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

Current estimates of Soviet war dead are 25 million. The Soviet Union endured twenty times the combined losses of the British and Americans, while inflicting 75 percent of all German casualties. Historian Norman Davies points out that it can be argued that “the Soviet Army had already broken the back of the Wermacht at the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk and in the offensives of 1943–1944, before the Western allies even landed [in Normandy].” A fair statement. He also points out that, according to the magnificent research of historian Robert Conquest, it is estimated that Stalin also killed 1 million of his own people per year, and overall, his victims outnumbered those of the Nazis.

In other words, by maintaining neutrality with Russia, Japan is allowing more than 50 percent of the American aid used to defeat Germany to reach Russia via Soviet ports in the Pacific.

In other

words, if the Russians slacken their efforts, the invasion will not take place.

There are also tentative agreements reached about the postwar boundaries between Russia and Poland. They will be pushed westward after the war. Also there will be a postwar partitioning of Germany. It is here that the arguments about the “sellout” of Poland begin. Stalin also tells Roosevelt and Churchill that Russia will join the war against Japan “the moment Germany was defeated.” According to British historian Martin Gilbert, Churchill orders his British Chiefs of Staff to keep the “momentous decision” absolutely secret, so secret in fact that it is “not recorded even in the secret record of the Tehran talks.”

That Roosevelt will never achieve the political goals he seeks regarding America’s postwar zone of occupation in Germany is not foreseen by naive American military planners. True to their code, they are fighting to end aggression by the Axis powers. They do not view war as do the British, who believe war is a political action aimed at achieving a politically satisfactory peace. The American introduction to this philosophy begins at the Casablanca conference and the creation of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces), and the naming of SHAEF’s first chief of staff, Britain’s Lt. Gen. Sir Frederick Morgan. Morgan’s primary assignment, as stated earlier, is to establish diversionary actions that will pin down German forces in Western Europe by threatening a cross-Channel invasion in 1943. His second assignment is to start planning for the actual invasion of Europe, Operation OVERLORD. Even more important, however, is his third job: plan for an Allied occupation of Europe in the event that Germany suddenly collapses.

Although it is difficult to imagine that these plans for the postwar occupation of Europe were not discussed in their early stages by the Army with the civilian leadership, this is the case. In a memo dated November 10, 1943, from Maj. Gen. John H. Hildring, Chief of the Civil Affairs, to General Marshall, Hildring tells Marshall that “JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] has barred all civilian agencies from the early phases of civil affairs. It is unreasonable and impossible therefore in the event of a southern collapse [in Europe] to pass responsibility for relief and rehabilitation over to civilian agencies who are not present on the scene.… It is believed inadvisable to bother the President at this time.”3

They “had to telegraph for instructions to a remote and sometimes unsympathetic and uncomprehending government.… I had a further advantage in that the [British] Government had begun postwar planning in good time and in an orderly way.”

The British are running rings around the Americans. And the error committed by the U.S. Army in failing to inform the civilian authorities about potential postwar planning (or is it the error of the Roosevelt administration not to consider these issues sooner for itself?) is exposed when Roosevelt first learns about RANKIN.5 This he does while en route to the Cairo conference aboard the battleship USS Iowa at 3 P.M. on November 19, 1943. The occasion is a meeting between the President and his Chiefs of Staff that is held in Admiral King’s stateroom. The subject is brought up as the third topic to be discussed concerning the possibility that there might be an overall collapse of the

German forces in Europe necessitating a rush forward to occupy Germany.6 From the outset it is obvious that Roosevelt is annoyed. One can almost feel the President’s seething as he tells the Chiefs that RANKIN makes certain suppositions without saying what they really are. Of course Russia will agree to breaking up Germany after the war, the President declares. Speaking practically, he says, there should be three, and possibly five, German states after the war. Yes, America might accept the southern part of Germany as proposed by RANKIN—Baden, Wurtenburg (sic), Bavaria and everything south of the Rhine. On the other hand, we could take everything north and west of that area, including Hamburg, Hannover and Berlin, as a second state. A third state, that is the northeastern part, would contain Prussia, Pomerania and on south. In Roosevelt’s view, these are the logical lines for splitting up Germany. There are certain factors that make this especially true. The first state is largely Roman Catholic. The second state is largely Protestant. The religion of the northern state might best be called Prussianism.

