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

Yet in June [1944] major Soviet offensive activity in Belorussia followed the Allied Normandy landings by seventeen days. The second major Soviet offensive against German forces in Poland, which began on 12 July, preceded the Allied breakout from Normandy (Operation COBRA of 25 July) by thirteen days. The landing of Allied forces in southern France on 15 August and the threatened (but failed) encirclement of German forces at Falaise preceded the Soviet offensive into Rumania by five days.” As intelligence officers often say, there is no such thing as a series of coincidences.

Too, the Soviets reveal they will be adamant in refusing to allow the Americans to have airfields in Siberia that would facilitate the shuttle-bombing of Japanese cities. This means that the Americans will have to endure horrendous casualties capturing islands such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa so they can effectively hit Japanese cities with heavy bombers.

In other words, Washington and London now know that what they had hoped would happen has indeed happened. Japan will not attack Russia in Siberia. And Germany cannot extricate itself from Russia. The German army is caught in the dangerous quicksand of a war in Russia plus war in Europe. No matter how hard Germany will fight in the future, she has already lost everything she might have hoped to gain when her troops first set out in 1939 to expand the Nazi empire.

With the beginning of July, General Marshall learns just how effective the U.S. Navy’s submarines have been in the South Pacific. A message from Saigon to Tokyo reveals that the Japanese naval authorities are now so worried about sinkings that, in the future, “no ship will be allowed to travel except in convoy.”38 This is the first report from any Japanese source indicating that the loss of ships has become a prime worry for Tokyo.

Meantime, the battle at Kursk begins. Ambassador Oshima asks about the significance of the action from his sources in Berlin. He reports to Tokyo that he was told: “The action is chiefly intended to straighten out the German line and is not the real thing.”41 On July 9, Oshima reports that the Germans have failed in their U-boat war. The major news in this message to Tokyo is that because of new Allied techniques in defending convoys, the U-boats are ordered to end their wolf-pack attacks.42 This is the best news Prime Minister Churchill and his staff could receive.

Meanwhile, in Russia the battle of Kursk has been raging since July 4. The scope of the battle is staggering. The German attack includes 900,000 men supported by 2,500 tanks and assault cannon. Opposing them are 1,300,000 Russian troops and 3,000 tanks. Given the even strength of the combatants, it is an attack that requires surprise if the Germans are to be successful. Thanks to Magic, all surprise was lost months earlier.

Now, faced with the invasion of Sicily on July 10, Hitler cancels his Operation CITADEL, the double envelopment of the Russian forces inside the Kursk salient. The cancellation is caused not by a lack of German success in the attack, but because the Allied landings in Sicily necessitate the shipping of German reinforcements from the Russian front to the West. Weakened by this loss of men and material, the Germans bleed and die on the Eastern Front. By mid-August, the Russians will win the greatest tank battle of the war, inflict extremely heavy casualties upon the Germans and reach the outskirts of the strategic city

of Kharkov. Hitler never again launches a major attack in Russia. More significantly, from now on German forces will be compl...

One of the great controversies of World War II is the effectiveness of the conflicting bombing campaigns conducted by the English and the Americans. The English believe in bombing by night; the Americans prefer precision bombing by daylight. None of the history books about the war mention that the Japanese determine by personal inspection that the American program is far more effective than the British one.

According to the analysts in Washington, the principal points of Oshima’s report are that Allied propaganda magnifies the damage done by bombs to factories. The nighttime bombing by the British has made no particular attempt to hit factories; instead there have been indiscriminate attacks on cities per se. The factor that is “giving headaches to the Germans” is the high-altitude precision bombing by the Americans. The source for this important information is none other than the great flier Major General Galland, now the inspector of fighter planes for the German Air Force. According to Galland, the Germans are preparing new plans of attack against the American bomber formations, and Oshima carefully lists all of them, which has to please American strategists. As a stinging rebuttal to the British, Oshima reports: “The British brag about what they did to the Blohm and Voss submarine assembly plant [in Hamburg], but with my own eyes I saw that they had scored scarcely a single hit on the machine shops.”

The analysts in Washington carefully note the available British and American intelligence on the bombing of the cities that Oshima reports about. The analysts say: “In some cases Oshima’s account can be reconciled with the Allied reports. In other cases, however, notably that of Cologne [where Oshima reported that only residential areas had been hit], Oshima’s account is decidedly at variance with Allied reports. But if the American bomber command needs confirmation about the success of its tactics when arguing with the British, the report from Oshima, and others that follow in the same vein, could not be more welcome.

