UNITED STATES CRYPTOLOGIC HISTORY

Series IV 

World War II

Volume 7

The Quiet Heroes of the Southwest Pacific Theater:

An Oral History of the Men and Women of CBB

and FRUMEL

Sharon A. Maneki

CENTER FOR CRYPTOLOGIC HISTORY 

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

Reprinted 2007
Page ii

This monograph is a product of the National Security Agency history

program. Its contents and conclusions are those of the author, based on

original research, and do not necessarily represent the official views of the

National Security Agency. Please address divergent opinion or additional

detail to the Center for Cryptologic History (EC).
Page iii

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii

An Introduction to the Central Bureau Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Chapter 1: The Challenge of Reaching Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Escaping from the Philippines: A View from the Navy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Escaping from the Philippines: A View from the Army . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Traveling from Stateside . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Chapter 2: Challenges at Central Bureau Field Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Mastering Japanese Intercept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

The Paradox of Life at a Field Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

On the Move in New Guinea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

An American Perspective on Traffic Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Chapter 3: Cryptanalysts at Work in Central Bureau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

The Key to Success Was Teamwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

The Joy of Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Putting Our Cryptanalytic Skills to the Test at Central Bureau 1942-1945 .34

Developing the Clues to Solve the Cryptanalytic Puzzle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

Chapter 4: Central Bureau: A Complete Signals Intelligence Agency . . . . . . . . .39

The Trials and Tribulations of an IBM Operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

Supporting Central Bureau’s Information Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41

A Central Bureau J-Boy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42

A Bizarre Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45

Chapter 5: The Role of Women at Central Bureau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

The Brisbane Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

The New Guinea Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

A View from the Commanders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

Table of Contents
Page iv

Chapter 6: The FRUMEL Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

From the Ground Up at FRUMEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

Intercept and Traffic Analysis at FRUMEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58

A Conversation with the Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

Life at a Forward Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Two Views of Cryptanalysis at FRUMEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

The Challenges of Cryptanalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

I Was a Recovery Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65

Keeping the Equipment Humming at FRUMEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67

The Challenges of Running the IBM Operation at FRUMEL . . . . . . . . . . . . .67

Staying in Tune and Other Duties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71

Life at FRUMEL from a Linguist’s Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73

Chapter 7: FRUMEL and Central Bureau: A Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77

Security Was a Paramount Concern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78

Communications Intelligence Has Many Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80

An Overview from the Commander Professor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82

Chapter 8: Walking a Tightrope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87

Persuading the Consumers of the Value of SIGINT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87

Managing Traffic Analysis with Akin at the Helm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91

I Was the Meat in the Sandwich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99

Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101
Page v

The Central Bureau Brisbane (CBB) and the

Fleet Radio Unit Melbourne (FRUMEL) played

vital, if largely unheralded, parts in supporting

military operations in the Southwest Pacific in

World War ll. The communications intelligence

(COMINT) they produced was often a major factor

in decision making by General Douglas MacArthur,

his staff, and other senior leaders in the struggle to

prevent further Japanese conquests and to retake

captured territory.

The Quiet Heroes of the Southwest Pacific

Theater: An Oral History of the Men and Women

of CBB and FRUMEL by Ms. Sharon Maneki of

the Center for Cryptologic History fills many gaps

in our knowledge of CBB and FRUMEL. It is an

important book because Ms. Maneki has presented

a unique portrait of the COMINT production

process in wartime.

COMINT production in World War II was an

extremely complex endeavor. One major theme of

The Quiet Heroes of the Southwest Pacific Theater

is how diverse aspects of the process combined to

produce the intelligence distributed to commanders. Of particular interest is the subtle and supportive interplay between cryptanalysis and traffic

analysis. Other factors, such as rudimentary

machine processing and lucky discoveries on the

battlefield, also contributed to the process.

As a complex and cooperative process, however,

the production of COMINT depended on a strong

organizational structure which could meld components and make them work – and work quickly

enough to produce COMINT in time for operational

use. It is not a contradiction to say that this organization also needed a structure which would get the

best out of its brilliant staff. CBB and FRUMEL

were successful in both counts.

The Quiet Heroes of the Southwest Pacific

Theater is highly recommended; it should have a

place on the bookshelf of every scholar interested in

the Pacific War or the professional study of communications intelligence.

David A. Hatch

NSA Historian

Center for Cryptologic History

Foreword
Page vi

The Southwest Pacific theater, MacArthur’s domain of responsibility during WWII, presented

unique challenges because of the distances.
UNCLASSIFIED Page vii

In World War II, the Japanese were a bold, formidable enemy for the Allies. The Southwest Pacific

theater covered an immense area: it included

Australia, New Guinea, the Northern Solomon

Islands, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the

Philippines. Allied commander General Douglas

MacArthur’s objectives were to stop the advancing

Japanese, to return to the Philippines, and, eventually, to invade Japan itself. Communications intelligence was a great asset to MacArthur in meeting

these objectives. The war In the Pacific was shortened by at least two years because of the efforts of

the communications intelligence practitioners who

produced ULTRA, information derived from reading the Japanese military codes. What were some of

ULTRA’s accomplishments in the Southwest

Pacific theater?

ULTRA provided Allied commanders with an

astonishing range of data about the Japanese army,

air force, and navy. ULTRA immeasurably simplified the interdiction of air and sea resupply routes

because it foretold the locations and times that

Japanese ships and aircraft would appear. General

George C. Kenny, MacArthur’s air corps commander, began with small attacks against Japanese convoys at Buna, New Guinea, but quickly moved to

orchestrate the battle of the Bismarck Sea. The near

annihilation of the Japanese army’s Fifty-first

Division at sea marked the strategic turning point

of the New Guinea operation, which enabled

MacArthur’s 1943 ground campaign to move forward. Kenny’s destruction of Japanese aircraft at

Wewak in August 1943 made possible MacArthur’s

invasion of Lae, New Guinea, and his war of attrition at Rabaul made possible the invasion of the

Admiralties. Kenny’s destruction of Japanese air

power at Hollandia during March and April 1944

made possible MacArthur’s greatest leapfrog operation along the northern New Guinea coast. In late

1944, ULTRA allowed Kenny’s airmen to exact a

terrible price on Japanese ships and men going to

Leyte. The interdiction campaign not only thwarted

Japanese attempts to bolster their defenses in the

Southwest Pacific but also forced them to abandon

large garrisons that could no longer be resupplied.

The Allies’ ability to read Japanese army messages definitely shortened the ground war in the

Pacific. ULTRA identified the operational flaw in

MacArthur’s New Guinea campaign by exposing

Japanese intentions to vigorously defend Hansa

Bay. Instead, MacArthur bypassed Hansa Bay and

struck deep behind enemy lines at Hollandia.

ULTRA also played a major role in the timing and

planning of this campaign. On 22 April 1944, Allied

aircraft simultaneously attacked Hollandia, Aitape,

and Wakde-Sarmi. ULTRA’s greatest contribution

to MacArthur’s strategy was in this Hollandia campaign. One of the most important intelligence coups

that came from reading the Japanese Army Water

Transport Code was the discovery of the Take convoy. In late April and early May 1944, U.S. submarines sank this convoy, causing the Japanese to

lose all of their equipment and approximately 3,954

troops. The Japanese plan to reinforce their defenses in western New Guinea with the Thirty-second

and Thirty-fifth Divisions was foiled. The Take

disaster allowed MacArthur to speed up the invasion of Wakde and Biak and made his victories

in western New Guinea possible. Consequently,

MacArthur was also able to advance his timetable

for reaching the Philippines. ULTRA and those who

produced it saved lives and shortened the war in the

Pacific. ULTRA is one of the great intellectual, technological, and military triumphs of World War II.

In today’s push-button society, where opportunities for instant information and instant gratification abound, it is difficult to appreciate the amount

Preface
Page viii

of research, study, analysis, and grueling work

involved in exploiting information from enemy

codes during World War II. Historians appropriately applaud the achievements of breaking the

codes but have little understanding of the herculean

team efforts that were put forth to break the codes,

keep up with changes in the codes, exploit the intelligence, and get it to the people who needed it.

Some historians incorrectly credit the successful reading of codes only to the cryptanalysts. The

Central Bureau Brisbane and Fleet Radio Unit

Melbourne experiences demonstrated the interdependence of collection, traffic analysis, and cryptanalysis. Central Bureau had little success in 1942

because it took time to get intercept units established. Traffic analysts and cryptanalysts need sufficient amounts of material for research and study.

The cryptanalyst depends on the traffic analyst to

identify message centers and addresses. By associating locations with broadcasts of particular military units, the traffic analyst inferred troop deployments and forthcoming operations. Traffic analysis

activities were the first step in compiling an accuMacArthur’s island hopping campaign through New Guinea in 1943 and 1944 was a stepping

stone to his objective to return to the Philippines.
UNCLASSIFIED Page ix

rate Japanese order of battle. There were many

instances during the war when traffic analysis was

MacArthur’s major or only source of signals intelligence because codes were unreadable at the time.

One instance was the Japanese attack on Port

Moresby, New Guinea, in July 1942. Another time

traffic analysis had to fill the void was when the

Japanese army changed their codes on 8 April

1944, as MacArthur was planning the Hollandia

invasion, which was to begin on 22 April 1944.

Jayapura, formerly Hollandia, was MacArthur’s greatest leap forward

in the New Guinea campaign.
Page x UNCLASSIFIED

Cryptanalysis was also a source of assistance to

the traffic analyst. In New Guinea, some Japanese

air bases were so close together that they could be

identified only by reading designations in the army

codes.

This is an oral history of the activities outlining

all of the varied tasks involved in code breaking.

This is the story of participants from all sectors of

the communications intelligence operation in the

Southwest Pacific theater. Success would have been

impossible without sustained effort on tedious

tasks such as recording message numbers, filing

messages by callsign or code group, keypunching

IBM cards, and copying and subtracting numbers

to find the pattern in code groups, day after day,

year after year throughout the war.

Success depended on intercept operators who

had to copy Kana with accuracy and speed. Copying

Kana is frustrating because it is a code of seventyone symbols rather than the twenty-six-letter international code. Success depended on translators

who struggled to interpret the complexities of the

Japanese language. There are numerous stories of

individuals who came back on their own time to

work on the solution of a problem or to catch up

with an ever-increasing work load. Their persistence and dedication were remarkable.

It is appropriate for this oral history to contain

the recollections of people from all sectors of communications intelligence. This monograph not only

contains recollections from intercept operators,

traffic analysts, cryptanalysts, and linguists connected with Central Bureau and the Fleet Radio

Unit Melbourne but also covers these disciplines

from different perspectives. These perspectives

include officers versus enlisted men, Americans

versus Australians, and the role of women in communications intelligence. Much of the monograph

is devoted to experiences at Central Bureau because

it was a larger organization than the Fleet Radio

Unit Melbourne and, thus, more sources were

available. These interviews were conducted by oral

historians at the Center for Cryptologic History in

the National Security Agency. The production of

this monograph would have been impossible without the research and interviewing skills of Robert

Farley. Mr. Farley located and interviewed 90 percent of the subjects in this collection. He recognized

the importance of their story.

As is true of any oral history, memories fade,

and there is sometimes inconsistency in some

details such as dates. However, the interviews give

an accurate picture of what life was like in the

Southwest Pacific theater for these quiet heroes.

They give us an appreciation of the tremendous

challenges they faced. The production of communications intelligence was truly a team effort.

Robert Farley
Page xi

As the war front moved to the Philippines in

1945, Central Bureau set up its headquarters

in San Miguel, Luzon.

The discovery of the Japanese resupply convoy in Ormoc Bay was an important SIGINT

achievement.

The Allies entered Lingayen Gulf on 9 January 1945.
Page xii

I wish to express my appreciation to the following individuals for their invaluable contributions to the

production of this publication: the staff of the NSA Geographic Library for their assistance in the collection

and production of maps; my colleagues at the Center for Cryptologic History, Dr. Tom Johnson and Beverly

Warren, for guidance in the research and initial editing of the manuscript; the publications team of the

Center, Barry Carleen, Jean Persinger, and Laura Clark, for their superb efforts in completing the design

layout and final editing of the project. Lu Greenwood of the publications team also made outstanding contributions to the reformatting and reprinting of the monograph.

Sharon Maneki

Acknowledgments
Page 1

General Douglas MacArthur established the

Central Bureau (later referred to as CBB) on 15

April 1942. Central Bureau’s overall mission was to

obtain intelligence from Japanese military signals,

protect the security of Allied communications, work

with Arlington Hall in Washington, D.C., to solve

Japanese military (especially army) cryptographic

codes, and to support the U.S. Navy and British

commands in nearby theaters as appropriate. The

nearby theaters supported by Central Bureau were

the Central Pacific, South Pacific, and the ChinaBurma-India (CBI) theater areas.

Central Bureau was a joint organization made

up of the U.S. Army, Australian Imperial Forces

(AIF), and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

MacArthur’s chief signals officer, Major General

Spencer B. Akin, was the director of Central

Bureau. A joint committee of each of the three services determined Central Bureau policy. In 1942, the

commanding officers who sat on this policy committee were Colonel Joseph Scherr, USA; Captain

A. W. Sandford, AIF; and Flight Lieutenant H. R.

Booth, RAAF. After the death of Colonel Scherr in

1943, Colonel Abraham Sinkov sat on this joint

committee for the remainder of the war. Colonel

Sinkov was responsible for much of the success of

Central Bureau.

Although there were many Allied joint military

organizations in World War II, few can match the

harmony and cooperation found in Central Bureau.

This was a remarkable achievement because its

workforce consisted of representatives from fourteen services and many nationalities including

American, Australian, British, Canadian, New

Zealander, French, and Filipino. Central Bureau

needed highly skilled personnel and recruited them

from any source possible.

Major Geoffrey Ballard, an AIF officer assigned

to Central Bureau, offers an interesting explanation

for this high level of cooperation. He points out how

bleak things looked for the Allies in the Pacific in

1942. Ballard relates that after the Japanese attack

on Pearl Harbor, the Australians feared they would

be next. Prior to 1942, Australian troops were helping the British on various war fronts. In January

1942, expecting a Japanese invasion, the Australian

government ordered all of its troops to return home

to protect the homeland. Australia was definitely

anxious for U.S. help.

A second reason for the high level of cooperation within Central Bureau offered by Colonel

Charles E. Girhard, a U.S. Army officer who established the cryptologic section at Central Bureau,

was the clear division of labor between the

Americans and the Australians. Girhard points out

that the Americans were responsible for cryptanalytic tasks, and the Australians were responsible for

traffic analytic tasks. This division of labor was

based on expertise. The Australians had little cryptanalytic experience. However, Australia had troops

who acquired traffic analysis experience while serving with the British in Africa and the Middle East.

By the end of the war, Central Bureau had 4,339

personnel, including its field sections.

From its inception, MacArthur intended that

as a support organization, Central Bureau should

be close to his general headquarters. When

MacArthur’s general headquarters moved from

Melbourne to Brisbane in July 1942, CBB moved

there in September 1942. When MacArthur’s general headquarters moved to Hollandia in August

1944, an echelon of CBB followed in November.

When MacArthur moved to Manila in March 1945,

CBB moved almost its entire operation to San

Miguel over the period from May to July 1945. By

An Introduction to the Central Bureau Story
Page 2

the end of the war, the scope of CBB activities covered an area from Okinawa in the north to Brisbane

in the south, as far west as Guam and as far east as

Borneo. The achievements of CBB participants are

especially remarkable in light of the distance, geographic conditions, and logistical problems they

had to contend with.

Brisbane, capital city of Queensland 

Brisbane area (photo not identified)

Downtown

Queen

Street

featured

shops,

banks,

restaurants, and

modern

theatres.

Stony Bridge
Page 3

Early 1942 was a bleak period for the Allies in

the Southwest Pacific theater. The Japanese conquest of Pacific territory proceeded with alarming

speed. By the end of March 1942, the Japanese

controlled Hong Kong, Rangoon, Singapore, the

Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies. General

MacArthur was forced out of the Philippines and

established his new headquarters in Melbourne,

Australia, on 21 March 1942.

The Americans who worked in communications intelligence (COMINT) came to Australia

either because they had to escape from the

Philippines or because they were sent there from

the U.S. by the Army. Each route had its challenges. Both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy had

intercept units on Corregidor. Intercept units

were especially important because of their skills

and because of the information they could reveal

to the Japanese if captured. The U.S. Navy, and

later the Army, saw the prudence of getting these

men out of Corregidor. Their escapes were no

easy feats. The following accounts by Chief

Radioman (later Captain) Duane L. Whitlock and

Lieutenant (later Colonel) Howard W. Brown

illustrate this point. Lieutenant (later Colonel)

Charles Girhard came to Australia directly from

the U.S. His account illustrates the problems the

U.S. faced in gearing up for the war effort in the

Pacific.

Escaping the Philippines: A View from the

Navy

Duane Whitlock joined the Navy in 1935.

After serving on a light cruiser as a radioman, he

was selected for special intercept training at OP20-G. He served at intercept sites in Hawaii and

Guam. He came to the Philippines in July 1940

and was a member of the traffic analysis unit on

Corregidor. As part of the third evacuation group,

his twenty-day ordeal from Corregidor to

Fremantle, Australia, which began on 16 March

1942, was certainly memorable.

My escape got off to an ominous

start. My first surprise was that the

submarine Permit was not waiting

at the dock for the arrival of our

group. We took launch boats out to

look for the sub. We were able to

chase the sub down because it had

to stay on the surface until it cleared

the mines. When we got on board,

we found that we were not the only

evacuees on the boat. The men who

were evacuated from our unit earlier that day were also on board. The

coast watchers did not realize that

the Permit came back to port so they

mistakenly set another evacuation

Chapter 1

The Challenge of Reaching Australia

Duane Whitlock
Page 4

in motion because they thought a

new submarine came in. As a result,

this submarine, which normally

holds 60 people, had 120 people on

board. It was so overcrowded that if

you were not on watch, you had to

lay [sic] in your bunk since there

was no place else to go.

Because of security and the ‘need to

know’ principle, I began this voyage

in a difficult predicament. The captain, Moon Chapel, had orders to

break patrol and proceed to

Australia immediately. This captain was a charger, so instead of

breaking patrol and going to the

open waters of the South China Sea,

he headed through the Philippine

Islands to the Sulu Sea. Through

traffic analysis, I knew that there

was a Japanese [division] of

destroyers off the islands south of

Corregidor cleaning up interisland

shipping. Did I have the authority

to give Captain Chapel this information? Was the captain cleared to

receive such information? After discussing this dilemma with others

from my unit, we agreed that I did

not have the authority to give this

information to the captain. The next

night, he surfaced right in the middle of the Japanese destroyers. We

submerged, and the submarine was

under depth charge attack for

[twenty]-eight hours. The heat was

unbearable because we had to turn

off all the cooling systems. The temperature of the water was 83

degrees at induction and we were so

overcrowded. Such a long submersion reduced our oxygen levels;

there was so little oxygen that you

could not even light a match. We

finally escaped. I would not repeat

that experience even for a million

dollars.

A second close call came several

days later when the submarine

was between Kendari [Celebes,

Indonesia], and Ambon. We spotted

a Japanese merchant ship at

extreme range heading south. We

chased that ship all afternoon, but

since it made the same speed as we

did, we could not catch it. Shortly

before dark, the captain decided to

fire two torpedoes at this ship,

which was about 7,000 yards

away. Almost immediately after the

torpedoes were touched off, I heard

the order ‘crash dive! crash dive!’

One of the damn fish went out and

circled around and came right back

Duane Whitlock’s escape route from Corregidor

in March 1942
Page 5

at us! We went down about 155 feet,

and [it] went right over the top of us.

You could even hear the screws on the

thing.

Toward the end of the voyage, when

the submarine was southeast of

Timor, we had a third very close call.

I was sitting in the dinette area surrounded by racks of dishes. I noticed

that we were at a steep angle and the

stern was dropping. The dishes began

to spill out of their racks. Captain

Chapel jumped out of his bunk and

yelled: ‘What the hell is going on

here!’ The captain discovered that one

of the crew pumped the trim tanks

inward instead of outward, sending

water into the control room. By the

time the captain caught this mistake,

the water was within six inches of our

electric motors. We were very lucky

to get out of that one.

After landing at Fremantle, Whitlock and his

companions went to Melbourne by train and joined

the Fleet Radio Unit at Melbourne (FRUMEL).

Whitlock served at FRUMEL until October 1943,

when he returned to Washington, D.C., to serve at

naval cryptologic headquarters. FRUMEL was

established in February 1942 by merging U.S. signals intelligence (SIGINT) naval personnel from

Corregidor under the command of Lieutenant

Commander Rudolph J. Fabian with the small

Australian naval SIGINT unit.

Escaping the Philippines: A View from the

Army

Howard W. Brown joined the Army in the early

1930s. He was assigned to the Tenth Signal Service

Company as a telegraph operator at Fort Santiago,

Manila, in 1932. He became fascinated with the

Japanese Kana code so he taught himself how to

copy it. After attending radio electrician school at

Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, he joined the Signals

Intelligence Detachment of the Fifty-first Battalion.

He returned to the Philippines at the end of 1934 to

do intercept activities. In the late 1930s, Brown

took a job with the McKay radio station in Manila.

In 1941, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and served under Major (later Colonel)

Joseph R. Scherr as the operations officer in an

army intercept unit in the Philippines. Shortly after

MacArthur left Corregidor, General Wainwright,

the U.S. commander in the Philippines, received

instructions to send Brown and ten other enlisted

men to Australia. Brown’s orders were to proceed to

Del Monte on the northern coast of Mindanao, in

the Philippines, establish an intercept station, and

await further instructions. Brown’s description of

his 28 March 1942 escape in a B-17 follows:

We could see the lights of the city of

Manila from Bataan Field, but as

soon as we turned the field lights on

so that the planes could take off,

Manila was blacked out. We flew over

Corregidor at about 3,000 feet and

the searchlights caught us. The antiaircraft command had been notified

that we were going over, but we held

our breath for several eternities, not

Howard Brown’s escape route

from Corregidor in April 1942
Page 6

knowing when some trigger-happy

illegitimate might open fire – because

when one shoots, they all shoot. The

lights went off, no shots – Whew!!

We landed at Cebu at daylight, camouflaged the planes in a cane field,

and drove into town. Cebu [an island

about 400 miles south of Manila] was

a peaceful little place that had been

attacked only twice – once by strafing

planes and once by a destroyer that

dropped a few shells into the business

district. At about 1600 hours, we took

off, skipped the water down to Del

Monte, Mindanao, and landed just

after dark.

We established an intercept unit of

sorts between the airfield and a

pineapple plantation by ‘acquiring’

four receivers, a diesel generator, and

a wiring cutout of an old B-17 on the

ground. Soon we were in business,

monitoring Japanese aircraft movements, and passing on air raid warnings as well as our own hunches

about potential enemy attacks, which

were not heeded!

On the evening of 12 April, we learned

that MacArthur had issued orders for

us to go to Australia. At about 0400

hours on 14 April, I was called to the

field and told that they had repaired

the B-17, which had been struck by

Japanese bombers. They asked me to

please step lively and get aboard

because they wanted to take off.

Numerous delays postponed our

takeoff until dawn was beginning to

break. At the last moment, one of our

boys came over and told me that they

had a plaintext message from ‘Foto

Joe’ [a Japanese reconnaissance

plane] that he and six fighters were

patrolling south of Mindanao. I gave

the pilot this information and we took

off. We had no sooner cleared the field

when two float planes came in.

Although we were heavily loaded and

slow, they did not attack because we

had guns. We flew east from Del

Monte and headed south, giving

Mindanao a wide berth. All looked

well until one engine started pumping oil and had to be shut down. We

were about forty-five minutes out at

the time, with nineteen people

aboard, and two full bomb bay tanks.

With the Japs at Del Monte, there was

no question of going back. We

pumped gas into the wing tanks as

rapidly as possible, and soon had the

plane fairly well trimmed. Then

another motor started throwing oil.

Power was reduced on this engine

and the other two were stepped up,

and we worked our way to Darwin,

Australia, with all three engines

working on feather edge. When we

landed, more than one strong man

kissed the ground.

When we arrived in Brisbane,

Australia, the next evening, I experienced culture shock when I suddenly

burst into a lighted street with streetcars, people in civilian clothes, and

lighted shops with things to sell. The

shock was so great that it actually

made me dizzy. I checked into a hotel

and took stock of my possessions –

two cotton uniforms (both on, both

dirty), a pistol in my belt, a briefcase

full of secrets, and about an inch of

beard. I treated myself to a meal of

tropical fruit and had a slow, hot

bath. Flying south to Melbourne the

next day, I reported to Joe Scherr,

who let me cry in his beer, and he told

me that things were bad, but that
Page 7

everyone was doing the best they

could.

Colonel Brown served with distinction in the

Central Bureau. He was part of the 126th Signal

Radio Intelligence (SRI) company, the first U.S.

intercept unit to be operational in Australia.

Traveling from Stateside

Charles E. Girhard obtained a B.A. in chemistry

from the University of Illinois in June 1940. During

his college studies, he also completed Reserve

Officer Training Corps (ROTC) training and was

introduced to cryptology. Upon graduation, he had

two weeks of active duty at the munitions building

in Washington, D.C., working under Dr. Sinkov in

the Italian section. He obtained a teaching assistant

job at Pennsylvania State University and planned to

obtain a master’s degree. These plans were interrupted in January 1941 when he was called up for

active duty. Charles Girhard was part of the first

group of officers to come to Central Bureau directly

from the U.S. His experience sheds light on the

logistics of transporting troops over great distances

during the war.

I received orders dated 1 April 1942

that I was going to Australia. In those

days, there was no such thing as volunteering. I was given about three or

four days’ notice of this move to

Australia. I was part of the first contingent to go to Central Bureau,

which consisted of three other officers: Larry Clark, Robert Holmes,

and Hawkins, and eight enlisted men.

When I left the munitions building, I

just knew I was going to MacArthur’s

headquarters. There was no briefing

about our assignment.

We flew to San Francisco on a commercial flight. That leg was the easy

part of the trip. We checked into the

Presidio base and ran into our first

problem. We had secret orders, which

you could not show to anyone. Secret

orders gave you priority in transportation, but you couldn’t tell anyone where you needed to go. Someone

made an excerpt copy of the orders

and we got that one straightened out.