Everything is based on the logistical reasoning for OVERLORD says Marshall. He appears to be somewhat at a loss for words as he watches the situation worsen. King comes to Marshall’s rescue. He points out there is a problem and it will have to be worked out. But the planning for OVERLORD is so far advanced at this point that it isn’t practicable to accept any change in OVERLORD’S deployment. It all goes back to the ports in England says Marshall. There must be a scheme for disengaging OVERLORD at any stage of development in order to comply with the political considerations now being outlined by the President. Roosevelt says it is his idea for our military to use as many troops as possible from America for the occupation of Germany. They can be shipped around the northern end of Scotland.

The President then elaborates on the French. They are a political “headache.” Their leader in exile, General de Gaulle, hopes to be only one mile behind Allied troops in taking over the French government. The President says he wants to get out of France and Italy as quickly as possible, letting the British and the French handle their problems together. As he sees it, there will definitely be a race for Berlin. He believes we may have to put our divisions into Berlin as soon as possible. He foresees a “railroad” invasion of Germany, with little or no fighting.

What no one has considered, however, is the reason why the British want to control northwestern Germany. It isn’t so much a desire for territory as it is of fear that the Russian Army will reach the English Channel, either before the Anglo-Americans drive through France, or by attacking through the Anglo-American lines, thereby becoming a new and totally dangerous threat to England in the years to come. The British believe the American president is naive about Stalin’s true motives, the American people themselves uneducated about the realities of international Communism. Once again Great Britain might have to stand alone, against a more terrifying enemy than Hitler.

William C. Bullit, who had been sent by Roosevelt to be America’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1933, warns the President in three lengthy letters during 1943 that Stalin was not to be trusted.8 Reading these letters fifty years after they were written sends chills up and down one’s spine. Said Bullit: … The extraordinary valor with which the peoples of the Soviet Union have fought against the Nazis has rendered the Russians so popular in both the United States and Great Britain that all possible virtues are being attributed to the Soviet Government, and both basic Russian Nationalistic policy and the Soviet Communist policy are being overlooked.… The reality is that the Soviet Union, up to the present time, has been a totalitarian dictatorship in which there has been no freedom of speech, no freedom of the press, and a travesty of freedom of religion; in which there has been universal fear of the O.G.P.U. and Freedom

from Want has been subordinated always to the policy of guns instead of butter.

Bullit lists Stalin’s future goals: the annexation of Bessarabia, Bukonina and the Carpathians, giving Russia access to the Hungarian plain and southern Poland; the annexation of eastern Poland, plus Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia; to set up Soviet-controlled governments in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia; to have the French Communists dominate a de Gaulle government; to make Germany a Communist nation; to eventually reduce ...

“This letter, supplemented by further and shorter communications sent in May and August that year [1943], had no counterpart, so far as this writer is aware, as a warning of that date to the American President of the effective division of Europe which would ensue if the war continued to be pursued on the basis of concepts then prevailing.… It deserves a place among the major historical documents of the time.”

England’s Air Marshal Welsh says: “He felt it necessary to consider what was the object of the occupation of Germany. Was it merely to keep the peace for a limited period of time or to secure ourselves in the future? Plans ought to be made to push out defenses and aircraft warning systems as far to the east as possible in northwest Europe, which, indeed, was the essential line of approach to the United Kingdom. If one considered the possibilities of a future war, there seemed to be every reason why the British sphere should include northwest Europe in order to assist in making the necessary defensive preparations.” This statement by Welsh is probably the earliest official pronouncement on record saying that the British fear the possibility of a postwar attack from the east by the Soviet Union. It may also be one of the first official statements of policy considerations that will lead to the formation of NATO and the concept of containing the expansion of the Soviet Union.

No matter. By the Army’s failing to plan properly (and one must ask, how could the Army plan properly in the light of Roosevelt’s pro-Soviet stance?), by virtue of the administration’s misunderstanding of the nature of the peace to come, the Americans will never recover the initiative on this issue. There will be more bitter arguments with the British about the zones of occupation. But, at this time, the deed is done. Nothing can change it. And this will affect the way the war ends in Europe and the way postwar American foreign aid is given to Europe, but restricted vis-à-vis England.

In this brilliant work, Gilbert notes that at Tehran the Americans and British fail to tell Stalin about the latest developments concerning the atomic bomb: it can be carried by a B-29 bomber. Meanwhile, fifteen British atomic scientists are being sent to work with the Americans. In their number is the Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs.

