteurs had succeeded in killing other American civilians on US soil, and/or in causing critical damage to US war industry through sabotage, and/or in providing crucial intelligence that paved the way for additional Japanese military victories that killed additional thousands of American servicemen, would all that have been perfectly alright with you?The trouble with this idea is lots more evidence members of the
European axis American community were doing bad things.
2. What if this additional Japanese fifth column activity won the war for Japan?The idea being to bury America under a pile of messages that promised
much but delivered little?
3. Do you think you would like the postwar world that Japan would have built as well as the one the US built, had the Japanese won the war?Unlikely.
4. And, what would you think of Roosevelt’s Constitutional responsibilitySo interning everyone because some might be bad guys is
to his nation had he refused or failed to act on the intelligence he was receiving?
constitutional?
Gee, I guess maybe it’s not quite so simple as plain old white male racism, now, is it? Hint: No, it’s not.Easy when you ask the questions and supply the answers.
Go round up the European axis Americans, there was a lot more
evidence members of those communities were undertaking anti
US operations though their spies were apparently easier to catch,
not needing Magic intercepts read out in open court to obtain a
conviction.
William PellasRight so not about history but about today.
· Jul 16
Why is FDR considered a great leader when he is responsible for thousands of Asian-Americans being sent to internment camps?
One of the many tragedies resulting from the New Left - PC takeover of the public education system in the West in general—and in the United States in
particular—is the politicization and general destruction of the history of
the Second World War.
For the record, there were a number of Japanese spies at Pearl Harbor, and they provided crucial intelligence in the runup to the attack against the US Pacific Fleet on 7 December 1941. Some of these, to be sure, were Japanese nationals and military professionals as opposed to American citizens of Japanese descent—most of whom, certainly, were loyal to the US—but nevertheless, they were there. For example, this man: Imperial Japanese Navy Ensign Takeo Yoshikawa, the Top Japanese Spy in Hawaii in the Years Immediately Prior to the Attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.Member of the consulate staff. Japanese citizen. IJN officer.
After the war, Yoshikawa would claim that he never used Japanese-Americans living in Hawaii as sources for his espionage, but this is certainly false.So no evidence, just an assertion he must be telling lies.
Japanese American Richard Kotoshirodo and Japanese national John Mikami are known to have spied for Japan (if in fairness not necessarily directly for Yoshikawa), and they gathered extensive amounts of information that was very useful to the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor.So what information, and how did it get back to Japan?
In addition, a Japanese American couple—Yoshio and Irene Harada—joined aThis is evidence of possibly war outcome changing spying?
Japanese pilot in his one man reign of terror when he crash landed at Niihau island, Hawaii after being shot down by American fighters.
A combined Spanish fascist - Japanese spy network code-named “TO” (pronounced “toe” and also known as “Span-Nap”) may have managed toSo may have, replacing seems to. And non Japanese involvement.
penetrate the eastern branch of the Manhattan Project before it was smashed by a joint US-Canadian counterintelligence sting in 1943.
The FBI informs you that known Japanese spies, including at least a few Japanese-American citizens more sympathetic to Tokyo than they are loyal to Washington, are operating in Hawaii and on the US mainland. Do you really have time to develop detailed dossiers and interview every one of these people to figure out who is loyal and who is not?Replace Japanese with German and Italian above.
Therefore, the President ordered that they be rounded up and essentially quarantined from the rest of the population until there was reasonable assurance that some among them were not providing material aid, assistance, and intelligence to a hostile foreign power that had already killed more than 2,200 Americans—and that would kill many, many more before the War was decided.As above. The US merchant marine notes it suffered a higher
percentage casualty rate than any of the US armed forces, including
the Marines, mostly to U-boat attack.
Was this a draconian solution to a difficult problem? Yes. Were any Japanese-Americans killed in the process? Even a single one? No (although a handful did perish in various incidents in the relocation camps).Ignoring suicides.
A number of Japanese Americans in fact went on to serve with valor and distinction in the US armed forces against the Axis powers.Despite rather than because of the treatment received.
Did the Japanese send spies to USA during WW2?So actions before war are now counted. Like the US operations
Yes. During the interim between the first and second world wars, Japanese espionage operations included SIGINT (signals intelligence) conducted by at least one spy ship which sailed off the US west coast, and clandestine break-ins at various western nation consulates.
doing the same to foreigners?
Bernard Julius Otto Kuehn (sometimes referred to as Kuhn ) and his family were spies in the employ of the Abwehr for Nazi Germany who had close ties to Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels .So a German national working for Japan and the preferred solution
is to round up the Japanese but not the Germans?
[1] In 1935, Goebbels offered Kuehn a job working for Japanese intelligence in Hawaii ; he accepted and moved his family to Honolulu on August 15, 1935.https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/pearl-harbor-spy
All he needed was IJN submarines to watch for his visual signals.
Dr. Kuhn would flash coded messages from the attic of the Kuhn household—aIncluding by any IJN warships.
system that went undetected until the end.
The Japanese espionage/spying network in the US was less
successful than the German and Italian ones. The evidence given
for rounding up Japanese Americans is the Japanese government
employed people of European origin as spies as well as tried to
recruit at least informers from the Japanese American community
but no evidence the recruitment worked. The lack of ethnic Japanese
spies being caught is put down to the only way to prosecute them
was to reveal the extent of allied code breaking, but spies of other nationalities were easier, not needing such evidence.
Pearl Harbor was wide open pre war, a visit to a hill overlooking
the area, a joy ride in the area but apparently it took spies in the community to obtain key information necessary for the attack to
work well, but no mention of what that information was. The IJN
and USN had considered each other their most probable enemy
for over 20 years by 1940, and each had built up large dossiers
on the other.
Whatever the moral and legal views of what happened the articles
range over time and space to find Japanese behaving badly, or
people helping Japanese to behave badly, and asserts there were
lots of Japanese in the US who were really good at being bad, over
and above the usual people in the diplomatic system. The main
thing missing is evidence.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
On Saturday, July 23, 2022 at 1:25:09 PM UTC-4, Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:and pieces of evidence.
"a425couple" <a425c...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:EEBCK.421213$ssF.1...@fx14.iad...
A Quora that touches on WWII Japanese in USA security concerns.They had a fundamental point, there were few non Japanese who
William Pellas
Studied at American Military University Updated 16h
Why didn't the Japanese in World War II think that the Allies could break >>> their communications codes?
There were several reasons.
The first was that most Japanese at that time believed that the
fundamentally alien nature of their language relative to the great
majority of the languages spoken by their likely enemies guaranteed a
layer of security for their crucial communications.
could speak the language fluently and even fewer considered
trustworthy enough to work on code breaking. It took years to build
up the system given the low base.
It must be said that there was a grain of truth to this perspective,Why the need for code breaking when the messages themselves
because the many nuances of the insular culture that had existed for many >>> centuries on the cramped Japanese Home Islands were very difficult for
outsiders to grasp. These same nuances (such as the practice of haragei) >>> affected the Japanese language in a myriad of ways that would not often be >>> apparent even to foreigners who had mastered that language from a
grammatical standpoint.
