14. East Wind Rain

Chapter Fourteen

EAST WIND RAIN

THE JAPANESE government had arranged on November 19 that if a secret decision should be made to go to war with the United States, its diplomatic corps throughout the world would be notified by insertion of the false weather report, “east wind rain,” in the middle of the daily Japanese language short-wave news broadcast. If Japan was to make war on Britain, including Thailand, Malaya, and the Netherlands East Indies, the signal “west wind clear” would be broadcast; while if Russia were to be subjected to attack the signal would be “north wind cloudy.”¹

For four years the Roosevelt administration suppressed public knowledge that any Japanese secret messages had been intercepted and decoded. When that news finally leaked out, after the death of Roosevelt, the administration exerted every effort to prove that, no matter what other enemy messages had been intercepted, the “winds” message had no existence.

When fifty-two suppressed pages of the Army Pearl Harbor Board report were finally made public December 11, 1945, after the congressional investigation had been in progress twenty-one days, it was found that the board had stated,

The “winds” message was one that was to be inserted in the Japanese news and weather broadcasts and repeated with a definite pattern of words, so as to indicate that war would take place either with Great Britain, Russia, or the United States, or all three.

Such information was picked up by a monitoring station. This information was received and translated on December 3, 1941, and the contents distributed to the same high authority (White House, Army and Navy high commands).

The Navy received during the evening of December 3, 1941, this message, which when translated said, “War with the United States, war with Britain, including N.E.I., except peace with Russia.”

This “winds execute” has now disappeared from the Navy files and cannot be found despite extensive search for it. It was last seen by Comdr. [Laurance F.] Safford when he collected the papers together with Comdr. [Alwin D.] Kramer and turned them over to the director of naval communications for use as evidence before the Roberts Commission.

There, therefore, can be no question that between the dates of December 4 and 6, the imminence of war on the following Saturday and Sunday, December 6 and 7, was clear-cut and definite.

Again referring to the disappearance of the “winds” message, the Army Board said,

This original message has now disappeared from the Navy files and cannot be found. It was in existence just after Pearl Harbor and was collected with other messages for submission to the Roberts Commission. Copies were in existence in various places but they have all disappeared.

The board further stated,

The radio station logs, showing the reception of the message, have been destroyed within the last year. Capt. Safford testified that this message, and everything else they got from November 12 on, was sent to the White House by the Navy. It was a circulated copy that circulated to the White House and to the admirals of the Navy.

It was this message which the Army witnesses testified was never received by the Army. It was a clear indication to the United States as early as December 4. The vital nature of this message can be realized.²

President Truman, Secretary of War Stimson, and Secretary of the Navy Forrestal, before releasing the suppressed comments on the “winds” signal, busied themselves trying to discredit the existence of this message and endeavoring to prevail upon witnesses who had previously testified to having seen it or handled it to change their stories. Stimson, after receiving the Army Board report and suppressing it in October, 1944, undertook three personal investigations to achieve this purpose.

He first commissioned Maj. Gen. Myron C. Cramer to prepare a précis of the most damaging evidence against himself and the Roosevelt administration. He then directed Maj. Henry C. Clausen, a lawyer in civil life, to make a trip around the world, seeking out witnesses, even if he had to approach them in the middle of battle. Guided by Cramer’s outline, Clausen would then “refresh” their memory and submit affidavits for them to sign, altering their previous testimony on relevant points. No small part of the beclouding of the Pearl Harbor record is to be attributed to this mission.³

Clausen, later promoted to lieutenant colonel, said he was directed by Stimson to make his inquiry because of discrepancies in evidence before the Army Board and because the board had not taken testimony from most witnesses on code intercepts.⁴ Chief of Staff Marshall, commenting on the irregularity of Clausen’s activities, said he had never known any other instance of a junior officer investigating actions or statements of superior officers.

Senator Ferguson asked Marshall, “Do you know of any other case where an investigation was taken away from a board of general officers and given to a major?”

“I don’t recall a similar situation,” Marshall said.

“Is it a custom in the War Department to have officers of equal rank investigate other officers?”

“In the case of general officers, yes.”⁵

The Clausen investigation, Marshall said, was controlled by the “civilian side” of the War Department⁶—that is, by Stimson. Senator Ferguson charged that Clausen drafted affidavits which set forth what he and Stimson wanted witnesses to say, and then submitted them for signature. One statement obtained from Gen. MacArthur while he was preparing for the Leyte campaign misspelled the general’s name, an error which MacArthur himself could not have committed if he had written the affidavit or even read it over carefully.⁷

Clausen’s principal achievements were to change previous testimony before the Army Board concerning delivery of the first thirteen parts of the final Jap reply to high officers of the Army on the night of December 6, and to obscure the previously established fact that a “winds” message had been intercepted several days before the attack.