Confidential military sources told the author that so great was the fear that the Russians might continue attacking westward in Europe, and not stop at any proscribed line of demarcation such as a boundary of occupation, or even the Elbe River, that, in April, 1945, captured German units were being reformed and prepared by the Anglo-American forces to stop any further Soviet advance. The author has not been able to document these statements, made by officers of high rank, and can only report them as unsubstantiated comments. But given the statements made to the Combined Chiefs by England’s Sir John Dill and Air Marshal Welsh in 1944, which are quoted later on in this work, the British obviously possessed a more pessimistic view of future Soviet intentions than did Roosevelt and others in his administration.

It is this: Roosevelt and Marshall were supposed

to be reading the same Magic Summaries day in and day out, but both men read different things into, or out of, this vital intelligence. There are additional problems. Even as late as February 12, 1944, Marshall discovers that an unnamed officer on the White House staff is screening the “Brown Books,” containing the Magic material, before it goes to the President. This officer marked “a very few portions for Admiral [William] Leahy’s attention.” And this meant that Leahy “very seldom” sent any of the material in to the President. Marshall immediately puts an end to this chaotic structure. He immediately institutes a daily series of bound reports called the Black Book, highlighting the most important Magic material. Marshall also explains the significance of these reports to Roosevelt, who begins receiving the material every day. (Field Marshal Dill of the British Joint Staff Mission is also put on the distribution list in late June 1944.)

There are other reasons why Marshall and Roosevelt view the war differently. To explain: Marshall is Army. He knows how difficult it is to create and train a huge fighting force and then get it across the Atlantic to fight an unrelenting foe—some 3,000 miles to Europe and 6,700 miles to Japan. Supply lines are difficult to maintain. One must listen carefully to one’s allies and be mindful of their wishes and fears. One must also learn how the enemy thinks,

understand his views of the world and what he is fighting for. Roosevelt, on the other hand, is a politician. In 1944, his greatest concerns are not about the fighting, but about electoral matters. He will need slightly more than a week in Texas and New Mexico when it comes to campaigning. And these two states are bigger than the combined land mass of France and Germany, which are the objects of the Allied invasion. According to the way the Magic Summaries read to a politician, the Allies have the war well in hand. But Marshall reads the words of a foe that is determined to fight to the death, willingly committing suicide if it will cost the lives of American soldiers and sailors.

One cannot help but be struck by the self-interest of the many nations of Europe that have either been overrun by the Nazis or are aligned to them as “nonbelligerents.” All of them have colonies at stake in other parts of the world that are threatened either by the Axis or the Allies. The fact that the home countries might be ruled at present by a German or Japanese army means less than the hope that they would be returned after the war. Self-interest never dies.

To which Weizaeker says: “Well, that is all right with me, I suppose, but Chancellor Hitler says that, if German honor is to be maintained, Russia has to be completely defeated.… Stalin, however has other ideas and so far has shown no sign of accommodating the Fuehrer.” According to Colonel McCormack’s analysts (hereafter simply called “the analysts”), this is the “first indication, in our [Magic] material, of any statement by a German official that Germany might consider a negotiated peace with Russia.… It seems quite likely that Weizaeker’s remarks presage another bid for a Japanese attack on Russia.… If so, Weizaeker’s understanding of Japanese psychology and strategy seems faulty. The Japanese government did its best to forestall the German-Russian war, has always thought it untimely and not in the interests of Japan, and the possibility of bringing about a negotiated peace has been discussed between Tokyo and Ambassador Sato in Kuibyshev [the location of the Japanese embassy in Russia]. Sakamoto’s remark about concentrating on our ‘real foes’ can be taken as a true description of Japanese strategy, the sole immediate objectives of which are the destruction of British and U.S.

power in East Asia and the South Seas, and the wearing down of China by attrition.” (Emphasis added.)

Within the next week, there is a message from Ambassador Sato in Russia telling Tokyo that Soviet relations with the U.S. are improving.13 And from Madrid, Minister Suma reports that the fall of Toulon to the Allies and the scuttling of the French fleet has made the French people antagonistic toward Germany. Premier Laval is even considering fighting against America and is quoted as saying: “Although France cannot bring herself to declare war on the U.S., if the enemy attacks us, we can defend ourselves and thus enter into a state of belligerency.”