. [5] In negotiation, haragei is characterised by euphemisms, vague and
indirect statements, prolonged silences and careful avoidance of any
comment that might cause offense.
will be difficult to understand by the intended recipients? Writing
loses lots of information, low bandwidth communication requires
clear precise wordage. More so when it becomes legal language
for things like treaties.
https://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2013/02/secrets-abroad-a-history-of-the-japanese-purple-machine.htmlNot really surprising as the IJN was not using it. Their main fleet
Type B Cipher Machine - Wikipedia
Japanese diplomatic code named Purple by the US This article is about a
World War II era cipher used by the Japanese Foreign Office for diplomatic >>> communications.
The Navy believed the Purple machine was sufficiently difficult to break >>> that it did not attempt to revise it to improve security.
code was what the allies called JN-25
John Prados' combined fleet decoded.
Page 439 on the Random House hard back edition, part of chapter
seventeen. The IJN had a naval attaché code the US called Coral,
it used a machine using the same operating principles as the
"Purple" devices, which the Japanese called the 97 Siki Romazi Inziki.
It was introduced in September 1939 and was more complicated
than the "Purple" devices and there were few messages sent using
it before December 1941. Coral was first read on 13 March 1944.
A similar 97 Siki Romazi Inziki machine was used by IJN shore
stations from either August or December 1942 to around August
1944, see page 344, this had been broken in August 1943, the
USN called this Jade and breaking it helped break Coral
Japanese signals sent through this architecture were not penetrated to a >>> comprehensive extent for more than two years—just in time for the pivotal >>> Battle of Midway in June, 1942.So now the IJN is using Japanese diplomatic codes within the fleet?
The IJN had the JN-25 system, which was introduced in 1939 and
upgraded at the end of 1940. It was a classic code book system.
The allies managed to know enough from it to send a second aircraft
carrier to the Coral Sea for example.
Decryption reports were known as “MAGIC” and classified “Above Top Secret”,Actually the IJN knew from interrogation of captured USN aircrew how
with the great majority not declassified until 1995 and beyond. Although >>> at least one IJN officer voiced his suspicion in the aftermath of Midway >>> that Japanese codes had been broken, the high command still persisted in >>> its belief that this was impossible. Thus the treasure trove of
intelligence that came to the Allies through their cryptanalysis continued >>> to flow until the end of the war. To this day, MAGIC intercepts are not
particularly well known to most students and even many scholars of the
Pacific War, and they have direct and profound bearing on the history of >>> the conflict.
much the USN knew about the IJN Midway plan, the prisoners were
later executed. The cover was the IJN knew parts of the Midway fleet
were spotted by USN submarines leaving Japan.
For Further Reading:The labels being used suggest modern opinion shaping and
Why Truman Dropped the Bomb
HOME > JAPAN > TRUMAN'S DECISION Why Truman Dropped the Bomb [It's now the >>> 70th anniversary of Little Boy. Mr Frank's article is from the August 8, >>> 2005, issue of the Weekly Standard ] by Richard B. Frank The sixtieth
anniversary of Hiroshima seems to be shaping up as a subdued
affair--though not for any lack of significance. A survey of news editors >>> in 1999 ranked the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, first
among the top one hundred stories of the twentieth century. And any
thoughtful list of controversies in American history would place it near >>> the top again. It was not always so. In 1945, an overwhelming majority of >>> Americans regarded as a matter of course that the United States had used >>> atomic bombs to end the Pacific war. They further believed that those
bombs had actually ended the war and saved countless lives. This set of
beliefs is now sometimes labeled by academic historians the
"traditionalist" view. One unkindly dubbed it the "patriotic orthodoxy." >>> But in the 1960s, what were previously modest and scattered challenges of >>> the decision to use the bombs began to crystallize into a rival canon. The >>> challengers were branded "revisionists," but this is inapt.
revisionism for WWII has a quite specific meaning, the attempt
to have Hitler as the good guy.
Any historian who gains possession of significant new evidence has a duty >>> to revise his appreciation of the relevant events. These challengers are >>> better termed critics. The critics share three fundamental premises. The >>> first is that Japan's situation in 1945 was catastrophically hopeless. The >>> second is that Japan's leaders recognized that fact and were seeking toThe answer to the above is the big 6 voted 3 to 3 war to peace from
surrender in the summer of 1945. The third is that thanks to decoded
Japanese diplomatic messages, American leaders knew that Japan was about >>> to surrender when they unleashed needless nuclear devastation.
early 1945 through the atomic bomb and USSR declaration of war.
The hope being that an invasion of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Marianas,
Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Kyushu would cost the enemy so much they
would agree to letting Japan continue with its current power structure,
and territory, certainly no occupation. As the war came closer to
Japan the military power balance moved towards Japan, it had a
much bigger army and Kamikaze force ready in Japan than deployed
at Okinawa and the aircraft could come in low over land, not have to
travel the over water distances to the allied fleet. All citizens
encouraged to take one allied soldier with them.
https://warbirdforum.com/dropbomb.htmActually it was a lack of Japanese spies.
William Pellas
I Live in the United States of AmericaUpdated Jul 16
What happened to US citizens of Japanese descent who were convicted of
espionage during WW2?
To my knowledge there were no US citizens of Japanese descent who were
convicted of espionage during WWII.
But this is not because none of them were spying for Japan.
Rather, there were no trials because the US was trying to keep itsThe 1941 effort was a joint one, Philippines and Singapore and it was
greatest weapon a secret.
No, that weapon was not the atomic bomb, which would not be developed and >>> fielded until 1945. Rather, it was…MAGIC. “MAGIC” was the code word for
the summary reports produced by the highest level of American crytanalysis >>> and codebreaking. This effort began in earnest when US Navy spooks and
translators first broke a significant portion of the Imperial Japanese
Navy’s JN-25 cipher and related codes in 1940, with another significant >>> breakthrough in 1941.
a steady accumulation.
So the only way to prosecute a person of Japanese origin for espionage
in WWII was to reveal codebreaking?
JN-25 Fact SheetGuadalcanal?
War of Secrets: Cryptology in WWII
The most notable success produced as a direct result of this American
signals intelligence was the Battle of Midway, which was probably the
single most decisive encounter in the entire Pacific War. Certainly it was >>> the one that finally stopped the onrushing Japanese juggernaut, which had >>> been running wild for nearly seven months ever since Pearl Harbor, in its >>> tracks.
US Navy Aircraft Carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) Under Attack by ImperialOne heavy cruiser.
Japanese Navy Bombers During the Battle of Midway, 4 June - 7 June 1942. >>> Yorktown Was Lost During the Battle, But the USN Won an Overwhelming
Tactical and Strategic Victory, Sinking Four Japanese Aircraft Carriers
and Two Heavy Cruisers. Midway Was Largely the Product of US Navy
Codebreaking.
