Admiral Fifty-six Yamamoto raised his binoculars and stood in the command tower with a blank face and looked out. At this time, the adjutant of staff came to report that Chinese planes were attacking the aircraft carrier "Zuihe".

"Boom!"

A Chinese attack plane, hit by Japanese anti-aircraft fire, swooped down with a long black smoke and crashed straight into the side of the "Yamato," exploding into a huge ball of fire.

Debris from the explosion flew in all directions, and some of the debris actually splashed onto the bridge.

The shock wave from the huge explosion shook the huge hull of the "Yamato" heavily, and two anti-aircraft gun emplacements were destroyed, the Japanese gunners of the brigade were either killed or wounded, and some Japanese officers were disrespectful.

Yamamoto Fifty-six held a telescope and looked in the direction of the aircraft carrier squadron, and in the telescope, he could only see thick smoke billowing on the sea, and columns of smoke from countless shells exploding seemed to cover the sky like dark clouds. Hordes of Chinese planes whizzed through the air, and then continued to dive and drop bombs, throw torpedoes, and bomb and strafe at the attackers. All kinds of guns on Japanese warships were firing fiercely, and the huge hull of an aircraft carrier was shaking in the sea. Yamamoto saw the shells fired by the Japanese warships erect a wall of steel fire in front of the enemy's offensive.

Yamamoto lowered the telescope in his hand heavily. The Chinese's determination to fight, the resoluteness of their will to attack, and the ferocity of their offensive have left an indelible impression on his mind.

"The reconnaissance aircraft reported that the Chinese fleet had left the sea off Nagasaki and headed for the southeast." The staff officer came to report again.

"They're trying to escape!" The grass deer chief of staff said loudly.

Yamamoto fifty-six turned around and came to the chart table. Look at the position of the two fleets above. The wrinkles on the face are deeper.

"There is also the possibility of luring the enemy." Black Island Turtle Osa suddenly said.

"What do you say? Kuroshima-kun? Yamamoto Fifty-six turned his head to look at Kuroshima Kameto and asked, "Lure the enemy?" ”

"Yes. Your Excellency the Commander-in-Chief. Kuroshima Kameto replied in an affirmative tone, "The Shina fleet has stayed in the sea off Nagasaki for a long time, and the purpose seems to be to destroy the will of the imperial subjects in this way, challenge the imperial navy, and conduct a decisive battle with the main force of the imperial navy, but now that the main force of the imperial navy has been dispatched, the Shina fleet has actually chosen to retreat, and its intention is obvious, which is to attract the main force of the imperial navy into the ambush circle. In this way, they intend to destroy the main forces of the Imperial Navy. ”

After listening to the analysis of the Kuroshima Kametoshi of "Akiyama Shinno's Second", Chief of Staff Kusaka couldn't help but gasp. But Yamamoto Isoroku was still very calm.

"In other words, there is still a Chinese attack fleet that responds." Yamamoto said.

The Black Island Turtle Man continued. "Because according to the report of the reconnaissance plane, although the China Navy dispatched the main force this time, it was not all. Moreover, the whereabouts of the China Navy in the port of Truk are currently unknown, which also shows what the purpose of the China people is. ”

"In any case, this is also a real decisive battle that will determine the future fate of the Empire." Yamamoto Fifty-six pondered for a moment and said, "This time, we must go all out!" ”

"Order Hawaii's Third Fleet to set off immediately!"

Hearing Yamamoto's order, the communications officers immediately began to get busy.

While the Japanese were busy issuing radio commands, the United States was on the other side of the ocean. I am also keeping an eye on this unprecedented scale of sea battle.

Although 1943 was no longer the year of successive military defeats for the Allies. Churchill's "cascade of disasters" did not spread in the Far East, but the Japanese bombing of Beijing dealt a major blow to the will of the Allies for a short time, but the subsequent massive retaliatory bombing of Tokyo by the Chinese lifted the spirits of the Americans. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff considered the operation to be nothing more than an attack for propaganda purposes. It turns out they were all wrong. In the months that followed, this retaliatory attack on an unprecedented scale set off a chain of events through which the United States found an opportunity to contain the wave of Japanese conquest. …,

After the Chinese Air Force bombed Tokyo and caused great damage, the Japanese Navy overreacted by sending almost all the warships of the Combined Fleet. This generated a flood of radio signals that provided the U.S. Navy with an opportunity to win an unexpected, but crucial, secret victory. Although they do not yet have a naval force comparable to that of Japan. But it has a huge advantage in covert electronic warfare, which is precisely the key to achieving tactical superiority in the vast Pacific theater. This intelligence provided important clues to the Americans to reveal to the Americans how the "victory disease" prompted the Japanese to support too many battles on too long fronts, thus distracting their overwhelming advantage. Knowing in advance about the weakness of the enemy's strategy, Admiral Nimitz was able to concentrate his limited naval forces. actions against the enemy one by one, thereby disrupting Japan's attempts to move south and west into the Pacific.