On the strength of Clausen’s report, Stimson, in a statement appended to the Army Board report when he finally released it, was able to state that a witness, Col. R. S. Bratton, “corrected his testimony” of having delivered the Japanese thirteen-part message to three of Marshall’s principal aides on the night of December 6.⁸

Clausen also induced Col. Otis E. Sadtler, who had previously testified that a “winds” message had been received, to recant this statement. Two other officers who were persuaded by Clausen to deny the existence of the “winds” message were Col. Harold Doud, in charge of the code and cipher section of the Army Signal Corps intelligence service, and Col. Rex W. Minckler, who was in charge of the signal intelligence service.⁹ Neither of these officers was called as a witness before the Congressional Investigating Committee. The Clausen report disputed the findings of the Army Board on other cardinal points in addition to the “winds” message.

Gen. Cramer, in addition to briefing Clausen, made two other reports to Stimson on Pearl Harbor.¹⁰ His principal authority in disputing the existence of the “winds” signal was Clausen—the tool of Stimson and himself. On the basis of the affidavits gathered by Clausen, Cramer came to the conclusion that the evidence failed to show that this message was “ever received by the War Department.”¹¹ This finding dodged the issue, because all witnesses who had testified to the existence of the “winds” message were in agreement that it had been intercepted by a Navy monitoring station, translated by Navy communications intelligence, and distributed by the same naval agency. So, to deny that it was “ever received by the War Department” merely established a point which was disputed by no one.

A third independent Army investigation was undertaken in behalf of Gen. Marshall by Col. Carter W. Clarke, subsequently promoted to brigadier general. Not until November, 1945, when Maj. Gen. Sherman Miles informed the Congressional Investigating Committee of Clarke’s activities, was it known that there ever had been such an inquiry.¹² Gerhard Gesell, associate counsel for the committee, then said that the Clarke report was in his hands, but that it contained “Top Secret” information which the Army did not want to get out.¹³

It was disclosed that during the 1944 Presidential campaign Clarke had carried two secret letters from Gen. Marshall to Gov. Thomas E. Dewey. Marshall had got wind of the fact that the Republican candidate knew that American intelligence had cracked the Japanese code before the Pearl Harbor attack, and the general’s letters appealed to Dewey to make no use of this information during the campaign, on the ground that the Japs would then be given knowledge that we were in possession of their code secrets. Dewey refused to receive the first letter, but did read the second. Throughout the campaign he made no mention that the enemy code had been cracked and never referred to the Pearl Harbor scandal.¹⁴

Although Marshall twice stated in the letter which Dewey did read that he was making his appeal without the knowledge of the President or Secretary of War Stimson, he could not have been unmindful that Pearl Harbor would have been a damaging issue against the Roosevelt administration, especially if Dewey had disclosed that no adequate warning had been sent the Hawaiian commanders despite the wealth of cryptographic information pointing to war which the Roosevelt circle possessed during the weeks before the attack.

Marshall’s case for keeping secret the fact that the United States had cracked the enemy code was seriously weakened when Adm. Wilkinson asserted that the Germans knew as early as May, 1941, that the United States was breaking Japan’s code and had so warned the Japanese.¹⁵ William D. Mitchell, committee counsel, then produced eight Jap code messages of April and May, 1941, in which the Japanese discussed their suspicions that their secret material was being intercepted.¹⁶ If the enemy had this information three years before the 1944 campaign, it is difficult to see what purpose except a political one could have been served by persuading Dewey not to raise the Pearl Harbor issue.