How Did the U.S. Break Japanese Military Codes Before the Battle ofHaving taken part in the creation of the electronic copy of the messages,
Midway?
But prior to the war, MAGIC had revealed another vitally important piece >>> of information: Japanese officials were caught red handed in several
transmissions during which the mobilization of Japanese-Americans for
espionage was discussed in detail.
so more than just read them, the messages reporting the lack of
success and the lack of information need to be mentioned.
In addition, literally hundreds of MAGIC intercepts contained intelligence >>> (spy) reports obtained from surveillance of targets in the US, though the >>> identities of the agents were usually not provided.Like the usual military attaches etc. or people talking about what
they were seeing.
Nominally “neutral” Spain subsequently ran a wide-ranging spy network inRight so the Japanese in Berlin were given a message from
North America with German and Japanese input and logistical support, and >>> it is known that there was also considerable sympathy for the Axis cause >>> in South America—where future Argentine leader Juan Peron was also
involved in espionage aimed at the United States. But again this came
later, in 1942–43, after the intelligence intercepts described immediately
above.
A Declassified MAGIC Intercept of a Spanish Espionage Report Regarding an >>> Allied Convoy Spotted as it Sailed Past Gibraltar During WWII. The Report >>> Was Sent From Lisbon, Portugal, to a Japanese Intelligence Operative in
Berlin, Germany. I Took This Photo Myself in Person at the US National
Archives in Suitland, MD, in 2012.
Spain and this relates to Japanese activity in the US in what way?
Further, according to a May, 1983 article in the New York Times:Right so mobilise the citizens and then comes "seems" to have
“A cable from the Tokyo Government to its Washington embassy, dated Jan. >>> 30, 1941, asked the embassy and Japanese consulates to arrange for
''utilization of our 'second generations' and our resident nationals.''
But it added, in parentheses, ''in view of the fact that if there is any >>> slip in this phase, our people in the U.S. will be subjected to
considerable persecution, the utmost caution must be exercised.''
On May 9, 1941, the Los Angeles consulate sent Tokyo a message marked
''strictly secret'' that seemed to assert that cooperation was being
obtained from some ethnic Japanese.
happened, no chance the people in the embassies putting a gloss
on their efforts for example?
The cable said strong efforts were being made to recruit white and black >>> agents ''through Japanese persons whom we can trust completely.''So in other words probable US citizens as spies who are initially
screened by Japanese citizens known to the embassy.
''We have already established contacts with absolutely reliable Japanese >>> in the San Pedro and San Diego area, who will keep a close watch on allSo where are all the reports to Tokyo?
shipments of airplanes and other war materials, and report the amounts and >>> destinations of such shipments,'' the message said. ''We shall maintain
connection with our second generations who are in the army, to keep us
informed of various developments in the army. We also have connections
with our second generations working in airplane plants for intelligence
purposes.''
A cable from the Seattle consulate dated May 11 told Tokyo that
intelligence would be collected on United States naval ships in the
Bremerton, Wash., Naval shipyard; on mercantile shipping; on aircraft
manufacturing, and on troop and ship movements.
David Lowman, who was previously the special assistant to the director of >>> the National Security Agency, was personally responsible for theAnyone unaware of how subordinates like to report only good news
declassification and subsequent publication of some of the MAGIC
documents. In the Times piece, he is quoted as saying:
''Anyone reading this flow of messages during 1941 could easily conclude >>> that thousands of resident Japanese were being organized into subversive >>> organizations…Today we know that the Japanese Government misjudged the >>> loyalty of Japanese Americans completely. But at that time no one knew for >>> certain.''
to their far away superiors, and the lack of hard information going
back in the diplomatic traffic.
However, it seems that he was toeing the politically correct line at the >>> time, because later in life he became quite outspoken about the threat to >>> US security posed by some Japanese Americans (and also by JapaneseThe lack of a similar round up of Italian American and German American
nationals living in the US and its overseas territories) during WWII. So >>> much so, in fact, that he wrote a book, MAGIC: The Untold Story of U.S.
Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents from the West Coast >>> during World War II, in which he argued vociferously that the internment >>> camps were justified given what the US knew because of its above top
secret codebreaking. Note that Lowman’s book was not published until after
his death.
Among Lowman’s biggest complaints was that both federal and California >>> state government money was (and still is) being spent to perpetuate the
narrative of the Japanese Americans as completely innocent and the victims >>> of fearmongering and racism. Murphey summarizes:
"California presently appropriates millions of dollars in support of the >>> ‘official' history of Japanese evacuation." Such continued funding of a >>> skewed telling of history by federal and state governments and by
tax-exempt organizations, all propelled by politics and ideology,
exacerbates a problem that in lesser forms has long bedeviled serious
scholars. When prior generations, for example, have enshrined specific and >>> often highly partisan perceptions in monuments, cemeteries, and public
commemorations of all kinds, they have promoted a certain "received
history." That version has then become the mythology of the age that has >>> followed.
citizens or just their exclusion from coastal areas where the U-boats
were sinking large numbers of ships and also landing the occasional
agent needs to be explained. The community did have some spies.
THE RELOCATION OF THE JAPANESE-AMERICANS DURING WORLD WAR II : Dwight D. >>> MurpheyRight so the US investigation system, given the tip offs from Magic
Dwight D. Murphey Collection
Internment Archives — Link goes to the section “MAGIC: The Untold Story”
on the Internment Archives website.
Internment Archives— Link goes to the article, A NATIONAL DISGRACE:
The Story of the Japanese Evacuation From the West Coast During WW II,
Based on Contemporary Evidence Not Racial Demagoguery. By Lee Allen,
Lt.Col. U. S. Army (Ret.) with help from William J. Hopwood, Cmdr.
U.S.N.R. (Ret.)
Internment Archives— Link goes to the article, “Critique of the
Smithsonian Institution's Exhibit: "A More Perfect Union: Japanese
Americans and the U.S. Constitution”, by Lee Allen and Sam Allen.
American Military Bases, Equipment, Soldiers, and Sailors Under Attack
During the Japanese Air Raid on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 7 December 1941. The >>> Assault Was Aided Greatly By Information Gathered From Espionage by Both >>> Japanese Military Personnel and Japanese Americans Living in Hawaii.
In the end, no Japanese Americans were charged with spying, treason, or
fifth column activities as a result of being discovered through MAGIC, and >>> as far as I know there were no legal or court proceedings to that
effect—at least not publicly. But that was not because none of them were >>> guilty. It was because, as Richard Frank writes, “By the summer of 1945, >>> Allied radio intelligence was breaking into a million messages a month
from the Japanese Imperial Army alone, and many thousands from the
Imperial Navy and Japanese diplomats.” This intelligence was by far
America’s greatest and most important advantage over its Japanese
adversaries in the death struggle that was the Pacific War. It was an
advantage, and a secret, that had to be protected at all costs, even to
the point of accepting blame from postwar academic leftists and activists >>> for crimes that were either nothing of the sort, or at minimum were far
less than they have been made out to be ever since the 1960s.
was totally unable to build a case against any Japanese person for
spying without revealing the decrypts, even in wartime, but did so
for some other spies. Were the Japanese just that much better?