The Japanese Combined Fleet frantically pursued Chu Yangwei's retreating main fleet of the Chinese Navy. Much of the village material has been added to the intelligence puzzle, which the United States is painstakingly putting together in order to uncover the secrets of Japan's operations in the second phase of operations. From Alaska to Australia, the listeners of a series of radio stations around the Pacific Ocean, receiving a stream of coded telegrams from the air, which were then sent by teletyping telegraph to the Admiralty Intelligence Service in Washington for Lawrence? Codebreaker for Lieutenant Commander Sufford, or issued to Joseph Anderson, who worked at San Diego Naval Harbor? The smaller Pacific Fleet Operational Intelligence Service led by Rear Admiral Rocherford.

Since the beginning of the war, they have painstakingly deciphered the Japanese Navy's main operational code, known as the "Japanese Navy No. 25" (JN25), day and night. In addition to their day-to-day communications, they use particularly secure "comb" signal wavelengths so that naval intelligence in San Diego, Brisbane, and Washington can exchange intercepted information with each other as they explore the pattern of the telegraph. It's a process that requires a decipherment team, a complex filing system, and an easy-to-use skill and intuition on IBM punch card tabulation machines. Clues to decipher a set of codes. To learn from the similarities and recurring forms of the two-letter code for place names, the date and time code, the call signal of the ship and the commander, etc. And groping from the same "handwriting" of the Morse code sender. The information was recorded on loose-leaf sheets, five inches long and eight inches wide, stacked in open boxes for backup, which the Pacific Fleet Operational Intelligence Service called "cards." The U.S. Navy had shot down a Japanese reconnaissance plane at sea, and the documents recovered from the plane listed the air code and the ship's call signal code, which provided the first important clues.

The actual process of deciphering the coded telegram was a very difficult task, which required the ingenuity of man and the constant exploration of the International Business Machines tabulators. The Japanese Navy's code No. 25 is not the same as the diplomatic code translated by the machine that was deciphered by the "black box". It is a traditional cipher generated from two codebooks. The first "dictionary" is a random five-digit set of numbers, such as 4375265739142688822173923, which has a total of 45,000 numbers. Each group represents a specific word or phrase in Japanese. Before the coded telegram was sent, each set of numbers was added one after the other in a similar five-digit set of numbers in the second codebook. Each set of numbers is divisible by three. in order to check for tampering, so that their total number is also divisible by three. Before sending a telegram in Morse code, an index is preceded by the telegram. The receiver finds out which page, column, and line of the second codebook according to the index, and then translates the coded telegram with reference to the "dictionary". …,

For the codebreakers of the Admiralty Intelligence Service in Washington and the Pacific Fleet Operational Intelligence Service at Pearl Harbor, the large number of telegrams intercepted during the Chinese fleet's attack on the port of Nagasaki and the Japanese fleet's pursuit of the Chinese fleet was a big bonus. Not only did the secret call signal tell them that almost every warship in Yamamoto's combined fleet had gone to sea, but the purpose of this massive operation was also exposed, and valuable insights clarified the meaning of many five-figure figures. During the five months when the Japanese insisted on using the Type "B" cipher, American cryptanalysts added many more words to the Japanese Navy's No. 25 cipher "dictionary." In order to maintain secrecy, the Naval Staff Headquarters in Tokyo had planned to replace the two codebooks on 1 November. But convinced that their two-tier password could not be deciphered, they once again committed the "victory disease" and postponed the replacement date to December 1, and later to January 1 of the following year. Because it is cumbersome to send new "dictionaries" to every warship. As a result, the U.S. Naval Intelligence was so familiar with the Japanese Navy's Type 25B ciphers that they were able to decipher one-twentieth of all coded telegrams received each day. This information, combined with information gleaned from coded telegrams, which were relatively easy to decipher, began to paint a clear picture of the enemy's disposition and intentions. On October 25, a telegram referring to the Battle of RZP implied that MO was referring to Port Moresby at the southern tip of New Guinea and RZQ was referring to a nearby seaplane base, and these two code names appeared in abundance in the coded telegrams that came and went, and seemed to indicate that the Japanese were advancing south. This information was corroborated by important clues obtained after deciphering a telegram sent a week after the Chinese attacked Tokyo. It demanded 1,000 documents to be used in the offensive plan and a complete map of Australia. A telegram deciphered three days later clearly reads: "The goal of the MO is, first of all, to limit the activities of the enemy's fleet, which will be achieved by launching an offensive along the northern coast of Australia." "During the month, the number of telegrams increased, indicating that the Japanese were intensifying their build-up of aircraft, ships and troops in preparation for a southward attack on Australia.

Fill in the missing pieces of the intelligence patchwork with educated guesswork. And in the process of making such an explanation by deciphering the code, Joseph? Rocherford played a leading role. Rocherford has a superhuman memory for details. In the course of studying Japanese and studying Japanese naval operations for many years, he has accumulated a wealth of knowledge and has a strong intuitive ability. He was the head and inspiration to eight hand-picked codebreakers in the Pacific Fleet's Operational Intelligence Service at Pearl Harbor. This intelligence service gradually acquired a special skill in deciphering the codes of the Japanese fleet. Their unique abilities earned the trust of Nimitz. He relied more and more on their intelligence. Use this intelligence as his secret weapon in the most critical operational phase of the Pacific War.

