When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, they achieved surprise by effective use of several techniques:
1. Failure to declare war in advance of the attack;
2. Radio silence during transit;
3. Use of couriers for planning instead of radio;
4. Deceptive radio transmissions (spoofing);
5. Cryptosecurity measures, including changing codes just before the operation.
Items 2 - 5 fall in the category of communications security.
Japan had been a target of US Navy Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) since WWI. A small cadre of specialists intercepted Japanese high frequency (HF) radio communications transmitted in a specialized Japanese Morse code for Japanese Kana characters. By 1941, the US Navy had about twenty intercept stations sharing their take with OP-20-G at the headquarters on Nebraska Avenue in Washington, DC. OP-20-G directed the effort to exploit these signals, (since the intercepted signals were mostly radio communications, the specialty was known as communications intelligence, or COMINT). The intercepted signals were analyzed by traffic analysts, who reviewed the patterns of communication and extracted an electronic order of battle or EOB.
Other experts reviewed the intercepts to determine how they had been coded and encrypted, and to identify any vulnerabilities that might allow the messages to be decrypted, or "broken." The first step was to determine if the message was a code or a cipher. Ciphers could be attacked using mathematical techniques. Codes were a bit more complicated.
To break either a code or a cipher required vast quantities of message traffic for analysis. Unfortunately for COMINT purposes, the Japanese Navy had used telephone, telegraph or courier for communications in their home waters. As a result, by December, 1941, US Navy cryptanalysts were only able to break about 10% of Japan's operating code known as JN-25.
After Pearl Harbor, though, as Japan's military invaded the Philippines, Borneo, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies and elsewhere, they were forced to transmit vast quantities of radio traffic. By March 7, US Navy COMINT was able to break enough traffic for Admiral Nimitz to send the carriers Lexington and Yorktown to attack Japanese forces invading Salamaua and Lae on the north coast of New Guinea.
By early May, Nimitz was able to position Lexington and Yorktown in the Coral Sea and provide them with excellent information about Japanese forces and plans to invade Port Moresby on the south coast of New Guinea. This effectively halted Japanese advances in the Southwest Pacific.
By late May, 1942, COMINT provided Nimitz and the US Carrier task forces with complete information about Japanese plans to attack and invade Midway.
On May 26, 1942, Halsey's TF-16 with carriers Enterprise and Hornet steamed into Pearl Harbor, having missed the action in the Coral Sea by a day. After refueling and reprovisioning, Nimitz will send them back to sea under command of Raymond Spruance to take position to oppose Admiral Nagumo's four carriers approaching Midway.
The following day, USS Yorktown, heavily damaged at the battle of Coral Sea, limped into Pearl Harbor and went immediately into drydock. It was estimated that repairs would take three months. Yorktown was given three days.
Nimitz needed all three carriers, plus the additional Army, Navy and Marine Corps aircraft he had already sent to Midway as reinforcements.
He knew from COMINT what he was up against.
The attack on Midway was scheduled for June 4, 1942.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
Explosive Growth In Spending? - Not
Rex Nutting, writing for Wall Street Journal's market watch, has this to say about growth in federal spending: "WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Of all the falsehoods told about President
Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending
spree....Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive
increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens
our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem
to think it’s true.
"But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s."
"But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s."
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Remember
As we draw close to Memorial Day, I thought I would offer a link to one of my posts from a year ago. Here. It occurred to me that our recollection of time can become distorted by other experiences.
In particular, we may think it is OK for a war in a distant land to last for a decade or more. Didn't World War II go on and on? Actually, it only lasted 3 years and eight months. It just seems like it lasted forever because we still see World War II movies.
In particular, we may think it is OK for a war in a distant land to last for a decade or more. Didn't World War II go on and on? Actually, it only lasted 3 years and eight months. It just seems like it lasted forever because we still see World War II movies.
Conflict Between Military Professionals and Conservative Republicans?
In case you missed it, there's a good report in today's PostPartisan
(Washington Post on line) calling attention to a number of issues where
Republican positions cause problems for the military. Here is a link to the Post article. The article itself has a link to to an article by Heather Hurlburt in Democracy Arsenal.
Hurlburt lists five issue: 1. Law of the Sea (I worked on this treaty
thirty years ago - the Navy has always supported it); 2.
Alternative energy; 3. Who jails terror suspects (professional military
officers don't want to be jailers); 4. Iran (not a war the military
wants); 5. Pentagon Budget (GOP wants some weapons the pentagon doesn't
want).
