At 1:20 a.m. on December 7, 1941, on the darkened bridge of the Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi, Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo was handed the following message: "Vessels moored in harbor: 9 battleships; 3 class B cruisers; 3 seaplane tenders, 17 destroyers. Entering harbor are 4 class B cruisers; 3 destroyers. All aircraft carriers and heavy cruisers have departed harborâ?¦.No indication of any changes in U.S. Fleet or anything unusual."
American officials could have easily found the Japanese spy who set the stage for the Pearl Harbor attackâ??if only they had looked
Nagumo was commanding a task force about to strike Pearl Harbor, crush the Pacific Fleet there, and open Japan's war with the United States. The message, the last of many sent from the code room at the Japanese consulate in Honolulu, was received only hours before the attackâ??now 70 years ago.
Astonishingly, such critical intelligence was not the work of a brilliant Japanese superspy who had worked his way into the heart of the fleet's installation. Rather, Takeo Yoshikawa, a naval officer attached to the consulate and known to the Americans, had simply watched the comings and goings of the fleet from afar, with no more access than a tourist. He made little effort to cloak his mission, and almost certainly would have been uncovered if American intelligence had been more on the ball, or if America's lawmakers had recognized the mortal threat Japan presented. Instead, he raised little suspicion, and his observations helped the Japanese piece together an extraordinarily detailed attack plan, ensuring its success.
On March 27, 1941, the following appeared in the Nippu Jiji, an English-and-Japanese-language newspaper in Honolulu: "Tadashi Morimura, newly appointed secretary of the local Japanese consulate general, arrived here this morning on the Nitta Maru from Japan. His appointment was made to expedite the work on expatriation applications and other matters." The announcement should have drawn the attention of American intelligence agents, as there was no Tadashi Morimura listed in the Japanese foreign registry. This suggested that he was new to the foreign serviceâ??or that he was something other than a diplomat.
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