4.10. The Winds Execute: The Final Casting
There was a Winds Execute message. But it did not occur, as Captain Safford believed. We have seen that the message and the circumstances surrounding its "intercept" was fabricated. Safford could not recall the text of the illusory message, so he appropriated the three phrases of the Winds instructional message of 19 November and presented them as the authentic text of the Execute message. Of course, this manufactured message left him with a contradiction concerning the coded phrase for the Soviet Union, which he then tried to explain away with a convoluted reading of the original Japanese instructions.
At the same time, his claim that the navy site at Cheltenham, Maryland, intercepted the Execute message was based solely on his conjecture, which, in turn, was based on technical projections of possible propagation paths of these broadcasts and what East Coast station might have heard the transmission from certain Japanese broadcast stations. It has been demonstrated that Cheltenham, and all of the other East Coast sites, never received any tasking to monitor for the Winds Execute message. Nor had they monitored any Execute message, Ralph Briggs' unsupported and contradictory claims notwithstanding.
As for Safford's reaction to the arrival of the Winds Execute message, there was a major gap between what the record showed he did and what he later claimed he did, specifically authoring warning messages, or having seen such messages in draft form. In fact, he did nothing beyond assisting in some fashion with the drafting of messages to outlying U.S. Navy Pacific stations to destroy excess cryptographic material. It has been demonstrated that this series of messages was part of an ongoing set of messages that had begun to go out three days before the purported Winds Execute message was sent. There is nothing in the record, either from Safford himself or from any other person with knowledge of events that suggests such a message arrived and had an effect on subsequent actions.
There is evidence that the sum of the previous week's events had spurred Commander McCollum to draft a warning message to Pacific commands, but this message was not sent. Yet it had nothing to do with Safford's Winds Execute message. At the same time, the claim that Colonel Otis Sadtler drafted a similar message also fails to pass muster. As has been shown, Sadtler was reacting to the mistaken or "false" Winds message of the evening of 4 December. The impetus for Sadtler's message appears to have faded when the 4 December FCC intercept was revealed to have been a mistake.
Safford also claimed that either twenty-six or fifteen people, depending on which one of his lists one consulted, saw or had knowledge of his alleged Execute message. These two lists were largely complementary and did not include other individuals that Safford claimed in later testimony who also might have known of the message. The names on these lists, in fact, were the product of guesswork only, and were not based on direct knowledge of who might have had knowledge of the message, or saw it. His lists were projections based upon the standard distribution of "Magic" translations within the government at the time. Interestingly, individuals who saw the "Magic" translations regularly, such as President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull, were absent from his lists.
A Winds Execute message was sent on 7 December 1941. The weight of the evidence discussed earlier indicates that one coded phrase, "West Wind Clear," was broadcast according to previous instructions some six to seven hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. At least one Japanese witness claimed the broadcast occurred perhaps a half-hour prior to the attack, but this cannot be verified anywhere else. It is possible that a British site may have heard the broadcast within one to two hours after the attack, but this only substantiates the anti-climactic nature of the broadcast.
In the end, the Winds Code never was the intelligence indicator or warning that it first appeared to the Americans, as well as to the British and Dutch. In the political realm, it added nothing to then current view in Washington (and London) that relations with Tokyo had deteriorated to a dangerous point. From a military standpoint, the Winds coded message contained no actionable intelligence either about the Japanese operations in Southeast Asia and absolutely nothing about Pearl Harbor. In reality, the Japanese broadcast the coded phrase(s) long after hostilities began – useless, in fact, to all who might have heard it.
4.10.1. Notes
[] Costello, 649; Toland, 215–220; Layton, 264–9; Victor, 69–74. See PHH, Part 8:3632–3638 for a sample of the questioning of Safford by the Joint Congressional Committee.
[] Colin Burke, Information and Secrecy: Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1984), 60–62
[] L.F. Safford, SRH-305, "The Undeclared War. History of R.I." (Fort George G. Meade, MD: 1984), 20
[] Ibid.
[] Prior to 1936, officers in OP-20-G, including its commanding officer, rotated regularly "back to the fleet." While this system was necessary for administrative purposes – to qualify for promotion required time in active fleet commands – it hampered technical and operational continuity. OP-20-G had civilian employees, but they rarely appeared in management, unlike in the S.I.S. where the civilians had administrative functions and maintained technical continuity.