The analysts in Washington note that Hidaka is saying that when Mussolini met Hitler on July 19, Il Duce must have seen that all Hitler was thinking of doing was to establish a defense line across the Appenine Mountains from Leghorn to Ancona. Thus, when the Fascist Grand Council met, Italy was faced with only two alternatives: either retire to the north and fight or get out of the war. The majority of the Council voted against withdrawing northward and continuing the war, and that decision brought about Mussolini’s downfall. Hidaka then ends his report with some prescient commentary. “If the Germans try to take over part of Italy and defend it against the will of the Italians, the Italian troops which are maintaining order from Greece to Dalmatia and the approximately twelve Italian divisions stationed in southern France will no longer assist the Germans and … will

welcome the enemy in. The effect on the German rear and the increased burden of the German forces will be terrible, and the Balkans and Germany’s other allies will be shaken to their foundations. Unless Germany has sufficient judgment to understand the Italian crisis and to consider what is best for Italy … it may turn out that the battle of Italy is in fact the battle of Germany.… The war in Europe may become a battle for and by Germany pure and simple. This brings up very serious questions as far as we Japanese are concerned, as I do not need to tell you.”

“The real problem still is the Eastern Front,” says von Papen. “… If the tide doesn’t change, and the Eastern Front stays as it is today, we [Germany] will be at a loss for reserves. Then both militarily and politically our backs will be to the wall. We have to face that possibility. In order to get out of that dilemma, the only thing we can do is the thing that America and England dread most—make peace with Russia. But, as I have often explained to you, I will have to admit that I don’t see how a peace with the Soviet Union can possibly be achieved. “There seem to be quite a few Germans who want to see you Japanese attack Russia in order to bolster the German-Soviet front. But I am against it.… That is what Roosevelt wants. If Japan attacks Russia, American planes will smash Japan to pieces and Roosevelt will be sitting on top of the world and get himself a fourth term to boot. He is one man we do not want reelected. It would ruin us.” Meanwhile the Japanese ambassador to Indochina expresses his concern to Tokyo about how to curtail Allied air raids that are inflicting “serious damage upon ships, harbors, equipment and factories. [Unless we stop the raids] our plans for enterprises in Indo-China are apt to be brought to a standstill.”

At the moment, no one knows the death toll in Hamburg. As we will see, however, the Japanese are so worried by the “firestorm” created by mixing incendiary booms with high-explosive devices—most houses in Japan are made of wood and not the brick and stone found in German cities—that they carefully start tracking down bomb damage in Germany.

For the first time, the Japanese sound frightened. The fate of their homeland is becoming clear to them, and they start trying to make Tokyo understand what lies in store for the homeland.

Oshima also believes that Germany is faced with a life-or-death battle with the Soviet. But the Nazi Party is still so strong politically, and Germany’s military defenses so firm, that there is little cause for “undue” anxiety on Tokyo’s part. Of extreme interest to Washington is the conclusion of Oshima’s message, which is given to General Marshall verbatim. “A compromise peace is out of the question,” Oshima tells Tokyo. “I asked Hitler whether he intends to make peace with Russia, and he replied by stating that, unless Germany made peace with Russia and turned on America and England, no one could tell how long the war would last or how it would turn out. However, he went on to say that, if Germany is to wage a long war against America and England, the Ukraine is absolutely necessary to him and therefore he would not consider peace with the Soviet unless he got that area. And he added that as things now stand, Russia certainly has no intention of making peace with Germany by sacrificing the Ukraine.”

“The Americans and the British are unpredictable; they do not fight in an outright manner the way we Germans and Japanese do. Their policy is first to get air bases and then, under protection from the air, to creep up on us. Before long, as things look now, they are going to be on the Italian mainland.

“When they land, I certainly am not going to be fool enough to fight them down at the tip of the boot. There are plenty of fine encampments north of Rome. There in natural fortifications I shall form three lines: one, over the Apennines; two, along the River Po; and three, in the Alps. Also, now that Sicily is gone … we Germans must strengthen our garrisons everywhere in Southern Europe. I am going to send reinforcements to the Balkans, Southern France, and Italy proper.”