“While Russia retains the appearance of not recognizing the American-British invasion of North Africa as a second front, in their hearts they are well pleased, and American, British and Soviet relations are being further consolidated. “No success can be anticipated from German and Italian schemes to win over Turkey, which will tend more and more to become pro-British. Moreover, the fact that Germany cannot seize Gibraltar at once is influencing Spain and Portugal more and more towards a policy of preserving neutrality.… “Germany will probably continue to support Laval [in occupied France].… The sinking of the French fleet and the dismemberment of the French Army, the last vestiges of France’s sovereignty, have deeply shocked the French people … [their] antipathy toward Germany is being hardened. Accordingly it seems very doubtful whether Germany will get the cooperation from France which she expected. However, the French people have no spirit to revolt.…

“… The Soviet Army is counterattacking strongly in the Rzhev and Veliki Luki areas northwest and west of Stalingrad, and one by one they are forcing the German positions, so that the German Army as a whole is being besieged.… The Russian counterattacks employed five times the numerical strength of the Germans.… In the Caucasus campaign also any further advance of the German Army will be impossible.” In making this cogent analysis of the war in North Africa and Russia, Tokyo fails to mention a single word about the war in the Pacific. Nor has there been any mention to date of the reverses of fortune to the Japanese fleet at the battle of Midway. The Japanese can be objective about the successes or failures of their ally Germany. Tokyo cannot, however, be objective about its own problems.

What better news could Washington ask for. The debacle at Stalingrad is about to begin, and the Japanese are explaining in detail how the German general staff is unraveling and fighting amongst itself as disaster looms.

In November 1942, the Argentinean government cracked down on the Axis diplomats, limiting the number of coded messages they could send each day. Now it is revealed that the Japanese fear that Chile will truly break relations with Japan. Minister Yamagata reports to Tokyo from Santiago that the Chilean minister of the interior, Raul Morales, has left for the U.S. carrying a “secret message from the President.” Yamagata comments: “He will no doubt talk with the American authorities about getting munitions and industrial equipment. It is easy enough to see that his payment for the same will be a rupture of relations with the Axis.”

Oshima’s swallowing of Ribbentrop’s falsehoods sparks a remarkable rebuttal from Tokyo within twenty-four hours. Foreign Minister Tani radios from Tokyo a strong rebuke and directly challenges “Oshima’s optimism about the German military situation.”

The significance of this Japanese message is that it demonstrates to military strategists that in the coming “year of Allied planning,” the best thing that can be accomplished is first to drive the Axis out of North Africa, then invade Sicily, then invade Italy and pin down as many German divisions as possible. This will keep German reinforcements from being

sent either to the Eastern Front or to defend the beaches of France against a cross-Channel invasion.

The problem now facing Marshall says Crowley is that the Chief of Staff has a number of generals who have little experience or internal discipline regarding intelligence information. They are not tempered to intrigue as are their British counterparts. Via Colonel McCormack’s staff, carefully selected young officers are assigned as special liaison officers to division, corps and army headquarters where they are taxed with the mission of persuading their respective generals to accept and act on “special intelligence,” which alone the junior officer conveyed. The protection of the source of this information is vital, and in the main the liaison officers will be rewarded with the confidence of their generals. As we will see later, living in the interstices of an active unit will be awkward for the liaison officer who is compelled to disguise his

true role within the unit. Later, the system will be restructured and the intelligence process accelerated to meet the increasing requirements of the senior combat commanders, who have come to understand and rely on this vital information. One of the reasons Marshall can successfully impose this intelligence command structure upon Eisenhower and others is because the Chief of Staff is not a West Point “ring knocker.” He is viewed by some as a modernist among medievalists. In sum, Marshall’s integrity, intellect and fairness make him the most powerful influence in the American military. Another of Marshall’s great accomplishments is the adaptation of Henry Ford’s concept of the assembly line. Marshall establishes Replacement Training Centers (RTCs) throughout America. After induction and initial screening, inductees are sent to Infantry, Armor, Signal, Engineer, Air Corps, Medical, Supply, Transportation and other schools for seventeen or more weeks of training. The raw soldiers are schooled to be replacements for existing combat units and new units being formed in the continental U.S. Meanwhile, replacement depots are also being established in Britain, North Africa and, later, in France and Italy. These “repel-depos” enable the Army to keep most combat units up to strength by the rapid replacement of casualties.

Marshall’s vision also calls for the development of massive long-range logistical support systems capable of sustaining combat units with food, fuel, munitions and medical units on every front. In the view of many, however, Marshall’s greatest accomplishment is his remarkable ability to recognize the enormous value of the intercepted Japanese and German signals. To optimize this incredible intelligence advantage he selects a superior staff that can simultaneously defend and intelligently interpret ...