I can think of other issues - GOP cares nothing for the troops, but a lot for contractors, for example.
As Memorial Day approaches, we should focus on the troops.
I can think of other issues - GOP cares nothing for the troops, but a lot for contractors, for example.
As Memorial Day approaches, we should focus on the troops.
PTSD Film
Good article today in the Washington Post about a restored John Huston documentary about "shell shock" and its treatment in World War II.
We now call it PTSD and no longer consider it a psychoneurotic condition. In former times, senior officers (e.g. Patton) considered it "malingering" or worse. During World War I, British officers had more than three hundred soldiers shot for what may have been PTSD. Here is an account (possibly slanted) of how it came about that 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers were shot during that conflict.
PTSD and its effect on the lives of those suffering from it is certainly one of the cruelest consequences of war.
We now call it PTSD and no longer consider it a psychoneurotic condition. In former times, senior officers (e.g. Patton) considered it "malingering" or worse. During World War I, British officers had more than three hundred soldiers shot for what may have been PTSD. Here is an account (possibly slanted) of how it came about that 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers were shot during that conflict.
PTSD and its effect on the lives of those suffering from it is certainly one of the cruelest consequences of war.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
On Being Ready For War
A year and a half after we invaded Iraq, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was asked by a soldier why troops have to poke through dumpsters to find parts for their equipment. "We go to war with the army we have, not the army we wish we had," Rumsfeld replied.
Six months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the US Navy with a force of seven aircraft carriers against a Japanese fleet of ten carriers, had halted the Japanese advance toward Australia, bombed Tokyo, attacked the Gilberts, the Marshalls, Marcus Island, Tulagi, Lae and Salamaua and sunk five Japanese carriers. In doing this, the Army and Navy used the forces they started with. The US lost one carrier at Coral Sea and another at Midway.
A year later, the US Navy had added seven new carriers to the force (though they lost two carriers in the Solomons), replaced the obsolescent Douglas Devastator torpedo planes with the much more powerful TBF Avenger, fixed the troubling problems with the Mark 14 torpedo, replaced the Grumman Wildcat with the Grumman Hellcat, kicked Japan off of Guadalcanal and sank another Japanese carrier.
In the meantime, the navy had developed a proximity fused projectile for its 5"/38 caliber guns, shooting down the first Japanese aircraft in January 1943. For the rest of the war, we continued making improvements in equipment, training and organization.
Did we have deficiencies at the beginning of the war? You bet!
But our forces were ready to do what needed to be done.
It took them three years and eight months to win that war.
Some say the United States wasn't ready for war in 1941.
Balderdash!
Six months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the US Navy with a force of seven aircraft carriers against a Japanese fleet of ten carriers, had halted the Japanese advance toward Australia, bombed Tokyo, attacked the Gilberts, the Marshalls, Marcus Island, Tulagi, Lae and Salamaua and sunk five Japanese carriers. In doing this, the Army and Navy used the forces they started with. The US lost one carrier at Coral Sea and another at Midway.
A year later, the US Navy had added seven new carriers to the force (though they lost two carriers in the Solomons), replaced the obsolescent Douglas Devastator torpedo planes with the much more powerful TBF Avenger, fixed the troubling problems with the Mark 14 torpedo, replaced the Grumman Wildcat with the Grumman Hellcat, kicked Japan off of Guadalcanal and sank another Japanese carrier.
In the meantime, the navy had developed a proximity fused projectile for its 5"/38 caliber guns, shooting down the first Japanese aircraft in January 1943. For the rest of the war, we continued making improvements in equipment, training and organization.
Did we have deficiencies at the beginning of the war? You bet!
But our forces were ready to do what needed to be done.
It took them three years and eight months to win that war.
Some say the United States wasn't ready for war in 1941.
Balderdash!
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
70 Years Ago Today: USS Saratoga (CV-3)
May 22, 1942: USS Saratoga leaves Bremerton Naval Shipyard in Puget Sound enroute to San Diego. Saratoga had undergone repairs for damage January 11, 1942 about 500 miles south of Oahu from a torpedo fired by Japanese submarine I-6. She underwent temporary repairs at Pearl Harbor, then proceeded to Puget Sound for repairs.
Her silhouette has been changed by removal of four twin 8" turrets, replacing them with twin 5"/38 mounts. She finally received the wider forward flight deck and the lengthened after flight deck first envisaged as early as 1936 and earlier provided to uss Lexington. A British-style open bridge was built atop the flag plot. The tripod foremast was replaced by pole mast. The distinctive tall stack was also lowered and she received a pair of Mk-37 5" directors (for the 5"/38 guns), with Mk-4 radars, and a secondary air search radar (SC) at the after end of the stack.