[] Debrose and Burke, 46–9
[] PHH, Part 8: 3562–3575, 37111–12, 3717–18; Prange 223, 278–9
[] Benson, 43–44
[] Now SRH-305, see fn. 3. PHH Part 4: 1975, 20029; Part 8:3388–90
[] Ibid., 29
[] PHH, Part 26:393; also Gannon, 146–7. The Roberts Commission, chaired by Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Owen Roberts was given some radio intelligence material as part of its evidentiary search. But the main object of this first investigation was to determine if there had been any dereliction of duty by either the army or navy command. Not surprisingly, both Admiral Kimmel and General Short were criticized while the leadership in Washington received hardly a disparaging word.
[] "Documentary Evidence Re: Winds Execute message." L.F. Safford, 26 September 1944. NARACP, RG
457, Entry 9032, Box 1360, Folder 4217, "Pearl Harbor Miscellaneous Items."
[] PHH, Part 39:225–6
[] RG 80, CNO/Secretary of the Navy Correspondence Files; also CCH Series XII. S. Box22
[] "Safford-Kramer Letter[s]." NARACP, RG 80, Entry 167A, Box 4. Also, see PHH, Part 8:3698
[] Ibid.
[] Ibid.; Also see PHH, Part 8:3699–3700
[] Ibid.; also PHH, Part 8:3700
[] Ibid.
[] Ibid.
[] PHH, Part 34, 80–1
[] NARACP, RG 457, Entry 9032, Box1360, Folder 4217, "Pearl Harbor Investigation and Miscellaneous Material."
[] PHH, Part 39:21
[] PHH, Part 26: 387–95
[] PHH, Part 39: 224–6
[] PHH, Part 39: 291
[] PHH, Part 772–5
[] PHH, Part 39: 323
[] PHH, Part 39: 325
[] PHH, Part 39:341
[] PHH, Part 39: 351
[] PHH, Part 34: 2–71
[] PHH, Part 36:306
[] PHH, Part 34:76
[] PHH, Part 35:120
[] PHH, Part 35:116; Clausen, 70, 447–470
[] PHH, Part 39:403
[] PHH, Part 36:8
[] PHH, Part 1:2–3
[] "Signal intelligence Disclosures in the Pearl Harbor Investigation." SRH-154 (Fort George G. Meade, MD: National Security Agency, 22 February 1982), 39
[] Ibid., 40
[] This statement can be found in many places. NARACP, RG 38, Box 166, "Folders on the Winds Message," Folder 5830/69, "Statement Regarding Winds Message, by Captain L.F. Safford Before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, 1 February 1946; also PHH, Part 8:3579–3591.
[] "Statement Regarding Winds message," 13; also PHH, Part 8:3586. The Port Arthur reference was to the surprise Japanese attack on the Imperial Russian Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur, Liaotung Peninsula, in eastern China on 8 February 1904, which initiated the two-year Russo-Japanese War.
[] Ibid., 12
[] Ibid., 14
[] PHH, Part 36:69–70
[] "Statement," 15
[] Ibid., 20; AN-1 would later be notated as JN-25B in July 1942.
[] PHH, Part 8:3668–70
[] PHH, Part 8:3608–9
[] PHH, Part 8:3610
[] PHH, Part 8:3624. They were Lt. William C. Howes, Lt. Cmdr. Robert L. Densford, Lt. Cmdr. Frederick A. Peterson, Commander C.F. Clark and Lt. Cmdr. Paul R.White.
[] PHH, Part 8: 3652–3
[] PHH, Part 8: 3649
[] Costello, 649; Toland, 215–220; James Rushbridger and Eric Nave, Betrayal at Pearl Harbor (New York: Summit Books, 1991), 162–167; Victor, 152–157; for a sample of the line of questioning, see PHH, Part 8: 3632–3638
[] SRH-081, 5–7; Memorandum: "Pearl Harbor Investigation – comments on answers furnished by Captain L.F. Safford with his memo of 4 December 1945 to Op-20-4," 14 December 1945. RG 38, Entry 1030, Box 166, Folder 5830/69 (2 of 3) "Pearl Harbor Investigations: Winds Msgs"
[] Memorandum for Major General Clayton Bissell, AC of C, G-2, 28 September 1944. Subject: Pearl Harbor Investigation. NARACP, RG 457, Entry 9032, Box 878, Folder 2609.