Upon receipt of the report of the Navy Court of Inquiry into the Pearl Harbor disaster, Secretary Forrestal initiated a private investigation. This inquiry was intrusted to Adm. H. K. Hewitt,¹⁷ but again a junior officer, Lieut. Comdr. John Sonnett, actually ran the investigation.¹⁸ Sonnett for years after his graduation from law school had held New Deal jobs. He was first appointed executive assistant to the United States attorney for the southern district of New York, but in the fall of 1943, apparently for special service in connection with the Pearl Harbor investigation, he went to the Navy Department on loan from Attorney General Francis Biddle to serve as special counsel to Secretary Forrestal. On January 15, 1944, when it appeared that Congress would demand a further Pearl Harbor investigation, he resigned from the Department of Justice and, at the age of 32, was commissioned a lieutenant commander. He held his commission for only about a year, during which he performed the same duties for Forrestal that Clausen performed for Stimson. His job completed, he was released to inactive duty early in 1945. He continued to serve in the Navy Department as a civilian until September of that year, and the following month was rewarded with appointment as an assistant attorney general.¹⁹

The key witness on the “winds” message, Capt. Safford, received special attention from Sonnett and Hewitt, but steadfastly stuck to his story that the “winds” signal had been intercepted, that he had handled it, and that he had seen that it reached his superiors. Safford charged before the congressional committee that Sonnett had acted as “counsel for the defense” for the late Secretary Knox and Adm. Stark, rather than as a legal assistant to Adm. Hewitt, the investigating officer.²⁰ Safford said,

His purpose seemed to be to refute testimony before earlier investigations that was unfavorable to anyone in Washington, to beguile “hostile” witnesses into changing their stories, and to introduce an element of doubt where he could not effect a reversal of testimony. Above all, he attempted to make me reverse my testimony regarding the “winds” message and to make me believe I was suffering from hallucinations.²¹

Safford said the first attempt by Sonnett to make him change his story occurred on May 11, 1945, ten days before he was to testify at a special investigation conducted by Adm. Hewitt. Sonnett, failing on this occasion, tried again on May 18, and a third time a day or two later. Safford said that Sonnett tried hard to persuade him there was no “winds” message and that the captain’s mind had been “playing him tricks.” Sonnett suggested, Safford said, that he change his testimony to reconcile discrepancies.

“I distinctly recall,” Safford stated, “Sonnett making the following statement to me: ‘You are the only one who seems to have even seen the “winds execute” message. How could the “winds execute” message be heard on the East Coast of the United States and not at any other places nearer Japan? It is very doubtful that there ever was a “winds” message.’”

Sonnett, according to Safford, then said, “It is no reflection on your veracity to change your testimony. It is no reflection on your mentality to have your memory play you tricks after such a long period. Numerous witnesses that you have named have denied all knowledge of a ‘winds execute’ message. You do not have to carry a torch for Adm. Kimmel.”

Adm. Hewitt sat by while his junior assistant was delivering this harangue. Later, after completing his testimony before Hewitt, Safford said he asked Hewitt off the record if there was still any doubt in the admiral’s mind that the “winds” message had been sent by Japan and disseminated in the War and Navy departments.

“The admiral looked startled,” Safford said. “Before he could reply, Sonnett broke in, saying: ‘Of course, I am not conducting the case, and I do not know what Adm. Hewitt has decided, but to me it is very doubtful that the so-called “winds execute” message was ever sent.’”

Safford then quoted Hewitt as saying to him, “You are not entitled to my opinion, but I will answer your question. There is no evidence of a ‘winds execute’ message beyond your unsupported testimony. I do not doubt your sincerity, but I believe you have confused one of the other messages containing the name of a wind with the message you were expecting to receive.”

“For my part,” said Safford, “I do not doubt Adm. Hewitt’s integrity, but I do believe that Sonnett has succeeded in pulling the wool over his eyes. I also believe that Sonnett employed similar tactics on other witnesses whose testimony had favored Adm. Kimmel.”²²

Despite all this pressure upon him, Safford, when he was called as a witness before the congressional committee on February 1, 1946, opened his statement with the flat assertion: “There was a ‘winds’ message. It meant war—and we knew it meant war.”²³

Safford said that the “winds” message was part of a Japanese overseas news broadcast from station J-A-P in Tokyo on Thursday, December 4, 1941, at 8:30 A.M., Washington time. It was intercepted, he said, by the big Navy radio receiving station at Cheltenham, Maryland. It was recorded on the special typewriter developed by the Navy which types Roman letters equivalent to Japanese characters. The “winds” message was forwarded to the Navy Department by teletype transmitter from the intercept receiving-room at Cheltenham to the page printer in the Navy Department communication intelligence unit under Safford’s command.

“I saw the ‘winds’ message typed in page form on yellow teletype paper,” Safford said, “with the translation written below it. I immediately forwarded this message to my commanding officer, Rear Adm. Leigh Noyes [chief of naval communications], thus fully discharging my responsibility in the matter.”

