May 27, 1942 The Day Admiral Nimitz Knew He Could Read Every Japanese Secret

Описание: May 27, 1942. Admiral Chester Nimitz receives intelligence so precise it seems impossible: the Japanese fleet will attack Midway Island on June 4 at 0700 hours from bearing 325 degrees, 175 miles northwest of the island. This is the incredible true story of how American cryptanalysts at Station Hypo in Pearl Harbor broke Japan's top-secret JN-25 naval code, enabling the most decisive naval victory in American history. Led by the eccentric Commander Joseph Rochefort, who worked 72-hour shifts in a basement wearing a smoking jacket and slippers, a team of mathematicians, linguists, and former USS California bandsmen cracked the "uncrackable" code through brilliant deduction, IBM punch card machines, and the ingenious "AF water ruse" that confirmed Midway as the target. When Japanese carriers arrived exactly when and where predicted, Nimitz's ambush sank all four carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor, changing the course of World War 2 in the Pacific. Despite this achievement, Rochefort was denied recognition and reassigned due to Washington politics, receiving a posthumous Distinguished Service Medal from President Reagan only in 1986, a decade after his death. This is the untold story of how information became the most powerful weapon of war, how Station Hypo's code-breaking methods shaped modern intelligence agencies like the NSA, and how Edwin Layton's famous May 27 briefing gave America the power to read every Japanese secret and win the Battle of Midway.