Were the Japanese internment camps justified?You mean like the other axis powers?
An argument can be made that they were, and it is a strong one. It turns >>> out that Japan was actively trying to recruit espionage and sabotage
agents from among the ranks of both its own nationals and first generation >>> Japanese-Americans who were living and working in the US or its
territories, like Hawaii.
This effort was evidently fairly successful. There are literally hundreds >>> of MAGIC SIGINT (signals intelligence) intercepts of spy reports by these >>> recruits and other Japanese operatives that prove it.Not in the diplomatic traffic unless of course "other Japanese
operatives" are added, you know, the embassy staff doing their
professional duty.
As it happened, several thousand German and Italian foreign nationals who >>> had been in the United States during the Pearl Harbor attack and afterward >>> were rounded up by the FBI and other government agencies and put in camps, >>> themselves.Yes, the expected policy is to intern foreign citizens. Not round up
the entire community of axis-Americans.
Hoover apparently had no problem with this policy,Like everyone else.
Is there any way to justify the forcible internment of Japanese Americans >>> during WWII?Apparent success? Did they or did they not? And what about the
Yes. It’s right here: 1941 CABLES BOASTED OF JAPANESE-AMERICAN SPYING
Throughout 1941, US counterintelligence intercepted, decrypted, and
translated numerous transmissions (“cables”, though also radio traffic) in
which Japanese government and military officials discussed active and
apparently successful attempts by Japan to recruit spies and possible
future saboteurs from among both Japanese-American citizens—that is, 1st >>> and even 2nd generation Americans born in the US—and Japanese nationals >>> living and working in the US and Hawaii.
ideas to recruit non ethnic Japanese?
A cable from the Tokyo Government to its Washington embassy, dated Jan.Results?
30, 1941, asked the embassy and Japanese consulates to arrange for
''utilization of our 'second generations' and our resident nationals.''
But it added, in parentheses, ''in view of the fact that if there is any >>> slip in this phase, our people in the U.S. will be subjected to
considerable persecution, the utmost caution must be exercised.''
On May 9, 1941, the Los Angeles consulate sent Tokyo a message markedCo-operation meaning telling what they saw or what?
''strictly secret'' that seemed to assert that cooperation was being
obtained from some ethnic Japanese.
Japan in fact succeeded in organizing and running at least a handful ofSo where were the rings and what did they do. The move to
spy networks in the continental United States during the war, and also
operated a “SIGINT” (signals intelligence) station in Mexico that listened
in on American radio traffic.
Mexico was a long standing plan, neutral country.
William Pellas's answer to Did the Japanese know that atomic bombs wereYet none are named and when the IJN officer who took part in the
being built? US agents were also able to identify a number of Japanese,
both Japanese-Americans and Japanese nationals, who provided essential
intel on American forces in and around Pearl Harbor.
route proving voyage, come in from the north, arrived he simply took
a joy flight for a complete view of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese
consulate was quite able to keep a watch on USN activities.
This information contributed greatly to the overwhelming Japanese success >>> in the air raid of 7 December, 1941, in which more than 2,200 AmericansSo who were the non Japanese consulate staff supplying this key
were killed.
information? What was the vital stuff the consulate could not discover?
So, in light of this, I have some questions for all of the retroactiveThe trouble with this idea is lots more evidence members of the
pseudomoral handwringers who love to make great hay of this issue. 1. If >>> Roosevelt had ignored this intelligence and Japanese-American spies and
saboteurs had succeeded in killing other American civilians on US soil,
and/or in causing critical damage to US war industry through sabotage,
and/or in providing crucial intelligence that paved the way for additional >>> Japanese military victories that killed additional thousands of American >>> servicemen, would all that have been perfectly alright with you?
European axis American community were doing bad things.
2. What if this additional Japanese fifth column activity won the war for >>> Japan?The idea being to bury America under a pile of messages that promised
much but delivered little?
3. Do you think you would like the postwar world that Japan would haveUnlikely.
built as well as the one the US built, had the Japanese won the war?
4. And, what would you think of Roosevelt’s Constitutional responsibility >>> to his nation had he refused or failed to act on the intelligence he was >>> receiving?So interning everyone because some might be bad guys is
constitutional?
Gee, I guess maybe it’s not quite so simple as plain old white maleEasy when you ask the questions and supply the answers.
racism, now, is it? Hint: No, it’s not.
Go round up the European axis Americans, there was a lot more
evidence members of those communities were undertaking anti
US operations though their spies were apparently easier to catch,
not needing Magic intercepts read out in open court to obtain a
conviction.
William PellasRight so not about history but about today.
· Jul 16
Why is FDR considered a great leader when he is responsible for thousands >>> of Asian-Americans being sent to internment camps?
One of the many tragedies resulting from the New Left - PC takeover of the >>> public education system in the West in general—and in the United States in
particular—is the politicization and general destruction of the history of
the Second World War.
For the record, there were a number of Japanese spies at Pearl Harbor, and >>> they provided crucial intelligence in the runup to the attack against the >>> US Pacific Fleet on 7 December 1941. Some of these, to be sure, wereMember of the consulate staff. Japanese citizen. IJN officer.
Japanese nationals and military professionals as opposed to American
citizens of Japanese descent—most of whom, certainly, were loyal to the >>> US—but nevertheless, they were there. For example, this man: Imperial
Japanese Navy Ensign Takeo Yoshikawa, the Top Japanese Spy in Hawaii in
the Years Immediately Prior to the Attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December
1941.
After the war, Yoshikawa would claim that he never used Japanese-Americans >>> living in Hawaii as sources for his espionage, but this is certainlySo no evidence, just an assertion he must be telling lies.
false.
Japanese American Richard Kotoshirodo and Japanese national John MikamiSo what information, and how did it get back to Japan?
are known to have spied for Japan (if in fairness not necessarily directly >>> for Yoshikawa), and they gathered extensive amounts of information that
was very useful to the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor.
In addition, a Japanese American couple—Yoshio and Irene Harada—joined aThis is evidence of possibly war outcome changing spying?
Japanese pilot in his one man reign of terror when he crash landed at
Niihau island, Hawaii after being shot down by American fighters.
A combined Spanish fascist - Japanese spy network code-named “TO”So may have, replacing seems to. And non Japanese involvement.
(pronounced “toe” and also known as “Span-Nap”) may have managed to >>> penetrate the eastern branch of the Manhattan Project before it was
smashed by a joint US-Canadian counterintelligence sting in 1943.
The FBI informs you that known Japanese spies, including at least a fewReplace Japanese with German and Italian above.