By mid-1943, the Japanese are becoming more and more concerned about the subject. Oil is the lifeblood of the Japanese home islands. Thus, the stability of Iran is of ever-increasing concern to Tokyo. Washington is also concerned, and the Magic analysts note a special message from the Japanese ambassador in Ankara to Tokyo.77 “The Russians are spreading a great deal of propaganda in Iran,” he tells Tokyo. “They are trying to Sovietize Iranian Azerbaijan and are promising the people independence and union with Soviet Azerbaijan. They are supplying munitions to the Kurds and other minority groups and are stirring them up to revolt.” He also points out that Russia is trying to get Communist representatives elected to the National Parliament, while England worries that Russia may extend her control to the Persian Gulf. He claims that the majority of Iranians hate both England and Russia and hope for a German victory. Followers of the former shah [Reza Pahlavi, forced to abdicate in 1941] are trying to exploit these feelings, and they meet at night with the Shah to plot the revival of pro-German sentiment.

“In my opinion the Soviet is Japan’s primary enemy,” Oshima quotes Hitler as saying. “However, whether or not Japan is to attack her is up to Japan.… Far be it from us Germans to give military advice to a nation that ran such a risk and came out so victorious as Japan did at Pearl Harbor. In the fight against Russia antitank guns and tanks are extremely important. I don’t know how well the Japanese forces are equipped with these weapons, but if they begin a fight in Russia and subsequently meet with disaster, all the Axis allies would be seriously hampered. No, I think we had better leave such matters up to Japan and trust her to do what she thinks is right.” This statement is significant to Washington because it reveals that Hitler is warning his military to stop pressuring him to get the Japanese to fight Russia. (In his report to Tokyo of August 4, 1943, Okamoto stated that Germany’s highest leaders “clearly understand our attitude toward Russia,” but that the German Army does not “see quite that far.” Okamoto warned: “We will have to watch out for these German militarists.”

In his summation for Tokyo, Oshima says that “although [Hitler] did not appear to be damning the Italian army … he has made up his mind, and, if necessary, he is ready to send German troops into Italy. If Italy tries to rush into a separate peace, he will use his troops at one of three lines to defend the European fortress.” The warning to Washington is clear: the sooner Allied troops can land in Italy, the better.

Colonel McCormack’s analysts attach their first account of Vlassov’s activities to this report. They cite Vlassov’s background in China as a military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek in 1938, and that, in 1942, he was named deputy commander of the Leningrad Front. Transferred later to the Volkhov Front, Vlassov was captured by the Germans in July. Nothing was heard of Vlassov until March 25, 1943, when he spoke over radio Vistula, a German propaganda station beaming programs to Russia. Vlassov renounced the Russian regime during the broadcast and said he was organizing a Russian Army of Liberation. Said McCormack’s analysts: “Axis-controlled broadcasts in satellite countries have recently been playing up Vlassov’s movement.” Judging from the detailed amount of Magic/Ultra intercepts about Vlassov, this writer finds it difficult to believe claims by British and American officers of high rank that they were unaware of Vlassov’s anti-Communist activities during the war.

The analysts in Washington note that for several years Germany has been almost self-sufficient in grains. She produces nearly 24 million metric tons yearly. The Ukraine has been supplying 500,000 metric tons says Oshima, which is more than anyone had thought. This means that on this front the German Army has been supplying itself locally, which is significant because Germany did not have to export grain to feed all her troops, nor did she have to strain her transportation system. According to Oshima, this is why Germany cannot give up the Ukraine without affecting Germany’s overall food supply and national morale.

Back in June, Tokyo had asked Oshima to report on why there had been a decline in Allied shipping losses. He spoke with Admiral Doenitz and the Chief of the German Naval Strategic Section and learned that the Allies had a new direction finder and were using auxiliary aircraft carriers. This had forced the Germans to give up using wolf packs.

This is why Doenitz has gotten Hitler’s approval to double the production of U-boats. The production schedule has been so effective that Doenitz pushed the offensive forward a month. The U-boats are also using a new method of attack. Now they will first strike the escort vessels. Torpedoes, guns and radio location apparatus have been upgraded. The U-boats can escape detection by Allied bombers in the Bay of Biscay, the main route to and from the Atlantic battlefield, because they can spot the Allied planes first.

Furthermore, Doenitz admits he can no longer count on the Luftwaffe for assistance. This is the chink in the German U-boat strategy that the Allies must exploit. German aerial surveillance of the North Atlantic convoy

routes must be stopped; Allied aerial supremacy over the Bay of Biscay must be established so that U-boats cannot travel on the surface by day or night.

The accuracy of his report is upheld by the fact that Stalin opens up a new offensive to recapture Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In mid-October Stalin will strike again in the south on the Dnieper Bend; by the end of the month the Crimea will once again belong to Russia. The fighting is horrific, but the Germans cannot hold their defensive positions anywhere.

