On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Japanese fascists launched a sneak attack war with six aircraft carriers as the main force, and more than 350 aircraft bombed the U.S. airfield on Oahu and the Pacific Fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. army was severely damaged, and a total of 12 battleships were damaged or sunk. 188 aircraft were destroyed, 155 were damaged and more than 2400 people were killed.
This attack was considered a great shame by the United States, and it was also the first foreign attack on the United States mainland after the Mexican War in the mid-19th century, and the next day, the United States declared war on Japan and officially participated in World War II. The Pearl Harbor attack dealt a heavy blow to the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which also meant the failure of the U.S. intelligence war and the failure to gain insight into japan's plan to attack Pearl Harbor in time.
Regarding the Pearl Harbor intelligence, there is a widely circulated saying in China that Chi Buzhou, a Chinese intelligence worker, once detected the information before the Japanese sneaked into Pearl Harbor and reported it to Chiang Kai-shek and others, but it did not get the attention of the US side, and finally on December 7, the US military was attacked by Japan without any defense. Did Chi Buzhou really crack the intelligence of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor?
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Pearl Harbor was the main base of the U.S. Navy and Air Force in the early days of World War II, with the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Pearl Harbor is a major problem for Japan, and if war breaks out between the United States and Japan, it is likely to become a pioneer base for the United States to attack the Japanese mainland. The U.S. Embargo Act of 1940 restricted the export of oil and steel to Japan, and Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, in order to obtain information on Pearl Harbor, urged the Military Department to send spies to Hawaii, and Yoshikawa, a member of the Intelligence Department, took up this position.
In March 1941, he went to the Japanese Consulate in Honolulu, Hawaii, to collect intelligence on the U.S. fleet, and secretly sent the main fleet in and out of Pearl Harbor to Japan, and according to its intelligence, the Japanese army analyzed that the largest number of ships were moored in Pearl Harbor on Sunday, and Sunday, December 7 became the date of the sneak attack.
At the same time, our intelligence personnel are also secretly conducting intelligence reconnaissance and analysis. A native of Fujian, Chi Buzhou was born in 1908 and studied at Waseda University in Japan, staying in Japan after graduation and working at the Chinese Embassy in Japan. After the outbreak of the war of aggression against China, he returned to China with his wife, Baibin Xiaozi, and worked in the Secret Telecommunications Research Group of the Japanese Imperial Army in the Technical Research Office of the Kuomintang Military Commission, and later quit his job to engage in anti-Japanese propaganda.
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During the war, Japanese code was complex and varied. Japanese diplomatic ciphers commonly use LA codes, which are famous for starting with LA. This LA code is usually two Letters in Japanese, representing a kana letter or a Kanji. La codes are used by Japan to send public information and not to send advanced intelligence. In 1935, the secret electrical inspection and translation institute presided over by Wen Yuqing deciphered the LA code. There is also a Japanese diplomatic code called the "オイテ" code, which was deciphered by Chinese intelligence agents in 1936.
The most complex and difficult to translate password is the Japanese "Tsu" code, known as the J code by the US military, used for Japanese diplomatic negotiations related intelligence, 4 to 6 months to replace the password book, daily replacement of password keys, China once in the summer of 1940 to decipher, but in August Japan updated the code, the difficulty of deciphering greatly increased.
The 1940 U.S. embargo restricted oil and steel exports to Japan, greatly affecting the Japanese military's oil and armament reserves. In early 1941, the Japanese decided to move south and attack the U.S. attack on the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor.
In early 1941, the exchange of secret telegrams between Japan and embassies in various countries was suddenly frequent. In the autumn of 1941, a secret telegram sent by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the European ambassadors to the United States, the Soviet Union, Germany, and other countries was deciphered, and the telegram was titled "The Current Situation and the Outline of Imperial State Policy", which mentioned Japan's intention to enter Indochina and Thailand to the south. On December 3, 1941, Japanese telegrams to the consulates in Hong Kong, Manila and other places were obtained, and the content of the telegram was to order the other party to keep a copy of the telegram and destroy all other important documents.
