Marching Orders: The Untold Story of How the American Breaking of the Japanese Secret Codes Led to the Defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan

by Bruce Lee

On March 28, the Japanese military attaché in Berlin reports to Japan’s vice minister of war and to the Chief of the Army Air Force Headquarters that the Germans are developing the first operational jet-fighter plane.20 The analysts note that for the past two years the Japanese have been buying prototypes and blueprints of German planes. Now, says the attaché, “we have good reason to believe that by the end of 1944 or in 1945, we shall see the appearance of a practical jet-propelled fighter. I have this from someone in the Messerschmitt Company—this source is particularly secret—that such a plane is now undergoing tests by both the Messerschmitt and Arado companies and that the one at the Messerschmitt Company is practically completed.… Japan should dispatch technicians at once and begin the study of this plane while it is still in the experimental stage.” The report goes on to detail the attempted purchases of the Me-309 fighter [MS 24 January 1943; 29 April 1943; 7 December 1943] and says that Japan “would do well to purchase the manufacturing rights for the Me-209 fighter.”