"You don't need to be whimsical - but whimsical can help you." It was a warning posted on the wall opposite Rear Admiral Dwyer's desk, which was often littered with a jumble of drafts, intercepted telegrams, and tabulator prints. Rocherford's main assistant had a neat mustache, gold-rimmed glasses, and the eccentric demeanor of an absent-minded math professor. The Chief of Intelligence's penchant for wearing a pair of slippers and a faded crimson velvet smoking suit at work is a prime example. "Isolated like a submarine." Recalling their intense work day and night in the windowless basement of the new administration building in the Port of San Diego, under the glare of fluorescent lamps and the incessant pounding of tabulators and teletyping telegraphs, one BFIPU member said, "Here, the clock moment has lost any meaning, and the constant temperature in the air-conditioned environment has given rise to the joke that the only fresh air is brought in by the guests' pockets." The number of guests was very small, as there were armed guards standing guard in front of the single door with the sign of 'Operational Information Service'. ”…,

During these critical weeks of 1943. Dwyer and Rocherford were on duty twenty-four hours a day. Rocherford often spends days in the basement, struggling on sandwiches and coffee, sleeping on canvas beds between watchmakers. Here, both humans and machines work in a highly concentrated manner. Only the codebreakers of the Admiralty Intelligence Service and MacArthur Command in Washington can be compared. MacArthur's intelligence service was codenamed "Custer", and they renamed it "Bel Connan" after establishing a new headquarters in Australia.

The joint work of these three units has enabled the remnants of the Pacific Fleet ships to carry out attacks on these targets with the help of intercepted Japanese reports on the climate over the target areas. Radio intelligence also helped the small fleet blow up Frigate Reef (the reef between Hawaii and Midway), where the U.S. Navy had discovered that an enemy supply ship had refueled a seacraft attacking Oahu.

The Pacific Fleet Intelligence Department had a comprehensive grasp of the movements of the Japanese Navy based on the information provided by Rocherford's Operational Intelligence Service. The Ministry of Intelligence was founded by Edwin? When Nimitz took over command under Leyton's leadership, he retained the promising young officer, appreciating his ability to often detect the enemy's next move. Leiden gathers this information in his daily Fact Sheet. Send a password to all ships and bases. Leiden's analysis of intelligence was based not only on deciphered codes, but also on a large amount of raw radio intelligence, as well as on the experience he had gained while on duty in the Far East, which gave him a unique ability to see the Pacific Ocean from the eyes of the Japanese.

More than a month before the Chinese Air Force's strategic bomber group set out to attack Tokyo, Layton and his staff gathered the scattered intelligence provided by the intercepted signals, and foresaw the Japanese Navy launching an offensive against the Bismarck Islands and New Guinea a few days before the Imperial Japanese Navy Command Department issued the first operational orders. It is clear that the intention of the Japanese was to deploy several aircraft carriers, the South China Sea Army Division and the 25th Air Force to launch a large-scale offensive. "The Japanese are now able to strike at both Port Moresby and Tulagi at the same time." The Pacific Fleet operational log of that day writes. Three weeks later. The Admiralty Intelligence Service in Washington deciphered the order sent to Vice Admiral Narimi Inoue, commander of the Japanese Fourth Fleet, to let the Americans know that as soon as the two aircraft carriers sent by the Nagumo Assault Fleet returning from the Indian Ocean arrived, they would immediately begin to carry out the MO operation plan.

But what happened next prompted the Japanese to change their battle plan, after the Chinese Air Force bombed Tokyo with incendiary bombs, causing heavy casualties among Japanese soldiers and civilians. The Japanese realized how weak their defenses on home soil were, and the Chinese could easily wreak havoc. And after the bombing of the Japanese mainland by the Chinese Air Force. The Japanese Navy Command Department judged that the Chinese Navy might launch an attack on the Japanese mainland, so it began to gather naval forces on the mainland to prepare for a decisive battle with the Chinese Navy. In this way, the plan to go south was naturally canceled.

The cancellation of the Japanese army's plan to advance south greatly relieved both the Americans and the British. As Australia turned the corner, Curtin and Churchill's once-strained relationship over the deployment of troops eased. In Churchill's view, "the war in the Pacific turned into a war between the yellow race." But Roosevelt did not see it that way, he clearly knew that the crisis was only temporarily alleviated, because as the number one military power in Asia, China's participation in the war would inevitably contain a large number of troops of the Japanese Navy and Army, but the problem was that once China was defeated, the crisis would inevitably return.

Another big problem is that the Allies do not yet have an organization capable of effective communication in the field of intelligence. This is true not only between the United States and China, but also between the United Kingdom and the United States. (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to (.) to vote for recommendation, monthly pass, your support is my biggest motivation. )