Oshima had broached the subject after Ribbentrop claimed that events in the Mediterranean had forced the Germans to withdraw twelve divisions from the Eastern Front. (This is significant proof to Washington that its strategy is stretching German military capabilities to the breaking point; twelve divisions withdrawn from the Eastern Front ensures the success of the current Soviet attacks.)

The best-educated guesses around the various European capitals is that the Luftwaffe will be given new planes and a new, superpowerful bomb. Now Oshima reports that a terror weapon will be unleashed: long-range rocket guns. The date for the new weapon’s use: mid-December. According to Oshima, the effect of the new weapons as a “means of military retaliation will be equaled only by the political reverberations.”

For the moment, however, the key element for the Allies to know is that the Germans are adopting a defense that relies on mobile, hard-hitting reserve forces; the German plan is not to stop the invasion at the high-tide mark on the beaches.

Oshima quotes him on this as saying: “[The Allies] have two courses: either they will go north in Italy or they will try to land in the Balkans. I am inclined to believe they will take the latter course. I am going to concentrate German troops between Naples and Rome for the time being, and if the Allies go into the Balkans, I will immediately take the initiative. “On the Italian mainland, we will have to use about eighteen German divisions at the front line, in addition to troops needed to maintain peace and order in the rear. In the Balkans our forces amount to twenty divisions. We are now laying siege to the islands along the Dalmatian coast. I feel fairly certain that we can make Dalmatia ours.”

As for the war on the Eastern Front, Hitler says: “Because of the Italian catastrophe, I had to send a total of 24 divisions [emphasis added] to the Mediterranean area, which required me to take first-line soldiers from the Eastern Front and also other troops who could have been sent to the East. Also, I now have to look out for the future and keep powerful forces in reserve.” Hitler then tells Oshima that his fighting retreat in Russia has cost the Russians 3.5 million casualties.

“Since the collapse of Italy, what I have been most anxious to do is take the offensive in both the south and the east, but it has become clear that this is impossible because of a lack of planes, parts and ammunition. Therefore, I have finally had to adopt a defensive strategy, although this is the very first time since the war began that we Germans have had to do so. [Emphasis added.] Nevertheless, I am arranging to organize and equip forty new divisions that I can use in the East by next spring and am also preparing airplanes and other material. At that time, in conjunction with action in the south, I intend to take the offensive again against the Soviet armies.

How much more could the Allied planners ask for? Oshima has done them the favor of exposing Hitler’s strategy for the coming months. It only remains now for the order-of-battle experts to pick apart the information relating to the divisions and locations of defense lines that Hitler has given, apply the information to the appropriate front and get the news to the local commanders for action to be taken. It allows the Allies to play “mind games” with the Germans by pressuring them in opposition to German intentions, forcing the Germans to shift reserves away from German goals, and setting up the “crossruff” of Allied attacks in unexpected places at the least convenient time for the German defenses.

“There is no evidence that the rumors have any basis in fact, and there is good evidence to the contrary.… Ambassador Oshima was convinced that, even though Ribbentrop may be ready to settle with the Soviet, nevertheless the Fuehrer is still in control of Germany’s relations with Russia and has no intention of making a peace.”28 The analysts also say, “The official German propaganda line is to stress the solidarity of Russia and England and America and to deny all reports of a Russian-German peace.” Who is responsible for the rumors? According to the analysts: “German officials, as well as some other observers, profess to believe that the Russians have been manufacturing the peace rumors in order to exert pressure on the English and Americans to provide a second front and to yield to the Soviet’s postwar demands.”

In the first days of November 1943 there comes a ten-day lapse in the Magic Summaries. Almost every page for these ten days is still censored fifty years after the fact.

It turns out that while Churchill is at sea, he learns of the German assault in which the British garrison is routed and the islands seized by the Germans. According to British historians, Churchill’s ambitions in the Balkans take a heavy blow from this news and he is forced to go ashore in Malta for two days, because of illness.

The Germans consider the beaches of Normandy to be only a secondary target for the invasion, which means they will keep their primary defensive forces elsewhere and the Allies will have to employ a number of subterfuges to keep the Germans thinking the way they do. 2. The Germans are planning for their mobile reserves to break up an invasion, which means secure methods must be found to keep these mobile forces pinned down.