Safford said that when Tokyo first informed its representatives overseas of the “winds” code, Adm. Wilkinson immediately sent word to him that the communication intelligence organization should make every effort to intercept any message sent in accordance with the “winds” code. Safford said that the November 29 deadline fixed by Tokyo indicated that the “winds” code might be used to notify overseas officials concerning “things which would automatically begin to happen,” and that the previous messages setting up the code to give notification of war with the United States, Britain, or Russia indicated to him what would happen.

He then gave a technical description of the means used to prepare for interception, and his reasons for believing that the best chance of picking up the message was presented by the stations at Cheltenham and Bainbridge, Maryland.

On December 1 Safford was shown a Tokyo circular advising that London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Manila had been ordered to destroy their code machines, but instructing Washington to retain its machine regardless of other instructions.

“The significance of the ‘winds’ message now became very clear to me,” Safford said, “and I began to take the matter most seriously. So did Col. Sadtler, over in the War Department. The only means by which Tokyo could announce its decisions of peace or war to its overseas diplomatic representatives who had destroyed their regular codes was by means of the emergency ‘winds’ code. This applied to London and the Far East, but not to Washington.”

Safford said that although the original Japanese notification establishing the “winds” code had indicated that this signal would be given on a voice broadcast, “there is no basis for assuming that the ‘winds’ message had to be sent” in that form. The Japanese government, he said, was sending out general information broadcasts as well as Domei news reports to its diplomatic and consular officials in foreign lands. This was done partly to give speedier service, partly to permit Japanese use of the Morse code and the Kata-Kana form of written Japanese, and partly to be independent of foreign communication systems in emergency. Each office had its own Japanese radio operator and its own short-wave receiving set. This was common practice, for the American government was doing the same thing itself, with a Navy radio operator serving at each post, and the Germans were following a similar method, except that they were using machine reception.

“We expected that the ‘winds’ message would be sent in Morse code—and it was,” Safford said. “If the ‘winds’ message had been sent on a voice broadcast, the U. S. Navy would have missed it, unless it came on a schedule receivable at Pearl Harbor or Corregidor.” This, he explained, was because of conditions of reception.

Safford said that the “winds” message as finally broadcast on the so-called European schedule of Tokyo’s big broadcasting station J-A-P was intended for London. “We know,” Safford explained, “that the Japanese ambassador in London had destroyed his secret codes three days previously: this was the only way that Tokyo could get news to him secretly. Reception or nonreception at other points was irrelevant. Tokyo knew full well, before the ‘winds’ message was sent, that it probably would not be received in Washington or in Rio. That was immaterial—the ‘winds’ message was intended for London.”

Safford said that he saw the “winds” message a little after 8:00 A.M. on December 4. It was about two hundred words long, with the code words previously prescribed by Tokyo appearing in the middle of the message, as Tokyo in its instructions of November 19 had said would be the position of the signal. All three code phrases were used, but the expression “north wind cloudy,” which would have been the signal for war with Russia, was in the negative form. Safford reported:

When I first saw the “winds” message it had already been translated by Lieut. Comdr. Kramer, in charge of the translation section of the Navy Department communication intelligence unit. Kramer had underscored all three code phrases on the original incoming teletype sheet. Below the printed message was written in pencil or colored crayon in Kramer’s handwriting, the following free translations:

“War with England (including N.E.I., etc.).

“War with the U. S.

“Peace with Russia.”

I am not sure of the order; but it was the same as in the broadcast and I think England appeared first. I think Kramer used “U. S.” rather than “United States.” It is possible that the words “No war,” instead of “Peace,” were used to describe Japan’s intentions with regard to Russia.

“This is it!” said Kramer, as he handed me the “winds” message. This was the broadcast we had strained every nerve to intercept. This was the feather in our cap. This was the tip-off which would prevent the U.S. Pacific fleet being surprised at Pearl Harbor the way the Russians had been surprised at Port Arthur. This was what the Navy communication intelligence had been preparing for since its establishment in 1924—war with Japan!

I immediately sent the original of the “winds” message up to the director of naval communications (Rear Adm. Noyes) by one of the officers serving under me and told him to deliver this paper to Adm. Noyes in person, to track him down and not take “no” for an answer, and if he could not find him in a reasonable time to let me know. I did not explain the nature or significance of the “winds” message to this officer. In a few minutes I received a report to the effect that the message had been delivered.