The next hurdle was for the Army to

figure out how to get us to Australia.

I was surprised that I was the only

one in our group who was told to

report to Hamilton Field on the following day after we arrived in San

Francisco. I found that I was one of

two passengers boarding an LB30

cargo plane full of machine guns and

aircraft parts. My companion, a tech

representative who was going to help

the Australians set up machine guns,

and I had to sit in the bomb bay.

There was no heat in the plane so we

had several blankets. It was still very

cold. Since the plane was about five

tons overweight, it was a long, slow

trip. It took us fifteen hours just to get

to our first stop in Hawaii. We had

the same Australian crew for the

entire trip. While the crew was resting, I was lucky because I got to tour

Hawaii for six hours.

Major Charles E. Girhard

(Source: S.I.S. Record)
Page 8

For the next several days, we flew

during the day and spent the night at

various Pacific islands. Our next stop

was Christmas Island. Christmas

Island was about twenty miles wide

and had nothing but coconut trees on

it. I remember that stop because there

was a small detachment of men who

were thrilled to see us. They had not

seen a newspaper in six weeks. No

ship had called for about two months

so they had no letters from home.

Those poor fellows were just glad to

see someone from civilization.

Next we stopped at Canton Island,

which was nothing but an airstrip

surrounded by a lagoon. We also

stopped at Fiji. Finally, we reached

Sydney.

My orders were so secret that

they just said to report to

MacArthur’s headquarters. Where

was MacArthur’s headquarters?

Eventually I found out and got myself

on a train to Melbourne. When I got

there, Colonel Joe Scherr introduced

me to everything. At last, Colonel

Scherr took me to the mansion on 225

Main Street, Central Bureau’s headquarters for the Melbourne period.

Girhard established the cryptographic section

at Central Bureau and served there with distinction

for the remainder of the war.
Page 9

Charles Girhard’s travel route

Page 11

The first link in gathering COMINT is the intercept unit. As Lieutenant Colonel A. W. Sandford,

one of the assistant directors of Central Bureau and

an AIF commander, said: “We are in the hands of

the operators.” The field sections under Central

Bureau’s operational control were vital to the success of providing intelligence to the Southwest

Pacific theater. There were three types of field units

under Central Bureau’s operational control. They

were Australian Army Wireless Sections (AAWS),

RAAF wireless units, and American SRI companies.

The AAWS began operations in 1942. The RAAF

units were not ready for action until 1943. These

units took over the Japanese air-ground problem,

leaving the Japanese army problem to the AAWS.

There were four American SRI companies in the

theater, the 126th, the 112th, the 125th, and the

111th. The 126th SRI, which had come to Brisbane

in 1943, had the longest period of service in the theater. The American platoon that came from

Corregidor to Melbourne in April 1942 was incorporated into this company. The remaining three

companies were not ready for action until 1944. The

American SRI companies served primarily in

Hollandia, New Guinea, Leyte, and San Miguel,

Luzon, the Philippines.

Japanese air-ground communications were the

most lucrative sources of information for field sections. One of the first systems that field units used

to predict Japanese attacks were weather broadcasts. Analysts deduced that whenever a large

Japanese station such as Tokyo, Truk, Dublon

Island, or Rabaul, New Britain Island, broadcasted

the weather for an Allied territory, that territory

would be bombed. By calculating the difference

between the time of origin of the broadcast and the

time of' the previous air raid on that territory, analysts predicted numerous Japanese attacks in New

Guinea and the Solomons with great reliability. It is

interesting to note that Central Bureau and its field

sections were responsible for intercepting and

decrypting Japanese navy air-ground communications. The Navy handled all other Japanese naval

communications itself.

Central Bureau read Japanese army air-ground

communications almost continuously from 1942

until the end of the war because they were able to

learn enough about the codes from code books captured in India. By reading air-ground communications, field units were able not only to provide air

raid warnings, predict times of Japanese attacks,

and identify concentrations of land forces but also

to provide schedules of convoy movements because

Japanese reconnaissance planes escorted their convoys.

Chapter 2

Challenges at Central Bureau Field Section

Lieutenant Colonel Alastair W. Sandford

(Source: S.I.S. Record)
Page 12

Sometimes the field unit was the sole source

of Allied intelligence. A notable example was the

identification of the resupply convoy bringing

enemy reinforcements to Ormoc on the west coast

of Leyte in 1944. With this advanced notice, the

U.S. sank five transports, damaged their escorts,

and destroyed needed equipment and

supplies. The Japanese Army’s Twentysixth Division never had a chance to

show its fighting ability on Leyte.

Most intercept units were always on

the move. They had to keep up with the

advance of the Allied troops to provide

support. They had to keep looking for

better spots to improve reception and

set up direction finding apparatus.

Intercept units were spread throughout

the Southwest Pacific theater, from

Perth, Australia, in the west to the

Solomon Islands in the east, and from

Mornington, Victoria, in southern

Australia to the Philippines in the north.

It is interesting to note that while the

majority of intercept units were staffed entirely by

men, there were some exceptions. Two intercept

units, located at Mornington and at Perth, were

staffed by women in the Australian Women’s

Auxiliary Service (AWAS). Another unit at

Townsville, Queensland (Australia), was staffed in

part by operators from the Women’s Australian

Auxiliary Air Force (WAAAF).

The recollections that follow from Australian

representatives of wireless units and wireless sections cover 1942 to 1943. The best description of the

war in the Southwest Pacific theater in 1942 is that

it was a learning experience for MacArthur and the

Allies. Central Bureau laid a solid foundation of

intercept units, but it took time to develop a base of

information. At the start of 1943, the Japanese and

the Allies were at a stalemate in New Guinea. Each

side had established strongholds in the area, and

neither could oust the other. By the end of 1943, the

Allies had significant victories such as the Battle of

the Bismarck Sea and the destruction of the

Japanese air force at Wewak, New Guniea.

However, MacArthur’s ground campaign had

advanced only 300 miles, which is about one-third

of the way along the northern New Guinea coast.

Manila was definitely a long way off.

Mastering Japanese Intercept

Prior to World War II , the Royal Australian Air

Force (RAAF) had little experience in COMINT.

The RAAF conducted its first class for Japanese

intercept operators in July 1941. It established an

administrative intelligence unit in the fall of 1941.

Wing Commander H. Roy Booth, formerly a solicitor, was the commander of this new section of the

RAAF. Booth was also one of Central Bureau’s

assistant directors. By July 1942, the number of

RAAF intercept operators had grown from seven to

twenty-nine. Several skills were needed to intercept

Japanese traffic, and it took some time to recruit

and train enough personnel to meet the demand for

operators. In March 1942, the RAAF set up an

intercept station at Townsville. The group at this

station was renamed One Wireless Unit (1WU) on

25 April 1942. 1WU was the first intercept unit that

came under Central Bureau operational control.

Jack Bleakley, a member of 1WU, gives an excellent

description of the complexities faced by intercept

Australian intercept operators kept track of the

Japanese activities in neighboring New Guinea.
Page 13

operators who had to copy Japanese traffic.

Bleakley was born in Melbourne, Australia. He

joined the RAAF in 1942 and served with 1WU in

Townsville in 1942, in Port Moresby in 1943, and in

Nadzab, New Guinea; Owi Island, and Biak, New

Guinea, in 1944. In 1945, Bleakley served with 5WU

in the Philippines. After leaving the RAAF in 1946,

Bleakley resumed his banking career. The following

recollections were taken from The Eavesdroppers

by Jack Bleakley (Australia, 1992).

SIGINT personnel in the Southwest

Pacific theater had unique problems

that our counterparts in Europe did

not face. We had to contend with the

complexities of the Japanese language, and we had to learn Kana, a

new Morse code system. Kana Morse

signals were based on the forty-six

phonetic sounds (plus twenty-five

other sound changes) of the Japanese

language, using their Katakana

syllabary. The Japanese chose

Katakana because it fulfilled their

military requirements for expression

of foreign words such as placenames,

borrowed from the Western world, as

well as the syllabary used to write

and phonetically pronounce traditional Japanese words. Allied intercept operators had a huge task. They

had to learn the seventy-one Kana

Morse symbols as opposed to the

twenty-six-letter alphabet of the

international code. They had to learn

to completely ignore the international code. They also had to cope with

the speed of Japanese operators.

Speeds of forty to fifty words per

minute were commonplace.

To cope with the speed problem, a

shorthand system was devised to

record Kana symbols onto the message pads. Therefore, operators had

to learn both Kana and the shorthand

system for recording it. The third step

in the task was to write down the

anglicized form of the Kana that was

copied.

Of course, enemy signals and messages had to be copied accurately the

first time. There was no way one

could ask the Japanese for repeats.

Inaccurate copy could foul up the

cryptologists’ work, rendering codebreaking difficult or even impossible.

We were especially aware that

missed signals or messages could

lead to loss of lives. The skill level that

the Kana operators achieved was

truly remarkable. Later events in the

war confirmed their talent.

The Paradox of Life at a Field Site

In contrast to the RAAF, Australian army units

had considerable intercept experience in 1942.

They acquired this knowledge from the British,

whom they assisted in the Middle East and Africa.

Australian army intercept units were called wireless

sections. Wireless sections were self-contained

units because each one had an intelligence section

Wing Commander Henry Ray Booth 

(Source: S.I.S. Record)
Page 14

made up of traffic analysts, cryptanalysts, and linguists. These Australian wireless sections handled

the bulk of the intercept work during the early years

of Central Bureau.

Major Geoffrey Ballard, a member of the AIF,

was part of Central Bureau at its inception. In

January 1942, he was called home from the Middle

East to defend the homeland, along with all

Australians who were serving overseas. Ballard

held numerous posts at Central Bureau. The following recollections cover his experience with Fiftyone Wireless Section, the first Australian army

intercept unit deployed to the field by Central

Part of the Katakana Morse code used by the Japanese military
Page 15

Bureau. Ballard underscores the importance of the

work performed in the field and gives the reader a

taste of some of the challenges they faced. These

recollections were taken from Ballard’s book, On

Ultra Active Service (Australia, 1991).

After my promotion to captain, I was

assigned to Darwin, Australia, in

January 1943. I relieved Lieutenant

Knoby Clark as head of the intelligence component of the Fifty-one

Wireless Section. Life at Darwin was

a paradox, for it was both very exciting and very boring.

Our work was certainly both challenging and exciting. The role of a

field unit was to give local commanders operational intelligence of immediate value, give warning of impending air raids, advise on concentrations of enemy aircraft, ships, and

land forces, and intercept certain

high-grade traffic for research and

decoding by Central Bureau. Initially

our army wireless sections were

responsible for covering both enemy

air activities and ground operations.

The RAAF wireless units eventually

took over the Japanese air problem.

We not only provided information to

the forces at Darwin, but also alerted

our sister intercept unit, Fifty-five

Wireless Section, located at Port

Moresby, New Guinea, of impending

enemy movements toward New

Guinea. We learned to read the signs

of impending air attacks. For

instance, when the Japanese moved

aircraft from rear bases to forward

bases, we knew they were getting

ready for a bombing raid. Another

indicator was the use of transport

planes as escorts for the bombers as

they moved to forward bases. When

transports were abroad, we knew the

bombers were coming on an attack

mission. Traffic analysts had to

become good record keepers. Any

increase in the volume of traffic was

also a good indication of impending

attack. During the first half of 1943,

we were concerned about self-protection because Darwin was a frequent

bombing target for the Japanese. In

the latter half of the year, most of our

air raid warnings were for New

Guinea. The contributions of traffic

analysts to the war effort were

numerous. Inferences drawn from

traffic analysis were used to accurately predict both impending attacks

and information on order of battle

and strategic intelligence. Traffic

analysis often provided the first tipoff on Japanese plans for troop

deployment. For instance, in August

1943, traffic analysts noted the

increase in activity at Wewak [on the

east coast of New Guinea]. Therefore,

traffic analysts inferred that the

Japanese were moving their headquarters from Rabaul in [Papua, New

Guinea] to Wewak. This information

enabled the U.S. Air Force to destroy

201 aircraft in two days.

Sometimes inferences from traffic

analysis could predict information

before message content was decoded

and translated. Some outstanding

examples of this type of prediction

occurred in 1944. Three weeks before

confirmation by ULTRA, traffic analysts predicted the Japanese intention

to reinforce Morotai, [an island

between New Guinea and the

Philippines]. On 1 November 1944,

traffic analysts predicted that the

Japanese Southern Army planned to

move its headquarters from Manila

to Saigon. This prediction was first
Page 16

inferred because traffic analysts

noted that the Burma Army was signalling through Saigon directly to

Tokyo instead of signalling Tokyo

through Manila. Our Allied liaison in

India passed this information to

Central Bureau. Subsequent evidence

from a 15 November message confirmed this prediction. The message

stated that Southern Army headquarters would begin to move to Saigon

starting 17 November. All messages

should be sent to both Manila and

Saigon through 25 November.

One of the most exciting things that

occurred during my stay in Darwin

from January 1943 to January 1944

was the capture of a new code book

from a Japanese bomber that crashed

just west of our camp. Since we were

instructed to send the book to Central

Bureau by the next safe hand delivery

[courier], which happened to be the

next morning, we spent the night

hand-copying as much of the book as

we could. We were really encouraged

by how much of the code we had

recovered by ourselves.

While our work was exciting and

challenging, there was little else in

the way of diversion at Darwin. The

Darwin post was at best flat and boring for our section. Marooned in the

bush nearly 3,000 kilometers from

the nearest city, we had to learn the

lessons of survival and keep sane by

our own wits. It was a stern, unnatural man’s world with no local inhabitants to visit, no shops or towns to frequent, and no women to see. For a

change of pace, the men made jewelry

from plane wreckage, grew gardens

(especially vegetables), and made

pets of the kangaroos and parrots in

the area.

Since I recognized that our major

enemy was boredom, I looked for

ways to motivate the men and keep

them on their tasks. With permission

from Central Bureau, at my discretion, I conducted a review of the

week’s work every Saturday morning. I told the men how many air raid

warnings we had issued and how

many Japanese planes were shot

down because of our information. I

felt that the ‘need-to-know’ principle

of security did not apply to this situation. I wanted to show the men the

importance of our work and how we

fit into the big picture of the war

effort. Attendance at these sessions

was voluntary. They were very popular and helped us maintain team spirit, good morale, and productivity.

My year at Darwin was a sobering,

maturing experience. Although the

days were monotonous, I still remember the comradeship and storytelling.

We shared a great deal of one another’s thoughts and views and learned

to appreciate and accept one another

– warts and all.

On the Move in New Guinea

The following recollections by members of

Fifty-five Wireless Section were collected by

Geoffrey Ballard in his book On Ultra Active

Service.

In September 1942, Fifty-five Wireless

Section moved from Bonegilla,

Victoria, Australia, to Port Moresby,

New Guinea, the primary focus of

Japanese activity. Today this area is

known as Papua New Guinea. It lies
Page 17

just south of the equator and is a

mountainous region of rain forests.

Describing life in New Guinea

as rugged is an understatement.

Throughout 1943 and in most of 1944,

MacArthur pushed the Japanese out

of New Guinea and pressed on to the

Philippines. Intercept units kept pace

with the Allied troops to provide intelligence. Detachments found themselves living in a wide variety of situations.

Fairfax Harbor in Port Moresby was

the first location for intercept by

Fifty-five Wireless Section. We had

quite a welcome to New Guinea.

During our very first night as we

camped out in the open by Murray

Barracks, three Japanese bombers

paid us a visit. Luckily, the bombs fell

well wide of their mark. The calm of

such old stagers as our commander,

Captain John Vasey, set a fine example for the troops. Our job in the coming months was to keep the sets on no

matter what else was happening

around us. We began work the very

next day and for an entire year, day

in and day out, never lost contact

with the enemy. Fairfax Harbor was

a good location. We lived in tents and

were away from the main flow of

road traffic. The set room even had

louvered walls for ventilation. In

January 1943, Fifty-five Wireless

Section moved out from Fairfax

Harbor to a specially prepared site

known as Seven Miles. This site was

on a hill between the Seven Miles strip

and Wards Drome.

Detachments from Fifty-five Wireless

Section found themselves working in

interesting locations. A few days after

our arrival at Fairfax Harbor in

Detachments from the Fifty-five Wireless Section found themselves

in the rugged terrain of eastern New Guinea in 1943.
Page 18

September 1942, a detachment of

about fifteen men moved up the

mountain range to Bisianumu near

the Rouna Falls. They set up shop on

the edge of a rubber plantation. These

‘mountain boys’ did not return to the

unit until December 1942.

When Wau gold mine was recaptured

from the Japanese in January 1943, a

detachment from Fifty-five Wireless

Section set up an advanced intercept

point in the area. Two contingents

spent six-month intervals at Wau.

The only way into Wau, which is

approximately 180 miles north of

Port Moresby, was by air. Landing at

Wau was memorable because the

airstrip was hewn out of the rain forest, forcing the aircraft to land on an

upward sloping hill. The site was 600

meters up from the Wau airstrip at

Kaindi on the Edie Creek. Since the

Japanese were still active in nearby

Salamaua and conducted air raids

over Wau, we put our set room underground to avoid a direct hit. We dug

an enormous hole in an abandoned

barn and constructed a set room that

could accommodate four operators at

a time. Rations for Kaindi were flown

in once a week. If the weather was

bad or there were frequent Japanese

air raids, we just tightened our belts a

few notches for a day or two.

The detachment was able to gather

valuable intelligence. For instance, it

was the only source of information

that detected the movement of a regiment of the Japanese Forty-first

Division from Wewak to Madang

[100 miles southeast of Wewak]. By

October 1943, it was time for the

detachment to move on. The electrical

storms of the rainy season made

reception difficult. The war front was

now beyond the detachment’s reach.

We flew north to Nadzab, New

Guinea, ready to take up our next

position.

An American Perspective on Traffic Analysis

Although there was a general division of labor

at Central Bureau whereby the Americans were

responsible for cryptanalysis and the Australians

were responsible for traffic analysis, as the war progressed, Americans became more involved in traffic

analysis. The U.S. sent its own intercept units to the

theater. American SRI companies served primarily

in Hollandia, New Guinea, Leyte, and San Miguel,

Luzon, the Philippines. Some Americans worked

side by side with the Australians at intercept sites

performing traffic analysis. Cecil Corey was one

of those Americans. He has a unique perspective

on the relationship between Americans and

Australians.

After graduating from the University of Georgia

with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture, Cecil Corey

was drafted by the Army in the fall of 1941. After

studying at the cryptologic school in Vint Hill

Farms, Virginia, Corey became a military trainer for

the school. In January 1944, Corey attended officer

candidate school (OCS) and joined Central Bureau

in October 1944. Upon leaving the Army in

December 1946, Corey worked for the National

Security Agency’s (NSA) predecessor agencies, the

Army Security Agency (ASA) and the Armed Forces

Security Agency (AFSA) , and then for NSA. Corey’s

Central Bureau experiences were a good preparation for his NSA career. He made invaluable contributions in communications security (COMSEC).

Corey retired in 1982.

By the time Corey arrived in Australia in

October 1944, the Allies had pushed their way

through New Guinea, forcing the Japanese to either

vacate the area or abandon their garrisons.

MacArthur then began his conquest of the

Philippines. Since MacArthur believed that a gener-
Page 19

al headquarters should be close to the war front, he

moved from Brisbane, Australia, to Hollandia, New

Guinea, in August 1944. In November 1944, Central

Bureau established a forward echelon at Hollandia

to provide proper support to MacArthur. The pace

of the war kept increasing. The Japanese were still

formidable opponents, and they were determined

to fight to either victory or death.

Some people have definite career

goals and meticulously plan to reach

each goal. Not me! My career developed partly by acquiring unique

experience and partly by being at the

right place at the right time. For

example, my selection for cryptologic

training at Vint Hill was pure luck.

Although I had ROTC training in college, I was not commissioned as an

officer because I failed the physical

for being underweight. However, my

ROTC experience made it possible for

me to become a military skills

instructor at Vint Hill.

When I first arrived at Vint Hill, it

was still a farm. All of the important

activities took place in the barn, even

though it still had cow manure in it. I

still remember my first interview

with Sergeant Mason, who was trying to determine how much French I

knew. It took place in a hay loft still

loaded with hay. I made wonderful

friends at Vint Hill who would influence my whole life.

When I arrived at Central Bureau

Brisbane in 1944, my military occupational specialty was code compiler.

[Harry] Larry Clark, who was second

in command to Sinkov, decided that I

should become a traffic analyst

because Central Bureau did not do

code compilation. I was sent up to

Hollandia, New Guinea, as part of the

Central Bureau forward echelon. The

Australians were in charge of this

unit.

When I arrived at Hollandia, Major

Stan (Pappy) Clark was in charge

and Captain Don Englis had operational responsibilities, such as issuing reports. Pappy Clark trained us

by pairing us up with an experienced

Australian corporal or sergeant.

My training partner was Sergeant

Mos Williams. After the war, Mos

Williams eventually became [an

assistant director] of the Australian

SIGINT organization, Defence

Signals Directorate [DSD]. Some of

the American second lieutenants

resented being trained by nonofficers. Some of them also felt that U.S.

resources were winning the war and

we did not need the Australians.

Therefore many of the Americans

goofed off in Hollandia.

I learned a great deal from Mos

Williams and the other Australians.

Lieutenant Colonel [Harry] Larry Clark 

(Source: S.I.S. Record)
Page 20

They were very experienced, and

I had a lot to learn. I admired

their enthusiasm for their work

and enjoyed their war stories about

their Middle East experiences. In

Hollandia, we intercepted Japanese

army mainline communications. I

learned to recover callsigns, reconstruct nets, and look for new sources

of traffic.

At Hollandia, I was the only

American that the Australians trusted to be in charge of a net because

they recognized me as a professional.

All of our nets were named after animals. My net was called ‘yak’. I

worked on Chinese traffic, which

proved to be insignificant to the war

effort. As I gained the trust and

respect of the Australians, I became a

liaison between the Australians and

Americans.

When we moved to San Miguel in

1945, we were located on a sugar

plantation. The intercept site at San

Miguel never became fully operational because the war ended. I had

some involvement in Olympic and

Coronet, the plans for invading

Japan. The duty of front-line support

for the invasion was to be handled by

the 126th SRI company. I was to be

one of its officers. With the dropping

of the atomic bomb in August 1945,

the war ended, making the invasion

plans unnecessary.

I did not have enough points to go

home because of my late arrival to

Australia. Colonel Sinkov appointed

me the coordinator for radio intelligence for the Pacific. I was finally

able to go home late in the summer of

1946. I was able to get on a ship by

volunteering to take some SIGABAs

home. [A SIGABA was a machine used

to send encrypted communications.]

The ship was bound for San

Francisco. Unfortunately, the ship

was rerouted through the Panama

Canal eventually ending up at

Bayonne, New Jersey, on the east

coast. Then I had to take care of the

SIGABAs until I could work out a way

to get them back to Arlington Hall.

The traffic analysis knowledge that I

acquired through my Central Bureau

experience opened the door to an

exciting, challenging career.
Page 21

Central Bureau collected an astonishing amount of intelligence from the Japanese.

(Appendix C, Central Bureau World War II Technical Reports)

Page 23

Breaking into Japanese army codes was an

arduous task. Prior to Pearl Harbor, the U.S. did

not study Japanese army codes because the emphasis was on Japanese diplomatic codes. Therefore,

during the war there was no continuity of background knowledge to assist the cryptanalysts in

their study of Japanese army codes. Japanese lowechelon army codes were especially difficult

because army communications were vertical not

lateral. Regiments had no direct communication

with each other; they had to communicate through

their division. Since each regiment had its own code

and there was no lateral communication, Central

Bureau could not get enough material to conduct

in-depth studies to determine the pattern of construction of these codes. Low-echelon Japanese

army communications were also difficult to intercept because these units transmitted on low power.

A third difficulty with lower-echelon Japanese

army communications was that they were enciphered with one-time pads so obtaining the enciphering key did not help the cryptanalyst. The

Allies were stymied by these low-echelon codes

throughout the war.

Beginning in March 1944, Central Bureau had

considerable success in reading Japanese mainline

army codes. The watershed in CBB history came

with the capture of the entire cryptologic library of

the Japanese army Twentieth Division in January

1944 at Sio, New Guinea. The Ninth Infantry

Division of the Australian army found this material

in a steel trunk that was buried near a stream bed.

The Japanese, who were retreating westward to

Madang, did not want the burden of carrying this

trunk over the mountains. They could not burn the

code books because conditions were too wet and

Allied aircraft might detect the columns of smoke.

An Australian engineer who was sweeping the area

for mines located the steel trunk on 19 January

Chapter 3

Cryptanalysts at Work in Central Bureau

Sio, New Guinea, the site where the Australians captured the cryptologic library of the

Twentieth Division of the Japanese army
Page 24

1944. The capture included the additive book, the

substitution square, and the code book itself. One of

the first messages that Central Bureau read from

this code was from a Japanese lieutenant stating

that all of the Twentieth Division’s code books had

been destroyed.

The following recollections by Charles E.

Girhard, Joseph E. Richard, Abraham Sinkov, and

John J. Larkin represent the views of both officers 

and enlisted personnel, as well as those who

worked at Central Bureau throughout the war and

those who joined the war effort later on. They paint

a picture of the enormity of the tasks that these

cryptanalysts faced. Breaking the Japanese army

codes, while slow and arduous, had its exciting

moments. The cryptanalysts functioned as a team

and stuck to the tasks at hand, day after day and

year after year, and achieved remarkable success.

A page from an original

Japanese code book captured

in 1944 or 1945. The Sanbo

Hanbo Rikugun Angosho Yon

Go (General Staff Army Code

Book, fourth edition) is a highlevel code book with an encoding and decoding section that

was used to both send and

receive messages. Page 33,

Chines Europene Surnames, is

taken from Section 1,

Organizational Listings, of the

code book. In this system,

6236 stands for MacArthur,

and 3460 stands for President

Roosevelt. (Explanation and

translation provided by Dr. Ed

Drea, Dept. of the Army.)
Page 25

The Key to Success Was Teamwork

Charles E. Girhard went to Central Bureau in

April 1942 to establish its cryptologic section. Not

only was Mr. Girhard one of the first Americans to

arrive at Central Bureau, but he also served with

this organization throughout its existence. His perspective on our cryptologic effort during the war is

an important one.