Japanese-American citizens more sympathetic to Tokyo than they are loyal >>> to Washington, are operating in Hawaii and on the US mainland. Do you
really have time to develop detailed dossiers and interview every one of >>> these people to figure out who is loyal and who is not?
Therefore, the President ordered that they be rounded up and essentially >>> quarantined from the rest of the population until there was reasonableAs above. The US merchant marine notes it suffered a higher
assurance that some among them were not providing material aid,
assistance, and intelligence to a hostile foreign power that had already >>> killed more than 2,200 Americans—and that would kill many, many more
before the War was decided.
percentage casualty rate than any of the US armed forces, including
the Marines, mostly to U-boat attack.
Was this a draconian solution to a difficult problem? Yes. Were anyIgnoring suicides.
Japanese-Americans killed in the process? Even a single one? No (although >>> a handful did perish in various incidents in the relocation camps).
A number of Japanese Americans in fact went on to serve with valor andDespite rather than because of the treatment received.
distinction in the US armed forces against the Axis powers.
Did the Japanese send spies to USA during WW2?So actions before war are now counted. Like the US operations
Yes. During the interim between the first and second world wars, Japanese >>> espionage operations included SIGINT (signals intelligence) conducted by >>> at least one spy ship which sailed off the US west coast, and clandestine >>> break-ins at various western nation consulates.
doing the same to foreigners?
Bernard Julius Otto Kuehn (sometimes referred to as Kuhn ) and his family >>> were spies in the employ of the Abwehr for Nazi Germany who had close ties >>> to Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels .So a German national working for Japan and the preferred solution
is to round up the Japanese but not the Germans?
[1] In 1935, Goebbels offered Kuehn a job working for Japanesehttps://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/pearl-harbor-spy
intelligence in Hawaii ; he accepted and moved his family to Honolulu on >>> August 15, 1935.
All he needed was IJN submarines to watch for his visual signals.
Dr. Kuhn would flash coded messages from the attic of the Kuhn household—aIncluding by any IJN warships.
system that went undetected until the end.
The Japanese espionage/spying network in the US was less
successful than the German and Italian ones. The evidence given
for rounding up Japanese Americans is the Japanese government
employed people of European origin as spies as well as tried to
recruit at least informers from the Japanese American community
but no evidence the recruitment worked. The lack of ethnic Japanese
spies being caught is put down to the only way to prosecute them
was to reveal the extent of allied code breaking, but spies of other
nationalities were easier, not needing such evidence.
Pearl Harbor was wide open pre war, a visit to a hill overlooking
the area, a joy ride in the area but apparently it took spies in the
community to obtain key information necessary for the attack to
work well, but no mention of what that information was. The IJN
and USN had considered each other their most probable enemy
for over 20 years by 1940, and each had built up large dossiers
on the other.
Whatever the moral and legal views of what happened the articles
range over time and space to find Japanese behaving badly, or
people helping Japanese to behave badly, and asserts there were
lots of Japanese in the US who were really good at being bad, over
and above the usual people in the diplomatic system. The main
thing missing is evidence.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
The only thing missing is evidence? Hardly.
It's all through the following article, particularly in the links to the "Internment Archives". There are a number of additional articles on Quora written by David Brown, a former US Army general staff officer, which provide many additional sources
https://qr.ae/pvSXZq
On Saturday, July 23, 2022 at 1:25:09 PM UTC-4, Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
"a425couple" <a425c...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:EEBCK.421213$ssF.1...@fx14.iad...
A Quora that touches on WWII Japanese in USA security concerns.They had a fundamental point, there were few non Japanese who
William Pellas
Studied at American Military University Updated 16h
Why didn't the Japanese in World War II think that the Allies could
break
their communications codes?
There were several reasons.
The first was that most Japanese at that time believed that the
fundamentally alien nature of their language relative to the great
majority of the languages spoken by their likely enemies guaranteed a
layer of security for their crucial communications.
could speak the language fluently and even fewer considered
trustworthy enough to work on code breaking. It took years to build
up the system given the low base.
It must be said that there was a grain of truth to this perspective,Why the need for code breaking when the messages themselves
because the many nuances of the insular culture that had existed for
many
centuries on the cramped Japanese Home Islands were very difficult for
outsiders to grasp. These same nuances (such as the practice of
haragei)
affected the Japanese language in a myriad of ways that would not often
be
apparent even to foreigners who had mastered that language from a
grammatical standpoint.
. [5] In negotiation, haragei is characterised by euphemisms, vague and
indirect statements, prolonged silences and careful avoidance of any
comment that might cause offense.
will be difficult to understand by the intended recipients? Writing
loses lots of information, low bandwidth communication requires
clear precise wordage. More so when it becomes legal language
for things like treaties.
https://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2013/02/secrets-abroad-a-history-of-the-japanese-purple-machine.htmlNot really surprising as the IJN was not using it. Their main fleet
Type B Cipher Machine - Wikipedia
Japanese diplomatic code named Purple by the US This article is about a
World War II era cipher used by the Japanese Foreign Office for
diplomatic
communications.
The Navy believed the Purple machine was sufficiently difficult to
break
that it did not attempt to revise it to improve security.
code was what the allies called JN-25
John Prados' combined fleet decoded.
Page 439 on the Random House hard back edition, part of chapter
seventeen. The IJN had a naval attaché code the US called Coral,
it used a machine using the same operating principles as the
"Purple" devices, which the Japanese called the 97 Siki Romazi Inziki.
It was introduced in September 1939 and was more complicated
than the "Purple" devices and there were few messages sent using
it before December 1941. Coral was first read on 13 March 1944.
A similar 97 Siki Romazi Inziki machine was used by IJN shore
stations from either August or December 1942 to around August
1944, see page 344, this had been broken in August 1943, the
USN called this Jade and breaking it helped break Coral
Japanese signals sent through this architecture were not penetrated toSo now the IJN is using Japanese diplomatic codes within the fleet?
a
comprehensive extent for more than two years—just in time for the
pivotal
Battle of Midway in June, 1942.
The IJN had the JN-25 system, which was introduced in 1939 and
upgraded at the end of 1940. It was a classic code book system.
The allies managed to know enough from it to send a second aircraft
carrier to the Coral Sea for example.
Decryption reports were known as “MAGIC” and classified “Above Top >> > Secret”,Actually the IJN knew from interrogation of captured USN aircrew how
with the great majority not declassified until 1995 and beyond.
Although
at least one IJN officer voiced his suspicion in the aftermath of
Midway
that Japanese codes had been broken, the high command still persisted
in
its belief that this was impossible. Thus the treasure trove of
intelligence that came to the Allies through their cryptanalysis
continued
to flow until the end of the war. To this day, MAGIC intercepts are not
particularly well known to most students and even many scholars of the
Pacific War, and they have direct and profound bearing on the history
of
the conflict.
much the USN knew about the IJN Midway plan, the prisoners were
later executed. The cover was the IJN knew parts of the Midway fleet
were spotted by USN submarines leaving Japan.
