Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy - Ludwig von Mises ...

Signifi cant Information Known in Washington 229
blew.” Ogimoto heard the phrase “East Wind Rain” repeated
several times. In the next room Assistant Naval Attaché Yuzuru
Sanematsu heard Ogimoto’s shout and rushed into the radio room.
Th e room was electric with excitement. Th e two men looked at
one another and said, “What had to come has fi nally come.” Th ey
immediately started making preparations for the destruction of
the embassy’s secret codes, ciphers, and code machines. 23
Safford (Naval Communications, Security)
Alerts U.S. Outposts to Destroy
Classified Documents
Indications were mounting that some form of aggressive
action by the Japanese was imminent. But when? Where?
Saff ord was concerned for the safety of the cryptographic
equipment and all the classifi ed documents at our mid-Pacifi c
stations. Th e U.S. Naval Station on Guam was only 60 miles
or so from Saipan, one of the islands mandated to Japan after
World War I, and “according to War Plans [Guam was] not to be
defended except against sabotage.” So Saff ord thought we should
“clean house early there.” 24 Th erefore, when the “Winds Execute”
came in on December 4, he prepared four messages to our stations
in the far-western Pacifi c which were dispatched that afternoon.
Th e fi rst of Saff ord’s four messages was released by his superior,
Noyes, and the other three by Admiral Ingersoll. Saff ord’s
23 Yuzuru Sanematsu, Nichi-bei Joho Senki (Tokyo: Tosho Shuppansha, 1980),
pp. 146, 235; 1982, pp. 191, 232. Th is paragraph is based on translations by
Kentaro Nakano and Toshio Murata of pertinent passages in the autobiography
of naval historian Sanematsu. At the time of the attack, Sanematsu was
the ranking assistant naval attaché and chief intelligence offi cer in the Japanese
embassy in Washington. After the war he was tried in the Japanese war
crimes tribunal and served time in prison.
24 Joint Committee, Pearl Harbor Attack, part 29, p. 2398, Saff ord testimony
before the APHB.