During Central Bureau’s Melbourne

period from April to September 1942,

we made little progress on the

Japanese army codes because we did

not have enough traffic to study. It

took some time for intercept units to

become operational. We primarily

worked on the Japanese naval air

problem. Major Norman Webb, a

British officer who escaped from

Singapore, brought naval air messages with him. This was the main

source of our study. All of our work

was done by hand during this early

period. We were fortunate because

the IBM equipment arrived at

Brisbane around the time when

increased amounts of traffic were

also available. Our first IBM room

was the garage in the house on Henry

Street. [When Central Bureau moved

to Brisbane in September 1942, it was

located in a two-story house on

Henry Street. With the increase of

personnel, these spaces were soon

overcrowded. In late 1943 Central

Bureau moved a few blocks down to

Ascot Park, where huts were built to

house its various sections.]

Cryptanalysis is a slow, gradual

process of looking for patterns.

Sometimes we would only be able to

determine a placename because

encoding of placenames was semisystematic. We were watchful for messages where the Japanese had to clarify a point. Such messages were written in the Chinese telegraph codes,

which were already available to us.

The first major progress that we

made was the solution of the

Japanese Army Water Transport

Code in April 1943. Our big break

The first American SISers in Brisbane. Photo was taken at the Henry Street Headquarters.

(Source: S.I.S Record)
Page 26

came with the capture of the entire

cryptographic library of the

Japanese army’s Twentieth Division

in January 1944 at Sio, New Guinea.

From my vantage point, the key to

our success was teamwork.

There was excellent teamwork both

within Central Bureau itself as well

as between Central Bureau and other

organizations. In Central Bureau,

people shared information with each

other. We were a small enough

organization that people in different

sections could talk to each other to

solve problems. Two examples of this

team approach were the coordination

between the cryptanalysis section

and the machine section, and coordination between the cryptanalysis section and the intercept section. As the

supervisor of the cryptologic section,

I spent much time showing the IBM

people what our problems were and

what we wanted to do to solve them.

Major Zach Halpin, the head of the

IBM section, was able to rearrange

punch cards so that we could sort

traffic by time interval. Sorting traffic by time interval was important in

finding the solution to the Japanese

Army Water Transport Code. After

the Sio capture, operators programmed IBM machines to strip off

cipher and print both the code number and its accompanying meaning in

Romaji. [Romaji is the Japanese system of writing foreign words in the

Roman alphabet.] After the traffic

analyst put the address on the message and the cryptanalyst checked

the message to determine its indicator or its starting point in the additive

book, the messages went to the IBM

room where the operators punched

up the additive. Arlington Hall turned

to us for instructions in some of

these uses of IBM equipment.

Communication between the various

branches within Arlington Hall was

not as good as Central Bureau’s internal communication.

This was the SIS beachhead in Melbourne, first home of the original group.

Why couldn’t all Army camps look like this? (Source: S.I.S. Records)
Page 27

In Brisbane, Central Bureau was originally located in a house on Henry Street. It later moved

to a new, larger facility at Ascot Park.
Page 28

Because of good communication,

traffic analysts knew how important

it was for cryptanalysts to gain

access to code instructions that the

Japanese sent to their field units.

Traffic analysts placed double coverage on Japanese circuits known to be

used to transmit code instructions.

Getting the key to a substitution

square from the Japanese was an

important time-saver for the cryptanalysts, which warranted double coverage of a circuit.

Central Bureau’s good relationship

with the Allied Translators

Interpreters Service (ATIS) was not

only rewarding to me personally but

also was invaluable to the organization. [ATIS supported MacArthur’s

general headquarters by translating

captured documents and interrogating Japanese prisoners.] Since members of ATIS accompanied the troops

on their mission, I talked to them

about the type of material we needed

on a monthly basis. I learned of the

Sio capture when an ATIS representative called me and asked me to come

over and look at their find. ATIS was

also located in Brisbane.

Captain [later Colonel] Hugh

Erskine, head of Central Bureau’s

translation section, and I were so

excited when we saw the Sio material

that we took it to Central Bureau

immediately. [Hugh Erskine later

became an NSA senior and was

the first National Cryptologic

Representative to Europe.] What a

mess! The books had been buried near

a stream bed in a steel trunk that

looked like a footlocker. There was so

much mildew on the material that

each page had to be dried in the large

commercial cooking ovens in our

kitchen. Our cleaning efforts were

definitely worthwhile. The Sio material was a mainline Japanese army

code used to communicate with many

divisions. This material included the

additive tables, the substitution

squares, and the code book itself.

From the time of the capture of the Sio

material until the end of the war, we

read approximately 2,000 messages

a day.

Obtaining the actual Japanese codes

gave us an opportunity to evaluate

our own accuracy in recovering

codes. It was rewarding to see how

accurate we were. It was also instructive to see what kind of mistakes we

made. There were numerous opportunities for error. The radio operator

may not have heard the Morse correctly. It is interesting to note that the

Australian radio operators copied

code by hand and used the British

shorthand style of writing numbers,

which sometimes caused confusion.

American operators used typewriters

Lieutenant Colonel Hugh S. Erskine

(Source: S.I.S. Record)
Page 29

to copy code. Punch card operators

sometimes made errors when transferring numbers. In additive cryptosystems, it is easy to get out of

phase with the group count. If this

happened, cryptanalysts would have

to go back and look at the messages

again after they had been punched up

in the IBM room. Although these

tasks were tedious, the men and

women at Central Bureau recognized

the importance of the job and put

forth great effort to accomplish the

mission.

I also went to Finschhafen with Hugh

Erskine and Sergeant Schokal to

review the material that was taken

from the Yoshino Maru after the U.S.

sank it off Aitape, on the northern

coast of New Guinea, in May 1944.

This barge was on fire for twelve

hours before it went down. Once

again, this too was a worthwhile trip

because we obtained a new additive

book. I am sure that Sergeant Schokal

will remember this trip since he had

to postpone his wedding to take it.

The reconstruction of this registry

occurred because of the hard work of

both the cryptanalysis and photography sections of Central Bureau. We

recovered 97 percent of the tables.

The best description of Central

Bureau’s relationship with Arlington

Hall is friendly competition. There

was competition in the sense that

each wanted to recover a certain code

first. We sent as much technical information and recoveries to Arlington

Hall as we could. For instance, we

sent all of the Sio material electrically

to Arlington Hall. We also sent messages for them to work on because

they had more personnel than we did.

Central Bureau did not have its own

communications circuitry. We used

the communications circuitry of the

Australians to communicate with the

intercept units and used the circuitry

through MacArthur’s headquarters

for other needs. Approximately 80

percent of all the communications

from MacArthur’s headquarters to

Washington was Central Bureau

material for Arlington Hall. Dr.

Solomon Kullback was the chief of

operations at Arlington Hall. He and

Dr. Sinkov had an excellent relationship. If there were any problems, Dr.

Sinkov would send a message to

Kullback, and Kullback would work

on the problem right away. There

was excellent teamwork between

Central Bureau and Arlington Hall.

One exception to this teamwork

approach was our relationship with

the Navy. We did not work with our

navy counterparts at FRUMEL. When

Central Bureau was still located in

Melbourne, Erskine and I went over

to FRUMEL to talk to the Navy. When

General Akin found out about our

expedition, he ordered us to stay

away from them. However, the Navy

did send two translators to work with

us to process the deluge of messages

that resulted from the Sio capture. I

don’t know what General Akin’s reasons were for this order. General Akin

wanted to be in control. He kept many

people away from us, including

General Willoughby, MacArthur’s

G-2 section chief. Perhaps General

Akin had security concerns.

With regard to security, I remember

that we had a badge system at Ascot

Park in Brisbane. You needed a badge

for entrance, but it was not a picture
Page 30

badge. Clearances were not emphasized because of the pressing need for

personnel. Late in the war, we got a

message from Washington stating

that Dr. Sinkov, Erskine, and I did not

have any clearances. They just

grandfathered us into the clearance

system. As MacArthur’s chief signal

officer, General Akin was responsible

for providing any support that

Central Bureau needed. He did an

excellent job especially with logistics.

General Akin got the diver to go to the

Yoshino Maru to recover the code

book. He arranged for the planes so

that we could go to Finschhafen on

the northern coast of New Guinea to

look at this material. He also

arranged for all of Central Bureau’s

moves. Moving from Brisbane,

Australia, to San Miguel, Luzon, in

the Philippines was quite an undertaking. We had to copy all of our technical information so that one set

could be left at Brisbane and one set

could be taken to San Miguel. We

were afraid that material would be

lost, so copying, although time consuming, was essential. Moving the

various sections of Central Bureau

had to be carefully coordinated

because the war did not stop during

this relocation. Intercept units had to

move in stages so that coverage of

targets could be maintained. I kept

things going in Brisbane and did not

move to San Miguel until July 1945.

Although the war ended in August

1945, I did not leave for home until

Christmas Day 1945 because of transportation shortages. I remained on

active duty until 1948. I then worked

at NSA as a civilian and joined the

military reserves. My experiences at

Central Bureau were a very memorable part of my career.

The Joy of Discovery

Sergeant (later Warrant Officer) Joseph E.

Richard was drafted into the Army in April 1941. He

applied for cryptologic school while he was stationed at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, attending

radio repair school. He attended the Army’s cryptologic school, which was also located at Fort

Monmouth but did not finish the course because

people were needed for the war effort. After working in the munitions building in Washington, D.C.,

for several months, Richard left for Australia in

June 1942. He served at Central Bureau for the

remainder of the war. Mr. Richard played a leading

role in the discovery of the cryptanalytic solution to

the Japanese Army Water Transport Code. His

insight on that process and the day-to-day operations of Central Bureau is an important part of the

Central Bureau story.

I wanted an overseas assignment

because the Army was moving its

cryptologic operations from the

munitions building to Arlington Hall.

If I went to Arlington Hall, I would

have to go back to living in the barracks so I asked to go to England. The

Army sent me to Australia. The

Australians were glad to have us, and

I enjoyed my experience there very

much.

In 1942, we knew very little about the

Japanese army codes. While I was

still at the munitions building in

Washington, D.C., we didn’t even

know which discriminants went with

which activity. For instance, we did

not know that 7890 was an army system or that 3366 was army/air. We

didn’t find out the routing system

until September 1942. Arlington Hall

told Central Bureau how to identify
Page 31

the ‘from’ and ‘to’ lines on messages

and gave us a solution for placenames. I believe that Arlington Hall

got this information from the Navy.

There was an agreement between the

services that if an army message

came on navy circuits the Navy

would turn it over to the Army. In the

process of turning over army messages, the Navy gave Arlington Hall

this information. For many months,

we struggled to discover additional

information.

Cryptanalysis was especially tedious

in the early days of Central Bureau

because we had to do everything by

hand. At first, I worked on low-echelon army traffic. The study of these

three-digit codes proceeded as follows: We did subtraction all day long

and tried to match positions and messages with code groups. We worked

in three-person teams. First we

attempted to re-create the Japanese

code book by making up composition

books in which we wrote numbers

consecutively from 1 to 999. Next,

each team matched messages with

groups of numbers in the composition

book. By subtraction, we determined

hits and wrote these hits in the composition book. For example, message

five hit with message three at a slide

of eight. After all the groups from a

number of messages were entered in

the composition books, other teams

compared the entries looking for two

or more hits between the same two

messages at the same interval or slide

(e.g., group 103 at position eleven in

message five and position thirteen in

message seven). The assumption was

that the messages with the hits or the

same groups occurring at the same

interval might have used the same

additive. When the additive was

removed and a difference between

code groups resulted, you could

establish a pattern difference. Such a

comparison can be done quickly and

accurately by IBM machinery once

the message texts have been punched

onto cards. We were very happy

when the IBM equipment was finally

operational. We finished this book of

possibilities in the spring of 1943. We

had worked on it by hand since my

arrival in June 1942. Although we got

some random hits, we made very little progress in breaking these codes.

I think that the IBM equipment

became operational in March 1943.

This equipment arrived at Sydney,

Australia, but Central Bureau was

never notified of its arrival. Sinkov

sent Major Larry Clark to investigate

what happened to our equipment.

Fortunately, Clark found the equipment sitting on the dock. When the

equipment finally reached Central

Bureau, each machine had to be dismantled. We had to sand and tighten

the relays so that the machine would

be reliable. This extra work was necessary because of damage to the

machinery caused by standing in the

sea air for such a long time.

Breaking the Japanese Army Water

Transport Code 2468 is an interesting

story. In December 1942, I was very

bored, frustrated, and depressed over

a colleague’s death. One day at the

end of pistol instruction, which had

been foolishly conducted right inside

the building where we worked, a gun

accidentally went off. John Bartlet,

who happened to be sitting in the next

room, was wounded and later died

because the ambulance took such a
Page 32

long time to come. I wished I had just

taken him to the hospital instead of

waiting for the ambulance. I needed a

change so I asked Sinkov if I could

work on new traffic.

We sorted traffic by repeater groups.

I noticed that the number five was

never used. Sinkov showed me how to

equate groups by subtraction to get

down to the basic code. Sinkov also

alerted Arlington Hall to this particular system of traffic.

I was fascinated by my discovery and

began to come in on my own time at

night to sort traffic by system. There

were three systems: 2468, 7890, and

6666. After some time of sorting 2468,

I noticed that the first number of the

repeated group was random. I also

noticed that in this system the repeated group was the second group of the

text, but in other systems the repeated

group was the third group in the text.

(The repeated group indicates which

system is in use.) Next I discovered

that the system changed every few

weeks. Major Zach Halpin set the IBM

machines to sort by both group and

time period. This was a difficult feat

because key punch equipment had to

be reconfigured to fit more information onto the cards. I started logging

these messages to determine the exact

time when the system changed so that

I could sort them properly. Sinkov

told Arlington Hall of the time period

changes to 2468. Next I saw a correspondence between the first number

of the group in front of the repeated

group and the first digit of the

repeated group. After writing out the

tables of numbers, I found that all

digits had just three digits after them.

I had three columns or tables because

there were three different periods.

Clark made additional observations.

He saw a correspondence between the

first and second group after the

repeated group. He also discovered

several doublets. Clark made a list of

all the possible doublets. I could not

copy all of these doublets so I looked

at single digits and saw that there

was a ten-by-ten square. Clark

deduced that the columns of numbers

that I had should fit into this square.

We spent the rest of the night trying

to get the columns to fit into the

square. We finished the task begun in

December 1942 on 6 April 1943. What

a great feeling to have finally found

the solution.

Once again, Sinkov sent our discovery to Arlington Hall. They got back

to us on 7 April 1943, stating that they

had already made the same discovery.

Historians say that Central Bureau

and Arlington Hall broke the 2468

code in parallel. I think that more of

the credit belongs to Central Bureau

because we alerted Arlington Hall

that 2468 was a unique, separate system and that it should be sorted by

time period.

We shared all kinds of information

with Arlington Hall. Early in 1943, we

began sending monthly progress

reports to Arlington Hall and other

cryptologic centers. I enjoyed working on these progress reports. We did

a better job of including reference

material than the other signals intelligence organizations did. For

instance, whenever we published a
Page 33

COMINT message about a new code

system or changes to an old code system, we took the time to research all

of the previous messages on that subject so that we could publish all of

these messages. We also published

working aids that we had developed

in these progress reports. For

instance, I made a map associating

codes with the areas where they were

used. I also devised a neat mathematical solution for recovering additive. I

figured out that if we used the limitations of the square and went backward, we could get down to a single

set of digits. This was faster and easier than matching each page of the

additive book with the square. We

made every effort to tell the complete

story to all the cryptologic organizations.

After the 2468 solution, our work

became more satisfying. Now that we

understood that the Japanese used a

square to encipher the starting point

of 2468, we figured that other systems were developed in a similar

manner. The solution of 2468 led to

the solutions of 7890, its successor

5678, and to the solution of 6666. The

7890 and 5678 systems were mainline systems of communication

between Japanese headquarters and

army divisions. The 6666 system was

a Japanese army air system. The

work was still very difficult. The 2468

system remained difficult because we

had to go through so much additive

before we could read the indicator. By

sorting and comparing resend messages and with the assistance of traffic analysis, we eventually determined that the Japanese chose the

key for enciphering the indicator

from a thousand group list, not from

the whole additive code book. This

made our job more manageable.

We still had challenges. Since the

Japanese radio operator sent messages only in sections of fifty code

groups, all of the additive book had to

be available. If we had a ten-part message, we needed ten pages of additive,

not just two or three pages. Japanese

radio operators also scrambled message parts and sent them randomly.

Finding all of the parts to a message

and getting them into the proper

sequence was a chore. The operator

further scrambled each individual

message part so that the beginning of

the section was never sent at the

beginning of the transmission.

Therefore, we had to determine

where the section really began. When

systems changed, we had to recover

them again.

We were really busy after the capture

of the Japanese code books at Sio,

New Guinea, in January 1944. To

accommodate additional personnel,

Central Bureau had moved into

expanded quarters at Ascot Park in

Brisbane in late 1943.

We were organized into huts to facilitate the flow of work more efficiently.

We read more and more messages all

the time. When MacArthur was

preparing to invade the Admiralties

in the winter of 1944, I was on the

team that decoded every message to

or from the Admiralties. This task

was not as exciting as I thought it

would be. The Japanese did not reveal

that much about their plans; most of

the messages were about the importance of dying for the fatherland.

However, we did warn the Allies that
Page 34

the Japanese were sending many

reinforcements to the Admiralties

from Rabaul.

Working as a cryptanalyst was boring and frustrating, but the joy of discovery made it an extremely worthwhile occupation. I left the Army in

1946. I continued my cryptologic

career as a civilian and had several

interesting overseas assignments

with the Agency, including a return

trip to Australia.

Putting Our Cryptanalytic Skills to the Test at

Central Bureau – 1942-1945

Abraham Sinkov’s lifelong dream was to

become a mathematician. He obtained three mathematics degrees, his B.S. from City College of New

York in 1927, his M.A. from Columbia University in

1929, and his Ph.D. from George Washington

University in 1933.

One of the original disciples of William

Friedman, Sinkov was a brilliant cryptanalyst. The

breadth of Sinkov’s experience included the establishment of the first intercept site outside the U.S.,

contributions in COMSEC, and, most importantly.

contributions in cryptanalysis.

The Central Bureau period is the highlight of

Abraham Sinkov’s distinguished thirty-two-year

cryptologic career. His managerial talents, interpersonal skills, and leadership qualities came to the

forefront during this experience. Although General

Akin was the director of Central Bureau, Sinkov

managed the day-to-day responsibilities, which

kept the organization functioning. Central Bureau

participants credit Sinkov with maintaining a harmonious, cohesive atmosphere in the workplace.

The Australian contingents were partners not

rivals. Few Allied organizations from the World

War II era ran as smoothly as Central Bureau did.

In 1946 Dr. Sinkov became the director of the

communications security division of ASA. When

the AFSA was established in 1949, Dr. Sinkov

became the chairman of the communications security monitoring group. During the last ten years of

Sinkov’s career with the government, he made valuable contributions in both COMSEC and intelligence production at NSA. He retired in 1962.

I was selected commander of the

837th Detachment and arrived in

Melbourne, Australia, in July 1942

to begin work at Central Bureau.

MacArthur established Central

Bureau on 15 April 1942. I can only

speculate on why I was chosen for

this position. Undoubtedly, one reason may be that work against the

Japanese was considered a much

more important subject than the

work I did against Italian messages.

One other possible reason might be

that I was single at the time a decision

was made to send me. [Solomon]

Kullback and [Frank] Rowlett were

married and had children. Marital

status was a likely consideration if

my superiors made the decision to

send me before I married. As luck

would have it, I happened to marry

just a few weeks before I left for

Abraham Sinkov
Page 35

Australia. The Australia assignment

was my third tour of duty under

General Akin. He was the head of

Signals Intelligence Service [SIS] in

Washington in the early 1930s and

Mr. Friedman reported to him. I had

two years in the Canal Zone with

General Akin. He was a stern individual, but I found him quite easy to

work with. I’m sure he had kindly

feelings toward me. After all, what

we produced was highly useful and

desirable, and essentially reflected on

him and his management. He was a

hard worker, although somewhat

taciturn. But I don’t recall that there

was any problem working under him.

General Akin rarely came to Central

Bureau. We were located in a park

about, oh, three or four miles from

headquarters. I visited him regularly.

I would come to his office in the headquarters building, also known as the

AMP building. As MacArthur’s chief

signals officer, General Akin had

additional responsibilities besides

Central Bureau. All in all, I think that

generally he was an easy person to

work with.

During the first many months of our

stay at Central Bureau, we received

the intercepted material, organized

it, studied it, and tried to seek cryptanalytic entries. It took quite a while

before we made our first entry and

began to get into any actual successful work. Central Bureau’s mission

was the whole range of Army

communications including air traffic

because apparently in the Japanese

structure the Army was responsible

for air traffic. In terms of cryptanalytic study, we had an air-ground section, a mainline army communications section, and a water transport

section because it too was a Japanese

army responsibility. We studied both

Japanese army and Japanese navy

air-ground, but they were not two

distinct sections. Because of his experience, the air-ground problem was

under the control of Royal Naval

Officer Captain Nave, who produced

a good deal of useful intelligence.

Central Bureau also tried to attack

low-level traffic in the three-digit systems.

The problem with low-level traffic,

tactical traffic actually, was availability. Tactical traffic was transmitted under low power. We had no

intercept capability to obtain this

traffic because we were not close

enough. Just a handful of people

worked with this traffic. They were

headed by Professor Room, who

was coopted from the University

of Sydney, where he was head of the

mathematics department. There

wasn’t a great deal of success accomplished against low-level traffic. The

results obtained were essentially

some traffic analytic results. There

were not any cryptanalytic successes

against low-level traffic, except in

later years, when we had actual captured material. Then we could read

some of the low-level traffic.

The Water Transport System

deserves some special consideration

because entry into this system was

our first success. The Japanese designator for this system was 2468. We

achieved this breakthrough solely by

using cryptanalytic techniques. The

cryptographic process was a process

by which a message which had been

encoded with a code book was then
Page 36

enciphered with an additive pad. Our

initial break-in was to realize how the

pad was being used. This discovery

permitted us to start separating the

material into portions that were

related in that they used the same

part of the book. We were gradually

able to solve part of the book.

Reconstruction of a code book is a

lengthy complicated process. Our job

was not over once we reconstructed

the code book. The Japanese made

regular changes to their additive

book so we had to go through the

whole process all over again.

Intelligence cannot be derived until

the cryptanalyst makes a reasonable

entry into the code book. Although

the first entry into the Japanese Army

Water Transport System was in April

of 1943, Central Bureau started deriving intelligence from this system in

the fall of 1943. When we finally got

into the code book and produced

decrypts, we found much useful information about transport activity,

including the movement of troops and

supplies to the various island installations. Many of the messages that we

read in 2468 gave sailing schedules of

their transports. These messages also

usually gave expected noon positions

of the transport for every day of an

entire week until it reached its destination. This was most useful information. Submarine commanders were

directed to a particular spot at a particular time, and, sure enough, they

frequently found that there was a

Japanese transport they could

attack. Our successes were really

quite significant since once we got to

the point later on in the war when

captured materials became available,

our cryptanalytic problem was then

greatly simplified. One of our great

delights was the Sio capture. The capture of the material at Sio, New

Guinea, in January 1944, gave us

access to the entire cryptographic

library of the Japanese army’s

Twentieth Division. It certainly

spared us a great deal of work.

Central Bureau had an agreement

with ATIS, the organization responsible for the handling of captured materials, that ATIS would turn over to

Central Bureau any materials related

to signals intelligence. Central

Bureau had its own translators. After

the Sio capture, one of our officers

made a special trip to ATIS to obtain

this material.

The question arises, could we [have

broken] the four-digit mainline

Japanese army codes if we [had] not

captured the Sio material? I think if

we had had enough material we

would have broken these codes. There

was a similarity to all of the Japanese

army cryptanalytic systems. Once we

developed the Japanese mind-set and

knew how they worked, we could

have been successful given a sufficient amount of intercepted material.

Obtaining the Japanese code book

from the Yoshino Maru, a barge that

the U.S. sank off Aitape [New

Guinea], is an interesting story. One

of our personnel read a message

about the existence of this additive

book and realized that even though

the ship burned, the text might still be

available if each page was not burned

separately. General Akin arranged

for a diver to retrieve the book. When

Central Bureau received the book, it

was a burned mass that was very difficult to deal with. We had a very
Page 37

competent officer named Holmes

with a chemical background who was

able to take this thing and reconstruct

it page by page. After a certain

amount of experimentation, Holmes

directed us to coat each individual

page with an alcohol solution. This

process brought the writing into

focus long enough to take a picture of

it. Bit by bit we reconstructed the

whole book.

To appreciate the enormity of our

tasks, two points should be kept in

mind. Even though we obtained captured material, we were never free

from slow reconstruction and analysis work because we studied many

systems. The captures did not cover

all systems. A second point to consider is that readability varies. Solving a

code message or a code system is different from solving a cipher.

Normally when you solve a cipher,

you can read the entire communication without any problem. In solving

a code it’s a process of little-by-little

reconstruction of the book. It means

that messages are readable only in

part in the early stages and there will

be gaps. The extent of the gaps will

diminish as you get further and further into the code book.

The Japanese procedure, as I remember it, was simply this. First the message was encoded. The encoding produced a series of four-digit groups.

Then, with a special signal that ended

the message, [the encipherer] turned

to a place in an additive book with

page upon page of four-digit groups. 

The encipherer was instructed by

means of the special key group, which

actually he selected in the process, to

go to a particular part of the additive

book and start copying from that particular part four-digit groups in

order. [He wrote these numbers]

under the four-digit groups of the

code message. Next the process,

which is sometimes called false addition, takes place.

False addition [today referred to as

Modulus2] is a noncarrying addition.

[This sum or result was what the

operator finally transmitted as the

message.] Remember, selecting

which part of the additive book to go

to was one which had a great deal of

variation. It was a book of many

pages. The keying procedure permitted starting anywhere on any one of

these pages. From there on, we took

the groups in order. It’s basically a

fairly secure method of communication.

