In one of the most closely held secrets of the war, Navy cryptographers at Pearl Harbor had succeeded in breaking many-though by no means all-of the Japanese military and diplomatic codes. The operation involved with decrypting the Japanese messages was called MAGIC; it was a major American triumph.
Still, once the intercepted messages were decrypted, most of them did not make complete sense; for the intercepted messages were all deeply impregnated with Japanese culture and traditions. Thus analysts were needed who were not only familiar with the language but who could almost feel and react to the messages the way a Japanese would.
Lieutenant Hon was also one of the very few people who had unquestioned access to the Classified Documents Vault. When a TOP SECRET document was signed out, and later returned, it was his duty to make sure it had been returned in its entirety. It would be impossible to do that without counting pages and looking at the maps.
Additionally, he had other duties involving Captain Fleming Pickering, USNR, personally. Since Pickering had been charged by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox to provide his assessment of what was going on, and since very often his assessments were not flattering to any number of highly placed people, these assessments had to be kept secret not only from the enemy but from everybody in Supreme Headquarters SWPOA as well.
Hon personally encrypted all communications between Pickering and Secretary Knox, and was thus privy to information known only to Pickering.
And on top of that, they had become friends. Pickering not only genuinely liked the outsize Korean, he felt a little sorry for him: The nature of Hon's duties shut him off from other junior officers; and off duty, he was in Australia. Australians did not like Asiatics-there were rigid immigration and even tourist regulations against them. It made no difference to them that Pluto Hon was a native-born American and an officer in the United States Army.
Lieutenant "Pluto" Hon stood up when Pickering walked into his tiny office. He was eating a Hershey bar.
"Good afternoon, Sir."
Hon had a thick Massachusetts accent. Pickering, a Harvard man himself, knew the dialect well. Hon was also a large and tall man, which Pickering thought of as another inconsistency. Orientals were supposed to be slight.
"How goes it, Pluto?" Pickering said, "I don't suppose you've got another Hershey bar?"
Hon took a small box of them from a desk drawer and handed it to Pickering.
"Aren't they feeding the brass these days?" Hon asked.
"I was sitting at the foot of the throne," Pickering said, as he unwrapped the Hershey bar. "The emperor was not hungry, so we didn't eat."
Pluto chuckled. "I also have peanuts," he said.
"Thank you, this will hold me. I'm eating at the palace, too. Where you will play bridge starting at about seven."
"I don't mind," Hon said. "He's one hell of a bridge player."
"Tonight it's the Empress and me against you and the throne," Pickering said.
"What have you got for me to brighten my otherwise dull day?"
"Two personals," Pickering said. "Oh, and before I forget it..."
He took the onion skins from his pocket and handed them to Hon.
"Burn those for me, will you?"
Hon took them and matter-of-factly started to read them.
"This must be the straight poop," he said. "KLW is a Lieutenant Commander named Ken Waldman. In MAGIC."
"How can you be sure?" Pickering asked, and then, without waiting for a reply, asked, "You know him?"
"Who else would have this much hard data this quick? Yeah, I know him. He was at MIT, too."
He held one sheet of the onion skin over a metal waste basket and touched the flame of his Zippo to it. It caught fire so quickly that Pickering suspected it had been chemically treated to do that.
Hon lit another sheet.
"You get this from that commander who flew in this morning?"
"Yeah. A commander."
"Mine had a briefcase chained to his wrist and a gun," Hon said. "He stopped in here and asked where he could find you before he gave me his stuff."
"Must be the same guy."
"What's the personals?"
"One to Nimitz. Powerful words of congratulation," Pickering said, and handed the envelope to Hon.
Hon tore it open and started to read it.
"What's the other one?"
"Personal to Marshall."
"What's it say?"
"I don't know, it's sealed," Pickering said, and handed it to him.
Hon read it, raised his eyebrows, and handed it to Pickering. "Based on my vast professional military experience, I don't think he's going to get away with that."
Pickering was reluctant to take the document, but curiosity overwhelmed his reticence. His curiosity was rationalized by his orders stating that it would be presumed he had the Need to Know anything that interested him. And as Hon turned to his cryptographic machine to encode the Personal to Nimitz, he read the Personal to Marshall.
TOP SECRET
FROM SUPREME HQ SWPOA
TO WAR DEPARTMENT WASH DC
FOLLOWING EYES ONLY GENERAL GEORGE C. MARSHALL CHIEF OF STAFF
PERSONAL FOR GENERAL MARSHALL
MY DEAR GEORGE X I HAVE TODAY DISPATCHED VIA OFFICER COURIER INITIAL PLANS FOR AN OPERATION I WOULD LIKE TO COMMENCE AS SOON AS I CAN OBTAIN AUTHORITY FROM THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFFX IT IS MY INTENTION TO STRIKE IN THE NEW BRITAIN DASH NEW IRELAND AREA USING THE US 32ND AND 41ST INFANTRY DIVISIONS AND THE AUSTRALIAN 7TH DIVISION ALL PRESENTLY IN AUSTRALIA X ONCE DRIVEN FROM NEW BRITAIN DASH NEW IRELAND THE JAPANESE WOULD BE FORCED BACK TO TRUK X TO ACCOMPLISH THE INITIAL ASSAULT AND FOR A PERIOD NOT TO EXCEED THIRTY DAYS THEREAFTER MY PLAN WOULD REQUIRE THE USE OF PAREN A PAREN ONE INFANTRY DIVISION TRAINED AND EQUIPPED FOR AMPHIBIOUS OPERATIONS X PAREN B PAREN AIR COVER FROM CARRIER BASED AIRCRAFT X PAREN C PAREN A SUITABLE NAVAL FORCE TO BOMBARD THE HOSTILE SHORE AND GUARD SHIPPING LANES X ONCE THE BEACHHEAD IS ESTABLISHED I CAN QUICKLY BEGIN AERIAL OPERATIONS FROM EXISTING FIELDS AND WILL NOT HAVE FURTHER NEED OF NAVAL ASSISTANCE X I MOST EARNESTLY SOLICIT NOT ONLY YOUR SUPPORT BUT ONCE YOU HAVE READ THE DETAILED PLANS YOUR WISE COUNSEL AS TO THEIR EFFICACY X TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE X WITH MY MOST SINCERE EXPRESSION OF REGARD I REMAIN AS ALWAYS FAITHFULLY DOUGLAS X END PERSONAL TO GENERAL MARSHALL
TOP SECRET
"The Navy's not going to loan him the First Marines and a couple of aircraft carriers," Hon said when he was sure Pickering had had time to read the Personal to Marshall. "Are they?"
His fingers were still flying over the cryptographic machine's typewriter keys as he talked. Hon always baffled Pickering when he did that. How could one part of his brain type while another part engaged in conversation?