Anya Carlson

Joe Rochefort's War: The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway, by Elliot Carlson Five stars The title of Elliot Carlson’s book both overstates and understates USN Commander Rochefort’s significance. He contributed strongly to the U.S. victory at Midway—a towering achievement, hardly a “war.” He didn’t really outwit Yamamoto, but his intelligence, skill, and tenacity in convincing Adm. Nimitz of the location and aim of the huge Japanese force intent on overcoming Midway was crucial to the outcome of this battle, and arguably the war, during the summer of 1942. We hasten to add the above comments cannot detract from this long, detailed, and excellent coverage of Rochefort’s naval Intelligence experience, his life in the secret Hawaiian basement during the intense early months of WWII, as well as aspects of his life before and later. Joe Rochefort felt deeply he, as a skilled intelligence analyst, had failed to predict the raid on Pearl Harbor. This guilt—despite evidence that the intelligence breakdown was elsewhere and diffuse—served as significant motivation for him as the next events of the war unfolded. This complex story is not so much about code-breaking, though the Midway outcome depended on breaking the Japanese JN-25(b) code. Rochefort, who’d spent three years becoming fluent in Japanese, brought much more than decrypting to the task of understanding the intentions and actions of the Japanese military. From fragmentary and unrelated segments (often less than 10-20 percent) of partially-decoded radio traffic, he was sometimes able to deduce the meaningful substance of the Imperial Navy’s messages. But Rochefort’s success became his downfall. Months following the triumph of predicting the disposition of the Imperial invasion force, he was ordered off Intelligence and assigned to supervise the construction of a floating drydock. His correct analysis was so resented by Navy Intelligence brass in Washington they made sure he was “reassigned.” And even though Admiral Nimitz himself recommended that Rochefort be awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his contribution, the medal was only granted many years later, posthumously. This is a wonderfully revealing tale of superb performance in time of war as well as the accompanying human failures that so clearly contrast with the brilliance, skill, and courage of a dedicated member of the military.