But that was what started us. By

knowing where in the additive book a

particular message began its encipherment, we were able to put together messages which used the same

portion of the additive book, and that

depth of material then permitted us

to make cryptanalytic progress. As

time developed, our output increased

tremendously because of both additional cryptanalytic successes and

information from captured material.

Developing the Clues to Solve the

Cryptanalytic Puzzle 

One cryptanalyst, who chose not to be identified, described his experience at CBB this way:

I arrived in Brisbane, Australia, in

the spring of 1944. I was assigned to

Hut Fourteen. . .. Each hut had a work
Page 38

space for approximately thirty or

forty people. Shortly after my arrival,

Central Bureau went on round-theclock shift work. I enjoyed my shift,

which was 5:00 P.M. to 2:00 AM.

I was struck by the variety of people

who worked at the Bureau. I think

there was one New Zealander, ten

Canadians, and about ten Britishers.

I worked directly with two

Australians [who] introduced me to

the specifics of our daily tasks. Rank

was not important. We knew we had

a job to do and everyone just worked

at it.

One of the Japanese army codes that I

worked on was 6666. In this system,

the first four code groups were of

paramount importance. The first

group gave the enciphering indicator

for that particular message. The second group gave the page of the code

book to use for the encipherment. The

third group gave the column and row.

Frequently, the last digit of the third

group was the sum of the previous

seven digits. The fourth group contained the group count for the message. Each message usually contained forty code groups. Since each

digit in each group had been enciphered, we had to follow each digit

through the square to find the correct

composition of the group.

The Japanese provided us with helpful clues. Some clues were stylistic,

while other clues came from the logistics of their distribution problems.

Within the message itself, the

Japanese used many stereotypic

expressions or text repetitions. This

repetition lessened our work. If the

Japanese wanted to emphasize something to make sure a word or number

was understood, they used speller

groups. These speller groups were

always placed in parentheses. The

text in parentheses often gave us the

start we needed to break out the rest

of the code.

Changing the codes presented a great

problem for the Japanese as the war

progressed. As Japanese troops were

isolated by the Americans, the

Japanese were forced to communicate code change instructions in the

old system. We read these instructions and followed them. We had the

information for the new codes at the

same time as the Japanese troops.

Two examples of prudence by the

Americans were Rabaul and

Bougainville. We could have forced

the Japanese to surrender in these

locations. Their isolation was a great

source of information for us.

Despite these helpful hints from the

Japanese, codebreaking was still a

difficult process. Some analysts in the

sorting room specialized in solving

traffic that other analysts could not

break out because of missing indicators or other garbles. Analysts were

transferred to different units to lessen

frustration. For a time, I served as a

preliminary editor in the translators

section. . .. I filled in check numbers,

parentheses, and other routine information so that the translator could

devote all of his time to the more difficult tasks of determining meaning.

This experience helped our analytic

work when we returned to cryptanalysis by enhancing our ability to

recognize frequently used phrases.

Our contribution to the war effort

was very significant.
Page 39

Deriving intelligence from an enemy’s military

communications is a complex process. Many disciplines are necessary to achieve the final result.

These disciplines should not be considered in a vacuum; they are interdependent. Historians have

concentrated on the achievements of cryptanalysts

in World War II. These achievements are impressive and worthy of recognition. However, historians

frequently misunderstand the complexities of

cryptanalysis. Codebreaking would not be possible

without the support of traffic analysis, clerical and

machine support, translation, and information support services. As a complete signals intelligence

agency, Central Bureau had not only traffic analysts

and cryptanalysts but also a clerical and machine

section, information support section, and linguists.

The story of signals intelligence support to the

Southwest Pacific theater would be incomplete

without examining all of these additional fields that

contributed to the mission.

The Trials and Tribulations of an IBM

Operator

Sergeant (later Colonel) Donald Moreland was

part of the second contingent of Americans who

arrived in Australia in July 1942. He helped to

establish the IBM section at Central Bureau and

remained with that operation until the end of the

war. His recollections attest to the ingenuity of

Central Bureau participants in solving difficult

problems.

I was a sophomore at North Carolina

State University majoring in forestry

when Uncle Sam found me. I was

drafted into the Army in October

1941. After a quick course in teletype

repair at Fort Monmouth, New

Jersey, I was sent to the munitions

building in Washington, D.C., in

February 1942. At the munitions

building, I learned how to install and

repair the SIGABA. When I arrived in

Melbourne, Australia, in the summer

of 1942, my duties were to help set up

MacArthur’s message center. We

faced several daunting challenges.

The message center was located in a

former girls’ school in Melbourne. My

job was to set up the SIGABAs, but we

had no tools or test meters. The only

blueprints that we had were in our

heads and what we could remember

from our days at the munitions building. The lack of blueprints may have

been because of security concerns.

Fortunately, one of the members of

our crew was an electrician. To test

the electricity, he put a light bulb in

an outlet, the bulb shorted, and he

was almost knocked to the ground.

That’s when we found out that

Australia did not have 110-volt current; Australia had 220-volt current.

It was difficult to obtain the stepdown transformers that we needed to

make the SIGABA work. Step-down

transformers had to be produced

locally to get the quantity that we

needed. This problem of incompatibility between machines and current

stayed with us throughout the war.

When MacArthur’s headquarters and

Central Bureau moved to Brisbane, I

left the SIGABA job and worked

directly in Central Bureau. I was

involved in setting up the IBM equipChapter 4

Central Bureau: A Complete Signals Intelligence Agency
Page 40

ment, which was a challenge, since I

had never seen an IBM machine

before. In the first shipment that we

received, one box had a picture on it

that was really helpful with the

assembly of the machines. We had

crate after crate of parts in numbered

envelopes, but no parts list. Frazer,

an American who was trained on the

IBM machinery and part of the

machine records unit, really saved

us. He showed us what parts were for

sorters, what parts were keypunches,

etc.

For this time period, the IBM operation was quite sophisticated. After a

message was punched up on the IBM

cards, the cards were taken to the

IBM room for sorting, collating, and

printing. You could make the

machines produce a variety of sorts,

including both alphabetic and numeric printouts. An IBM machine read

cards with a system of wire brushes

that made contact with the slots in

each card. Precise timing of machine

parts was essential.

I thought we had it made when the

second shipment of IBM equipment

arrived at Central Bureau because

these machines were 220-volt

machines to match Australian current. However, we had a new set of

problems. In those days, 220-volt

motors from the U.S. had three phases. Now we had to contend with single-phase motors that required 110

volts of current and three-phase

motors that required 220 volts of current. When we moved from Henry

Street to the machine room at Ascot

Park in late 1943, we had a transformer to step down each phase and

then we had to balance the usage of

each phase. This problem stayed with

us even when we moved to San

Miguel, Luzon, the Philippines, in the

spring and summer of 1945.

The engineering know-how at Central

Bureau was quite remarkable. We

kept the IBM machines going roundthe-clock for almost four years. We

could repair any part of the machine

because we got wiring diagrams, contact sequences, and timing cycles.

Because of this engineering knowhow, we used the machines to do

tasks that they were never designed

to do. There was much creativity in

our operation.

I enjoyed the working conditions at

Central Bureau. Since most of the officers were not career officers and new

to military life, things were very

informal. Colonel Sinkov was more

like a professor than a commander. It

was a privilege to be invited to his

home for supper. The only difference

that I remember between officers and

enlisted men was in the handling of

mail. Outgoing mail was censored for

enlisted personnel; officers’ mail was

not censored. During my time at

Brisbane, I became an officer by

direct commission. When I reported

for work one afternoon, I was called

up front and received my second lieutenant bars. Then I went to work as

usual.

I supervised the swing shift in the

IBM room for several years. Although

all of the IBM operators were

Americans, I enjoyed the contact with

the Australians and other nationalities at Central Bureau. It was hard

work; there were many sixteen-hour

days. Leave was frequently cancelled
Page 41

because of some emergency, but there

was very little complaining at Central

Bureau. We knew we had an important job to do and we did it to the best

of our ability.

When I returned home to Fort

Devens, Massachusetts, in February

1946, the Army had one more surprise for me. As the sergeant was typing my separation papers, he asked

me what my military occupational

specialty [MOS] was. I did not have

one because of the pressure of war.

He looked at my experience and

assigned me the MOS of machine

records officer. Machine records was

a critical skill. I had to stay in the

Army until August 1946. After I left

the Army, I obtained a Ph.D. in plant

physiology and biochemistry. I

remained in the reserves for thirtytwo years. My experiences at Central

Bureau were an extremely rewarding

part of my career.

Supporting Central Bureau’s Information

Needs

Tristam Johnson was part of the first contingent of enlisted men to arrive in Australia directly

from the U.S. He performed various information

support functions for Central Bureau throughout

the war. Johnson presents an interesting picture of

various aspects of life at Central Bureau.

I was able to graduate from college in

June 1941, because the draft law

passed in 1940 exempted college seniors until after graduation. In the

summer of 1941, I decided to enlist in

the Army rather than wait for the

draft, in order to have greater choice

in my assignment. I had been

involved with the theater in college so

I arranged for Fort Monmouth [New

Jersey] to request that I work on

training films. Shortly after basic

training, they asked for volunteers

for the S15. It sounded interesting so I

volunteered. I was sent to the munitions building in Washington, D.C., in

February 1942. We worked on U.S.

codes. When Singapore fell to the

Japanese in February 1942, we were

afraid that U.S. codes had been compromised. There was a great rush to

create new codes. In April 1942, I was

one of eight enlisted men sent to

Melbourne, Australia. I remained at

Central Bureau for the rest of the war.

I performed numerous support tasks

at Central Bureau. During the

Melbourne period, I processed traffic

and kept records of placenames and

how these names were encoded. We

regularly shared this information

with Arlington Hall. Eventually, we

started making our own maps

because there were so few maps

available. Those maps that were

available lacked detailed information

on the islands. As the war progressed,

Central Bureau’s information needs

increased and mapmaking became

our largest function. In late 1943,

when we moved from Henry Street to

Ascot Park in Brisbane, information

support became a separate section,

and I supervised about twelve people.

I remember making a map to help

locate the Yoshina Maru, the ship that

sank in May 1944 off Aitape, New

Guinea, from which we recovered an

additive book.

The working atmosphere at Central

Bureau was very friendly. When

extra duties came along, we all

willingly chipped in. For instance,

when Central Bureau moved from

Melbourne to Brisbane in September
Page 42

1942, I was one of the equipment

guards. We had to load and unload

the equipment on several trains

because each state in Australia has its

own track gauge, which necessitated

changing trains. The receipt of captured material was always a time of

great excitement at Central Bureau.

We all participated in the drying of

the material captured at Sio, New

Guinea. We needed every flat surface

in Ascot Park to restore the pages of

the code book from the Yoshino Maru.

Life in Australia was nice because the

people were so hospitable. The Red

Cross maintained lists of people who

wanted soldiers to come to supper.

We enjoyed many home-cooked

meals. There was always room for

one more soldier at an Australian

dinner table. As one of the first

Americans on the scene, I fully experienced Australian hospitality. During

the early days, there were no barracks so we lived in Australian

homes. The Australians appreciated

our help.

There was one OCS for all of the services in Australia. In 1943, I was

accepted for OCS training and

became a second lieutenant. After

returning to Central Bureau, I

became a liaison officer, funneling

information in and out of the Bureau.

When Central Bureau moved to the

Philippines in 1945, I went too. I

worked in this same position, but we

were stationed in Manila rather than

in San Miguel, Luzon.

After the war, when I returned to

civilian life, I embarked on a career in

financial investments. I have fond

memories of my Central Bureau experience.

A Central Bureau J-Boy

There is universal agreement on one point

among students who study the Japanese language

– it is very complex and difficult to learn. At the

start of World War II, the U.S. military was hampered by a shortage of Japanese linguists. The need

for Japanese linguists in the intelligence field was

particularly acute. How did the Army recruit and

train Japanese linguists? How were these new linguists able to meet the demands of translating intelligence quickly enough to be useful to the commanders? Robert C. Christopher’s answers to these

questions give an inkling of the challenges that

faced linguists at Central Bureau. By the time

Christopher arrived at Central Bureau in 1944, linguists were extremely busy because of the Sio capture. The Australian army’s Ninth Infantry Division

discovered the entire cryptographic library of the

Japanese army’s Twentieth Division at Sio, New

Guinea, in January 1944.

Robert Christopher joined the Army in 1942.

After attending language school and OCS, he served

with the Signals Intelligence Service at Arlington

Hall and at Central Bureau. After the war,

Christopher obtained a bachelor’s degree in

Robert C. Christopher
Page 43

Japanese studies from Yale University. He was

recalled to active duty during the Korean war and

served as a senior Chinese linguist. Christopher

pursued a career in journalism and held key editorial positions at both Time and Newsweek magazines. He is also the author of books on the

Japanese culture and economy.

I became a J-boy, [the nickname for

Japanese linguists in World War II]

because my father suggested that I

study Japanese. My father was a

machine gunner in World War I. As

my father put it: ‘When we go to war

with Japan, you will be better off as

an intelligence officer than as a

machine gunner’. In my freshman

year at Yale University in September

1941, I began my studies of the

Japanese language.

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Verna

Lorell came up to Yale from

Washington, D.C., and talked to me

about being a linguist in the Army.

Since you could no longer volunteer,

Lorell told me to inform him of

my induction date and Arlington

Hall would request me. The Army

transferred me to Fort Devens,

Massachusetts, and nobody sent for

me. After being stuck on guard duty

for a while, I contacted Lorell and

eventually got to Arlington Hall.

The Japanese linguist school at

Arlington Hall was superb. Edwin O.

Reischauer ran the school, and all of

the instructors were very good. It is

interesting that there were no native

Japanese instructors at Arlington

Hall. Class size was small, only five or

six people, and the instruction

was intense. We learned classic or

archaic Japanese, not conversational

Japanese, because the Japanese military sent messages in classic

Japanese. The course lasted only a

few months. Before we knew it, we

were working in operations.

I was very impressed by my colleagues in the Japanese translation

section at Arlington Hall. I was surrounded by extremely bright people

from Harvard, Columbia, Princeton,

and City College of New York. Our

first activities in operations were to

learn some cryptanalysis, stripping,

and bookbreaking, so that we would

have a better understanding of the

context of our work.

We had been promised that we would

receive OCS training after we completed language school. Because of

operational necessity, we had OCS

training half of the day and then

spent the other half of the day at

work. I was lucky to get my commission as a second lieutenant. One of my

classmates, Joseph Kraft, who later

became a well-known newspaper

columnist, did not get his commission

because he was only eighteen years

old. I was nineteen. The Army went

through the motions to try and make

soldiers out of us by giving us physical training and conducting inspections, but they knew we were a lost

cause. The military atmosphere at

both Arlington Hall and Central

Bureau was not very strict.

Since I wanted to go overseas, my

stay at Arlington Hall was brief. I

went to Central Bureau with eighteen

to twenty other linguists in 1944. We

didn’t get any special briefing about

Central Bureau before we left. Sinkov

was already a legend at Arlington

Hall. I knew he was at Central Bureau
Page 44

so I figured I would have an important job. I was relieved to finally

make it to Brisbane. Our ship could

not dock at Port Moresby as planned

because the replacement depot was

full. We ended up at Oro Bay, New

Guinea. The colonel in charge tried to

put us in the signal corps. I knew

nothing about being a signals officer

and was sure glad when Captain

Howard W. Brown straightened

things out [and] flew us to Brisbane.

At Central Bureau, I worked under

Hugh Erskine, who ran the translation section. Erskine was the son of

missionary parents and had a good

command of the language because

he had lived in Japan for many

years. The best linguists at Central

Bureau were Lieutenant Otto Mahrt

and Captain Clarence Yamagata.

Although he may have not had the

official title, Otto Mahrt was the senior linguist. Otto was the final authority on language problems. The most

helpful working aids that I had as a

translator were those that Otto had

developed. He interviewed prisoners

of war and asked them how terms

were used and then passed the information to all of the translators.

The second linguist of note, Clarence

Yamagata, spoke and wrote

Japanese fluently. Clarence was nisei

[second-generation Japanese] from

Hawaii. Clarence was most helpful

explaining Japanese usage, which

was invaluable when dealing with

such a complex language. Because of

his difficulties with English, Clarence

was not as fluent with translation.

There were no restrictions on his

access to information because of

being nisei. Clarence Yamagata was

so highly regarded by his colleagues

that they dedicated the Signals

Intelligence Service Record to him.

[The Signals Intelligence Service

Record was the unclassified history

written by Central Bureau participants in the fall of 1945.]

I supervised a team of five linguists.

These various teams that I supervised

were made up of Americans, British,

and Australians. I was very

impressed with the interallied aspects

of Central Bureau. There were no

international tensions. We were integrated very well. Jobs were assigned

by talent. For instance, an Australian

supervised the team next to mine. It

was a very efficient operation.

Most of the messages that we translated dealt with ship movements or

troop movements. There are a few out

of the ordinary messages that still

stand out in my memory. One translation was about the promotion of

Japanese officers. It was boring until

I learned that one man was promoted

for breaking a U.S. Air Force code.

This information was quickly passed

to the appropriate channels. Another

time, I was struggling with some

words that meant Faerey [name of

manufacturer] Fireflies. I could not

imagine that the Japanese would

send messages about Fireflies. I

checked my work and did not see any

mistakes. After talking to my colleagues, I learned that a Firefly is a

British naval plane. The British had

just sent a detachment to the Pacific,

so my message was really about

Fireflies; a British carrier had five

Fireflies on board. The most thrilling

translation that I worked on was a

message that came in the clear when I

was the senior linguist at San Miguel,
Page 45

Luzon. We knew the message had to

be important because it was sent in

the clear. It contained words that I

had never seen before. For instance,

the word Chin. Eventually I found the

right dictionary and discovered that

Chin stood for I. The only person

allowed to use this particular expression was the emperor of Japan. I was

translating Emperor Hirohito’s 14

August message telling the troops to

surrender.

In the spring of 1945, when I had

moved up to San Miguel, I was astonished to receive a letter from Yale

University asking if I was coming

back to school since the war was

winding down. I was scheduled to go

with the troops as an interpreter in

operations Olympic and Coronet to

invade Japan. I was worried about

being dead, never mind going back to

school. I was relieved when the U.S.

dropped the atomic bomb and Japan

surrendered.

After the war, I was a member of

the Target Intelligence Committee

[TICOM] team that went to Japan to

learn about the Japanese cryptographic capabilities. We were briefed

on our mission by Rufus Taylor, a

naval officer. The briefing was very

general and no specific targets were

given to us. We had a carte blanche

letter from General Eikleberger stating that we could go anywhere or do

anything necessary to fulfill our mission. The letter even stated that local

commanders should give us combat

troop support if we requested it. My

partner Sid Haken and I went to the

Japanese signal corps headquarters,

the equivalent of our headquarters at

Fort Monmouth. We found many

copies of The Black Chamber by

Yardley, which had been translated

into Japanese. All of the code books

and other equipment were gone. Even

the personnel were gone. We did not

gain any useful knowledge from this

effort. I came back to the U.S. and got

out of the Army in July 1946. As I

think back on my Central Bureau

experience, I am amazed that we were

able to do such an effective job in light

of our limited training.

A Bizarre Experiment

It is interesting to examine the contrasting

experiences of Curtis Nelson and Robert

Christopher. Although both worked as linguists,

their opportunities for training were very different.

Curtis Nelson’s experiences illustrate some of the

training and planning difficulties the military had

in meeting the Japanese challenge.

Curtis H. Nelson was a native of Minneapolis,

Minnesota. In preparation for a career in court

reporting and convention reporting, Nelson studied

stenography operations at the University of

Minnesota. He was inducted into the Army in

September 1942.

Curtis H. Nelson
Page 46

During my first year in the military, I

did office work handling the papers

of new recruits. I was stationed at

Fort Snelling, Minnesota. In the fall

of 1943, the Army summoned all personnel with stenotyping skills to

Pittsburgh, California, to participate

in an experimental program. There

were a total of ten of us with these

skills. We flew to Brisbane, Australia,

and were assigned to the 126th SRI

Company. Our job was to monitor

Japanese broadcasts and record

what we heard on our stenograph

machines. Since information is

recorded phonetically on stenograph

machines and I had no knowledge of

Japanese, this task was extremely difficult. After five months of this monitoring, I was sent to Central Bureau.

Of the ten stenotypists, I was the only

one sent to Central Bureau. My colleagues did not have the background

or stamina to continue this experiment.

At Central Bureau they gave me a

Japanese dictionary and told me to

learn the language. Each day,

Clarence Yamagata dictated Japanese to me and I would type the

Japanese into English. I worked up to

100 Japanese words a minute, but I

was very frustrated. Finally I asked

to see Colonel Doud. [Colonel Doud

was the American assistant director

of Central Bureau for a brief period

before Colonel Sinkov assumed this

duty.]

I wanted to find out why I was learning to copy Japanese on a stenograph

machine. After I learned enough

Japanese, G-2 was planning to send

me beyond the Japanese front lines to

tap phones and copy what I heard on

the stenographic machine. Runners

would then take the tapes back to

headquarters for translation. I immediately lost my interest in learning

any more Japanese. I would last

about three minutes if I went beyond

the Japanese front line. With my help,

the Army abandoned this experiment.

Next, I was assigned as a scanner in

the translation section under Colonel

Erskine. I circled key words on IBM

printouts and then turned the printouts over to the translators. We

looked for such words as Maru [ship]

and placename locations. This work

was much more satisfying because I

saw ships and locations and then

later saw that such-and-such ship

sank. It is unfortunate that intercept

operators were not told more about

how they fit into the total picture and

what they accomplished. These operators would have had greater job satisfaction if they [had known] the

importance of their work.

I enjoyed my stay at Central Bureau.

I especially liked working with people

from so many different countries. I

also liked living as a civilian even

though I was in the military. I had an

apartment in town and did not have

to live in the barracks. I was also able

to play in a band at night.

I left for home on 31 December 1945.

The Army’s lack of planning and lack

of training remain a mystery to me.
Page 47

Linguists played an important role at CBB. (Source S.I.S. Record)

FRONT ROW: Harrison Pearce, James Walter, Otto Mahrt, Hugh S. Erskine, Stuart Johnson,

Clarence Yamagata, Sidney Doggett, Robert Christopher

SECOND ROW: Andrew Wiedman, Leonard Martin, H. Hourne, B. Polack, C. Carrington,

W. Kalbfell, C. Archer

THIRD ROW: Eugene Aleinkoff, W. Wilkes, R. Lawrence, J. Smart, G. Howard

Page 49

Women played an important role in the success

of Central Bureau. One measure of the importance

of women is General Akin’s attempt to obtain an

exemption from the Australian government to permit Australian women to move to the Philippines

with the rest of Central Bureau in 1945. Australian

law forbade the use of women in overseas duty,

however, and General Akin’s plea for an exemption

was denied.

Women served at all of Central Bureau’s locations. Australian and American women were located at Melbourne, Brisbane, and field sections in

Australia; only American women served at San

Miguel, Luzon, in the Philippines and in New

Guinea. The majority of women were keypunch

operators, typists, and intercept operators. Women

belonged to units of the Australian Women’s

Auxiliary Service (AWAS), the Women’s Australian

Auxiliary Air Force (WAAAF), or the U.S. Women’s

Army Corp (WAC). Australian women were

involved in SIGINT from the beginning of Central

Bureau. The WACs came later in the war.

The following description of life as an intercept

operator, by Joy Linnane, a member of the WAAAF,

demonstrates some of the difficulties intercept

operators faced whether they were men or women.

She was one of thirteen women to complete the first

WAAAF Kana class on 6 July 1942. Ms. Linnane

served at Point Cook, located just outside

Melbourne, Australia, at an RAAF station in 1942

when few intercept units were in the field. This

account was taken from The Eavesdroppers by

Jack Bleakley. 

At Point Cook, we quickly learned the

price of working for an intelligence

unit – it was isolation. We were barracked apart from everyone in an old

house formerly used as married quarters. The hut where we worked was

near the SIGS school and was known

as the ‘hush-hush’ hut. I soon learned

that all of the SIGS were instructed

not to approach us. Since we worked

Tokyo time, we were out of step with

the rest of the station. During my sixmonth tour, I never ate in the mess.

We collected what food was available

and cooked it ourselves over a radiator in the hut.

We worked four hours on and four

hours off, intercepting Japanese navy

messages passed on to an unknown

person or persons. Rarely did we ever

have more than two hours of sleep at

one time. We had a brief course in

unarmed defense and in the use of

firearms. We worked behind bolted

doors and shaded windows. A Smith

& Wesson revolver was always kept

at the door and there was an emergency button near each AR7, the

radio sets we used. It was a memorable experience.

The Army was the only section of the U.S. military that permitted women to take overseas duty.

WACs served in every theater of World War II.

Having women in the military was a new experience for the services. How did the Army treat the

WACs who served with Central Bureau? The following perspectives from a WAC in Brisbane, the

WACs in New Guinea, and the commanding officers of the New Guinea unit provide interesting

answers to this question.

Chapter 5

The Role of Women at Central Bureau
Page 50

The Brisbane Perspective

Sally Speer joined the WACs in 1943. When

offered the choice of going to OCS or overseas, Sally

chose overseas. She arrived in Brisbane in

September 1944. She moved forward to San

Miguel, Luzon, the Philippines, on 1 August 1945 as

part of the relocation of most of Central Bureau to a

location closer to MacArthur’s general headquarters.

I enjoyed my experience at Central

Bureau immensely. I especially

enjoyed the opportunity to meet and

work with so many interesting people. As a keypunch operator for the

machine unit, there was plenty to do.

For most of my tour, I had the graveyard or midnight shift of duty. People

assume that the keypunching equipment was IBM because the sorters

and tabulators were IBM. However,

the keypunching equipment was really Remington Rand. The military

did not tap my talents and abilities.

Before my military service, I was a

secretary for the president of a

large corporation in New York City.

Keypunching was not challenging

enough for me, but it was essential

for our mission.

I was glad to be in Brisbane rather

than in New Guinea. We had more

freedom to move about in the city.