The Ultra-Magic Deals: And the Most Special Relationship, 1940–1946 by Bradley F. Smith, (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1993), 186. This carefully documented work does not answer the question of

why Magic material was being screened by an officer at the White House before being shown to the President, merely calling the Army’s intelligence program full of “confusion and chaos.” This writer questioned Robert T. Crowley on the point. Crowley said that as late as 1944, the Army believed there was an enemy agent in the White House, hence the censorship. Readers of the Clausen/Lee work, Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement, will recall that the Army also cut off the White House from all Magic material for several months prior to the Japanese attack for the same reason: it feared an enemy agent in the White House had access to this intelligence.

“Vlassov is now in Kiev organizing an army. He already has a million men and the Germans are giving him tanks and airplanes taken from the Russians. Vlassov is organizing political groups, and as soon as the German forces occupy Moscow, he will quickly establish what is to be called ‘a government of all the Russian people.’”

The analysts point out that Hitler’s plan truly worries Tokyo. Thus, Shigemitsu instructs Oshima “to go straight to Hitler,” taking with him the Japanese military and naval attachés, and to quickly present Japan’s views. Tokyo fervently believes that “if Germany makes another all-out attack on Russia this year, leaving England and America to be finished off in 1944, Germany will only succeed in dissipating her tremendous power, meanwhile leaving America and England free to strengthen their position and finally to launch a great offensive.” Japan wants Germany to fight a holding action in Russia and destroy the Allied forces in Africa and Gibraltar, thereby frustrating any Allied offensive against Europe. The most important element is to “assure the military leadership of the Axis in Europe.” Meanwhile, Japan will continue its drive in the South Pacific, smashing “Anglo-Saxon offensives” in Burma and elsewhere.

In less than a week’s time, another major intelligence break crosses Marshall’s desk. From Bucharest, Japanese minister Okubo reports that the Hungarian regent, Horthy, met Hitler on April 16 and 17 at German headquarters. It is reported that Horthy told Hitler: “We Hungarians have already lost one hundred thousand men in this bloody war, counting dead, wounded and missing. Those we have left have but few arms with which to fight.… We cannot help you one bit more. We are through. We are doing our best to stave off the Bolshevik menace and we won’t be able to spare a single man for the Balkans.”7 McCormack’s analysts emphasize the significance of this message in a special note for Marshall and other Magic Summary readers. This note points out that, on April 22, the U.S. chargé in Helsinki reported to Washington that several Finnish journalists had just returned from Hungary, after Horthy met with Hitler, and they were impressed by how pessimistic Horthy had become. And on April 28, both the U.S. chargé in Helsinki and U.S.

minister Harrison, in Bern, forwarded to the State Department reports indicating that “general morale in Hungary is very low.” In other words, on May 1, 1943, the Japanese told the Allies that Hungary had been knocked out of the war.

This is the first indication that the greatest battle of armored forces in history is about to take place. Another important warning is received when Japanese ambassador Sato tells Tokyo that he wants Morishima, the second-ranking diplomat in his embassy, who is temporarily in Japan, to return to Moscow. Explaining why Sato wants Morishima to return, the analysts in Washington read Sato’s message: “All things indicate that the last round of the German-Soviet fight will start any moment after the middle of May. This showdown will be extremely important because it will prove clearly how the war in Europe is to end. In other words, this is it!… I want you to be back here so that you can scan the situation ever so carefully with me.”

is sufficient to say, however, that Bose and his followers try to infiltrate the nationalistic movement of India, influencing the leaders thereof, but are thwarted at almost every turn by the Allied reading of Magic.

What better confirmation of Allied planning could the strategists in Washington and London ask for? With Germany fully occupied in Russia, the Allies have captured Tunis and ended the Axis threat in North Africa. Now they can plan to invade Sicily and Italy and force Germany to pull more troops out of France, thereby weakening the defensive areas where the Allies intend to invade.

Significantly, the analysts in Washington learn that the fall of Tunis shocks Hitler. According to Ambassador Oshima in Berlin, on May 12 Hitler “is undecided what to do next.” But it appears that “a partial drive in the East is likely to begin this month.”21 The Magic Summaries are now showing, for the first time, that Hitler is feeling the pressure from both the West and the East. In studying the chronology of the war from this point on, one cannot help but remark that the actions on the Western and Eastern Fronts begin to have some resemblance to a good team of bridge players working a crossruff against the Germans. Just as the Germans are about to attack on one front, the Allies can mount

an attack on another front, drawing German forces away from their initial objective and weakening both the German forces and their morale.