Joe Richard, the young officer working in the Australian unit who spotted the telltale digit pattern that led to the break in 2468, told later of how the recovery of a codebook on Okinawa, in June 1945, gave them all the translations for that period and “led to reading about the Japanese army’s preparations to fight against any landing on their home islands. These were so extensive, involving every Japanese, that the Allied general staff estimated (based on experience at Iwo Jima and Okinawa) that 1 million casualties might be expected by our allied forces, which I think induced Truman to use
...more