For Further Reading:The labels being used suggest modern opinion shaping and
Why Truman Dropped the Bomb
HOME > JAPAN > TRUMAN'S DECISION Why Truman Dropped the Bomb [It's now
the
70th anniversary of Little Boy. Mr Frank's article is from the August
8,
2005, issue of the Weekly Standard ] by Richard B. Frank The sixtieth
anniversary of Hiroshima seems to be shaping up as a subdued
affair--though not for any lack of significance. A survey of news
editors
in 1999 ranked the dropping of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945, first
among the top one hundred stories of the twentieth century. And any
thoughtful list of controversies in American history would place it
near
the top again. It was not always so. In 1945, an overwhelming majority
of
Americans regarded as a matter of course that the United States had
used
atomic bombs to end the Pacific war. They further believed that those
bombs had actually ended the war and saved countless lives. This set of
beliefs is now sometimes labeled by academic historians the
"traditionalist" view. One unkindly dubbed it the "patriotic
orthodoxy."
But in the 1960s, what were previously modest and scattered challenges
of
the decision to use the bombs began to crystallize into a rival canon.
The
challengers were branded "revisionists," but this is inapt.
revisionism for WWII has a quite specific meaning, the attempt
to have Hitler as the good guy.
Any historian who gains possession of significant new evidence has aThe answer to the above is the big 6 voted 3 to 3 war to peace from
duty
to revise his appreciation of the relevant events. These challengers
are
better termed critics. The critics share three fundamental premises.
The
first is that Japan's situation in 1945 was catastrophically hopeless.
The
second is that Japan's leaders recognized that fact and were seeking to
surrender in the summer of 1945. The third is that thanks to decoded
Japanese diplomatic messages, American leaders knew that Japan was
about
to surrender when they unleashed needless nuclear devastation.
early 1945 through the atomic bomb and USSR declaration of war.
The hope being that an invasion of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Marianas,
Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Kyushu would cost the enemy so much they
would agree to letting Japan continue with its current power structure,
and territory, certainly no occupation. As the war came closer to
Japan the military power balance moved towards Japan, it had a
much bigger army and Kamikaze force ready in Japan than deployed
at Okinawa and the aircraft could come in low over land, not have to
travel the over water distances to the allied fleet. All citizens
encouraged to take one allied soldier with them.
https://warbirdforum.com/dropbomb.htmActually it was a lack of Japanese spies.
William Pellas
I Live in the United States of AmericaUpdated Jul 16
What happened to US citizens of Japanese descent who were convicted of
espionage during WW2?
To my knowledge there were no US citizens of Japanese descent who were
convicted of espionage during WWII.
But this is not because none of them were spying for Japan.
Rather, there were no trials because the US was trying to keep itsThe 1941 effort was a joint one, Philippines and Singapore and it was
greatest weapon a secret.
No, that weapon was not the atomic bomb, which would not be developed
and
fielded until 1945. Rather, it was…MAGIC. “MAGIC” was the code word for
the summary reports produced by the highest level of American
crytanalysis
and codebreaking. This effort began in earnest when US Navy spooks and
translators first broke a significant portion of the Imperial Japanese
Navy’s JN-25 cipher and related codes in 1940, with another significant >> > breakthrough in 1941.
a steady accumulation.
So the only way to prosecute a person of Japanese origin for espionage
in WWII was to reveal codebreaking?
JN-25 Fact SheetGuadalcanal?
War of Secrets: Cryptology in WWII
The most notable success produced as a direct result of this American
signals intelligence was the Battle of Midway, which was probably the
single most decisive encounter in the entire Pacific War. Certainly it
was
the one that finally stopped the onrushing Japanese juggernaut, which
had
been running wild for nearly seven months ever since Pearl Harbor, in
its
tracks.
US Navy Aircraft Carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) Under Attack by ImperialOne heavy cruiser.
Japanese Navy Bombers During the Battle of Midway, 4 June - 7 June
1942.
Yorktown Was Lost During the Battle, But the USN Won an Overwhelming
Tactical and Strategic Victory, Sinking Four Japanese Aircraft Carriers
and Two Heavy Cruisers. Midway Was Largely the Product of US Navy
Codebreaking.
How Did the U.S. Break Japanese Military Codes Before the Battle ofHaving taken part in the creation of the electronic copy of the messages,
Midway?
But prior to the war, MAGIC had revealed another vitally important
piece
of information: Japanese officials were caught red handed in several
transmissions during which the mobilization of Japanese-Americans for
espionage was discussed in detail.
so more than just read them, the messages reporting the lack of
success and the lack of information need to be mentioned.
In addition, literally hundreds of MAGIC intercepts containedLike the usual military attaches etc. or people talking about what
intelligence
(spy) reports obtained from surveillance of targets in the US, though
the
identities of the agents were usually not provided.
they were seeing.
Nominally “neutral” Spain subsequently ran a wide-ranging spy network >> > inRight so the Japanese in Berlin were given a message from
North America with German and Japanese input and logistical support,
and
it is known that there was also considerable sympathy for the Axis
cause
in South America—where future Argentine leader Juan Peron was also
involved in espionage aimed at the United States. But again this came
later, in 1942–43, after the intelligence intercepts described
immediately
above.
A Declassified MAGIC Intercept of a Spanish Espionage Report Regarding
an
Allied Convoy Spotted as it Sailed Past Gibraltar During WWII. The
Report
Was Sent From Lisbon, Portugal, to a Japanese Intelligence Operative in
Berlin, Germany. I Took This Photo Myself in Person at the US National
Archives in Suitland, MD, in 2012.
Spain and this relates to Japanese activity in the US in what way?
Further, according to a May, 1983 article in the New York Times:Right so mobilise the citizens and then comes "seems" to have
“A cable from the Tokyo Government to its Washington embassy, dated
Jan.
30, 1941, asked the embassy and Japanese consulates to arrange for
''utilization of our 'second generations' and our resident nationals.''
But it added, in parentheses, ''in view of the fact that if there is
any
slip in this phase, our people in the U.S. will be subjected to
considerable persecution, the utmost caution must be exercised.''
On May 9, 1941, the Los Angeles consulate sent Tokyo a message marked
''strictly secret'' that seemed to assert that cooperation was being
obtained from some ethnic Japanese.
happened, no chance the people in the embassies putting a gloss
on their efforts for example?
The cable said strong efforts were being made to recruit white andSo in other words probable US citizens as spies who are initially
black
agents ''through Japanese persons whom we can trust completely.''
screened by Japanese citizens known to the embassy.
''We have already established contacts with absolutely reliableSo where are all the reports to Tokyo?
Japanese
in the San Pedro and San Diego area, who will keep a close watch on all
shipments of airplanes and other war materials, and report the amounts
and
destinations of such shipments,'' the message said. ''We shall maintain
connection with our second generations who are in the army, to keep us
informed of various developments in the army. We also have connections
with our second generations working in airplane plants for intelligence
purposes.''