It is my recollection that Kramer and I knew at the time that Adm. Noyes had telephoned the substance of the “winds” message to the War Department, to the “Magic” distribution list in the Navy Department, and to the naval aide to the President. For that reason, no immediate distribution of the smooth translation of the “winds” message was made in the Navy Department. The six or seven copies for the Army were rushed over to the War Department as rapidly as possible: here the Navy’s responsibility ended. The individual smooth translations for authorized Navy Department officials and the White House were distributed at noon on December 4, 1941, in accordance with standard operating procedure. I have no reason for believing that the Army failed to make a prompt distribution of its translations of the “winds” message.

I am thoroughly satisfied in my own mind that Adm. Noyes telephoned to everyone on his list without delay: I cannot bring myself to imagine otherwise. There is some question as to whether the admiral was understood, but this only shows the unreliability of telephone messages. Any misunderstanding of what Adm. Noyes said was of negligible effect, because written translations of the “winds’” message were distributed within two or three hours of his telephone calls. In fact, it was not until 1944 that any suggestion or criticism was offered that any official on the “Magic” distribution list—Navy, Army, State Department, or White House—had not been notified that the “winds” message had been received or that the “winds” message had been translated in any terms other than war and peace.

My final verification of the fact that the “winds” message translation was typed and distributed lies in the fact that about December 15, 1941, I saw a copy of it in the special folder of messages which were being assembled for Adm. Noyes to present to the Roberts Commission. I checked these over with Kramer for completeness as well as for the elimination of irrelevant material. Kramer told me in 1944 that he had shown Assistant Secretary Forrestal a special set of pre-Pearl Harbor messages about December 10, 1941, when Secretary Knox was making his personal investigation at Pearl Harbor, and that he discussed those messages with Mr. Forrestal for about two hours. This set of messages was apparently the basis and possibly the identical file that was given Adm. Noyes and shown to the Roberts Commission via Adm. Wilkinson. This was the last time I saw the “winds” message. I believe that the translation of the “winds” message was given the JD-1 serial number of 7001, because this number is missing and unaccounted for, and comes within the range of messages translated on December 3 and 4, 1941.

The distribution of the “winds” message was the responsibly of naval intelligence and not naval communications. I had no responsibility in the matter after forwarding the original message to Adm. Noyes and after checking Kramer’s folder to see that the messages were presented in a logical and understandable order.

The action taken immediately by Adm. Noyes after the “winds” message was sent to him by Safford indicated that he had received the message and understood its import. His first response was to call Safford and say that directions ought to be sent to Guam to burn excess codes and ciphers. As a result of the “winds” message and this conversation, Safford prepared five dispatches to be sent to naval stations and bases in the Pacific, clearing four of them with Capt. Joseph R. Redman, Noyes’s assistant. One of these instructed Guam and Samoa to destroy at once their existing ciphers and made a new cipher effective. This message was released by Adm. Noyes himself.

Noyes toned down another of the dispatches which Safford had prepared, instructing Guam to destroy excess cryptographic aids and other secret matter. Safford said his intention was to insure that Guam “stripped ship” before a Japanese commando raid from Saipan, 100 miles away, would result in the capture of a complete set of codes and ciphers.

These two messages, Safford said, helped establish the date the “winds” message was intercepted, as well as the time and date that a warning message was prepared by Capt. A. H. McCollum. McCollum’s message, submitted for dispatch to Adm. Kimmel and other commanders in the Pacific, cited the “winds” message as proof that war was imminent, Safford said. Before the congressional committee four years later, McCollum admitted drafting a warning December 4, but said that he made no reference to the “winds” signal because he had not seen it. The warning which he prepared was killed by Adm. Wilkinson and Adm. Turner—according to McCollum, on the supposition that Kimmel already had been sufficiently warned.²⁴

The Navy translations given the congressional committee of the two Japanese messages notifying diplomatic agents on November 19 of the establishment of the “winds” code translated the code signals as meaning “danger of cutting off our diplomatic relations” with the United States, Britain, or Russia, with the alternative rendering, “Our diplomatic relations are becoming dangerous” with these countries. Safford said that a dispatch from Adm. Hart dispelled any doubt as to whether a stronger translation, meaning war, was not warranted. Hart’s message contained the official British translation, furnished by Singapore, reading, “NISHI NISHI ENGLAND INCLUDING OCCUPATION OF THAI OR INVASION OF MALAY AND N.E.I.”

“That means war, no matter how worded,” Safford said. “No one disputed this British translation in November-December, 1941; in fact, our own translation was considered consistent with it.”