[] Memorandum for Colonel Carter W. Clarke, Subject: Evidence re "Winds Execute Message," 30 September 1944. RG 457, Entry 9032, Box 1360, Folder 4217. Also, "The Winds execute Search," by Sam Snyder, T542, June 1981. CCH Series XII, S. Box 22
[] Memorandum: "Pearl Harbor Investigations – comments on answers furnished by furnished by Captain LF Safford with his memo. Of 4 December 1945 to OP-20-4, 14 December 1945. NARACP, RG 38, Entry 1030, Box 166, Folder 5830/69 (2 of 3) Enclosure C, 1; Also see SRH-210, "Collection of Papers Related to the "Winds Execute" Message, U.S. Navy, 1945, 50
[] "Intercept Station Assignments," (1941) RG 38, Entry 1030, Box 165, Folder 5830/62, "Pearl Harbor Investigations" (1 of 3)
[] PHH, Part 9:4009; also Part 8:3696
[] PHH, Part 8:3600; Part 26:394–5
[] PHH, part 8:3630
[] PHH, Part 36:74
[] "DW Wigle's Statement" and Max Gunn's Statement" 11 December 1945. RG 38, Entry 1030, Box 166, Folder 5830/69, "Pearl Harbor Investigations: Winds Msgs" (3 of 3)
[] PHH, Part 8:3630–1
[] PHH, Part 33:771
[] PHH, Part 8:3603
[] PHH, Part 36:87–90, Part 36:258–9
[] PHH, Part 8:3916–3924 and Part 9: 3934–37, 4212–14
[] PHH, Part 8:3604–5
[] PHH, Part 8: 3604
[] PHH, Part 26:394
[] PHH, Part 36:75–6
[] PHH, Part 29:2378
[] Memorandum, Subj: "JD-7001, Special Studies concerning." 8 November 1945. Also see memorandum from J.N. Wenger, Subject: Forwarding of Material Pertinent to Pearl Harbor." NARA CP, RG 38, Entry 1030, Box 166, Folder 5830/69 (2 of 3) "Pearl Harbor Investigations: Winds Msgs." The 8 November 1945 memorandum from Lt. Sally Lightle, who assembled the index, noted that in the JD-series there were a number of other "cancelled" numbers She added that reasons for canceling a message included the presence of duplicates, other parts of the same message with a different serial number, and skipped numbers.
[] PHH, Part 29:2373, 2377
[] PHH, Part 26: 394
[] PHH, Part 14: 1408–09; Part 33:893–895
[] PHH, Part 8:3387–9
[] PHH, Part 8:3669–70
[] Ibid., 3667; PHH, Part 26:392
[] Ibid., 3667
[] PHH, Part 4:1868
[] PHH, Part 8:3613
[] PHH, Part 9:4009; also Part 8:3696
[] PHH, Part 8:3612
[] PHH, Part 36:506–7; Part 16:2319–21; Part 35: 96–102
[] Layton, 269
[] PHH, Part 8:3887–92
[] PHH, Part 34: 83, 87–8
[] Ibid., 3723–4
[] PHH, Part 35:23–4
[] PHH, Part 29:2429–2433; Part 35:97–101, 141–144
[] PHH, Part 35:70–1
[] PHH, Part 8: 3727–9
[] PHH, Part 34:79–82
[] PHH, Part 34:91–2
[] PHH, Part 34:101–2; Prange, 263–5
[] Msg, 082034 November 1945, SUPRADST PT Lyautey to OP-20-G. Also see similar messages about records destruction from Stations "S," "M," and others in RG 38, Entry 1030 (CNSG Library), Box 166, Folder 5830/69, "Pearl Harbor Investigations: Winds Msgs" (Folders 1, 2 of 3)
[] PHH, Part 10:4741–3
[] SRH-081, 5–6; PHH, Part 36:85–7
[] SRH-081, 6
[] PHH, Part 8: 3859–60
[] PHH, Part 8:3606
[] Prange, Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History, 326–8; see PHH, Part 8: 3725–3732
[] Clausen, 306–8
[] PHR: 486
[] PHH, Part 33: 853–4
[] PHH, Part 26:394–5
[] PHH, Part 36:81–2
[] PHH, Part 9:3950
[] PHH, Part 8:3920
[] PHH, Part 7: 3268–9. The Mori incident involved the intercept of a transpacific telephone call by the FBI on 5 December from a Japanese dentist in Honolulu to Tokyo that contained references to flowers in bloom and the strong wind blowing. For more see PHH, Part 3: 1456 and Part 10: 5102–8, inter alia, and Layton, 276–7
[] PHH, Part 9:3967
[] Ibid., 3964
[] Ibid., 3965–67
[] Ibid. "Safford – Kramer Letter[s]" 28 December 1943. NARACP, RG 80, Pearl Harbor Liaison Office, Entry 167A, Box 4.
