Most of the men in the basement room in the Pearl Harbor Naval Base worked a minimum 84-hour week. Some, notably the handful of professional cryptanalysts who formed the backbone of the Combat Intelligence Unit, worked even longer hours. The boundaries of rank and rate were ignored once the men were in the room. The weary man in the red smoking jacket and bedroom slippers commanded the group not only by virtue of his commission as a full Commander of the United States Navy but also because of his intelligence, his knowledge of the Japanese language, and his vast knowledge of Japanese ship movements. Everyone in the group shared one consuming interest: to crack the Japanese military codes, to get one part of the codes broken so that they could go on to reading more and more of the codes. They literally lived in the basement room, eating sandwiches and soup brought in from the Navy galley on the base. More often than not they slept on cots in the basement room, unwilling to leave the room, unable to physically leave the nagging probabilities of this group of numbers or that group.
As time went on some success in reading portions of the Japanese military code was achieved. But with this success came a danger: If information about Japanese ship movements gleaned from the code breaking were to be widely disseminated it was certain the Japanese would realize their codes had been broken and would change them. That possibility brought a paralysis of fear to the code breakers.
They moved cautiously to prevent the Japanese from learning that their codes had been broken. Information of vital interest to the planners of the Pacific war was given out guardedly, in many cases, “sanitized” so its origin could never be revealed. The burden of these decisions weighed heavily on the cryptanalysts. In the end it was the endless work of this group, their utter devotion to their jobs, that was the linchpin on which the success of the Pacific war turned.
In Fremantle Mike Brannon sat in a wicker chair facing Admiral Christie and his staff. The chair creaked under his solid weight as he shifted position. The Admiral looked up from a folder on the table in front of him.
“Mike,” he said slowly, “it’s time we took you and the other submarine Captains into confidence, the deepest, the most secret confidence we can emphasize.
“From time to time we have been getting reports from our intelligence people in Pearl Harbor about Japanese ship movements. These reports have turned out to be amazingly accurate. These intelligence reports are called Ultra Codes, and they are so damned secret that not very many people have even seen them.
“You and other submarine Captains will be getting Ultra intelligence when you’re on war patrol. But we’ve got to be awfully careful that we don’t give away what our people in Pearl have accomplished. So Washington intelligence people have suggested a system, a code within a code.
“For example: You might get a message telling you to leave one end of your patrol area and go to the other end and cruise on such and such a course on such and such a day. That part of the message will contain a separate code within a code, and when you decipher it — you’ll be given the code books before you go to sea — you’ll learn that you will proceed to a different part of the area on a different day and patrol on a different course. The information about what targets you can expect will be in yet another code, which we’re sure the Japs haven’t begun to crack. But if they crack the standard code we use to direct submarines and learn that you’re supposed to go to, let’s say, the east end of your patrol area — when you’re really going to the west end as per the code within a code — then if you sink the targets the Ultra people sent you the Japs will think that their ships got nailed by some submarine that just happened to be passing through that area.
“In short, we can’t take a chance of letting the Jap know we can read his codes. We have to assume that the Jap can read some of our codes, but we’re awfully damned sure he can’t read out top-secret codes. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Brannon said. “It’s an operation of, well, misdirection as far as the Japanese are concerned, sir.”
“Exactly,” the Admiral said. “And that leads me to point number two. In order for this thing to work your navigator has to know where your ship is every hour of the day and night. I’m not saying this applies to you, Mike, but there’s too much slack, too much sloppiness out there on war patrol. Sun sights aren’t taken by periscope every day at noon. Star sights are taken every three or four nights, not every night. That sort of thing has to stop. You have to know where you are every moment, we have to know. If a valuable target is coming we have to know which submarine is in the best position to intercept. When Captain Mealey was sent to intercept the battleship en route to Truk — that was an Ultra operation by the way — we knew exactly where the Mako was because Captain Mealey runs a damned taut ship.” The Admiral stood up.
“I don’t want to keep you from your R and R, Mike. My aides will be in touch with you when you go back to your ship. Our intelligence people will brief you fully on the new codes we’ll be using.”
Brannon left the Bend of the Road compound in the car the Admiral’s aide had provided for him. He grinned to himself as he settled back in the car seat. If the code breakers in Pearl could send him targets he’d be happy. Maybe with this new system there would be less aimless cruising in the hope that an enemy ship would come by.
The bus loaded with Eelfish volunteers for a day’s hunting and barbecue pulled up at a rambling group of buildings in the flat desert country that Australians call the Outback, ninety miles east of Perth. A burly Australian rancher held a gate open, and the bus rolled through and stopped. Chief Flanagan got out of the bus and walked up to the rancher, who was closing the gate.
“I’m Chief Flanagan of the Eelfish, sir,” he said.
“Jim Biggs, here,” the Aussie said. He stuck out a work-hardened hand. “Welcome to you and your people.”
“I’ll line up my people,” Flanagan said. “Then you can talk to all of them at once, Mr. Biggs.” He turned and growled out orders and the twenty men who had volunteered for the day’s outing shuffled into two ragged lines.
“This is our host, Mr. Biggs,” Flanagan said. He turned to the Aussie. “All yours, sir.”
“Too right,” the Australian said. “Well now, chaps. Not to stand on ceremony or things like that. But a few words of warning.
“This is what we call the Outback. Mainly desert. Very little water, very damned little. Most places there’s no water at all. Nearest water from here is about eighteen miles. So you don’t leave the ranch without two water bottles hanging from the saddle.
“You’ll hunt in parties of five men, two parties out at one time. Each party will be under one of my trackers.” He turned and indicated two small, very black men who were standing to one side.
“Joe and Pete are abos,” Biggs said. “Abo is our way of saying aborigine for short. Some people call them Stone Age men, and I guess the tribes that live far out in the Outback are Stone Age people.
“Joe and Pete are men of great dignity. Great ability. They can see farther with their naked eye than you can with a pair of bloody binoculars. They can smell water two feet under the sand where you can see nothing but dry sand. They can live all their lives on raw lizards, ants and bugs, and grubs that would turn your bloody stomachs. And mine.