A cable from the Seattle consulate dated May 11 told Tokyo that
intelligence would be collected on United States naval ships in the
Bremerton, Wash., Naval shipyard; on mercantile shipping; on aircraft
manufacturing, and on troop and ship movements.
David Lowman, who was previously the special assistant to the directorAnyone unaware of how subordinates like to report only good news
of
the National Security Agency, was personally responsible for the
declassification and subsequent publication of some of the MAGIC
documents. In the Times piece, he is quoted as saying:
''Anyone reading this flow of messages during 1941 could easily
conclude
that thousands of resident Japanese were being organized into
subversive
organizations…Today we know that the Japanese Government misjudged the >> > loyalty of Japanese Americans completely. But at that time no one knew
for
certain.''
to their far away superiors, and the lack of hard information going
back in the diplomatic traffic.
However, it seems that he was toeing the politically correct line atThe lack of a similar round up of Italian American and German American
the
time, because later in life he became quite outspoken about the threat
to
US security posed by some Japanese Americans (and also by Japanese
nationals living in the US and its overseas territories) during WWII.
So
much so, in fact, that he wrote a book, MAGIC: The Untold Story of U.S.
Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents from the West
Coast
during World War II, in which he argued vociferously that the
internment
camps were justified given what the US knew because of its above top
secret codebreaking. Note that Lowman’s book was not published until
after
his death.
Among Lowman’s biggest complaints was that both federal and California >> > state government money was (and still is) being spent to perpetuate the
narrative of the Japanese Americans as completely innocent and the
victims
of fearmongering and racism. Murphey summarizes:
"California presently appropriates millions of dollars in support of
the
‘official' history of Japanese evacuation." Such continued funding of a >> > skewed telling of history by federal and state governments and by
tax-exempt organizations, all propelled by politics and ideology,
exacerbates a problem that in lesser forms has long bedeviled serious
scholars. When prior generations, for example, have enshrined specific
and
often highly partisan perceptions in monuments, cemeteries, and public
commemorations of all kinds, they have promoted a certain "received
history." That version has then become the mythology of the age that
has
followed.
citizens or just their exclusion from coastal areas where the U-boats
were sinking large numbers of ships and also landing the occasional
agent needs to be explained. The community did have some spies.
THE RELOCATION OF THE JAPANESE-AMERICANS DURING WORLD WAR II : DwightRight so the US investigation system, given the tip offs from Magic
D.
Murphey
Dwight D. Murphey Collection
Internment Archives — Link goes to the section “MAGIC: The Untold
Story”
on the Internment Archives website.
Internment Archives— Link goes to the article, A NATIONAL DISGRACE:
The Story of the Japanese Evacuation From the West Coast During WW II,
Based on Contemporary Evidence Not Racial Demagoguery. By Lee Allen,
Lt.Col. U. S. Army (Ret.) with help from William J. Hopwood, Cmdr.
U.S.N.R. (Ret.)
Internment Archives— Link goes to the article, “Critique of the
Smithsonian Institution's Exhibit: "A More Perfect Union: Japanese
Americans and the U.S. Constitution”, by Lee Allen and Sam Allen.
American Military Bases, Equipment, Soldiers, and Sailors Under Attack
During the Japanese Air Raid on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 7 December 1941.
The
Assault Was Aided Greatly By Information Gathered From Espionage by
Both
Japanese Military Personnel and Japanese Americans Living in Hawaii.
In the end, no Japanese Americans were charged with spying, treason, or
fifth column activities as a result of being discovered through MAGIC,
and
as far as I know there were no legal or court proceedings to that
effect—at least not publicly. But that was not because none of them
were
guilty. It was because, as Richard Frank writes, “By the summer of
1945,
Allied radio intelligence was breaking into a million messages a month
from the Japanese Imperial Army alone, and many thousands from the
Imperial Navy and Japanese diplomats.” This intelligence was by far
America’s greatest and most important advantage over its Japanese
adversaries in the death struggle that was the Pacific War. It was an
advantage, and a secret, that had to be protected at all costs, even to
the point of accepting blame from postwar academic leftists and
activists
for crimes that were either nothing of the sort, or at minimum were far
less than they have been made out to be ever since the 1960s.
was totally unable to build a case against any Japanese person for
spying without revealing the decrypts, even in wartime, but did so
for some other spies. Were the Japanese just that much better?
Were the Japanese internment camps justified?You mean like the other axis powers?
An argument can be made that they were, and it is a strong one. It
turns
out that Japan was actively trying to recruit espionage and sabotage
agents from among the ranks of both its own nationals and first
generation
Japanese-Americans who were living and working in the US or its
territories, like Hawaii.
This effort was evidently fairly successful. There are literallyNot in the diplomatic traffic unless of course "other Japanese
hundreds
of MAGIC SIGINT (signals intelligence) intercepts of spy reports by
these
recruits and other Japanese operatives that prove it.
operatives" are added, you know, the embassy staff doing their
professional duty.
As it happened, several thousand German and Italian foreign nationalsYes, the expected policy is to intern foreign citizens. Not round up
who
had been in the United States during the Pearl Harbor attack and
afterward
were rounded up by the FBI and other government agencies and put in
camps,
themselves.
the entire community of axis-Americans.
Hoover apparently had no problem with this policy,Like everyone else.
Is there any way to justify the forcible internment of JapaneseApparent success? Did they or did they not? And what about the
Americans
during WWII?
Yes. It’s right here: 1941 CABLES BOASTED OF JAPANESE-AMERICAN SPYING
Throughout 1941, US counterintelligence intercepted, decrypted, and
translated numerous transmissions (“cables”, though also radio traffic)
in
which Japanese government and military officials discussed active and
apparently successful attempts by Japan to recruit spies and possible
future saboteurs from among both Japanese-American citizens—that is,
1st
and even 2nd generation Americans born in the US—and Japanese nationals >> > living and working in the US and Hawaii.
ideas to recruit non ethnic Japanese?
A cable from the Tokyo Government to its Washington embassy, dated Jan.Results?
30, 1941, asked the embassy and Japanese consulates to arrange for
''utilization of our 'second generations' and our resident nationals.''
But it added, in parentheses, ''in view of the fact that if there is
any
slip in this phase, our people in the U.S. will be subjected to
considerable persecution, the utmost caution must be exercised.''
On May 9, 1941, the Los Angeles consulate sent Tokyo a message markedCo-operation meaning telling what they saw or what?
''strictly secret'' that seemed to assert that cooperation was being
obtained from some ethnic Japanese.
Japan in fact succeeded in organizing and running at least a handful ofSo where were the rings and what did they do. The move to
spy networks in the continental United States during the war, and also
operated a “SIGINT” (signals intelligence) station in Mexico that
listened
in on American radio traffic.
Mexico was a long standing plan, neutral country.
