Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Piercing the Fog
Given the overall shortage of funds within both the Navy and War Departments
during the middle and late 1930s, it is not surprising that precious few dollars
and resources were made available to support the code breakers’ efforts to
attack the Japanese codes and ciphers. That the effort survived as it did until
1941 was most fortunate.”’
The two military departments insisted upon operating their own collection
and decryption efforts. In an apparent prewar economy effort, they alternated
submitting their analyses and reportage to Washington’s senior decision makers.
Given the compartmentalization inherent in all SIGINT, this splintering of
analytical resources complicated a difficult situation. The geography and
environment of the Pacific area further aggravated the situation in the years
before Pearl Harbor. Given the maritime character of the Pacific region, the
Navy Department viewed this area as its own. The Office of Naval Intelligence
(ONI) concentrated on diplomatic traffic with naval implications. The MIS of
the War Department concerned itself primarily with the Army’s lonely fortress
in the Philippines as well as the forces in Hawaii. The Army’s interests lay in
the land war in China and potential Japanese ground operations elsewhere. Air
intelligence tended to get lost between these two elements.
Also important in understanding the working of Special Branch were
intraservice bureaucratic interests. Within the War and Navy Departments,
responsibilities for SIGINT were divided. The signal departments of each
service became responsible for interception and decryption of enemy messages.
Detailed analysis and subsequent dissemination was the responsibility of the
services’ intelligence chiefs-the War Department’s G-2 and the Navy’s ONI.
Presumably, the two individuals heading these specific organizations were to
prescribe priorities for interception and decryption; left unresolved was overall
responsibility. The Pearl Harbor disaster served as mute evidence of unsettled
priorities and divided responsibilities.
Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Henry L. Stimson, now Secretary of War, and
probably with the support of President Roosevelt, concluded that Japanese
diplomatic traffic was not being given sufficiently close attention. Stimson set
about finding a better method, and in doing so he decided that the problem
could best be solved by a person with an executive background and experienced
in handling and presenting large cases involving complicated facts.’*’ The
Secretary of War turned to a New York lawyer and former colleague, Alfred
McCormack, and charged him with recommending overall improvements to the
signals analysis task. McCormack, commissioned for the purpose, joined Col.
Carter W. Clarke in Washington. The two soon formed what would become
Special Branch, responsible within the War Department for analysis and
dissemination of intercepted SIGINT. An agreement with the Navy Department
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation consolidated the diplomatic effort in
Special Branch. Special Branch also handled review and interpretation of
Japanese Army signals while the Navy concentrated on Japanese naval traffic. lX1
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