A cryptologic veteran's analysis of "day of deceit"--a book review

Cryptologia, Apr 2000 by Jacobsen, Philip H

The first decrypt refers to naval spy Suzuki who was sent to the First Air Fleet on business to be picked up on 23 or 24 November at Hitokappu Wan (Bay). It is abundantly clear from the document that Hitokappu Wan is spelled out letter by letter in five numeral code groups of JN-25B because there was no two or three letter coded geographic designation available for this remote location (like AF for Midway Island.) Nevertheless, the book baldly claims, without any substantiation, that the words Hitokappu Wan were sent in plain language while the rest of the message was sent in code, an incredible absurdity. Since the basic JN-25B five numeral code groups were super enciphered by a page and book of five numeral group additives, the decoder would not know when the cipher additive started and stopped to accommodate such a plain language insert in the message making such a unheard of encipherment procedure unworkable. Apparently, Stinnett did not consider this super encipherment feature of JN-25B when he made this incredible allegation. No one else has had the temerity to make such a ridiculous assertion when confronted with the JN-25B code designation on the face of the decrypt and no reference to a plain language insert in the decrypt.

The second gross misinterpretation contained in the book is that Yamamoto's famous message of 2 December 1941 only referred to as "Climb Mount Niitaka 1208" may have been sent in plain language. If so, it implies Rochefort knew of these two plain language "busts" by the Japanese and therefore is part of the conspiracy for not reporting them in his summaries. For this strong implication, one Japanese historian is cited saying the message was sent in the clear while Yamamoto's biographer is identified as saying the message was encoded in a five numeral code (JN-25B). To show the extreme lengths the book will go to conjure up its implication of conspiracy, it omits the fact in the narrative that this message labeled SRN 115376 by the National Archives had a cryptographer's reference below the heading clearly showing that it was encoded in JN-25B. Furthermore, Stinnett does not clearly point out to his readers that "Climb Mount Niitaka" was prefaced by the words, "This dispatch is Top Secret. This order is effective at 1730 on 2 December #10." Can you imagine the Japanese sending a Top Secret message in the clear and depending on a transparent underlying meaning for security? Except for battle tactical reports during the war, the Japanese seldom used plain language and even then preferred tactical codes. These are only a small part of the omissions, errors and misinterpretations contained in the book to try to make its revisionist conspiracy theory seem plausible to the uninitiated.

The book also resurrects the old allegations of Robert D. Ogg, a seaman in the 12th Naval District Intelligence office, and disregards Ogg's deposition by then Commander Newman that he was not even sure the prewar transmissions reported by commercial ships were Japanese and might have been Russian. The book now says Ogg had prewar information on Japanese warship transmissions in the Kuriles with HFDF bearings by Dutch Harbor in spite of Ogg's original deposition to the contrary.