Foreword

For historians and many members of the informed public, the Japanese attack on Hawaii provoked "the never-ending story." Multiple official investigations and private historical inquiries into the attack and its background have generated enormous stocks of information about both the American and Japanese sides. It may well be that we know as much about December 7, 1941, as we do about any event in the last century, the Kennedy assassination possibly excepted.

However, even with this virtual mountain chain of data, information gaps still exist, and many important questions remain under discussion or debate.

The discussions and debates are not simply the province of conspiracy buffs. Academics and other researchers interested in World War II have a serious stake in settling the issues of the U.S.-Japan conflict; definite answers to many of the controversies would either confirm or refute theories of the war's origins and its meaning.

Robert Hanyok and the late David Mowry from the Center for Cryptologic History have made a significant contribution to our knowledge and understanding of two of the event's controversies, the Winds Message and the state of U.S. communications intelligence prior to the Hawaiian attack.

This assemblage of documents, supplemented by the authors'clear guide to their meaning, places the reader, as it were, right in the middle of the behind-the-scenes events and helps the scholar and researcher to follow them closely.

For further reading, I suggest Fred Parker's Pearl Harbor Revisited: United States Navy Communications Intelligence, 1924–1941 and Robert L. Benson's A History of U.S. Communications Intelligence during WWII: Policy and Administration, both published by the Center for Cryptologic History.

This was the final publication for the CCH by Robert Hanyok before his retirement from a long career in government service. I also second Bob's comments about David Mowry in the acknowledgments: he was a remarkable man. Both Bob and Dave will be missed.

DAVID A. HATCH

NSA Historian

Center for Cryptologic History