In New Guinea, WACs could not go

anywhere unless they were accompanied by a G.I. because we were

close to the war front. The climate

in Brisbane was certainly better

than the climate in New Guinea.

Although the hours were long and

leave was frequently cancelled, I

was glad to have the opportunity to

serve overseas and to do my part in

bringing about victory.

The New Guinea Perspective

From April 1944 onward, the pace of war in the

Southwest Pacific theater increased rapidly. The

Allied strategy of bypassing Japanese strongholds

to attack in unexpected areas where the Japanese

had fewer forces was very effective. MacArthur’s

island-hopping campaign through New Guinea isolated many Japanese units as he raced to the

Philippines. The invasion of the Philippines began

with the capture of Leyte. The invasion, originally

planned for December 1944, was moved up to

October. The Japanese were tenacious fighters, and

the war was far from over. Personnel to collect SIGINT were in demand; WACs were sent to the

Southwest Pacific theater to meet this demand.

The following information is based on recollections by Susan Cross Santa Maria, Maryjane Ford

Walter, and Phyllis Purse, three WACs who served

in the cryptographic unit at Hollandia, New Guinea.

Their background and training varied. Before

enlisting in the WACs, Susan was a laboratory techFirst WACs to come to Brisbane made their home at

Yeronga. (Source: S.I.S. Record)
Page 51

nician at Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia. After

basic training, she served at a hospital in Long

Island, New York. Maryjane had two years of college and one year of business school prior to her

enlistment in the WACs. After basic training, she

was a code clerk at Fort McClure, Wisconsin. She

was the first WAC to receive the Soldiers’ Medal,

which was presented to her for her courage in saving a G.I. from drowning. Both Susan and Maryjane

were members of the WAC cryptographic training

class conducted at Vint Hill, Virginia.

At MacArthur’s suggestion, a special class for

WACs was set up at Vint Hill, Virginia. Two women

from each of the nine WAC commands were selected for this training. 

Phyllis Purse was a secretary in a

paper company prior to her enlistment in the Women’s Auxiliary Army

Corps in 1942. The Women’s Auxiliary

Army Corps was reorganized and

became the WAC in the summer of

1943. Phyllis served at Daytona

Beach, Florida, and at Fort Sill,

Oklahoma, where she drove trucks to

various message centers. She had

three’ weeks of keypunch training

before she went overseas. These

women give the reader a glimpse of

the logistical problems that the Army

had in general as well as specific

logistical problems for WACs. The

information in the following oral history was taken from a joint interview

of all three ladies.

Life in the Army was full of surprises.

Members of the Vint Hill cryptographic class were promised that

they would become tech sergeants

when they graduated, but it never

happened. Although twenty WACs

graduated from the class, only nineteen went overseas. The twentieth

graduate was already a tech sergeant. She could not go overseas

because she had no company to command. Officers had to have a company to be eligible for overseas duty. We

learned to expect the unexpected.

When we went to sleep aboard ship

on 23 October 1944, we were 200

miles from Brisbane, Australia. When

we woke up the next morning, we

were no longer going southwest, but

were going north to New Guinea. The

Leyte invasion was under way. The

ship stopped at Milne Bay [New

Guinea] to take on more troops. Some

of the WACs, including Susan, were

taken off the ship at Oro Bay to make

room for more combat troops. The

WACs finally ended up in Hollandia.

There was much confusion when we

arrived at Hollandia because our

orders were still at Brisbane. We

were taken to Imbi Bay [Hollandia,

New Guinea]. After six weeks, we

were finally taken back to Sentani

Lake [Hollandia], where we originally landed, to begin our cryptographic

work.

Our work on Japanese shipping was

very interesting. Japan divided the

territory that it controlled into five

American and Dutch WACs joined in standing

retreat at Yeronga. (Source: S.I.S. Record)
Page 52

areas. Every ship had to report to its

area each day. In turn, each area had

to report to Tokyo each day. We were

gratified when we received a code

book that was captured near Truk

[Dublon Island]. We saw that we had

recovered 96 percent of the additive

by ourselves and had few mistakes.

Our unit received a letter of commendation from Colonel Sinkov for this.

Life was rugged in both New Guinea

and the Philippines. We flew to San

Miguel, Luzon, the Philippines, in

June 1945. Our barracks were in a

rice paddy. The huts where we lived

and worked had wooden floors, tin

roofs, and burlap sides with openings

above the floor and below the roof. It

was so hot that we could not work in

the huts from noon to 3:00 P.M. When

the typhoon season started, we were

even warmer because the side openings had to be covered with corrugated tin. The soldiers and sailors who

served in the area with us were very

generous and made life bearable for

us. We were especially lucky in

Hollandia because the Seventh Naval

Fleet had a recreation area right in

back of our base. We also went out

of the way to help the men. We visited

the wounded. Unlike the nurses, who

were extremely busy, we could

take the time to comb their hair

and make them feel comfortable.

Unfortunately, the general public

viewed WACs, especially those who

went overseas, as men-chasers. We

did not deserve this reputation. The

Army should have made greater

efforts to correct this misconception.

Our voyages to and from the

Southwest Pacific area sure were

memorable. There were 5,000 troops

on the ship. We got two meals a day.

We snuck on deck whenever we could,

The WACs who ended up at Setani Lake, Hollandia, instead of Brisbane

waited at Imbi Bay for their orders to arrive.
Page 53

especially to sleep, because it was

very hot. Nine of us were in a cabin

for two. The room was so small that

we had to schedule when we got

dressed. Each tier would take a turn

getting up first. We had one helmet

full of fresh water per person per day.

Sometimes we used it to wash clothes.

There was one bathtub for thirty-two

people in a congregate of cabins.

Sometimes we would pool all of the

water, fill the tub, and take turns taking a bath. You had to wear fatigues

on the ship, but they gave us only one

pair. WACs were not allowed to go on

‘A’ promenade deck in anything but

pants. The reason you could not wear

a skirt was because the men were

lying and sitting in various forms on

‘A’ deck. Once you washed your

fatigues in the salt water, it took them

thirty-six hours to dry. When you

couldn’t wear your fatigues, you

wore your class A uniform, which

was a skirt and blouse, so you had to

stay below deck. We were at sea for

twenty-six days so it was wonderful

to get off that ship.

A View from the Commanders

Lieutenant Victor Rose was the commanding

officer, and Lieutenant John R. Thomas was operations officer for the detachment of WACs who

served in Hollandia in late 1944. Victor Rose was

drafted in 1941. Prior to that, he was an accountant.

His cryptologic training at Fort Monmouth, New

Jersey, was cut short because of manpower needs.

He went to the munitions building in Washington,

D.C., early in 1942. All of his experience at both the

munitions building and Arlington Hall was in the

cryptologic section. Rose went to OCS in 1943. He

arrived at Central Bureau Brisbane in May 1944,

and in 1945 he went to Hollandia to command the

WAC unit. John Thomas, who was drafted shortly

after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, was

assigned to the Signal Corps at Camp Crowder,

Missouri, and became a radio operator. In February

1943, Thomas attended OCS at Fort Monmouth

and also went to signals and message center training. After a brief tour at Arlington Hall, Thomas

was sent to Central Bureau Brisbane. In January

1945, Thomas went to Hollandia to work with the

WAC unit.

It is significant that the WAC unit had cryptanalytic tasks because it gives some indication that

women were not relegated only to stereotypic jobs.

However, it is also interesting to note that the commanders of this unit were men. When the unit

Victor Rose John R. Thomas
Page 54

moved to San Miguel, Luzon, the Philippines, in

June 1945, Rose and Thomas were assigned to

other duties, such as planning for the invasion of

Japan, and lost track of the unit. When the war

ended, they were part of the TICOM operation that

looked for cryptographic information in Japan.

They left military service early in 1946. The information in this oral history came from a joint interview with both men.

Commanding a unit of WACs was an

interesting experience. There were

350 women in the unit. We were our

own separate B branch, so the

women had little contact with other

Americans in Hollandia. As a cryptographic unit, we worked primarily on

the Japanese Army Water Transport

Code. Our traffic was dated, but our

work was important because we filled

in the gaps. We had to fill in code

books without the assistance of IBM

equipment. The traffic was delivered

by courier, and it came either from

Brisbane or directly from the site. We

were under Central Bureau control so

we had no reason to communicate

with Arlington Hall. 

We carefully maintained security. A

guard was posted outside the hut

where we worked at all times. We

burned our trash every day, which

simplified our move to the Philippines

in 1945. Outgoing personal mail was

censored. One of the recruits wrote in

Polish. Since neither of us knew

Polish, we had to send this correspondence to another base for censorship.

The best way to achieve productivity

was by permitting flexibility. Since

the heat in the hut where we worked

was unbearable, we gave each person

a quota of messages to complete each

day. Once the quotas were met, they

were free for the remainder of the

day. Some finished their work quickly

while others struggled along all day.

Another challenge that we faced was

that the WACs came to Hollandia

with different amounts of training,

from cryptographic training at Vint

Hill to no training at all. We had to do

some teaching ourselves and if someone did not catch on, we had to find

something that they could do.

Although we asked to be reassigned

to other duties when the unit moved

to the Philippines, our time with the

WACs was rewarding.
Page 55

When considering SIGINT support to the

Southwest Pacific theater, the story would be

incomplete without looking at the participation of

Fleet Radio Unit Melbourne (FRUMEL). In

February 1942, the U.S. Navy joined a small signals

intelligence unit from the Royal Australian Navy

(RAN) to form the joint military organization

FRUMEL. FRUMEL’s contributions to the war

effort are impressive especially because it was a

small signals intelligence unit: there were only a

few hundred personnel at FRUMEL and its forward

units. At the end of the war, the U.S. Navy had 775

receivers in the Pacific theaters, and only 58 of

these receivers were in Australia. Allied victories

that occurred in part because of the invaluable

intelligence provided by FRUMEL include the

Battle of Midway in 1942 and the captures of Lae,

New Guinea, in 1943 and Biak, New Guinea, in

1944, which helped MacArthur advance through

New Guinea to the Philippines. FRUMEL directly

distributed its communications intelligence to the

commander of the Seventh Fleet, to the commander of the Southwest Pacific theater, General

Douglas MacArthur, and to the submarine command in western Australia.

Although FRUMEL was a joint military organization of U.S. and Australian personnel, each had

its own administration covering personnel, supplies, etc. Each navy maintained its own communications, had separate code rooms, and handled

reporting functions separately. The important traffic analysis, cryptanalysis, and language sections

were operated jointly. There was excellent cooperation between the two navies, and the organization

ran smoothly.

In January 1945, the Americans turned

FRUMEL facilities over to the Australians. A small

nucleus of Americans remained in Melbourne until

the end of the war. The U.S. took this action

because the war front was now a considerable distance north of Australia. OP-20-G had centralized

processing so it was not as dependent on field processing as it had been earlier in the war. Melbourne

continued to provide communications intelligence

to the RAN until the end of the war.

The participants at FRUMEL tell their stories

on the following pages. The intercept operators,

traffic analysts, cryptanalysts, machine personnel,

and linguists were the lifeblood of FRUMEL as they

are in any communications intelligence organization. They present a vivid picture of their challenges

and contributions.

From the Ground Up at FRUMEL

James B. Capron joined the Navy in 1936. From

1936 to 1940, Capron was a radioman on various

ships. Capron was a member of the last “on the roof

gang” (OTRG) class, which intercepted Japanese

codes. The class had this title because the Navy

actually conducted classes on Japanese intercept

on the top of its building on Constitution Avenue in

Washington, D.C. Because of a leaky roof and other

poor conditions, Capron’s class could not be completed and they moved to OP-20-G office spaces.

They held class in the evenings when the offices

were not in use. Capron was an intercept operator

in Hawaii and on Corregidor. Capron’s story of

reaching Melbourne by way of Java is most interesting. His involvement in FRUMEL from the

beginning offers an important perspective.

On 5 February 1942, I left Corregidor

bound for Java. We were the first

naval group to leave Corregidor. It

was not an evacuation. We were

assigned to support the Dutch in Java

Chapter 6

The FRUMEL Experience
Page 56

because of a recent alliance between

the U.S. and the Netherlands. We got

James B. Capron, Jr. off to an inauspicious start.

We could not tell anyone that we were

leaving, and we could not take anything but the clothes on our backs. We

made our own boxes for the typewriters, receivers, and other equipment.

We even took a portable direction

finding set with us that we never had

a chance to use. We had five minutes

to get aboard the submarine because

they did not want to stay on the surface too long as the Japanese were in

the area. We had so much trouble getting the direction finding set on board

because of its size. They had to open a

torpedo chute to get the tripod portion on the sub. It was so crowded on

the ship that we had to walk on cases

of supplies to get around. Although

the submarine had many bullet holes,

it was operative and we made it to

Java.

Our mission on Java was the same as

it had been on Corregidor. We intercepted Japanese traffic, but now we

warned the Dutch of impending

enemy attacks. We set up shop in converted stables in Bandung, Java. We

had three shifts with two people on

each watch. The mission was shortlived, however, as the Japanese landed on Java three weeks after our

arrival. The Japanese landed on the

northern part of the island at 2200

hours, and we were evacuated by

0630 the following morning. We

spent the night riding on a bus. We

had to travel over 110 miles from

Bandung to Tjilatjap, a port on the

southern coast of Java [now known

as Cilacap]. I was in the shower when

the word came to board the submarine. I didn’t even have time to rinse

off. The sub started moving so I had to

leap on board.

We arrived at Exmouth, Australia.

Swede Carlson was in charge of our

group. He had to commandeer seats

on trains to get us to Melbourne. We

made the trip, not as a unit, but three

or four at a time depending on how

many seats were available. We were

involved in FRUMEL from the ground

up. When we arrived in the beginning

of March 1942, the intercept station

was still under construction.

The intercept site was at Moorabbin,

a suburb of Melbourne. We pitched in

to help the Australians build the station because progress was slow.

There was a shortage of Australian

manpower because its navy was

small and all of the younger men

were on sea duty. In short order, we

converted a farm into a first-rate

intercept station. There were two James B. Capron, Jr.
Page 57

houses on the premises. The first was

reserved for the chief’s quarters. The

second house was reserved for the

Australian women in the RAAN. We

converted a shack into office work

space. We strung poles for the antenna[s] and built a barracks for the

enlisted men. When the first group of

evacuees from Corregidor arrived,

they helped us complete our work.

The analytic section for FRUMEL

was in Melbourne at the Monterey

Apartments. We used half of the

apartment building; Australian civilians were tenants in the rest of the

building. Australian couriers delivered traffic from Moorabbin by

motorcycle every two hours.

We worked side by side with the

Australian naval personnel. I enjoyed

them very much. Ninety percent of

the Australian staff were women. I

taught them to use the typewriter

instead of copying code by hand.

They learned quickly and were excellent operators.

Our mission at FRUMEL was similar

to our mission at Corregidor – intercept Japanese traffic and get the

information out. We sent bearings

directly to the Seventh Fleet. We had

no mechanism to send raw traffic

electrically to Washington. Later on

in the war, we started providing

detachments to work on ships. I was

part of the detachment that provided

direct support for the Leyte invasion

in October 1944.

Two teams from FRUMEL were established to support the Leyte invasion,

which was the first step in reconquering the Philippines. My team was

supposed to go on the ship named

the Princeton. We flew from Brisbane

to Hollandia, New Guinea, where

we learned that the Princeton had

already left for duty. This was a

fortunate break for me because

it later sank. We were assigned to

the Wassach Liberty ship under

Commander Baird. Our mission was

protection of the ship, not strategic

planning for the invasion. We were

assigned to transmitter room three.

Since army communications domiThe intercept site at Bandung, Java, was short-lived because of the advancing Japanese. They

fled Java to Australia via the port of Cilacap.
Page 58

nated the ship, we had trouble getting

antennas. The army personnel were

always telling us when to connect and

disconnect. The invasion battle was

very fierce. Our ship was very close to

the shore. I saw MacArthur go ashore

for a staged photo opportunity. Our

nickname for MacArthur was

“Dugout Doug.”

I returned to the U.S. in November

1944. I believe that FRUMEL closed by

the end of the year and that Australia

took over the facilities at Melbourne. I

left the Navy in 1956 and joined NSA

as a civilian. I retired from NSA in

December 1971. Our contributions to

the war effort at FRUMEL were significant. I was glad to be a part of the

unit.

Intercept and Traffic Analysis at FRUMEL

The major source of intercept for FRUMEL was

at Moorabbin, a suburb of Melbourne. The Navy

also had forward intercept units in Townsville,

which is located in Queensland, Adelaide River,

which is located in the Northern Territory, and

Exmouth Gulf in western Australia. The Townsville

unit was operational for about a year. The unit at

Adelaide River was the most successful. It lasted for

the duration of the war. This unit had a permanent

circuit to Fleet Radio Unit Pacific (FRUPAC) and

moved forward with Admiral Nimitz’s headquarters in 1945. The unit at Exmouth Gulf had direction finding responsibilities but was plagued by

equipment problems. The Navy also attempted to

set up a forward unit at Cooktown, which is along

the northern coast of Australia in Queensland. The

Navy established Cooktown in February 1944 but

did not have the resources to make the station successful, and it was decommissioned in October

1944.

The pace of the war quickened dramatically in

1944, with MacArthur’s leap to Hollandia, New

Guinea, in April and the invasion of Leyte in

October 1944. In light of these events, the lack of

resources for Cooktown is understandable. The folThe Adelaide River was the location of a successful forward intercept site operated by

FRUMEL. FRUMEL was unable to maintain its intercept site at Cooktown. Its remote location

made the delivery of supplies extremely difficult.
Page 59

lowing excerpts attest to the versatility and talent

of the navy SIGINT personnel.

A Conversation with the Operators 

(Note: In addition to individual oral history

interviews, information was obtained from

“Japanese Intercept Down Under, Part II, Adelaide

River,” by Sid Burnett, NCVA Cryptolog, Summer

1984. )

The following recollections from Chief Warrant

Officers Sidney Burnett, John H. Gelineau, and

David W. Snyder portray the everyday activities

involved in the collection and analysis of traffic.

They performed the bread-and-butter basic tasks of

a communications intelligence organization. Their

backgrounds and experiences are similar. All started out in the Navy as radiomen, and all attended

various OTRG (“On the Roof Gang”) classes.

Sidney A. Burnett John H. Gelineau

The headquarters of FRUMEL was located in the residential section of Melbourne. It received

intercept from Moorabbin, a suburb of Melbourne.
Page 60

Burnett joined the Navy in 1927 and was selected for special training in the eighth OTRG class in

April 1932. Gelineau joined the Navy in 1929. He

was a member of the tenth OTRG class, which graduated in 1934. Snyder joined the Navy in the mid1930s. Because the depression created a flood of

applications, Snyder was on a waiting list for a year

and a half before he was accepted into the Navy.

Snyder attended the twenty-second OTRG class in

1938. At the time of Pearl Harbor and the U.S.

entrance into World War II, all were stationed in

the Philippines at Corregidor. All were evacuated

from Corregidor and then went to Melbourne to

join FRUMEL. Snyder was part of the first group

that left Corregidor, did a short stint in Java, and

then came to Melbourne. Burnett and Gelineau

were part of the last group that was evacuated from

Corregidor. Here is their story.

Burnett: We received excellent training on how to intercept Japanese traffic in the OTRG class. We really did

have class in a room on the roof of

that building on Constitution Avenue.

It was a concrete block. Perhaps it

was intended to be an elevator room.

The Navy was very concerned about

security so we all had to wear civilian

clothes. When I got to Washington,

all I had were uniforms. Dick Long

sent me to a nearby tailor named

Rosenthal. I bet the Navy gave him

lots of business.

Snyder: You are right. Security was

very strict. The guards knew us by

sight so we did not have a badge system. The eight students and our

instructor were in a room approximately twelve-by-twenty feet. Some

of the requirements for the OTRG

were to be single, a second or third

class radioman, and have thirty

months of active duty remaining

after graduation. I had to reenlist to

keep this assignment.

Burnett: My instructor, Malcolm

Lamb, told us to think of ourselves as

Japanese operators and to take on

their philosophy so that we could

understand and remember their

radio procedures.

Gelineau: The first thing we learned

was how to copy the Hiragana [phonetic alphabet of forty-six characters]

characters in longhand. I was so glad

that I always had a typewriter in

the field and did not have to copy

these characters. After completing

Hiragana, we copied code by typing

on the RIPS typewriters. The RIPS

was a modified Underwood typewriter with extra keys so that you

could type both Katakana characters

and English characters. We also had

an intelligence publication that gave

formats for copying different types of

messages. I did not learn about OP20-G until I completed the class.

Snyder: My experience in the OTRG

was different because we had work

assignments in addition to our studies. During the early part of the class,

we also did keypunch work in the

Navy Department. Toward the end of

the class, we actually spent some of

the day working at the intercept station at Cheltenham, Maryland. It was

good preparation for our wartime

duties.

Snyder: I am sure that we all agree

that it was wonderful to finally get to

Melbourne. The Monterey Apartments, where FRUMEL offices were

housed, were brand new when I came

to Melbourne early in March 1942.

They remind me of today’s garden

apartments. I spent my time at

Moorabbin, the intercept station out-
Page 61

side of Melbourne. The RAANs who

worked with us were using a different

system called Tiddley to copy traffic.

Tiddley was a system that used the

Roman alphabet when possible.

When you needed a combination that

was not available, such as YU, you

wrote a y and overscored it. The

RAANs did everything by hand and

did not know the Romaji character

system. Our first task was to teach

them our system. They learned quickly and did not object to using the typewriter. The RAANs were excellent

workers. They did not seek special

privileges. They worked right alongside us doing the same manual tasks

that we did. The Japanese encrypted

their callsigns by using a substitution

system. We were generally able to

recover the callsigns. This was the

first task of the night shift because

everything else depended on getting

the right callsigns. The most frustrating and challenging callsign for us to

break was a general navy callsign

used on ships. Sometimes knowing

the shore station helped us know

which ship the message was from. We

never did break that general navy

callsign. Moorabbin was the staging

area for sending men to Adelaide

River, Northern Territory. Adelaide

River was closer to the operations so I

was dying to go there. There was a

direct landline from Adelaide River to

our offices in Melbourne. The teletype

machines at FRUMEL headquarters

ran twenty-four hours a day to accept

the flow of traffic from Adelaide

River.

Burnett: I was involved in building

the Adelaide River station. After the

Navy decided to locate a new intercept station as far north as possible,

LTJG Keith (Keg) Goodwin and I

headed north to get the job done. We

made our selection on 28 January

1943, and by the end of March we

were operational. We set up shop on

the old Marakai Ranch property just

east of the center of the river. The

RAAF helped us put that station

together. We could not build any

buildings because we did not want

to attract Japanese attention. We

worked out of eight-man tents that

we borrowed from the nearby

Australian army camp. What a mess,

especially in the rainy season. The

fellow who operated the teletype

machine to Melbourne had to keep his

feet on the table to avoid getting a

shock each time he hit a key.

Snyder: I never did get transferred to

Adelaide River.

Gelineau: I worked at the Monterey

Apartments. I kept trying to get out to

Moorabbin, but I never did. I worked

in the traffic analysis section as a

statistician. I filed messages by callsign, point of origin, etc. There was a

constant flow of information between

Washington, Hawaii, and FRUMEL

in support of traffic analysis. Each

day, each center sent out a technical

report on traffic that kept all of us on

our toes. Text messages that would

assist us in traffic analysis were

always made available to us.

Burnett: I was lucky. I had a wide

variety of tasks at FRUMEL. My first

task was to put my old DT together.

This piece of equipment was taken

from Corregidor to Java and then to

Melbourne by the first group that left

Corregidor. I was the direction-finding man on Corregidor and had oper-
Page 62

ated that piece of equipment. The

DT is a so-called walk-around highfrequency direction finder. It is

actually an antenna that revolves

around a receiver. I helped to develop

this equipment under Commander

Safford back in 1937.

Snyder: There were only direction

finding training activities at

Moorabbin. We received information

from the British worldwide direction

finding nets.

Burnett: After I made the DT operational and it was shipped to Exmouth

Gulf, I spent my time trying to establish forward intercept units. Adelaide

River and Townsville were very successful, but Cooktown was another

story. The major problems at

Cooktown were getting enough people and equipment to do the work.

Plans for the intercept site at

Cooktown began in July 1943. We

finally got some personnel for

Cooktown in February 1944. We

got receivers from the RAAF and a

broken generator from Melbourne.

Cooktown was a washout because we

ran out of food and water. We could

not get a tank to pump water in, and

the ships were too busy moving and

supporting MacArthur. We did the

best we could, but the resources just

were not there.

Snyder: We all left Melbourne

around the same time in the fall of

1944. After FRUMEL, I went to

Kunming, China. I had various intercept assignments there. I went back

to the States in February 1946. My

contribution to the war effort was my

long hours of intercept. I put the signals down on paper as perfectly as

possible. I always strove to get every

signal and not to miss even one.

Gelineau: After Melbourne, I went

back to Hawaii. I really liked it there

because I got to be the materials officer, which is something that I [had]

always wanted to do. As the materials officer, I had to keep the traffic

flowing and the equipment running.

General navy communications was

also located at this intercept site. It

was difficult to keep the lines open to

Washington because general communications did not know what we in the

intelligence section did. My wartime

experience was very rewarding.

Burnett: After Melbourne, I went

back to the States. I was stationed in

San Francisco as the fleet photographic officer. The Navy felt that

they needed more publicity on the

war in the Pacific. I was to set up communications so that we could get pictures from the war front and then get

these pictures in the papers. The most

memorable picture that we obtained

was that of the marines running up

the flag at Iwo Jima. This is the same

picture that now appears in history

books. I was glad to play a part in our

victory over Japan.

Life at a Forward Unit

(The following excerpt, entitled ‘Potshot 1943,’

by Gordon I. Bower, was taken from “Japanese

Intercept Down Under, Part II,” NCVA Cryptolog,

Summer 1984.)

In the spring of 1943, I and two other

white hats, Charles A. Ross and Keith

W. Smith, plus RMC Charles F.

Jarrett, were informed that we were

going to Base Potshot at Exmouth
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Gulf. Potshot was a small naval

advanced supply and refueling base,

which was activated to provide topping off services to the submarines

operating out of Perth, Australia.