Two confirmations of the British rendering came from the Netherlands East Indies government translations of the Jap messages of November 19 establishing the “winds” code for use in future to give notification of war. Col. Thorpe, senior Army intelligence officer in Java, sent a dispatch on December 3 to Gen. Miles, chief of G-2. The dispatch advised:

Japan will notify her consuls of war decision in her foreign broadcasts as weather report at end.

East wind rain, United States.

North wind cloudy, Russia.

West wind clear, England, with attack on Thailand, Malay, and Dutch East Indies.

The second confirmatory dispatch that the “winds” message was to be read as meaning war was sent on December 4, Java time (December 3, Washington time), by Consul General Foote, senior American diplomatic representative in the Netherlands East Indies. This dispatch read:

When crisis leading to worst arises, following will be broadcast at end weather reports:

1. East wind rain, war with United States.

2. North wind cloudy, war with Russia.

3. West wind clear, war with Britain, including attack on Thailand or Malaya and Dutch East Indies.

Referring to the alternative Jap “winds” signal, Foote reported:

When threat of crisis exists, following will be used five times in texts of general reports and radio broadcasts:

1. Higashi east, America.

2. Kita north, Russia.

3. Nishi west, Britain, with advance into Thailand and attack on Malaya and Dutch Indies.

Safford said:

My own evaluation of the foregoing, on December 4, 1941, was about as follows:

(A) The basic Japanese war plan was divided into three categories or provided for three contingencies, any or all of which might be followed, namely:

(1) War with the United States.

(2) War with Russia.

(3) War with England, including the invasion of Thailand and the capture of Malaya and the Dutch East Indies.

(B) The “winds” message gave us the answer in all three cases: Affirmative for the first and third categories, and negative for the second.

(C) The “winds” message was probably a “signal of execute” of some sort.

The “signal of execute” theory received strong confirmation from a secret message received from the Philippines in the early afternoon of December 4, 1941. This message informed us that the Japanese navy had introduced a new cipher system for its so-called “Operations Code” at 0600 GCT that date. This time was seven and a half hours before the “winds” message was broadcast. I might add that there was only one J-A-P European broadcast per day, so the times coincided as closely as possible. I would like to add also that my subordinates on Corregidor spotted and reported this change only nine hours after it was made. . . . The unusual hour and unusual date at which the Japanese navy changed its “Operations Code,” combined with the “winds” message and other collateral information available in the Navy Department, made this message highly significant as the probable “signal of execute” to the Japanese navy.

The analysis leaves those who denied that the “winds” signal was ever broadcast with these facts to explain away: First, if that signal, meaning war, was not transmitted on December 4, why should both the Japanese navy and the American Navy have changed their codes on that day? Second, why should the American Navy Department have radioed instructions to isolated Pacific posts and garrisons to destroy excess codes and ciphers for fear that they might be captured directly by Japan? Third, why should the Navy’s expert on Far Eastern intelligence have been so gravely disturbed on December 4 that he immediately prepared an outright war warning for transmission to the Pacific fleet commanders? It is impossible to believe that critical action in so many different directions would have been taken without motivation. The “winds” signal provides the motivation.

After receipt of the “winds” message, Capt. Safford stated, only one unknown factor remained. That was the day on which the Japanese would attack. Safford said that the Army and Navy had estimated as far back as April, 1941, that any attack would come on a week-end or national holiday.²⁵ The War Department, he said, overemphasized the imminence of war as forecast by Japan’s message fixing a deadline of November 29, after which things were “automatically going to happen,” and predicted that the Japanese would strike during the week-end of November 29-30. The Navy Department, he said, estimated the situation more accurately. The Japanese armada which had been concentrating for an invasion of Thailand and Malaya was too far from any conceivable objective to reach it by the week-end of the 29th-30th, while Japanese covering naval forces were not yet deployed. Safford said:

The next week-end, December 6-7, 1941, was just the reverse. The “winds” message and the change of the [Japanese] naval operations code came in the middle of the week: two days to Saturday and three days to Sunday. It was unthinkable that the Japanese would surrender their hopes of surprise by delaying until the week-end of December 13-14. This was not crystal gazing or “intuition”—it was just the plain, common sense acceptance of a self-evident proposition. Col. Sadtler saw it, and so did Capt. Joseph R. Redman, USN, according to Col. Sadtler’s testimony in 1944 before the Army Board of Investigation. The Japanese were going to start the war on Saturday, December 6, 1941, or Sunday, December 7, 1941. The War and Navy departments had been given 72 hours’ advance notification of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese themselves.²⁶