The contents of this telegram were not immediately taken seriously at the time, and after being examined by Tang Zhong, the leader of the Sixth Guard Group, it was believed that it was likely to be a sign of the War between Japan and the United States, and when the war was imminent, he ordered the burning of important documents, and Japan had made similar moves before the August 13 War. So Tang Zhong immediately reported it to Chiang Kai-shek and then conveyed it to THE US ambassador Gauss.
According to what is now circulating, the message was deciphered by ChiBuzhou, who also interpreted and analyzed Japan's intention to attack Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7.
On April 18, 1943, the plane of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto crashed. At that time, his special plane was raided by the United States Air Force P-38 fighter jets, six fighters failed to escort, both special planes were sunk by the Us military, and the next day, the remains of Yamamoto Fifty-Six and the crash plane were found in the forest near The Barale airport. There are two main theories about how Yamamoto's secret telegram on the route and time of Yamamoto's expedition was broken by the US military, one is that it was deciphered by the US side, and the other is that it was Chi Buzhou.
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Were these important Japanese intelligence, especially the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, deciphered by Chi Buzhou?
In 1933, the Kuomintang set up a chamber of attendants, which was responsible for the review and handling of information reported by all parties, including the comprehensive review of intelligence from the Technical Research Office of the Central Command, the Military Command, and the Central Military Commission. Chi Buzhou worked in the Technical Research Office of the Central Military Commission, and the intelligence of his unit was reported to the attendant room for review, and was first checked and proposed by the sixth group.
According to the recollection diary of Tang Zhong, the leader of the Sixth Group, the Telegram of the Japanese Side's "Outline" in the autumn of 1941 and the telegram of the Burning Documents of December 3, 1941 were reported to Chiang Kai-shek by Tang Zhong, and analyzed that this was likely to be a sign of the War between Japan and the United States, but no one reached a conclusion as to when, where, and in what way the Japanese side fought the War with the United States- because the contents of the telegram could only infer that Japan might expand the war, and this information was indeed transmitted to the hands of the US Military after Being Examined by Chiang Kai-shek.
In fact, China's intelligence-breaking capabilities were not top-notch at the time. Zhang Ling'ao, a member of the sixth group of the Kuomintang Attendant Office, once said bluntly: "It is an indisputable fact that the important codes related to the Japanese army and navy have never been deciphered by our side in a timely manner. ”
The Chinese side has never deciphered the Japanese naval intelligence that is a major secret level, such as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and during the Anti-Japanese War, most of the telegrams that can be translated are Japanese diplomatic telegrams, such as correspondence between the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Japanese embassies in various countries.
Zhang Ling'ao wrote "The Dream of the Attendant Room", which uses his experience in the sixth group to record the intelligence work of the Kuomintang attendant room during the anti-Japanese war. Later, he wrote an article analyzing the rumors about Chi Buzhou and Pearl Harbor intelligence.
According to Zhang Ling'ao, several members of Chi Buzhou's research and translation group all knew Zhang Ling'ao, and the intelligence of the research and translation group was examined by the sixth group, but he had never seen information on deciphering the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Chi Buzhou remained in Shanghai. In the 1950s, he was engaged in the study of Taiwan's economic history at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and Zhang Ling'ao was also doing research at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and the two were colleagues in the same office. The later publications of Shao Yulin and Tang Zhong, important members of the Chamber of Attendants, also do not decipher the pearl harbor intelligence records, and there is no positive confirmation of this matter in the archives.
Therefore, Chi Buzhou's deciphering of the Intelligence of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is most likely misinformed.
Text/Lu soy milk
Resources:
1. "He Deciphered the Tiger Code", Thank You
2. "China Has Not Deciphered the Secret Telegram of the Japanese Raid on Pearl Harbor", Zhang Ling'ao
3. "Intelligence Work of the Attendant Room and the National Government", Zhang Ruide