Upon arriving at Exmouth Gulf, we

became instant Seabees [members of

a construction battalion]. The commanding officer at the base could not

spare any manpower to help us set up

the station. He gave us a bulldozer, a

grader, and a Quonset hut, and told

us to go to it. We cleared an area in

the bush about a half mile from the

base perimeter and became operational.

The first mistake that we made was to

rely on the nearby Australian army

unit, which assured us that they could

give us an accurate position. Shortly

thereafter, we received a marvelously

succinct message from FRUMEL

signed by John M. Lietwiler. ‘Your

reported position is eight miles out in

the gulf. Since the buoyancy of your

equipment is highly doubtful, recompute and provide accurate position

soonest’.

Our mission was to provide line bearings on unidentified enemy callsigns.

We produced a daily summary that

was encrypted manually in a cumbersome British system and hand carried to the nearby Australian army

unit. The Australian army unit transmitted the information to FRUMEL

for us.

My special memories at Exmouth Gulf

include the ankle-deep dust during

the dry season and the incredible

bogs when it rained. Staying awake

during the night shift was never a

problem. There were frequent rumors

of enemy commando landings, which

were kept alive by the kangaroos that

congregated around the DT and

coughed like men. We always panicked on the first sound of a transmitter tuning up with V’s out in the bush

and were relieved to determine that

the source of the sound was really one

of the many unique birds or other

critters in the area. We were the only

troops allowed outside the base

perimeter after dark. Luckily, our

crew was relieved in six months. Our

station closed within the year

because the battle arena moved

north.

Two Views of Cryptanalysis at

FRUMEL

The Challenges of Cryptanalysis

John E. (Vince) Chamberlin joined the Navy in

1929. After several years at sea as a yeoman,

Chamberlin was sent to Washington, D.C., in July

1939 to work in the radio central communications

division. He learned cryptanalysis and volunteered

for duty in the Philippines. Chamberlin was part of

the last naval group to escape from Corregidor. He

was stationed in FRUMEL from May 1942 to

October 1944. It is interesting to note that

FRUMEL worked on Japanese diplomatic traffic,

but Central Bureau did not handle this traffic.

Chamberlin’s description of life at FRUMEL and

his work on the PURPLE machine presents an

interesting picture of their activity there.

I learned cryptanalysis by taking a

self-study course based on the writings of William Friedman. After I

completed three sections of the course

by myself, my supervisor made me a

full-time student and I quickly completed the course. I volunteered for

duty in the Philippines and worked in
Page 64

the diplomatic section on Corregidor.

I learned the PURPLE machine in

Washington, but a major part of my

job on Corregidor was working on

traffic from the RED machine.

Commander Swede Carlson, an excellent teacher, taught me the RED

machine. At this time, the Japanese

used the PURPLE machine to encrypt

communications from its embassies

and the RED machine to encrypt communications from its consulates. As

part of the last group to escape from

Corregidor, I was very glad to get to

Melbourne, Australia. I always felt a

little guilty about making it to

FRUMEL because some of my friends

were stuck as prisoners of war in the

Philippines.

When I arrived at FRUMEL in May

1942, there was no IBM equipment at

the site yet. I got the second PURPLE

machine that came from Washington.

What a mess! The keys did not work

as they should and the rotors went in

all directions. I spent much time with

a screwdriver and pliers, but I made

the machine work perfectly by the

time I was done.

Another frustrating part of my work

was Washington’s failure to send the

daily keys on time. We always got

them three or four days late. I got

around this problem too. All I needed

was two messages from Shanghai. I

broke the plug setting down with the

first message and confirmed it with

the second message. We did not have

enough cryptanalysts for round-theclock shifts until more than a year

after we came to Melbourne. One nice

part about the start of round-theclock work was that we finally got a

full day off.

I enjoyed the work because we were

always busy. We had so much intercept. Our material came from intercept sites at Adelaide River and

Exmouth Gulf. The majority of our

material came from the site at

Moorabbin. Our work was very

important. After the Pearl Harbor

attack, the Navy communications

branch was our first line of defense.

Communications intelligence helped

the U.S. determine when to pick a

fight and when to avoid one. This

information was especially crucial in

1942, when we were short on ships

and men.

The officers who graduated from the

Naval Academy worked either in the

front office or in the translation section. The officers in the cryptanalysis

section were naval reservists. Fabian,

the commander, was a tough cookie.

Once you understood him, however,

he was not too bad.

When the Seventh Fleet moved

MacArthur to the Philippines in

October 1944, FRUMEL was too far

away and [was] no longer needed for

the war effort. I believe that FRUMEL

was disbanded in the fall of 1944.

When I returned to the States in 1944,

I was stationed at Nebraska Avenue. I

was amazed to see so many people

working there. Fabian always told us

we had to stay at FRUMEL and work

hard because the Navy had no personnel to send here. I was treated well

at Nebraska Avenue because of my

overseas war service. I remained at

Nebraska Avenue until I left the Navy

in 1948. I came back to Nebraska

Avenue as a civilian in 1949. I held

several jobs at NSA such as cryptologic planning officer. I retired in 1969.
Page 65

My experience at FRUMEL was especially rewarding because we worked

closely with the translators on specific problems. We could see that our

work was valued and appreciated. If

we had been a larger unit, the work

would have been more productionoriented.

I Was a Recovery Man

Robert Cahill enlisted in the naval reserves and

was called to active duty in February 1942.

Although he was at FRUMEL for a short time, he

represents the experiences of the average cryptanalyst. It is remarkable that cryptanalysts such as

Cahill were able to stick to difficult, boring tasks

without feedback on what their work really accomplished. When Cahill left the Navy, he joined the

National Security Agency as a cryptanalyst and

retired in 1981.

I worked in the complaints department of the Commercial Freight

Company in Columbus, Ohio. In our

company, anyone who was about to

be drafted went to see Charlie and he

got you into the Navy. Charlie was

Commander Ford’s brother-in-law so

it was easy to get work at OP-20-G,

the Navy’s cryptologic organization. I

joined in February 1942 as a yeoman

third class. I had no basic training.

When I arrived in Washington,

Commander Ford told me to go find a

room and report to Ensign John

Watson the next morning at 0700

hours. There were so many navy men

coming to Washington that we got

our uniforms in installments. I did

not get a full uniform until June. I

reported to the Navy building on

Constitution Avenue.

On my first day of work, they gave

me a pencil, and I started recovering

additives. I was a recovery man for

the rest of the war. The first system

that I worked on was JN-25, a fivedigit code system. First I looked for

high-frequency code groups. Next, I

made up an imaginary key that gave

me the code groups to look for and

then dragged it through pages and

pages of traffic to see if I was correct.

After the key was recovered, it was

entered into the recovery book, which

was a duplicate of the key book.

Cryptanalysts either did key recovery

or additive recovery. In key recovery,

we align the messages so that we can

get the starting point for decoding.

I suppose that I was placed in additive recovery work because my bachelor’s degree was in business administration, which theoretically gave

me a background in accounting.

After a while, when I was still in

Washington but at Nebraska Avenue,

we got adding machines that looked

like cash registers to help us do our

work. These machines were good if

there was no depth because they

helped us try different possibilities. I

found these machines to be too slow if

there was depth because I could add

faster by hand. After the additive was

recovered, the information went to

the translation section and was

applied to the text. We knew that we

made it possible to read messages,

but that is all we knew. Translators

sometimes asked us to check things

because there was a hole in a message

or a certain position looked invalid. I

never saw a fully decrypted message.

I never heard the word ULTRA. I

knew nothing about the distribution

of product. The only thing I knew was

that we worked in communications

intelligence. When I went overseas to
Page 66

Melbourne and later to Hawaii, we

had more contact with traffic analysts and translators, but secrecy was

still strictly enforced.

I kept volunteering to go to Australia

because I heard that it was a good

place to work. Finally I was selected

to go in July 1944. There was no

mass influx of recruits to Melbourne.

When a man was eligible to transfer

because he had accumulated enough

points, he was replaced. Since many

of the men at FRUMEL were evacuated from Corregidor, their time was up

in 1944. Not many ships were bound

for Australia, so it took some time for

me to get there. I went over on a

refrigerator ship that contained the

Thanksgiving dinners for all of the

military in the Southwest Pacific theater.

I had a typical military bureaucratic

situation surrounding my trip to

Australia. Even though we were

going to Australia, the Navy issued us

full jungle gear because we had a

Southwest Pacific address. Three

yeomen [and I] were going to

FRUMEL. The Navy gave each of us a

pith helmet, jungle boots, and a complete green outfit that weighed over

eighty pounds. When it was time to

unload the ship at Manus Island so

that we could transfer to the next

ship, the chief called us and asked us

how we were going to unload our

crates. What crates? Each of us had a

125-pound crate that contained a pup

tent, shovels, rifles, ammunition, and

everything else that we needed to live

in the jungle. They had to get a special

truck each time we loaded and

unloaded a ship. When we reached

Brisbane and it was time to take the

train to Melbourne, we forgot those

crates.

At FRUMEL, I continued to recover

additives. Since I had replaced Chief

Foster, who worked on the JN-11 system, I took over this system too. The

JN-11 system was a four-digit code

system that turned out to be very

minor. We worked side by side with

the Australians, which was most

enjoyable. Our specialty was recovering messages about Japanese submarine movement. I knew very little

Japanese, but I remember the charts

of keywords that were available to

help the analysts. I stayed at

FRUMEL for only three months and

left in December 1944 when the U.S.

turned FRUMEL completely over to

the Australians.

My next tour of duty was Pearl

Harbor. After a few days of leave at

home in the States, I left San

Francisco for Hawaii. What a trip! I

was on a Kaiser aircraft carrier with

two decks packed full of planes to be

transported for the Iwo Jima invasion. The ship was so full that it was

extremely top-heavy. We had a terrible storm; the waves had to have been

over fifty feet high because they came

over the flight deck. There were so

many sick crewmen that the passengers had to do guard duty. I did guard

duty on the flight deck two nights

during the storm. I was supposed to

guard the planes. If a plane broke

loose, I was to keep it from going

overboard. Since flight decks have no

rails, one false step and I would have

been overboard. It was impossible to

march around the deck, so we just sat

in one of the planes in the middle of

the group. Those two nights were two
Page 67

of the longest that I have ever experienced.

At Pearl [Harbor], I was once again

in the recovery section. The Navy ran

FRUMEL and FRUPAC in the same

manner, so I had no trouble getting

into the routine. Security was a little

looser in FRUPAC because we worked

in one big area and the traffic analysts were in the back of the room. In

both Melbourne and Washington, we

worked in smaller rooms behind

closed doors so the sections were

more isolated from each other. Even

in FRUPAC, I never saw a fully

decrypted message because of strict

security. I did get to work on a special

project at FRUPAC; I matched a

Japanese key book that was picked

up by the U.S. with material that we

already recovered. It was gratifying

to see how well we did and how few

errors we had made.

We were busy right up to V-J Day.

Although the pace of the war had

slackened, the Japanese navy kept up

its flow of messages. I will never forget the sight of Pearl Harbor when we

thought the Japanese had surrendered. Every ship lit its flares. There

was an aircraft carrier that had no

flares, so they shot bullets in the air.

We worked on the highest point overlooking Pearl Harbor [possibly

Aliamanu Crater]. When the real surrender came a few days later, the harbor was quiet. We had no more flares

to light or ammunition to shoot. It

was great that the war was really

over.

Keeping the Equipment Humming at

FRUMEL

The Challenges of Running the IBM Operation

at FRUMEL

Rear Admiral Ralph E. Cook received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Montana

State College in 1938. Throughout high school and

college, Cook was an amateur radio operator and a

member of the naval communications reserve. In

January 1941, Cook was commissioned as an officer

in the naval reserves. He worked for IBM as a field

engineer until April 1941, when he was called to

duty in the Navy. Admiral Cook’s naval career

spanned thirty-four years. After World War II, he

remained in the SIGINT business and made important contributions in the research and development

field. Cook held such positions as director of the

Naval Security Group and commander of NSA/CSS

Pacific.

Ralph Cook is one of the few Americans who

served at FRUMEL for almost the entire war. He

came to FRUMEL in May 1942 and did not leave

until after V-J Day. He remained there even though

the Americans officially turned FRUMEL over to

the Australian navy in January 1945. Therefore,

Cook provides a very complete picture of the operation. As the head of the IBM operation, Cook not

only presents information on its challenges but also

Ralph E. Cook
Page 68

demonstrates the complexities involved in cryptanalytic tasks. It is interesting to note that personnel

at IBM operations at both Central Bureau and

FRUMEL had a close relationship with the cryptanalysts. While neither organization coordinated with

the other, both made similar advances in the use of

IBM equipment to automate parts of the cryptanalytic process. See chapter 3, “The Key to Our

Success Was Teamwork,” by Charles Girhard.

I started out in the Navy standing

watches, but found myself fixing enciphering equipment from time to time.

I went to the Philippines in August

1941. When the intelligence personnel

learned of my IBM background, I

became the object of a fight between

them and the district communications officer. After we moved from

Cavite [the Philippines] to Corregidor

in December 1941, they reached a

compromise on my services. I worked

eight hours for intelligence, eight

hours for the general communications services, and the other eight

hours for myself.

Lieutenant John Lietwiler, who was

in charge of the intelligence unit, told

me to mechanize as much of the cryptanalytic process as possible and to

keep the equipment running. The IBM

installation was already in operation

on Corregidor, but they were glad to

have my services for programming

enhancements and equipment maintenance. They gave me ten days to

learn the cryptanalytic process so

that I could see what problems the

analysts faced. I learned how to strip

additives and to recover the key. I

was introduced to the Japanese language so that I could recognize twenty commonly used words or code

groups, such as addresses or opening

phrases. Searching for a keyword or

code group helped us determine if the

additive placement was correct.

Fortunately, we had a good recovery

list at this time. The basic code contained 10,000 code groups. However,

you could read 80 percent of the traffic with 2,000 code groups. Since

most of our traffic dealt with ship

movements, there were frequently

used phrases that helped us out. I created reference files of code and additive that the analysts found very helpful. My training and activities on

Corregidor were a good preparation

for the tasks that I faced at FRUMEL.

I was part of the last group evacuated

from Corregidor, and it was sure a

relief to make it to Melbourne.

My first challenge at FRUMEL was to

obtain IBM equipment. Although we

packed our IBM equipment for shipment from Corregidor, we had to

abandon it because there was not

enough time to load it onto our evacuation submarine. The remaining

troops were to dump it in the ocean if

they could. I was glad that I had

mixed parts from various machines

in the same case. This made assembly

difficult if the box ever got into the

wrong hands. After a few months,

the IBM equipment arrived from

Washington, but the printing mechanism for the tabulator and the card

feeder were missing. I could not order

parts from the Australians because

they had nothing; they did everything

by hand. There was a British tabulating machine company in Melbourne.

They were no help because their

equipment was not compatible with

ours. We punched up cards for three

months, waiting for the missing parts

to come from Washington.
Page 69

My next challenge was to provide

greater assistance to the analysts by

automating more of the process. I

wanted to do more than generate

code groups and additives. The cryptanalysts still had to work the code

into traffic form and then give it to the

translators. Commander Fabian was

scheduled to visit Washington. I

asked him to try to get us a naval

communications 4 [NC4] machine, a

machine that could calculate false

[noncarrying] addition. IBM created

this machine specifically for the

Navy. While waiting for Fabian’s

return, I continued to look for a solution to this problem. I got

Commander Holtwick, Fabian’s temporary replacement, to grant permission for me to experiment with the

machines that we had. I took a big

risk because I could have ruined the

machines. I figured out how to make

the tabulator do false [noncarrying]

addition. I modified the equipment to

process the traffic by applying the

additive to the code group. Then the

machine would place the Kana meaning [probably Romaji] next to the

particular code group. Thus, we eliminated a manual step in making the

traffic ready for translation. Now

cryptanalysts could devote all of their

time to developing the additive and

recovering the key.

When Fabian returned from

Washington, I asked him what the

chances were of our getting an NC4

machine. He said none. There was

only one machine and Washington

was not about to send it out here.

Fabian also stated that Washington

said my idea of mechanizing the

working of the code group through

the traffic would not work. I said that

I was sorry to hear that. I subsequently informed Washington of

these techniques.

The machine room was located in the

garages at the Monterey Apartments.

Obtaining enough work space was a

terrible problem for everyone when

we were located at these apartments.

In 1944, the FRUMEL offices were

moved to a building specifically built

for us at Albert Park. When we moved

to Albert Park, the size of the machine

room was doubled. I also was able

to get some additional equipment.

Now we had ten keypunchers and

three tabulators. Approximately

fifty RAAN personnel and fifteen

Americans kept the IBM operation

going twenty-four hours a day. I

believe that the IBM operation at

FRUMEL was successful because I

made sure that every machine operator knew the total cryptanalytic

process. This understanding helped

the operator recognize errors instead

of compounding them by just going

through the motions. The IBM operation in Washington was much different. Because of compartmentalization, each step was confined to a separate bay. The operator only knew

his specific task. Therefore, errors

could not be determined until the end

of the process. This assembly line procedure caused much wasted work

effort.

There was no coordination on

machine processing between

FRUMEL and Central Bureau. We

even tried to keep the rest of the Navy

ignorant of FRUMEL activities. One

time, an inspector general from the

Seventh Fleet wanted to visit us. The

guard said, ‘I cannot let you in, I’ll
Page 70

call the commanding officer’. The

inspector general left, but he was furious. He complained to the chief of

staff for the Seventh Fleet, who told

him to forget it and leave us alone.

FRUMEL made significant contributions to the war effort. One of our

early successes was the discovery of

the Japanese plan to attack Midway.

FRUPAC takes credit for this feat, but

FRUMEL found the first tip-off about

this plan. I know what happened

because I was an eyewitness.

One night, I was called in at 2200

hours to fix a machine. When I finished, I went to the cryptanalysis

area to get a cup of coffee and to look

for an empty desk where I might

sleep. I could not go home because the

street cars had already stopped running for the night.

It was customary for cryptanalysts to

go through the traffic and pull up all

of the solid or clean messages and

toss the garbled messages in an

empty cardboard IBM box. It was

easier to strip the additive from clean

messages. If time permitted, the analyst would work on the garbled traffic

after completing the solid messages.

P.O. William Trembly was an enlisted

man who stripped additive. He started work on a half-filled box of garbled

traffic by pulling out one sheet. As he

stripped the additive, his interest was

peaked when he noticed the word

‘attack’. The placename Midway was

also identified in the message that

Trembly discovered. Trembly was

lucky to happen on the most important piece of paper in the box. He was

also smart enough to recognize what

he had. Trembly brought the message

to the watch officer and they began to

look for other parts of the message. At

In 1944 FRUMEL moved to new expanded quarters at Albert Park.
Page 71

FRUMEL, finished product was put

out by the translators. Lieutenant

Commander Gil Richardson sent

this Midway attack plan to both

Washington and FRUPAC. No station

had a solid message. FRUPAC and

Washington were able to solve parts

of the message that we did not have,

but the tip-off came from FRUMEL.

FRUMEL also made valuable contributions in support of the submarine

missions out of Fremantle, Australia.

These contributions continued as the

war progressed and the Seventh Fleet

headquarters moved north. Thanks

to our information, submarines knew

when and where to prey on Japanese

ships. I have little first-hand knowledge of finished product because

I was not involved in that part of

the operation. Language officers,

primarily Lieutenant Rufus Taylor

and Lieutenant Commander Gil

Richardson put out the final product.

Lieutenant Commander Swede

Carlson was another outstanding

language officer at FRUMEL. It was

unusual for Lieutenant Lietwiler,

head of the intelligence section, to

have two lieutenant commanders

under him, but it was not a problem.

Richardson and Carlson were

extremely busy with their translation

tasks. They were happy to leave the

administrative duties to Lietwiler.

As is typical of the military, I had a

half dozen other duties in addition to

running the machine operations. One

of these duties was marriage investigator. If an American wanted to

marry an Australian, we conducted

an investigation. We tried to keep

everyone honest. We tried to protect

the bride from a military man who

pretended to have great wealth.

Likewise we tried to protect the

groom from a girl who just wanted a

ticket to the U.S. In 1944 I got married

to an Australian girl. I was obliged to

wait six months, and another officer

did my investigation.

I believe that we remained in

Melbourne throughout the war

because Melbourne was the headquarters of the Australian navy. The

Australians did not want to move

north. Toward the end of the war, the

Americans turned all of our resources

over to the Australians. I was one of a

handful of Americans who stayed at

FRUMEL until shortly after the

Japanese surrender. Commander

Jack Newman, the head of FRUMEL

and the head of the RAAN unit, asked

Washington if I could stay for an

additional six months after the war.

Washington had other plans. I came

back to Nebraska Avenue to run its

machine operation. Numerous challenges awaited me at the Naval

Security Group.

Staying in Tune and Other Duties

Like Rear Admiral Cook, Lieutenant

Commander Joseph L. McConnel arrived in

Melbourne as part of the last group that was evacuated from Corregidor. McConnel was also at

FRUMEL through V-J Day in August 1945.

McConnel was responsible for a crucial part of the

operation. He made sure that the receivers worked

properly so that information could be intercepted

and that the typewriters worked so that the information could be distributed. Here is his story.

In 1929, I joined the Navy and became

a radio operator. After a few years at

sea, I was selected for special training

in Washington, D.C., in 1932. Before
Page 72

acceptance, I had an interview in

West Virginia and had to demonstrate that I could copy code. I was

glad that I did not have to send code

because I never learned how to do it. I

was a member of the eighth OTRG

class and learned how to intercept

Japanese naval communications. My

first assignment was in Guam.

Although I did intercept work, I fell

into fixing equipment. As a child, I

always enjoyed putting radio sets

together. I did not have any training

on fixing receivers. I just learned as I

went along. After Guam, I stayed in

the repair business or, as the Navy

would say, material duty full-time.

During my time with FRUMEL, I was

stationed at the intercept site at

Moorabbin. I was responsible for a

large variety of tasks. Since having

power was a must, I maintained the

emergency generator, a German

product that ran on diesel fuel. Thank

goodness it worked well. There

were three types of receivers at

Moorabbin: American HRO receivers,

Australian HRO receivers, and

[Hallicrafters]. Obtaining parts was

always a challenge. Frequently, I

bought small parts locally from the

open market because it was the quickest and easiest way to get them.

I had frustrating moments fixing

receivers. For instance, one of the

[Hallicrafters] receivers just would

not stay tuned. It kept jumping frequencies. After much trial and error, I

finally discovered a small microcondenser with varying capacity that

was parallel with the oscillator section of the main tuning condenser. I

disconnected the microcondenser and

luckily the receiver settled down.

Then I replaced the microcondenser. 

Fixing the typewriters at Moorabbin

was a one-man operation. The slugs

on the typing bars were constantly

falling off. I kept slugs in an open

peanut can on my workbench until I

had a chance to put them back on the

typewriter. Those who smoked

flicked their ashes in any available

open container. As a result, during

cleanup times, my slugs ended up in

the trash. I went through the trash

and found every one of those little

slugs. Since they were made of hard

metal, they did not disintegrate when

the trash was burned. From then on, I

never left an open container on my

workbench.

I also helped with the photographing

of captured Japanese code books. At

first, we developed the pictures ourselves as we had on Corregidor. The

workload became overwhelming so

we sought outside help. At first, we

took the films to an Australian commercial cinema for processing.

Joseph L. McConnel
Page 73

Naturally, for security reasons, we

stayed in the cinema and never let

those films out of our sight.

Eventually, we took the film to an

Australian army photography lab.

I enjoyed working with RAAN personnel and learned a good lesson from

them. They were not used to buildings

with central heating as the

Americans were. For the first year,

we argued about whether the windows should stay open or closed.

Since there were more Americans, we

won and the windows stayed closed. I

noticed that we had colds and the

RAAN personnel did not. During the

second year, the windows stayed

closed and we all had colds. To this

day, I keep my home on the cool side.

Life was good to me during the

FRUMEL years. I received two

promotions to warrant officer and

then to ensign. I also found my wife.

Our marriage was a tricky affair. I

was transferred back to the states, to

the intercept site at Bainbridge,

Washington, late in 1944. If I did

not get back to Australia to marry

my fiancee, she would have had a

difficult time coming to the U.S.

Fortunately, the Navy sent me back to

Melbourne in 1945. I got married and

stayed in Moorabbin until the end of

the war. I was transferred to Hawaii

and my wife was able to join me

there.

After a variety of assignments as

material officer and in research and

development, I left the Navy in 1959.

Life at Frumel from a Linguist’s Perspective

Rear Admiral Gil McDonald Richardson graduated from the Naval Academy in 1927. After several

years at sea, Richardson was selected to study

Japanese in the Navy’s three-year Tokyo program.

Richardson’s description of his Japanese training is

very interesting. The contrast between the Navy

and Army training programs is quite remarkable.

See chapter 4, “A Central Bureau J-Boy” and “A

Bizarre Experiment.” The Navy had a strong

Japanese language training program to prepare for

war in the 1930s. The Army played catch-up and

had to train its linguists while the war was in

progress. Richardson also attests to the dedication

to duty of all of the participants at FRUMEL. He

and other linguists served under a junior officer so

that they could devote all of their time and energy

to Japanese translation rather than to administrative duties.

I always liked to study languages. In

my high school days and when I

attended the Naval Academy, I studied Spanish. However, I applied for

the Navy’s Japanese training proGil McDonald Richardson
Page 74

gram to distinguish myself from the

pack and to improve my promotion

chances. I arrived in Tokyo to begin

my three years of study in November

1935.

The Navy set up a rigorous program

of study for us. We had five tutors

who worked with us every day. We

read everything from children’s

books to the Japanese daily press.

The tutors took us on field trips to

expose us to a variety of situations in

which to practice the language. We

had an exam every six months to

demonstrate our progress. Passing

the exam was not enough. If you did

not get a thirty-four, the Navy sent

you home with an unsatisfactory fitness report. By the end of the course,

we were required to read 2,800 Kanji

[Chinese characters that have been

incorporated into the Japanese language] characters and to write 1,800

Kanji characters.