3. Oshima gives a comprehensive picture of the German command structure as it is designed to defeat an invasion, which means that ways must be found to neutralize the effectiveness of specific commanders and their commands. 4. Not all the German troops are under the command of Field Marshal Rundstedt, which is a horrible mistake. At least twelve independent tank battalions (Tigers and Panthers), plus ten depot divisions that are training troops and several other “field divisions,” will be under “the control of General ‘HUROMU’ in Germany.” In reality, this means that Hitler controls von Rundstedt’s reserves. If the invasion planners can create enough confusion in the communications between the beaches of Normandy and Berlin, Hitler will not be able to make a rational decision about when, where and how to commit his reserves. In turn this means von Rundstedt will be forced to fight without knowing where his reserves are, or when he can count on their arrival.

During the author’s thirty-year career in publishing, I was never able to commission a novel, or a combat autobiography, that spanned the entire Pacific war. The reason: American units suffered such heavy casualties that no “fighting characters” survived multiple invasion landings. This publishing phenomenon was confirmed for me over the years by the agents Don Congden of the Harold Matson agency (Don was a Marine in the Pacific) and Jane Cushman of JCA Literary Agency. We all wanted such books.

Thus, MIS WD London will have three primary functions. First, U.S. liaison officers working with British personnel at GC&CS will examine incoming enemy decrypts, select those that should be sent to recipients in the various zones of combat and draft the signals necessary for disseminating the information. Second, American liaison officers at GC&CS will examine messages and summaries, picking out the most important for transmittal to Washington and G-2 (Intelligence) in the War Department (Army). Last, a special group of U.S. liaison officers will be properly trained at GC&CS and then attached to field commands “where an American officer is Commander-in-Chief.” The function of these liaison officers will be to advise the commander on Ultra matters and “overcome difficulties that might arise in regard to difference in language.” This is a polite way of saying that when the American Ultra liaison officer finds that his old-fashioned commander is unable to comprehend the significance of the Ultra secret intelligence he is receiving from a young whippersnapper without combat, or even much Army, experience, the liaison officer is supposed to find some other way of getting his message across so it can be used effectively against the enemy.

For security and other reasons, the British want to maintain their monopoly and prevent Arlington Hall from setting up a separate establishment to produce and exploit CX/MSS in Washington, presumably as a part of G-2. What the three Americans first need to do is find out if Washington really needs its own CX/MSS center, or whether more satisfactory results can be obtained from having the Americans work with the British in Bletchley Park.

The truth is that Taylor has discovered that the British, with good reason as we will see later, do not trust the Americans to keep the Ultra material secret. Of greater importance is the fact that, in the past, the two British ministries have transmitted only a “little order of battle intelligence derived from Source, and that in a form quite inadequate for the needs of the German Order of Battle Section in G-2.”

What the British are finally facing up to is the fact that the European war is about to become American-run. There will be far more American troops, airmen and airplanes, ships and landing craft involved than there will be British. It means the new war in Europe will have to be fought by American rules. No wonder the British ministries are upset.

It is to Taylor’s credit that he is able to persuade the British on the validity of two points. The first is that intelligence of more than momentary significance, which is important

enough to send out to various commands abroad, is also important enough to be sent to responsible staff officers in Washington. Information considered important enough for British ministries in terms of long-range planning is equally important for the intelligence people (MIS, WD) in Washington. Second, and this is most important, the selection of material to be passed on to Washington must not be done by British officers in British ministries, but at Bletchley Park by Americans who are familiar with the requirements of the American G-2.

One of the most important matters is who will be the men chosen to handle the Ultra/Magic information in the field? This is where Colonel McCormack’s genius shows.2 Rather than allow the Army to assign any reserve officer or college graduate who happens to be available for the job, McCormack deems the work can “be done effectively only by imaginative persons of absolutely first-class ability and suitable training.” His MIS operation reports only to General Marshall and the Secretary of War. This makes MIS vulnerable to roadblocks thrown up by civil service experts and delays posed by Army personnel officers who are angry that the unit is secret and they cannot control what is going on. And so Colonel McCormack turns to the field from which he comes, the law, and picks men of exceptional brilliance.

On March 15, 1944, Marshall will write a letter to Eisenhower spelling out in exact detail what the role of these American intelligence men shall be. Perhaps this is why Eisenhower never gives intelligence any credit for his success in Europe. It wasn’t his idea, his baby. It belonged to Marshall, and Marshall will tell Eisenhower that, as chief of staff, he will brook no interference with this operation. Marshall orders Eisenhower to cooperate, or else. The success of OVERLORD will depend on many senior American officers, who have never before commanded large forces in battle, accepting the information provided by youthful Ultra intelligence representatives.