14 August 2010
 
Seated Under a Tree

(Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, 1942, photo wiki commons via ?????)

Jim filled my wineglass to the precise point in the Tulip where the air could mingle sufficiently with the ambient air to produce a delightful aroma while not encouraging the alcohol to evaporate. I was getting to the point that I did not care, pleasantly warm in all my appendages, but the ritual was a comfort.
 
Mac contemplated another Virgin Mary, which could only evaporate the essence of tomato and olive, and decided he had enough vegetables for the day. I knew we were about to draw to the end of this session at Willow, so I underlined the notes about Pearl getting surprised again- or better, warnings ignored- and asked the question.
 
“They found the Admiral seated under a tree, from what I have read.”
 
Mac nodded, shifting gears from his earliest months in Hawaii to nearly a year later. A fresh fish in the Dungeon basement under Joe Rochefort and Jasper Holmes to a seasoned analyst, thousands of dittoed cross-indexed files, looking at other fresh fish arriving each day with veteran eyes.
 
“Yes,” he said. “There are conflicting reports about it. Some say the initial Army patrol to the crash site found Isoroku Yamamoto still in his seat, very peaceful looking, holding his kitana- his sword- by the hilt. Thrown clear of the wreckage of the Betty bomber, they say. Other accounts had him with a couple flesh wounds. But he was dead, all right. Maybe shock.”
 
“They didn't try to recover the body?” I asked with surprise.
 
“They sent a Navy patrol the next morning, at first light. There was a great deal of service deference. The Army connection was useful, though,” Mac said, swirling the ice in the bottom of his highball glass. “The message notifying the local commands of Yamamoto’s inspection visit was passed to the Army in a less secure code than JN-25, and the Japanese assumed that was the way we were able to intercept the flight. The kitana and the insignia of rank were missing by the time the Navy patrol got there. Someone got some great souvenirs, but they have never turned up.”
 
“I will look on eBay,” I said. “This was April of 1943, right?”
 
“The 18th,” said Mac. “But we had been watching the traffic out of Rabaul very closely for months. We recovered all the traffic about the Combined Fleet moving its headquarters, and the comings and goings of fleet units in and out of Rabaul. The Harbormaster was a big help to us. He was meticulous about reporting everything that moved, and the merchant ships were on a lower-level cipher system which enabled us to recover the unit identities for some of the combatants.”
 
“Keep Cool, Fool, it’s Rabaul.” I recited the old rhyme like a modern rapper. The Admiral smiled.
 
“It certainly was, then.”
 
“So, I understand there was a relationship between Eddie Layton and Yamamoto. His book recounts a bridge game ”
 
“There certainly was, but he told me it was poker, not bridge. The Navy established a Japanese language program way back in 1910. Under the provisions of the plan, two officers a year who had completed five years of sea duty were sent on independent duty to learn the language. Eddie was sent in 1929, after serving his time on the four-stack destroyer Stack.”

“Joe Rochefort was there at the same time, right?”
 
The Admiral nodded. “That is where they met for the first time, and that highlights one of the lies that the Redmans spread, that Joe was not a qualified linguist. He most certainly was.”
 
“Eddie actually knew Yamamoto, didn’t he? That makes the whole thing sort of creepie.”
 
“We didn’t look at it that way. After all, “Terrible” Turner had his picture taken with Yamamoto when his ship called there. Eddie actually knew him pretty well. Yamamoto had participated in the Japanese equivalent of our language program, since we both knew there would ultimately be a show-down in the Pacific, and some familiarity would be useful in killing each other. Eddie first came in touch with the Admiral when he was Naval Vice-minister, and the search for Amelia Earhart was going on.”
 
“Did the Japanese kill her and Wylie Post?” I asked.
 
“Won’t ever be known, for sure. Certainly they were very defensive about what they were doing in the former German colonies, pouring all that concrete.”
 
“Eddie and Isoroku were on a first-name basis. He told me they attended an evening of kabuki, which Eddie loved. Yamamoto seemed to appreciate Eddie’s interest in the cultural life of Japan, and mostly they stayed away from business.”
 
“Wasn’t there a strict prohibition on the Americans doing anything like intelligence collection.”
 
“Absolutely. The Japanese militarists were clamping down hard on security, and placed whole distracts off limits to foreigners. But Yamamoto was always correct. He hosted a duck-netting party in the late thirties- maybe 1938- for the foreign attaches. It was one of those Japanese things where the outcome is ordained, and there will be duck sukyaki whether everyone got a duck or not.”
 
I referred to my notes. “Eddie’s book says it was three rubbers of bridge after dinner with the Admiral, and he won all three. They were drinking “John Begg whiskey in square ceramic jugs.” It was Johnny Walker Black in my days in Yokosuka that they liked.”
 
Mac shook his head. “I always heard from Eddie that it was poker. He loved the game, and he was a skilled player and usually won. I should tell you about his mission in China to play cards with the aircrew of the Warlord Chang Hsueh-liang’s Ford Tri-motor to get intelligence on his travel itinerary.”
 
“I would like to hear about that, but for now, the story about Eddie and the Admiral seems like it has a real personal element.”
 
“I suppose it did. I can only imagine what he really thought when Jasper called him on the secure line from the Dungeon and told him what we had. Jasper brought me the original message and told me to plot it out to see if it made sense, and our decrypts of the place names were correct.”
 

(Rabaul Strategi Area. Chart Courtesy Wikicommons.)

“NTF131755 was the message,” I said, peering at my notes, “and it was addressed to the commanders of Base Unit No. 1, the 11th Air Flotilla, and the 26th Air Flotilla.”
 
“Yes, it was copied by our Hypo personnel and two other stations in the Pacific.” He remembered it almost verbatim, and recited it:
 
“On 18 April CINC Combined Fleet will visit RYZ, something something, In accordance with the following schedule:
 
Depart RR at 0600 in a medium attack plane escorted by 6 fighters. Arrive RYZ at 0800. Proceed by minesweeper to somewhere else arriving at 0840.
 
At each of the above places, commander in chief will make a tour of inspection and at unknown location he will visit the sick and wounded but current operations should continue.”
 
“That sounds like there were a lot of holes in it.”
 
“Yes, but Dick Emory managed to identify some of the outlying fields, and things began to come together. Jasper knew it was significant, and after he talked to Eddie, he was told to bring it with the plot I did to the Headquarters at the Sub Base.”
 
“Didn’t Justice John Paul Stevens work on the message?” I asked. “That is a remarkable part of his biography.”
 
“There were a lot of lawyers in the intelligence billets,” said Mac. “They had the sort of skills that Forest Sherman was looking for when he set up the air intelligence program. As far as Stevens being part of the decryption team, he was in Estimates with me, which is when we used to go to lunch at the Makalapa BOQ. But I don’t remember him being there at the time. I could be wrong.”
 
“You don’t seem to be wrong about much,” I said.
 
“There are some things that just need time to get straight,” said Mac firmly. “And what happened next just gets to the point.”
 
I sighed. This was going to take another glass of wine, and my notes were starting to soak up the moisture from the base of the tulip glass. I waved to Jim at the bar, and signaled for reinforcements.

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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