The only criticism that I had of the

program was that the instructors

wanted us to learn by listening and

memorizing the language. They could

not give us grammar rules or explanations because their knowledge of

English was limited. I bought myself

a Japanese grammar book that was

written in English, which was invaluable to me. By the end of the program,

we were qualified translators and

interpreters.

We did not have much direct supervision from the Navy. We were under

the naval attaché at the embassy. I

especially remember Captain Bemus,

one of the naval attachés, because

he invited us to do espionage from

time to time. I was young and had no

fear so I volunteered as much as possible. I had a variety of espionage

activities. For example, I went to

northern Japan to determine how

many tunnels were constructed

along a railway. Another time, I went

to Nagasaki to determine if the

Japanese were building battleships in

violation of the London Treaty. I

found that the Japanese were building a battleship with eighteen-inch

gun turrets and [that] they were

building a light aircraft carrier.

I got into some interesting predicaments on these espionage trips. On

my way home from Nagasaki, I found

that I had no money for my train ticket. I asked the conductor to phone my

cook to meet me at the station. The

Japanese cook lent me the money. I

wanted to reward him for showing up

at the station so I offered to treat him

to lunch at a classy Japanese restaurant.

When we got there, I realized I was

expected to take off my shoes. I could

not do this because my shoes were full

of secret documents! I quickly suggested that I treat him to a foreign

restaurant because he could have

Japanese food at any time. He bought

this excuse and the day was saved.

I had a special passport to use for

these special assignments, which

stated that I was a friend of the prime

minister. Frequently, policemen who

stopped to question me about why I

was in a certain location could not

read this passport because it was

written in court or fancy Japanese. I

had to read it to them and eventually

the police were satisfied, but I had

some close calls.
Page 75

Toward the end of our studies, we

went to Korea to serve as interpreters

for embassy personnel who carried

secret mail back and forth to our

consulates. Japan occupied Korea

during this period. I enjoyed the espionage and other special assignments

because they not only provided

opportunities for me to use Japanese,

but also provided a valuable service

for the U.S. by acquiring information.

I completed my studies and left Japan

in November 1938. After working on

Japanese codes at Pearl Harbor, I

went to Manila as Admiral Hart’s

intelligence officer. Toward the end of

1940, Redfield Mason asked me to go

to Corregidor because traffic was on

the rise and they only had one translator. I was delighted to go and

became very involved with this challenging work.

I was part of the second group that

was evacuated from Corregidor in

March 1942. I credit Admiral Hart,

head of the Asiatic Fleet, for making

it possible for us to escape from

Corregidor. Admiral Hart ordered all

submarines with a mission in the

area to replenish their fuel and torpedoes at Corregidor. Earlier, an oil

tanker, which had run aground at

Monkey Point, became the source of

fuel for the submarines. Before the

war began, all of the torpedoes were

removed from Cavite and stored in

the tunnel on Corregidor. Thus, torpedoes were available for the submarines. The last task that each sub

carried out at Corregidor was to take

military personnel from Corregidor

to a safer haven.

I was a part of FRUMEL in

Melbourne, Australia, from the

spring of 1942 until the end of 1944. I

enjoyed working with the Australians

very much and we worked well

together, ‘like a hand in a glove’.

There were no Australian linguists at

FRUMEL, but we were ably assisted

by Lieutenant Commander Meriman

from the British navy, who had

escaped from Singapore. We followed

the same working procedures that we

had on Corregidor. Swede Carlson, a

Japanese linguist who graduated

from the Navy Tokyo program in

1936, and I were lieutenant commanders at this time and were senior

to Rudy Fabian. We continued our

arrangement with Fabian that was

worked out on Corregidor. Fabian

was to be the boss or commander in

charge even though he was junior to

us. This arrangement freed Carlson

and me from administrative duties

and allowed us to devote all of our

time and energy to translation and

code recovery. Everyone, especially

me, was satisfied with this arrangement.

I found the work at FRUMEL fascinating. Translating and assisting with

code recovery is like reading a great

book that you just cannot put down. I

remember working late into the night

on messages relating to the Japanese

plan to attack Midway. I also remember working on Yamamoto’s schedule, which led to the shootdown of his

plane. The message that I worked on

was in a Japanese army code system.

Although we were unfamiliar with

Japanese army codes, we got this

message out in a hurry because it was

a substitution system.
Page 76

When I left Melbourne in 1944, I

returned to Washington and continued translation and code recovery

work until September 1945. I left the

Navy in 1957. My work on the

Japanese naval problem was one of

the major highlights of my career.

Melbourne’s “Dog on the Tucker Box. The

inscription: “Earth’s self upholds this

monument to conquerers who won her when

winning was dangerous, and now are gathered unto her again.”

Part of the beauty of Melbourne lay in its

botanical gardens. 

This statue is Melbourne’s tribute to the

Marquis of Linlithgow, first governor general

of Australia.

Melbourne (untitled photo)
Page 77

The Southwest Pacific theater obtained information from two communications intelligence

organizations, Central Bureau and FRUMEL,

which were actually located in the theater. A comparison of these organizations not only sheds light

on their operations, but also strengthens our

understanding of the significant role that communications intelligence played in the war effort.

The selections in this chapter show that Central

Bureau and FRUMEL had similar missions of gathering intelligence from Japanese communications.

While Central Bureau gathered intelligence from

Japanese army-ground and both army and naval

air communications, FRUMEL gathered intelligence only from Japanese naval communications.

In the winter of 1943, the Navy turned the army

water transport problem over to the Army for solution. The breaking of this code is one of the highlights of Central Bureau’s success. (See chapter 3 of

this history.)

While both organizations were joint military

organizations with the Australians, FRUMEL was

very small in comparison to Central Bureau.

FRUMEL had a few hundred personnel, while

Central Bureau had 4,339 personnel by the end

of the war. FRUMEL not only had fewer logistical

problems because of its size, but also remained in

Melbourne and did not move forward with general

headquarters as Central Bureau did. As an army

organization, Central Bureau had more resources

since Major General Spencer B. Akin was director

of both Central Bureau and MacArthur’s signal

corps. The directors of FRUMEL were only lieutenants and had more difficulties obtaining

resources from the Navy. (See chapter 6, “A

Conversation with the Operators.”) Consequently,

while both organizations had field sections or forward units, Central Bureau’s coverage was more

extensive.

The following excerpts illustrate the complex

relationships between each service. Because of the

technical difficulties that each organization faced, it

worked cooperatively with its own cryptologic

organization in Washington, D.C.: Central Bureau

with Arlington Hall and FRUMEL with OP-20-G.

There is more evidence of turf battles within the

Navy over the organizational placement of communications intelligence. There was much less cooperation on an interservice level.

Although both organizations performed intercept, traffic analysis, cryptanalysis and translation

tasks, there were significant differences in their

day-to-day operations. The following interviews

demonstrate that some disagreements came about

because of the general differences between the

methods of doing business in the U.S. Army and the

U.S. Navy. For example, FRUMEL was more directly involved in distribution of its product than was

Central Bureau. Central Bureau gave everything to

General Akin, who determined its distribution.

Other differences occurred because of individual

personalities and leadership styles, yet both organizations were very successful. FRUMEL was able to

provide information to the Allies throughout the

war because the Navy had studied Japanese naval

codes prior to the war and had the necessary background and continuity. Another advantage for

FRUMEL was that the Americans who came there

were a cohesive unit that worked together on

Japanese naval codes at station Cast on Corregidor.

The Cast organization merely joined the Australian

SIGINT organization. In contrast, the U.S. Army

began its study of Japanese army codes only when

the war began because prior to the war it had concentrated its codebreaking efforts on the Japanese

Chapter 7

FRUMEL and Central Bureau: A Comparison
Page 78

diplomatic code. Consequently, Central Bureau did

not read mainline Japanese army codes until

March 1944. While FRUMEL was formed from an

existing organization of Americans, Central Bureau

was formed in part by creating a new organization

within the U.S. Army.

The recollections of Colonel Sinkov, Captain

Rudolph Fabian, and Captain E. S. L. Goodwin give

interesting overviews of their respective organizations. Their leadership styles were very different,

but all were effective. Fabian and Goodwin, career

military officers who joined the Navy in 1928 and

1921, respectively, ran FRUMEL in rigid military

fashion. Sinkov, on the other hand, was more of a

professor than a commander despite his military

experience in the reserves dating back to 1932. All

came to their tasks with much experience in cryptanalysis. Sinkov was hired as a civilian by the

Signals Intelligence Service in 1930, and he learned

cryptanalysis from the master, William Friedman.

Sinkov was at Central Bureau from July 1942 until

the end of the war. Fabian was selected by

Commander Safford and joined OP-20-G in the late

1930s. After studying cryptanalysis, he went to the

Philippines in 1940 to command the intercept unit

at Corregidor. Fabian was at FRUMEL from the

spring of 1942 until September 1943. Goodwin

began his cryptologic career in Washington in 1932

and had cryptologic assignments in Washington

and the Philippines. His cryptologic career was

periodically interrupted by tours of sea duty.

Goodwin relieved Fabian and left FRUMEL in

September 1944. Examining the recollections of

these men is instructive because they provide interesting comparisons of both organizations.

Security Was a Paramount Concern

Rudolph T. Fabian graduated from the Naval

Academy in 1931. After several years of sea duty,

he was selected for cryptographic school in

Washington, D.C., in 1938. As commander of the

naval unit at Corregidor from 1940 to 1942, Fabian

was involved in the intense search for information

on the Japanese plans prior to the Pearl Harbor

attack. He also had to cope with the difficulties created by the rapid Japanese advance through the

Philippines in late 1941 and early 1942. Since

Fabian was at FRUMEL from its beginnings in 1942

until 1943, he is a good source of information on its

operations and accomplishments.

I received a letter from Commander

Laurance Safford inviting me to

Washington to work with his organization. I accepted the offer even

though I did not know what he had in

mind because I did not get accepted

for graduate work in ordnance as I

had hoped. Commander Safford had

my name taken off the ordnance

school list so that I could work in his

program. Commander Safford was a

brilliant man. Many people disliked

him because he was so quick. I was in

a class of three people so our instruction was very intense. It was most

fortuitous that Redfield (Rosie)

Mason, a Japanese linguist, taught us

Japanese telegraph codes as part of

our class. After studying cryptanalysis, I spent a short time at

Rudolph T. Fabian
Page 79

Constitution Avenue because the

Navy made it a practice to rotate officers out to the field after a year. With

the start of war, my stint in the field

turned out to be a long one.

I escaped from Corregidor and went

to Melbourne in February 1942. We

set up headquarters at the Monterey

Apartments. FRUMEL was officially

established on 12 March 1942. My

counterpart from the RAN [Royal

Australian Navy] was Captain Jack

Newman. The Australians were very

helpful; their analysts and linguists

were very talented. 

Our mission was navy communications. We did everything from beginning to end – decryption, translation,

and processing. The JN-25 systems

that we worked on were very complex. The first thing we had to do was

find the start of the message.

Sometimes the beginning of the message would be in the middle of the

paragraph or sometimes it would be

at the end of the message. We had to

find the starting point and then double back. One clue that helped us was

that code values were divisible by

three.

To enhance our ability to solve the

Japanese naval systems, we shared

information with our sister naval

cryptologic units. We had a secure

communications system called the

COPAC system, which enabled us to

share information with the Fleet

Radio Unit Pacific [FRUPAC],

Washington, London, and the British

Eastern Fleet. These sites worked well

together. As the commander of

FRUMEL, I kept our material circulating in the COPAC all the time.

Security was a paramount concern

for me. I was relieved when

Commander Nave, an Australian

cryptanalyst, left FRUMEL for

Central Bureau. He left because I reprimanded him for his lack of security.

I also had to get my admiral to

remind MacArthur about the need for

security. MacArthur was so exuberant about our warning him that the

Japanese were really going to attack

Port Moresby, New Guinea, in 1942,

that I feared he was going to reveal

the source. I thought the U.S. Navy

made a serious mistake when they

shot down Admiral Yamamoto’s

plane in the spring of 1943. I believe

that the risks to our security were too

great. The Japanese could have discovered our intercept capabilities,

and the outcome of the war may have

been very different. FRUMEL played

no role in this event because we were

not in range to intercept Admiral

Yamamoto’s plans.

FRUMEL was assigned to the Asiatic

Fleet and we worked for them. We

distributed our information directly

to Submarine Pacific Command and

to the Fremantle unit. We also

brought information once a day to

the fleet intelligence officer at

Brisbane. As MacArthur was the theater commander, we also supplied

information directly to him. We

strictly observed the need-to-know

principle, but any commander who

needed our information received it.

I want to respond to two questions.

First, how did FRUMEL and Central

Bureau get along? We just went our

separate ways. We were not discouraged from communicating with the

Army, but there was no agreement to
Page 80

do so. FRUMEL did not handle any

army air corps COMINT work. With

regard to the question of why

FRUMEL did not move up to Brisbane

with MacArthur, I think they felt

there was no advantage for us to

move. We were in a good position for

intercepting communications. We

also had a good setup for space at

Melbourne.

FRUMEL made major valuable contributions during the Coral Sea battle, the Midway battle, and the fighting at Port Moresby, New Guinea. We

also contributed piecemeal information to all of the naval battles in the

Pacific. It was difficult for us to function because the Atlantic war took

precedence over us in terms of supplies and manpower. Nevertheless,

we did our job extremely well and

made valuable contributions to the

war effort.

In 1943, I was sent to Colombo,

Ceylon [now Sri Lanka], as a liaison

officer to provide COMINT to the

British. I came back to the U.S. in

1945 and served as a staff officer at

Nebraska Avenue at OP-20-G. After

the war, I went back to sea on a cruiser. I had to leave intelligence work

and go to sea in order to get further

promotions. I left the Navy in 1961.

My service in the COMINT world was

a very rewarding part of my military

career.

Communications Intelligence Has Many

Dimensions

Captain Goodwin graduated from the Naval

Academy in 1925. He went to sea for seven years

and began his cryptologic career in 1932. After

studying cryptanalysis for one year, Sid Goodwin

became the head of OP-20-GC, the branch that created U.S. naval codes. Next Goodwin worked at station Cast in the Philippines from 1934 to 1936.

From 1938 to 1940, Goodwin worked under

Commander Safford as the head of OP-20-GY, the

cryptanalysis branch of OP-20-G. After the war,

Goodwin represented the Navy on the USCICC

(Communications Intelligence Coordinating

Committee), which assisted with the formation of

AFSA, and he later served as AFSA’s adjutant general. Goodwin was also the first inspector general

for NSA. He left the Navy in 1956.

Commander Safford, although eccentric, was a genius. Safford introduced

cryptanalysis to the Navy and established its intercept sites. Safford’s

greatest contributions were developing the ECM machine [Navy’s version

of SIGABA] and ensuring that this

machine was ready when the war

started. He was also responsible for

the excellent communications security that the Navy had throughout the

war. There are many dimensions to

communications intelligence; therefore, we should be careful in judging

its effectiveness. In 1932, when I took

the cryptanalysis course set up by

E. S. L. Goodwin
Page 81

Safford, I felt it was short on theory.

My instructor was Tommy Dyer. We

learned by just doing problems.

However, when I was head of the

cryptanalysis section, from 1938 to

1940, I did nothing to correct this situation. In 1943, before going to

Melbourne to relieve Rudy Fabian, I

came to Washington to brush up on

the business. I had been at sea in 1941

and 1942. I was very impressed with

the advances in codebreaking that I

saw in 1943.

As a joint military organization,

FRUMEL always had a U.S. commander and an Australian commander. Commander Jack Newman was

the Australian commander throughout the war. Newman’s duties were to

monitor FRUMEL output for the

Australians, help FRUMEL obtain

resources, assist FRUMEL with the

maintenance of good relationships

with other sectors of the Australian

government, and administer the two

units of RAANs under FRUMEL control. One unit of RAANs was stationed

at Moorabbin and the other was at

our headquarters in Melbourne.

Melbourne was also the headquarters

for the RAN, and Newman was

responsible for all naval communications out of Melbourne. When Fabian

was commander, there was a triumvirate of Fabian, Lietwiler, and

Newman. Lietwiler was never commander of FRUMEL by himself. All of

us had excellent relations with Jack

Newman. Working with the

Australians was a great experience.

My replacement, Commander

Willcott, who handled the withdrawal of U.S. troops and functions from

FRUMEL, had a few rough spots,

which is understandable.

Our mission at FRUMEL was to

obtain and process intercept on

Japanese naval communications

from Moorabbin. During my watch,

90 percent of our traffic was

Japanese submarine communications. We also identified targets for

our ships, such as Japanese oil

tankers and troop ships. We gave our

intelligence to both U.S. and

Australian navy commanders.

Sometimes, because of atmospheric

conditions, we intercepted FRUPAC

targets. Then we would radio this

traffic to station Hypo in Hawaii.

In Australia, as in all British

Commonwealth countries, the postmaster general was in charge

of telegraph communications. The

Melbourne postmaster general gave

us control of a dedicated line to communicate with Hawaii and with

Washington.

Working at FRUMEL was challenging because of the push-pull relationship it had with the Office of Naval

Intelligence and the Office of Naval

Communications. McCullom, the

intelligence officer for the Seventh

Fleet, wanted FRUMEL under his

jurisdiction. Redman and Wenger,

who were in the Office of Naval

Communications, strongly resisted

McCullom’s efforts. They maintained

that FRUMEL belonged under the

Office of Naval Communications

because its mission was communication techniques, and it was manned

by communicators who depended on

contacts with other communications

units and the assistance of Japanese

language officers. FRUMEL was

established by an agreement between

U.S. Navy communicators and the
Page 82

Australian [Commonwealth] Naval

Board. A shift by the U.S. Navy to

move FRUMEL under the Office of

Naval Intelligence could disrupt this

agreement.

How much did FRUMEL contribute to

the cryptologic effort in the Pacific?

Those who worked in Hawaii say

that they did 80 percent of the

work. Others say that Washington

did 75 percent of the work.

Quantifying communications intelligence in this manner is incorrect.

Communications intelligence is multidimensional not unidimensional.

For instance, there are many categories of substantive contributions.

Categories range from technical

information to operational information. Operational intelligence can be

divided further into the categories of

background or planning versus tactical information needed by the field

immediately. It is equally inappropriate to ask which site was number one

in reading messages. Merely reading

messages is not relevant. The important questions are, What messages

were read? How timely were messages read? Which recipients got the

messages? I believe that the entire

team of FRUMEL, Hawaii, and

Washington performed an inestimable service for the war effort. My

time and contacts at FRUMEL were

extremely gratifying and rewarding.

An Overview from the Commander/Professor

Colonel Abraham Sinkov, who began his study

of cryptanalysis in 1930, was the most experienced

cryptanalyst to serve in Australia. He offered leadership and continuity to Central Bureau because he

served there from the summer of 1942 until the end

of the war. He was not only extremely skilled in

working with a diverse work force but was also able

to maintain high morale despite the complexity of

Central Bureau’s mission.

By the time I arrived in Melbourne in

early 1942, the Australian group was

already established at Central

Bureau. There were two Australian

contingents, an army contingent

headed by Colonel Sanford and an air

force contingent headed by Wing

Commander Booth. The Australian

contingent that we found in

Melbourne when we arrived was

largely a group recalled from North

Africa. They had experience in traffic

analysis, and they continued to work

in that general direction. My arrival

resulted in the existence of three separate working groups. There was a

small American contingent, about a

half dozen men, who preceded me.

Additional personnel kept coming

from Washington in groups. By the

time we moved to Brisbane in

September 1942, we had a fair size

American group.

The reason we came to Melbourne

originally was that Brisbane was

actually the first line of defense.

There was concern that the Japanese

might invade Australia. After the

Australian forces thwarted the

Japanese attempt to cross the Owen

Stanley Ranges and come toward

Moresby, New Guinea, thus eliminating the fears of invasion, MacArthur

moved his headquarters to Brisbane.

Consequently, Central Bureau moved

up to Brisbane in September 1942.

Central Bureau was a signals intelligence organization with responsibility for both cryptanalysis and traffic

analysis. We used whatever means
Page 83

we could to develop signals intelligence. I don’t recall that we ever had

any indication from General Akin on

matters of priority. Our priority was

to get whatever signals intelligence

we could from all of the traffic that

was available to us. There was much

collaboration between the American

and Australian contingents right

from the start of Central Bureau. In

the fall of 1943, I became the head of

Central Bureau. Now I was responsible for the whole thing, not just the

American contingent. My good relations with the Australians did not

change with this promotion.

Central Bureau’s personnel were very

diverse. In addition to Americans and

Australians, some British who

escaped from Singapore, some New

Zealanders, and later on, some

Canadians all worked at Central

Bureau. American women who

served with the WACs, Australian

women who served with the WAAAFs,

and the AWAS also played a vital role

in our organization. Although the

group was very diverse, we worked

very well together. Unfortunately,

when Central Bureau moved to the

Philippines from May to July 1945,

we lost the services of the WAAAFs

and the AWAS. Under Australian law,

women were not permitted to serve

outside their continent. General Akin

and I appealed for a waiver to

Australian officials in Canberra, but

our request was denied. Day-to-day

operations ran very smoothly. I

established general procedures so

everyone knew what was expected of

them. My role was both teacher and

supervisor. Because of my cryptanalytic experience, I remained very

involved with the technical aspects of

our work. There was no distinction

between Americans or Australians.

Assignments were based on talent.

Rank was not important; performCentral Bureau was a large, complex operation

requiring a wide range of diverse personnel.

(Appendix A, Central Bureau World War II

Technical Reports.)
Page 84

ance certainly was important. It was

fortunate that SIS or SSA [in 1943, the

Signals Intelligence Service became

the Signals Security Agency] had permission from the War Department to

select personnel from the top intelligence level so we were assured

of capable American personnel.

Australia also followed this practice.

Central Bureau supervised intercept

activities in the sense that the missions of the individual intercept

groups were properly managed to

avoid duplication of effort. Colonel

Brown, who served with MacArthur

in the Philippines and escaped to

Australia in April 1942, was head of

the intercept control group within

Central Bureau. The only cryptologic

effort that was not under Central

Bureau jurisdiction was a small program in Sydney, Australia, called

Service of Supply. This unit provided

the cryptographic material for communications within the services. The

unit’s activities were not cryptanalytic in character.

The question arises as to why there

was a general division of labor

between the Australians and the

Americans. First, the Australians

worked in traffic analysis all along.

Additionally, the Australian groups

did not have any cryptanalytic experience. Therefore, the Americans performed most of the cryptanalysis.

Later on, American intercept companies joined the effort operating primarily in New Guinea and the

Philippines. How was intelligence

produced by Central Bureau disseminated? We gave everything that was

the least bit important to General

Akin. He received a daily delivery of

our decrypts.

I am not informed at all as to what

happened from there on, or to what

extent General Akin provided material to General Willoughby, the head

of MacArthur’s G-2 section, or to

General Sutherland, MacArthur’s

chief of staff. Central Bureau’s

responsibility, as directed by General

Akin, to whom we reported directly,

was that the material was to come to

him. He then acted on it. We did have

intelligence analysts who synthesized

and analyzed decrypted materials.

These intelligence summaries contained appreciations of important

topics, such as strength of forces at a

particular location, conditions of supplies, and general statements of

morale. These summaries were also

brought to General Akin.

I understand that there is confusion

as to Central Bureau’s role in the

dissemination of intelligence. Let

me emphasize this point – Central

Bureau was an isolated installation

on the edge of the city and separate

from MacArthur’s headquarters.

Central Bureau did not disseminate

information to operational units,

to commanders, or to General

Willoughby. Dissemination was

General Akin’s responsibility.

Throughout the entire war, I met

General Willoughby on only one

occasion. After our victory at Leyte,

General Sutherland summoned us to

a conference on procedures. My counterpart in the Navy, Captain Munson,

General Willoughby, and a few other

generals and I were present. I had to

go from Brisbane to the Philippines,

approximately 3,500 miles each way,
Page 85

for a half-hour conference. General

Sutherland should have just written

me a letter.

Another criticism of the cryptanalytic

effort during the war was too much

duplication. There was duplication,

but I really don’t know how much

duplication. Washington had more

material to work with than we did at

Central Bureau. In addition to all of

our intercepts that we sent to

Washington, Washington had material from other sources. The provision

of cryptanalytic or intelligence

results was only one way, from

Central Bureau to Washington.

Washington gave me no indication of

any duplication problem and,

besides, the duplication question had

no relevance [to] our performance.

Central Bureau’s mission was to produce the maximum amount of intelligence that it could from the available

intercepted material.

What was our relationship with other

signals intelligence organizations?

There was a cryptanalytic effort in

the CBI [China-Burma-India] theater,

and I corresponded with them. In

contrast, relations between Central

Bureau and Fleet Radio Unit

Melbourne were nonexistent. No

material from Melbourne came to us

at Central Bureau. Nothing from

Central Bureau went to Melbourne,

not even technical material or information copies of important decrypts.

The two problems were completely

separate. The Navy worked on altogether different traffic from the traffic that Central Bureau dealt with. I

made no attempt to establish contact

with FRUMEL. I had no instructions

in that connection, but it just seemed

to work out that way. We were just in

two entirely different worlds.

My last assignment in connection

with World War II was the TICOM

operation. TICOM was a joint U.S.-

British project to study enemy capabilities in signals intelligence. After

the war ended, Colonel Erskine, a

competent linguist, and I received a

special assignment. We had to track

down Japanese personnel who were

involved in their communications

activity. We tried to obtain information about Japanese procedures for

developing cryptographic systems,

about any successes that they had

against American material or any

other information related to signals

intelligence. We had great trouble

tracking down any appropriate individuals. We made very little headway

because we had strict instructions

that we were not to disclose to the

Japanese any information about

American successes.

So, when the Japanese lied to us, we

could not reveal that we knew they

were lying. Our counterparts in

Germany were much more successful

because when Germany surrendered,

American troops were on the scene

immediately and the Germans had

no time to destroy their cryptographic material. In contrast, Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945, but

American troops did not enter Japan

until September. The Japanese had

ample time to destroy their cryptographic material.

General Akin invited me to stay on in

Japan, but I was anxious to go home

to my new wife. I returned to the U.S.

and Arlington Hall in February 1946.