These modifications, as well as anti-torpedo blisters below the water line, greatly improved Saratoga's readiness for combat in the Pacific.
Her silhouette has been changed by removal of four twin 8" turrets, replacing them with twin 5"/38 mounts. She finally received the wider forward flight deck and the lengthened after flight deck first envisaged as early as 1936 and earlier provided to uss Lexington. A British-style open bridge was built atop the flag plot. The tripod foremast was replaced by pole mast. The distinctive tall stack was also lowered and she received a pair of Mk-37 5" directors (for the 5"/38 guns), with Mk-4 radars, and a secondary air search radar (SC) at the after end of the stack.
These modifications, as well as anti-torpedo blisters below the water line, greatly improved Saratoga's readiness for combat in the Pacific.
Monday, May 21, 2012
A Commencement Address
Robert Reich, President Clinton's secretary of labor and currently a professor at Berkeley, has posted a commencement address. He titled it "the commencement address that won't be given." After you read it, you'll know why. [The following is censored. Be sure to read the original.]
He uses blunt language to describe the hurdles facing this years' college graduates:
1. Jobs - "you’re going to have a hell of a hard time finding a job. The job market you’re heading into is still bad. Fewer than half of the graduates from last year’s class have as yet found full-time jobs. Most are still looking"
2. Salary - "But even when you get a job, it’s likely to pay peanuts.
Last year’s young college graduates lucky enough to land jobs had an average hourly wage of only $16.81, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute. That’s about $35,000 a year – lower than the yearly earnings of young college graduates in 2007"
3. Career prospects - "But this parchment isn’t as valuable as it once was. So much of what was once considered “knowledge work” – the kind that college graduates specialize in – can now be done more cheaply by software. Or by workers with college degrees in India or East Asia, linked up by Internet."
4. Debt - "In a few moments, when you march out of here, those of you who have taken out college loans will owe more than $25,000 on average. Last year, ten percent of college grads with loans owed more than $54,000."
5. Future - "If unemployment stays high for many years, if the wages of young college grads continue to fall, if the costs of college continue to rise and state and local spending per college student continues to drop, and if the college debt burden therefore continues to explode – well, you do the math."
He offers some thoughts we should all consider: "You see, a college education isn’t just a private investment. It’s also a public good. This nation can’t be competitive globally, nor can we have a vibrant and responsible democracy, without a large number of well-educated people."
Reich is absolutely right, and that is the main reason it isn't good for my blood pressure when I hear the clever fools running legislatures in many states (including our own) talk as though it is only the students who are "customers" of education.
Balderdash!
To quote a former presidential candidate: "If you think education is expensive,try the cost of ignorance!"
He uses blunt language to describe the hurdles facing this years' college graduates:
1. Jobs - "you’re going to have a hell of a hard time finding a job. The job market you’re heading into is still bad. Fewer than half of the graduates from last year’s class have as yet found full-time jobs. Most are still looking"
2. Salary - "But even when you get a job, it’s likely to pay peanuts.
Last year’s young college graduates lucky enough to land jobs had an average hourly wage of only $16.81, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute. That’s about $35,000 a year – lower than the yearly earnings of young college graduates in 2007"
3. Career prospects - "But this parchment isn’t as valuable as it once was. So much of what was once considered “knowledge work” – the kind that college graduates specialize in – can now be done more cheaply by software. Or by workers with college degrees in India or East Asia, linked up by Internet."
4. Debt - "In a few moments, when you march out of here, those of you who have taken out college loans will owe more than $25,000 on average. Last year, ten percent of college grads with loans owed more than $54,000."
5. Future - "If unemployment stays high for many years, if the wages of young college grads continue to fall, if the costs of college continue to rise and state and local spending per college student continues to drop, and if the college debt burden therefore continues to explode – well, you do the math."
He offers some thoughts we should all consider: "You see, a college education isn’t just a private investment. It’s also a public good. This nation can’t be competitive globally, nor can we have a vibrant and responsible democracy, without a large number of well-educated people."
Reich is absolutely right, and that is the main reason it isn't good for my blood pressure when I hear the clever fools running legislatures in many states (including our own) talk as though it is only the students who are "customers" of education.
Balderdash!
To quote a former presidential candidate: "If you think education is expensive,try the cost of ignorance!"
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