William Pellas's answer to Did the Japanese know that atomic bombs wereYet none are named and when the IJN officer who took part in the
being built? US agents were also able to identify a number of Japanese,
both Japanese-Americans and Japanese nationals, who provided essential
intel on American forces in and around Pearl Harbor.
route proving voyage, come in from the north, arrived he simply took
a joy flight for a complete view of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese
consulate was quite able to keep a watch on USN activities.
This information contributed greatly to the overwhelming JapaneseSo who were the non Japanese consulate staff supplying this key
success
in the air raid of 7 December, 1941, in which more than 2,200 Americans
were killed.
information? What was the vital stuff the consulate could not discover?
So, in light of this, I have some questions for all of the retroactiveThe trouble with this idea is lots more evidence members of the
pseudomoral handwringers who love to make great hay of this issue. 1.
If
Roosevelt had ignored this intelligence and Japanese-American spies and
saboteurs had succeeded in killing other American civilians on US soil,
and/or in causing critical damage to US war industry through sabotage,
and/or in providing crucial intelligence that paved the way for
additional
Japanese military victories that killed additional thousands of
American
servicemen, would all that have been perfectly alright with you?
European axis American community were doing bad things.
2. What if this additional Japanese fifth column activity won the warThe idea being to bury America under a pile of messages that promised
for
Japan?
much but delivered little?
3. Do you think you would like the postwar world that Japan would haveUnlikely.
built as well as the one the US built, had the Japanese won the war?
4. And, what would you think of Roosevelt’s ConstitutionalSo interning everyone because some might be bad guys is
responsibility
to his nation had he refused or failed to act on the intelligence he
was
receiving?
constitutional?
Gee, I guess maybe it’s not quite so simple as plain old white maleEasy when you ask the questions and supply the answers.
racism, now, is it? Hint: No, it’s not.
Go round up the European axis Americans, there was a lot more
evidence members of those communities were undertaking anti
US operations though their spies were apparently easier to catch,
not needing Magic intercepts read out in open court to obtain a
conviction.
William PellasRight so not about history but about today.
· Jul 16
Why is FDR considered a great leader when he is responsible for
thousands
of Asian-Americans being sent to internment camps?
One of the many tragedies resulting from the New Left - PC takeover of
the
public education system in the West in general—and in the United States >> > in
particular—is the politicization and general destruction of the history >> > of
the Second World War.
For the record, there were a number of Japanese spies at Pearl Harbor,Member of the consulate staff. Japanese citizen. IJN officer.
and
they provided crucial intelligence in the runup to the attack against
the
US Pacific Fleet on 7 December 1941. Some of these, to be sure, were
Japanese nationals and military professionals as opposed to American
citizens of Japanese descent—most of whom, certainly, were loyal to the >> > US—but nevertheless, they were there. For example, this man: Imperial
Japanese Navy Ensign Takeo Yoshikawa, the Top Japanese Spy in Hawaii in
the Years Immediately Prior to the Attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December
1941.
After the war, Yoshikawa would claim that he never usedSo no evidence, just an assertion he must be telling lies.
Japanese-Americans
living in Hawaii as sources for his espionage, but this is certainly
false.
Japanese American Richard Kotoshirodo and Japanese national John MikamiSo what information, and how did it get back to Japan?
are known to have spied for Japan (if in fairness not necessarily
directly
for Yoshikawa), and they gathered extensive amounts of information that
was very useful to the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor.
In addition, a Japanese American couple—Yoshio and Irene Harada—joined >> > aThis is evidence of possibly war outcome changing spying?
Japanese pilot in his one man reign of terror when he crash landed at
Niihau island, Hawaii after being shot down by American fighters.
A combined Spanish fascist - Japanese spy network code-named “TO”So may have, replacing seems to. And non Japanese involvement.
(pronounced “toe” and also known as “Span-Nap”) may have managed to
penetrate the eastern branch of the Manhattan Project before it was
smashed by a joint US-Canadian counterintelligence sting in 1943.
The FBI informs you that known Japanese spies, including at least a fewReplace Japanese with German and Italian above.
Japanese-American citizens more sympathetic to Tokyo than they are
loyal
to Washington, are operating in Hawaii and on the US mainland. Do you
really have time to develop detailed dossiers and interview every one
of
these people to figure out who is loyal and who is not?
Therefore, the President ordered that they be rounded up andAs above. The US merchant marine notes it suffered a higher
essentially
quarantined from the rest of the population until there was reasonable
assurance that some among them were not providing material aid,
assistance, and intelligence to a hostile foreign power that had
already
killed more than 2,200 Americans—and that would kill many, many more
before the War was decided.
percentage casualty rate than any of the US armed forces, including
the Marines, mostly to U-boat attack.
Was this a draconian solution to a difficult problem? Yes. Were anyIgnoring suicides.
Japanese-Americans killed in the process? Even a single one? No
(although
a handful did perish in various incidents in the relocation camps).
A number of Japanese Americans in fact went on to serve with valor andDespite rather than because of the treatment received.
distinction in the US armed forces against the Axis powers.
Did the Japanese send spies to USA during WW2?So actions before war are now counted. Like the US operations
Yes. During the interim between the first and second world wars,
Japanese
espionage operations included SIGINT (signals intelligence) conducted
by
at least one spy ship which sailed off the US west coast, and
clandestine
break-ins at various western nation consulates.
doing the same to foreigners?
Bernard Julius Otto Kuehn (sometimes referred to as Kuhn ) and hisSo a German national working for Japan and the preferred solution
family
were spies in the employ of the Abwehr for Nazi Germany who had close
ties
to Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels .
is to round up the Japanese but not the Germans?
[1] In 1935, Goebbels offered Kuehn a job working for Japanesehttps://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/pearl-harbor-spy
intelligence in Hawaii ; he accepted and moved his family to Honolulu
on
August 15, 1935.
All he needed was IJN submarines to watch for his visual signals.
Dr. Kuhn would flash coded messages from the attic of the KuhnIncluding by any IJN warships.
household—a
system that went undetected until the end.
The Japanese espionage/spying network in the US was less
successful than the German and Italian ones. The evidence given
for rounding up Japanese Americans is the Japanese government
employed people of European origin as spies as well as tried to
recruit at least informers from the Japanese American community
but no evidence the recruitment worked. The lack of ethnic Japanese
spies being caught is put down to the only way to prosecute them
was to reveal the extent of allied code breaking, but spies of other
nationalities were easier, not needing such evidence.
Pearl Harbor was wide open pre war, a visit to a hill overlooking
the area, a joy ride in the area but apparently it took spies in the
community to obtain key information necessary for the attack to
work well, but no mention of what that information was. The IJN
and USN had considered each other their most probable enemy
for over 20 years by 1940, and each had built up large dossiers
on the other.
Whatever the moral and legal views of what happened the articles
range over time and space to find Japanese behaving badly, or
people helping Japanese to behave badly, and asserts there were
lots of Japanese in the US who were really good at being bad, over
and above the usual people in the diplomatic system. The main
thing missing is evidence.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
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