Page 87

In war, there are many tightropes that the military must walk. There is the obvious one of danger

from the enemy and many other not so obvious

tightropes. Many of these situations are created by

rivalries and political considerations. Even in

World War II, the military services were large

bureaucracies. The services were subject to the

same political rivalries that we see in today’s large

corporations and government agencies. Fighting

for control of resources and building fiefdoms were

as common in World War II as they are today.

The problems experienced by the formation of

joint military organizations are similar to the problems brought about by company mergers. Both situations heighten turf battles, increase rivalries, and

can create confusion among managers. Forming a

joint military organization under the pressure of

war is especially difficult. Good communication

was essential at Central Bureau not only because it

was a joint military organization consisting of the

U.S. Army, the Australian Imperial Forces, and the

Royal Australian Air Forces, but also because its

director had other duties and was not located on the

premises. In addition to being the director of

Central Bureau, Major General Spencer B. Akin was

also MacArthur’s chief signals officer. Mistakes

were bound to occur in any joint military organization such as Central Bureau. It is remarkable that

things ran as smoothly as they did.

Intelligence organizations had an additional

tightrope in World War II. Military commanders

who were consumers did not understand the value

of the information available through SIGINT. They

had to be convinced of its usefulness and learn to

properly evaluate it. SIGINT personnel in the

Southwest Pacific theater had to teach and persuade their commanders of the value of their product. This was a formidable task because by nature

most human beings fear the unknown and resist

change. The task was further complicated if the

information came from a different branch of the

service, army ground versus army air forces.

Developing trust was a slow process especially

between services. Could the Army trust information

it received from the Navy and vice versa? The relations between Central Bureau and FRUMEL are a

good illustration of this problem.

The following excerpts illustrate all of these

problems: the mistrust of SIGINT, intra- and interservice rivalries, and difficulties within a joint

military organization such as Central Bureau.

“Persuading the Consumers” illustrates the mistrust and misunderstanding surrounding SIGINT.

Brown’s comments in “Managing Traffic Analysis

with Akin at the Helm” point out the difficulties in

the early years of the war in developing a joint military organization. Brown’s tightrope was created

by a lack of communication between General Akin

and Wing Commander H. Roy Booth. Ballard’s

comments in “I Was the Meat in the Sandwich”

point out the difficulties in the later years caused by

the ever-increasing pace of the war. Ballard had to

decide whether to follow the orders of General Akin

at the war front or to follow the orders of his superiors at Central Bureau Brisbane.

Persuading the Consumers of the Value of

SIGINT

The following comments by Colonel Howard W.

Brown, Captain Rudolph T. Fabian, and Captain

Duane L. Whitlock illustrate the shaky ground on

which SIGINT stood during the early years of

World War II. Commanders had to be persuaded

and educated about this invaluable resource.

Accurate predictions were the best remedy for this

suspicion. Whitlock discusses a further complicaChapter 8

Walking a Tightrope
Page 88

tion – sometimes the consumer accepts cryptanalytic evidence but is reluctant to accept intelligence

based on traffic analysis. These three men were stationed in the Philippines and were evacuated from

Corregidor. Although all three served in Australia,

Brown was part of Central Bureau, while Fabian

and Whitlock were part of FRUMEL.. Brown also

illustrates intraservice rivalry while Fabian points

to interservice rivalry.

Brown comments on the dark days in the

Philippines after the Pearl Harbor disaster. The

Japanese began bombing the Philippines on 8

December 1941. Fabian and Whitlock comment on

the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, two pivotal

battles of the war in the Pacific. The Coral Sea battle, which began on 5 May 1942, not only blocked

the Japanese invasion of Port Moresby, New

Guinea, but also prevented the Japanese from isolating Australia from its source of U.S. supplies. The

battle of Midway, which began on 3 June 1942, was

the turning point for the naval war in the Pacific.

The loss of Midway, the gateway to Hawaii,

deprived the Japanese of an important foothold.

Brown: After Pearl Harbor, the

Japanese moved quickly against the

Philippines. They began bombing

Manila on 9 December. Nichols

Airfield and numerous U.S. airplanes

that were on the ground were

destroyed. The U.S. naval base at

Cavite fell on 10 December. This period was a time of great frustration for

me. We did our jobs, but others let us

down.

On the afternoon of 9 December,

radio intelligence got its first good

break. Lieutenant Gelb and I were

searching for enemy nets. I picked

up a net that was using a great deal of

plain Kana. One station sent numbers

to the other between three to ten

minute intervals. The numbers

decreased rapidly until they reached

the 180 point. We figured out that

these numbers were bearings. One of

these ‘stations’ was actually a plane

moving in our direction. I called

Major Scherr, informed him that the

plane or planes were up for two hours

and asked for instructions. He told

me to notify the air warning people. I

called air warning but received a

chilly reception. Their response was,

‘that is interesting’ and then they

hung up. Our warning was correct.

The bombs were definitely dropped.

Within a short time we were able to

construct the whole net. The net

became active again at 1300 on 10

December. I called air warning and

told them that 100 ‘heavies’ were in

the air headed in our direction. Their

response was, ‘that is very interesting’. Later that afternoon, I called air

warning again and told them to start

blowing their whistles because the

Japanese would be around in fifteen

minutes. They said they were sorry,

but since none of their observers spotted any planes, they hesitated to

sound the alert. A few minutes later,

our naval base at Cavite was not

worth more than that much of unimproved land.

On the morning of the 15th or 16th of

December, I called air warning and

told them that the Japanese were on

the way with an estimated arrival

time of 1120. I also told them that the

Japanese were pulling a new trick by

coming down the eastern side of

Luzon. According to our calculations,

the planes would come in at twenty to

twenty-five degrees. The planes came

but without benefit of an alert. Later,

when I called air warning to ask why

they did not believe me, they said that
Page 89

the planes came in over a blind spot

and their radar missed them. I had

had enough of this. I went to Colonel

Akin with facts and figures and

explained the problem. Akin must

have convinced air warning that we

had something valuable to sell. The

next morning, three air corps

lieutenants reported to our station

for liaison and plotting duties.

Unfortunately, by this time,

advanced warning by radio intelligence had lost most of its value. Many

of our warnings were unheeded, and

so many of our planes were

destroyed while sitting on the

The Japanese attack on the Philippines in December 1941 was swift and effective.
Page 90

ground. On 24 December, we were

forced to move to Corregidor. Manila

was declared an open city to prevent

further damage to the civilian population.

Fabian: When MacArthur learned

that our unit was in Melbourne,

he got in touch with my boss,

Admiral Leary. As the commander

of the Southwest Pacific theater,

MacArthur informed Admiral Leary,

who was set up at Brisbane, that he

wanted information produced by

FRUMEL. Admiral Leary told me that

we had to give MacArthur information but asked my suggestion on the

best way to supply such material. I

felt that certain restrictions were necessary to ensure security. Admiral

Leary issued the following requirements: (1) Fabian or one of his

unit’s representatives will report to

MacArthur’s headquarters each day

at 1400 hours. The FRUMEL representative will never be kept waiting in

MacArthur’s outer office. (2) No one

will be authorized to make copies of

any material provided by FRUMEL.

(3) During the briefing of FRUMEL

material, only MacArthur and his

chief of staff, General Sutherland, will

be present. Everyone else, including

MacArthur’s chief of intelligence,

General Charles Willoughby, will be

excluded from these briefings.

The military gave me a car. Every day

at the prescribed time, I went up to

general headquarters and talked

directly with MacArthur. I briefed

MacArthur and had the appropriate

material with me if he wanted to read

it himself. One of the most interesting

briefings that I gave concerned the

Japanese plans for Port Moresby in

1942. When I told MacArthur about

the messages that we read about

Japanese plans to invade Port

Moresby, New Guinea, he said, ‘that

can’t be right’. My idea of their strategy was that the Japanese would go to

New Caledonia and then proceed to

close off northeast Australia. I

explained the whole COMINT process

including how the information was

derived from code groups. I convinced MacArthur to change his

plans. A transport was scheduled to

leave Townsville for New Caledonia

the next day. Instead, they were sent

to Port Moresby. The battle of the

Coral Sea boosted the credibility of

SIGINT. I was nervous about this

exchange so I reported it to my admiral. LuckiIy we were right and there

were no problems.

Even the higher-ups in the Navy had

doubts about our information and

methods of acquiring it. In the beginning, the Office of Naval Intelligence

wanted nothing to do with us and certainly would not help with the funding. Then when we proved ourselves

and had success, the Office of Naval

Intelligence wanted control of

COMINT. [Note: FRUMEL was under

the Office of Naval Communications.]

Our intelligence was invaluable in the

battle at Midway. This success

silenced many doubters. FRUMEL

played an important role. We intercepted the Japanese fourteen-part

attack plan. We sent it to all the other

units such as FRUPAC to get assistance with the solution. We beat our

brains out solving codes, reading

messages, and sending them in. When

you saw the event happen, it was the
Page 91

greatest satisfaction you could ever

have.

Whitlock: When compared to cryptanalysis, traffic analysis was a newer

discipline. Commanders had doubts

about cryptanalysis, but they were

more suspicious of traffic analysis.

The battle of Midway is a good example of the important relationship

between these two disciplines. Traffic

analysis provides the glue for the puzzle. A message by itself has no meaning; it must be placed in the proper

context. Cryptanalysis gives the content of the message, but traffic analysis puts the message in the proper

context.

Traffic analysts at FRUMEL identified the movement of ships toward the

eastern Pacific. We reported this

buildup and tabulated the ships that

the Japanese were pulling together

for this mission. Traffic analysts

named every ship in the Japanese

force except for one minor transport.

Traffic analysts gathered all of this

information before the cryptanalysts

read anything about the impending

attack.

An interesting question to me is, why

did Commander Rochefort send out

the fresh water message? [Note: The

fresh water message stated that there

was a shortage of fresh water on AF.

The Japanese picked up this information and transmitted it to their units,

confirming that AF was Midway.]

Some people say that we could not

identify where AF was so Rochefort

wanted to trick the Japanese into

revealing the meaning of the AF

abbreviation. We knew AF stood for

Midway. I believe that Rochefort sent

out the fresh water message to convince admirals such as Layton that

intelligence derived from traffic

analysis and cryptanalysis was correct.

Historians do not properly credit

FRUMEL’s role in the battle at

Midway. Rufus Taylor, a cryptanalyst at FRUMEL, [recovered a single

code group] that revealed the date of

attack on 6 June 1942. He recognized

the code group because he had seen

[it] earlier in an unrelated supply

message. He was able to deduce the

meaning by comparing the [two messages]. Midway was a classic example of cryptanalysis and traffic analysis working together. More commanders trusted our work because

we were right about Midway.

Managing Traffic Analysis with Akin at the

Helm 

After his escape from Corregidor in the spring

of 1942, Colonel Howard W. Brown remained

involved with intercept functions. Brown was part

of the 126th Signal Radio Intelligence Company,

which was the premier American radio intelligence

company and had the most service in the theater.

Frequently, he acted as a troubleshooter and problem-solver for Major General Spencer B. Akin,

director of Central Bureau. Because of this role,

Brown sometimes found himself in difficult situations. Brown was involved with Central Bureau

from its beginnings in the bleak year of 1942. His

experience illustrates the importance of good communication.

Brown returned to the U.S. in May 1945. After

leaving the Army, Brown spent several years in the

reserves and continued to work for McKay Radio in

the Philippines.
Page 92

After my arrival in Melbourne,

Australia, I went to work as quickly

as possible. My first duty station was

at Townsville. There were twelve personnel operating this station; seven

from the RAAF, one from the AMF

[Australian Military Forces], and

four Americans. The Americans who

accompanied me were sergeants Carl

Card, John Phelan, and Dick Nurse.

Managing traffic analysis is a tricky

business. Monitoring enemy communications necessitates fast action.

Our ability to issue warnings of air

attacks as the Japanese concentrated

on Port Moresby, New Guinea, was

hampered by the slowness of communication [because of] distance. The

challenge of getting intercept operators and equipment where they were

needed was a daunting one.

In September 1942, I was summoned

by General Akin, who told me to get a

detachment to Port Moresby right

away. As General Akin put it, ‘The

Japanese are thirty-five miles away

and we need to move’. Later that

afternoon, Wing Commander H. Roy

Booth, the RAAF commander, who

was also one of the assistant directors

of Central Bureau, paid an unexpected visit to Townsville. He revoked my

orders because they were not in compliance with predetermined policy. I

tried to explain that war necessity

[overrode] policy considerations, but

Booth would have none of it. I

thought General Akin had worked

things out, but obviously he [had]

not. I apprised General Akin of the

situation. After a one-week delay, the

detachment was on the job at Port

Moresby. This mistake was unfortunate because it resulted in loss of

lives.

Things ran more smoothly after this

incident with Commander Booth.

Americans became more involved in

intercept. In October 1942, I took part

in a conference at Brisbane where it

was decided that we should have an

intercept site close to Central Bureau.

Americans ran this new station. We

left Townsville, built the new station,

and began work on 20 December

1942. We were located on a hill at

Stafford, about six miles northwest of

Brisbane. When the rest of the 126th

(SRI) company reached us from the

U.S. in March 1943, radio intelligence

began to expand.

During my stint in Brisbane, I stayed

as far away from Akin as possible. I

enjoyed living out in the country with

the troops. Whenever Akin needed

something tough done in the combat

zone, he would tell me to take care of

it. When I returned, he never asked

me if I accomplished my task. He

knew that I got the job done, but he

did not want to know how I did it. For

example, in May 1943 I helped sneak

a direction finding detachment into

Port Moresby, New Guinea, to locate

Japanese aircraft. Our equipment

consisted of three SCR206 direction

finders. In June 1943, when General

Akin yelled for a direction finding

net to root out enemy spotters

at Dobuduru [northeast of Port

Moresby], our detachment flew to

the area to accomplish this mission.

I selected the location for the expanded direction finding unit when the

126th moved from Dobuduru to

Finschhafen [along the northern

coast of New Guinea].
Page 93

Sometimes Akin had me solve problems at existing sites. Early in 1944,

Akin told me to take over the terminal

facilities at Darwin because of its

poor performance. I found that the

problem was really lack of equipment and poor training. I ordered

more equipment and arranged for an

instructor to train the personnel.

Communication was restored in thirty days.

When MacArthur’s headquarters

moved from Brisbane, Australia, to

Hollandia, New Guinea, in August

1944, the headquarters of the 126th

SRI moved too. During the fall of

1944, Commander Booth selected me

to be the commander of the forward

echelon at Hollandia. I worked closely with SRI Clark, who was in charge

of the intelligence section. My responsibilities included solving technical

problems, obtaining equipment, and

performing other administrative

duties. In the winter of 1945, I

returned to general headquarters

and was part of Akin’s staff. All in all,

I had no trouble with Akin.

Intercept units kept pace with the Allies as they advanced through New Guinea.
Page 94

I Was the Meat in the Sandwich

The following recollections by Geoffrey Ballard

were taken from his book On Ultra Active Service.

They cover his experience as the Central Bureau

representative at the advanced echelon at Port

Moresby, Hollandia, and Leyte. The period covered

is 1944 – the time when MacArthur made his greatest leap forward in the New Guinea campaign by

invading Hollandia on 22 April. During the remainder of 1944, the war in the Pacific continued at a

feverish pace culminating with the invasion of

Leyte on 22 October, which was the start of the

Philippines campaign. Ballard’s experience and

frustration with being the man in the middle

demonstrate both the complexities of the logistics

of fighting a war and the strains created in joint military command structures.

I left Brisbane for Port Moresby, New

Guinea, in March 1944. I was the

Central Bureau representative to general headquarters advanced echelon.

My duties were to interpret the intelligence reports received from Central

Bureau and its field sections in terms

of operational significance, to stress

both the limitations and possibilities

of intelligence derived from traffic

analysis, and to ensure the security of

both the intelligence provided and its

application in the field. Frequently I

found myself implementing difficult

orders from General Akin. For

instance, General Akin was extremely

concerned about the security of captured documents until they reached

their destination at Central Bureau.

General Akin demanded that all captured documents be in the custody of

a single officer, transported on a fourengine plane, and preferably that the

plane carry no passengers other than

the officer holding the documents. I

have vivid memories of arranging

transportation of these documents. It

was ironic that a bundle of documents could rate the added security of

a four-engine plane when so many

human beings bumped over the Owen

Stanley mountains and went on

numerous other missions via that

trusty workhorse, the Douglas twinengine transport. I sure was relieved

when General Akin himself decided to

arrange for the transport of code

books from the Yoshino Maru, which

sank off the coast of Aitape.

I was in some precarious situations,

either the man in the middle or the

meat in the sandwich. General Akin

issued orders on the spot, to me, a

lowly captain. When I carried these

orders out, my superiors at Central

Bureau in Brisbane would counsel

me about exceeding my authority.

Toward the end of May 1944, General

Akin officially informed me that general headquarters would move from

Brisbane to Hollandia in August. The

advanced echelon at Port Moresby

would also move to Hollandia. I had

the privilege of breaking this news to

Central Bureau. They couldn’t believe

it. What would happen to the timely

transmission of intelligence by

Central Bureau in Brisbane when

general headquarters was 3,000 kilometers away in Hollandia?

It was difficult for me to communicate

the speed of the Allied advance to my

colleagues back at Brisbane. They

also had trouble understanding

MacArthur’s concept of general headquarters. According to MacArthur, a

general headquarters belonged close

to the battle front.

Moving the advanced echelon from

Port Moresby to Hollandia was a
Page 95

messy affair. In Hollandia, life was

very hectic. When a group of U.S.

WACs arrived unexpectedly, I was

told to immediately give them a oneday seminar on SIGINT. Another

time, I had only one day’s notice to fly

to Nadzab, New Guinea, to give a twoweek course on SIGINT to the intelligence staff at the U.S. Fifth Air Force

general headquarters. The course

proceeded smoothly until the midpoint. Then, the Fifth Air Force was

told to move its general headquarters

to Owi, an island just south of Biak. I

assumed that this move would bring

an end to my course. Not so. With the

Americans, it was business as usual. I

finished teaching the second half of

the course on Owi, about 1,000 kilometers west of Nadzab.

The frenzy of activity increased as we

planned for the Leyte invasion. We

worked sixteen hours a day, seven

days a week. Two weeks before D-day

for Leyte, 20 October 1944, General

Akin created another classic sandwich situation for me. Akin ordered

me to get space on ships and enough

equipment so that an RAAF intercept

unit could take part in the assault

phase of the invasion. The logistics

people laughed at my request,

explaining that all of the space was

allocated long ago and that all of the

assault ships were full. When I mentioned the urgency and importance of

including the unit, the logistics people

wanted to know why the unit was not

on the original list of space allocations. The logistics people left me no

choice. I had to pull rank by telling

them that the chief signals officer

wanted 6WU on this mission. Within

one-half hour, space on the chief signals officer’s communication ship

was allotted for the group. I received

specific instructions about equipment

loading, embarkation, etc. As General

Akin instructed, the 6WU was part of

the invasion. They distinguished

themselves by alerting us that the

enemy had spotted the approach of

our convoy of invading ships. Shortly

after the Leyte operation, Central

Bureau told me that I had exceeded

my authority: ‘Planning remains a

Central Bureau function’. This chain

of command was more like a circle. I

carry out the orders of the director of

Central Bureau at Hollandia while

the orders were criticized and virtually countermanded by the assistant

directors 3,000 kilometers away at

Brisbane. Naturally, I did not want to

be offside with my own headquarters,

but I was obliged to tell them that this

situation could not be resolved their

way. I had to follow Akin’s orders. As

a result of this exchange, tension

developed between Central Bureau

and its advanced echelon.

The tension between Central Bureau

and its forward echelon was in no

way reduced because, a few weeks

after the Leyte operation, I had to

deliver two other items. I had to tell

Central Bureau that another RAAF

unit was to be included in the

Lingayen Gulf invasion, the next step

in conquering the Philippines. The

second item of information that I

passed to Central Bureau was that

general headquarters would be moving to Leyte in two weeks. With this

move, Central Bureau would be 5,000

kilometers away from general headquarters. Central Bureau saw the

necessity of moving to a more forward location.
Page 96

When we moved to Leyte, we were

called the forward echelon, to distinguish us from the advanced echelon,

which was still at Hollandia. We

immediately began planning for the

Lingayen Gulf invasion. It sure was a

relief to be replaced as the Central

Bureau representative in December

1944 by Captain Neil Evans. All of the

pressure and the sixteen-hour days

were getting to me. I was exhausted. I

returned to Brisbane and enjoyed

doing administrative tasks for a few

months. In July 1945, I became

Central Bureau representative to the

Southeast Asia command and finished out the war in India. I left the

Army in January 1946.
Page 97

The quiet heroes of the Southwest Pacific theater played a vital role in the Allied victory over Japan. The

men and women who served at Central Bureau and at FRUMEL produced an astounding array of information about Japanese military operations. Their accomplishments were possible because of their dedication to duty, strong work ethic, fortitude, and attention to detail. Each participant recognized the importance of security and did not succumb to the appeal of fame or glory from public acclaim. They maintained

the secrecy of their work throughout the war.

Breaking codes was a cumulative process that depended on the use of many disciplines. Cryptanalysts

needed information from traffic analysis, and translators needed information from cryptanalysis.

Teamwork was absolutely crucial to their mission. The solution to one military code frequently served as a

lead in breaking the next code. In the Southwest Pacific theater, the pen was as mighty as the sword.

After the war, many of the men and women from Central Bureau and FRUMEL continued to serve their

country. Some had distinguished military careers. Many others stayed in the communications intelligence

field, and they all made valuable contributions as part of AFSA and NSA. The valuable lessons that these

quiet heroes learned from their wartime experience led them to enhance U.S. security in later years.

Epilogue

Page 99

1WU – One Wireless Unit

AAWS – Australian Army Wireless Section

AFSA– Armed Forces Security Agency

AIF – Australian Imperial Forces

AMF – Australian Military Forces

ASA – Army Security Agency

ATIS – Allied Translator’s Interpreter’s Service

AWAS – Australian Women’s Auxiliary Service

CBB – Central Bureau Brisbane

CBI – China-Burma-India theater

COMINT – Communications intelligence

COMSEC – Communications security

FRUMEL – Fleet Radio Unit Melbourne

FRUPAC – Fleet Radio Unit Pacific

MOS – Military occupational specialty

NSA – National Security Agency

OCS – Officer Candidate School

OTRG – “On the Roof Gang”

RAAF – Royal Australian Air Force

RAAN – Royal Australian Auxiliary Navy

RAN – Royal Australian Navy

ROTC – Reserve Officer Training Corps

SIGINT – Signals intelligence

SIS – Signals Intelligence Service

SRI – Signal Radio Intelligence (Company)

SSA – Signals Security Agency

TICOM – Target Intelligence Committee

WAAAF – Women’s Australian Auxiliary

Air Force

WAAC – Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps

WAC – Women’s Army Corps

Glossary of Abbreviations

Page 101

Chapter One

Oral History 05-83, Duane L. Whitlock; interviewer: Robert Farley.

SRH 045, Reminiscences of Howard W. Brown

Oral History 22-82, Charles E. Girhard; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Chapter Two

Jack Bleakley, The Eavesdroppers, Australian

Government Publishing Service, Australia, 1992. 8-

10.

Geoffrey Ballard, On ULTRA Active Service,

Spectrum Publications LTD, Australia, 1991.

Chapter 23, “Preparing for the Invasion That Never

Came.” Chapter 25, “Spreading the Interception

and Intelligence Net.”

Oral History 56-94, Cecil C. Corry; interviewer:

Robert Farley; follow-up interview with Charles

Baker and Sharon Maneki.

Chapter Three

Oral History 22-82, Charles E. Girhard

Oral History 14-85, Joseph D. Richard; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Oral History 02-84 through 04-84, Abraham

Sinkov; interviewers: Robert Farley and Samuel

Snyder.

Abraham Sinkov interview with Dr. Ed Drea,

February 1989.

Oral History 24-84, John J. Larkin; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Chapter Four

Oral History 51-94, Tristam B. Johnson and

Donald E. Moreland; interviewers: Charles Baker

and Sharon Maneki.

Oral History 02-85, Robert C. Christopher;

interviewer: Robert Farley.

Oral History 30-84, Curtis H. Nelson; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Chapter Five

Jack Bleakley, The Eavesdroppers, Australian

Government Publishing Service, 50.

Oral History 18-84, Sally Speer; interviewer:

Robert Farley.

Oral History 33-83, Maryjane Ford Walter,

Susan Cross Santa Maria, and Phyllis Purse; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Oral History 34-83, Victor Rose and John R.

Thomas; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Chapter Six

Oral History 25-84, James B. Capron; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Oral History 21-83, David W.. Snyder; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Oral History 22-83, John H. Gelineau; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Sources
Page 102

Oral History 32-86, Sidney A. Burnett; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Sid Burnett, “Japanese Intercept Down Under,

Part II, Adelaide River,” NCVA Cryptolog, Summer

1984.

Gordon I. Bower, “Potshot 1943,” taken from

“Japanese Intercept Down Under, Part II,” NCVA

Cryptolog, Summer 1984.

Oral History 15-84, John E.(Vince)

Chamberlin; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Oral History 11-80, Robert D. Cahill; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Oral History 38-86, Ralph E. Cook; interviewer:

Robert Farley.

Oral History 29-83, Joseph L. McConnel; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Oral History 30-86, Gil M. Richardson; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Chapter Seven

Oral History 09-83, Rudolph T. Fabian; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Oral History 04-83, E. S. L. Goodwin; interviewer: Robert Farley.

Oral History 02-79 through 94-79, Abraham

Sinkov; interviewers: Robert Farley and Samuel

Snyder.

Abraham Sinkov interview with Dr. Ed Drea,

February 1989.

Chapter Eight

Oral History 05-83, Duane L. Whitlock; interviewer: Robert Farley.

SRH 045, Reminiscences of Howard W. Brown.

Oral History 09-83, Rudolph T. Fabian; interviewer: Robert Farley.

The History of COMINT 1936-1942, written in

1975, author unknown.

Geoffrey Ballard, On ULTRA Active Service,

Chapter 28, “On Duty as Central Bureau

Representative at Advanced Echelon GHQ, Port

Moresby, Hollandia, and at Forward Echelon at

Leyte.”