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

Army Pearl Harbor Board 477
they had mixed up their voice procedure with the Morse code
message. 135
Distribution of this “Winds Execute” was made, not only
in accordance with the special arrangements set up by Noyes of
naval communications, but also in the usual fashion, through the
war and navy departments.
And also I know that in the Navy Department that copy
was distributed around noon, in connection with the daily
routine distribution of translations, and that went to the
Chief of Naval Operations [Stark], Assistant Chief of Naval
Operations [Ingersoll], Director of Naval Communications
[Noyes], Director of Naval Intelligence [Wilkinson], and the
Director of War Plans Division [Turner], also went to the State
Department and to the White House. 136
Saff ord was positive as to the date when the “Winds Execute”
came in because its receipt had prompted him to send four messages
that very day, between 3:00 p.m. and 3:19 p.m., to the naval
attachés at Tokyo, Peiping, Bangkok, and Shanghai, directing
them to destroy “all secret and confi dential fi les except those essential
for current purposes and all other papers which in the hands
of an enemy would be a disadvantage to the United States.” 137
Saff ord believed that all the Army S.I.S. messages he had been
describing were in the custody of the Army’s G-2, general staff ,
and that the same messages, fi led by their Navy numbers, were
at 20G, the Navy’s communication annex—except for the implementation
of the “Winds Code.” “Unfortunately, we cannot fi nd
any written record of the [‘Winds Execute’] message,” in spite of
135Ibid., p. 2371.
136Ibid., p. 2372.
137Ibid., p. 2397, OPNAV dispatch #042019. See also part 14, p. 1408, Message
#040330, supplementing #042019, which is not included with other Navy
Department dispatches to fi eld offi cers in Exhibit No. 37, ibid., part 14.