[] Kimmel to Halsey Letter, 18 March 1944, Pearl Harbor Exhibit 150, NARACP, RG 80, Entry 167EE, Box 120; also RG 38, CNSG Library, Box 166, Folder 5830/69, "Pearl Harbor Investigation: Winds Msgs."
[] PHH, Part 6:2551–2
[] Layton, 238 and 242–44; PHH, Part 6:2621–24 inter alia for Kimmel's reaction to Layton's intelligence briefing. See Gannon, 164–7, for some of the heightened alert measures ordered by Kimmel.
[] For comments on the size and scope of the destruction, see Ed Drea, editor, Researching Japanese War Crimes, Introductory Essays. (Washington, D.C.: NARA Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, 2006), 9–11 and 23–25
[] Ed Drea, "Reading Each Other's Mail: Japanese Communications Intelligence, 1920–1941." Journal of Military History (Vol. 55, No. 2, April 1991), 185–206
[] Message, BSG 210, 211151Z November 1945, Commander-in-Chief, Advance HQ, U.S. Army Forces, Pacific, Tokyo to War Department. "Interrogation of Japanese Concerning Broadcast of 'Winds Execute Message,' October-November 1945." SRH-177 (Fort George G. Meade: MD, National Security Agency, 16 July 1982)
[] SRH-177, Message, BSG 219, Commander-in-Chief, Advance HQ, U.S. Army Forces, Pacific, Tokyo, to War Department, 30 November 1945. Also, see PHH, Part 18: 3308–9
[] U.S. Navy Technical Mission to Japan, Interrogation No. 11; personnel interrogated: Mr. Shinroku Tanomogi, 30 November 1945. NARACP, RG 457, Entry 9032, Box 1369, Folder 4217, "Pearl Harbor Investigation and Miscellaneous Material." Also see PHH, part 18:3310
[] Takeo Yoshikawa and LTC Norman Stanford, USMC, "Top Secret Assignment," United States Naval Institute Proceedings (Vol. 86, No. 12, December 1960), 27–29
[] Morio Tateno Interview, 30 June 1961. RG 38, CNSG Library, Box 166, Folder 5830/69, "Winds Msgs."
[] Forrest R. Biard, "The Pacific War Through the Eyes of Forest R. 'Tex' Biard," NCVA Cryptolog (Vol. 10, No. 2, Winter 1989), 5
[] NARACP, RG 59, 6 November 1945. 1945–49 Central decimal File, Box 3403, 711.94/11–645
[] NARACP, RG 59, 16 November 1945. 1945–49 Central Decimal File, Box 3403, 711.94/11-1645
[] NARACP, RG 59, 5 and 6 December 1945 and 26 January 1946. 1945–49 Central Decimal File, Box 3402, 711.94/12-545, 711.94/12-645, and 711.94/1-2646
[] PHH, Part 36:318
[] NARACP, RG 59, 4 December 1945. 1945–49 Central Decimal File, Box 3403, 711.94/12-445
[] PHH, Part 18:3312
[] NARACP. RG 59, 15 December 1945, and 31 January 1946. 1945–49 Central Decimal File, Box 3403, 711.94/12-1545 and 711.94/1-3146
[] COIS, Singapore, 2312Z, 7 December 1941. RG 80, Entry 167CC, Box 92, "Exhibit 1," item "q," Clausen Investigation Exhibits.
[] Shaw, 12–13
[] COIS Singapore, 1746Z, 7 December 1941. RG 80, Entry 167CC, Box 92, "Exhibit 1," item "q," Clausen Investigation Exhibits
[] Manila to Honolulu, 3 December 1941. RG 80, Entry 167CC, Box 92, "Exhibit 1," Clausen Investigation Exhibits.
[] Ibid. Colonel George Bicknell, G-2 Hawaii Department, USA; Mr. Robert Shivers, Chief of FBI Field Office, Territory of Hawaii; and Captain Irving Mayfield, Intelligence Officer, 14th Naval District
[] Clausen, 113
[] PHH, Part 35:203
[] Ultra GOR 632 from GCCS 11279, 31 August 1945. RG 80, Entry 167CC, Box 92, "Exhibit 1," Clausen Investigation Exhibits.
[] PHH, Part 35:135
[] Ibid., 135; also RG 128, Box 334, Folder 114, "Army-Navy Miscellaneous," "Summary of Evidence on the Winds in the Army Proceedings."
[] MND Translation, Tokyo to Hsinking, S.I.S. # 25783, 1 December 1941, Translated 4 December 1941 RG 457, Entry 9032, Box 301.
[] Ralph Briggs was not the only navy intercept operator to claim he had intercepted the Winds Execute message. In 1988 a former OP-20-G officer claimed that in 1962 another sailor, a Lieutenant (j.g.) Thomas Mackie, had told him that, while attached to the Cast monitoring station at Corregidor in the Philippines, he had translated the phrase HIGASHI NO KAZE AME (East Wind Rain) "several days" before Pearl Harbor. However, Mackie stated that the phrase was heard in a "TOO(H) FUU U" format. The format is not further identified in the article, but the TOO FUU U is the phonetic Chinese rendering of the Kanji characters for "East Wind Rain." The expression goes as "East" (TOO) – "Wind" (FUU) – "Rain" (U). Mackie stated that at a meeting of the Cast station officers, all had agreed that since the phrase was not in the correct format, it would not be reported to Washington. See Jim Yandle, "Winds Intercept at Corregidor." NCVA Cryptolog, (Vol. 10, No. 1, Fall 1998), 1
[] SRH-051, "Interview with Mr. Ralph T. Briggs by the Historian Naval Security Group (Fort George G. Meade, MD: National Security Agency, 1977), 2
[] Ralph Briggs, "Lost Winds Execute Controversy. Briggs' Own Story." NCVA Cryptolog. (Vol. 8, No. 1, Fall 1986), 21
[] SRH-051. This document is also reproduced in John Toland, Infamy: Pearl Harbor and its Aftermath (New York: Berkeley, 1983). The original log, with Briggs' handwritten entry in red ink, is located in RG 38, Entry 1030, Box 165, Folder 5830/61, "Pearl Harbor Investigation: Miscellaneous Japanese Intercepts From Stations M, J, and G, November - December 1941."
[] In Toland's book see 203-8 and 337-8. For Costello, see 643-9
[] Costello, 647
[] Ibid., 649
[] Toland, 204-6
[] For example, see "Station 'H' Intercept," RG 38, CNSG Library, Box 159 for the operator logs at this site.
[] "Intercept Station Assignments," from "Statistics on Intercept, Delivery." RG 38, CNSG Library, Box 165, Folder 5830/62, "P.H. Investigations (1 of 3); Also see "Memorandum for Colonel Carter C. Clarke, Listing of Army and Navy Monitoring Stations, Their Locations and Station Directives," June 1942. RG 457, Entry 9032, Box 1374, Folder 4331, "Army-Navy Directive Study."
[] This was Commander Lester Robert Schulz, who at the time of Pearl Harbor was an assistant to Captain John Beardall, naval aide to President Roosevelt. Schulz was assigned to OP-20-G and was temporarily detailed as an assistant to Beardall at the White House in late 1941. See PHH, Part 10:4660
[] PHH, Part 10:4742-3 and Part 29: 2378-9
[] Msg, 082034 November 1945, SUPRADSTA PT LYAUTEY to OP-20-G. Also see messages from Stations "S," "M," and others in RG 38, CNSG Library, Box 166, Folder 5830/69, "Pearl Harbor Investigations: Winds Msgs" (Folders 1 and 2 of 3)
[] "Station 'M' Operator Log for 2 December 1941, RG 38, CNSG Library, Box 167, Folder 5830/77, "Pearl Harbor Investigations: Info Rqts (sic) by Capt Safford, 1946–1947."