Canal in both directions, according to these intercepted messages! General MILES. That was their intent and I have no doubt [2245] they carried it out pretty thoroughly.

The CHAIRMAN. And they also were receiving information, as these intercepted messages show, concerning the movement of ships in and out of the Philippines region in Manila Bay, were they?

General MILES. That is true, sir. I mentioned yesterday that I have counted 56 of those that I have deciphered.

The CHAIRMAN. And the Hawaiian Islands. Somebody in each of these regions was reporting to Tokyo, or somebody who reported to Tokyo the movement of these ships over the various periods running form 1940, some period in 1940 up to and approaching the 7th of December 1941, and the question I would like to ask is whether the Military Intelligence Division of the War Department treated all of these intercepts, so far as you know, in the same way and with the same degree of importance, or whether they singled out this information from either the Panama Canal or from Hawaii or the Philippines or southeast Asia for any special treatment in regard to precautionary measures which might be taken in any of these different regions?

[2246] General MILES. Well, they were primarily messages which concerned the Naval Intelligence rather than the Military. Obviously, Senator, we were more interested in the fact that the Japanese were following our ships in our own waters, Panama, Hawaii, and the Philippines, than we were the Dutch East Indies, or any other places headed here "miscellaneous".

The CHAIRMAN. In view of the activity of the Japanese Government in obtaining this information through these messages from various people at the Panama Canal, Manila, Honolulu, the Dutch East Indies, and Southeast Asia, was there anything in any of them, so far as you know, as head of the Military Intelligence Division, to indicate whether the Japanese Government intended to make an attack at any of these points, and, if so, which one was singled out as the most likely to be the object of such an attack?

General MILES. No, sir, taking the messages as a whole, I do not think they indicated any particular place in which you could say the Japanese will attack there, or the most probable, that they will attack there, solely based on those messages.

The CHAIRMAN. Now yesterday I think you testified with reference to the shortage of competent help in the interception, the translation, and decoding of these various messages. I would like to ask you specifically what effort you made, as [2247] head of that Division, to secure additional help so that they might be translated, decoded and intercepted more promptly than they were in many cases? General MILES. I testified this morning, Senator, that for a considerable period of time before Pearl Harbor, I cannot definitely define it, we had lent one of our language officers, successively through at least six of those gentlemen, to the S. I. S. We were not permitted, due to restrictions on personnel, to do more than that with those language officers. Although they were trained language officers, even then we had to put them through a course of training for that particular duty of translating from telegraphic Japanese, which is a language within a language, before they became fit to carry on.

In addition to that, we did what we could to find for the Signal Corps competent civilians, to aid them in this work. That, as I explained this morning, was very difficult, because there were very few in existence who could translate telegraphic Japanese accurately into English, and we must be accurate, and they had to be not only American citizens but American citizens on whose absolute loyalty and discretion we could count.

We were handling a very important secret.

The CHAIRMAN. How were those appointments made? Were they made under civil service, or did the War Department have [2248] some special plan by which it was able to secure competent persons who were able to intercept and also to translate and decode these messages?

General MILES. Well, the interception, Senator, was made by various stations of the Army, Navy, and FBI, and the FCC. That was simply a matter of pulling a message out of the air, then transmitting that message as it came out of the air in coded Japanese to Washington. Now the decoding and translation was altogether another matter, a very difficult proposition.

[2249] The CHAIRMAN. Now, pulling the message out of the air at Hawaii or Panama or the Philippines, or any other point, was simply pulling it out of the air as it was going through the air in Japanese?

General MILES. In coded Japanese.

The CHAIRMAN. In coded Japanese. They recorded the message in the Japanese code, and it had to be then transmitted from whatever station it may have been intercepted, Panama or elsewhere; is that true?

General MILES. That is correct, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Then it Washington it had to be decoded and translated into English; is that it?

General MILES. That is correct, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. So that those who were charged with that responsibility and that duty had to be, in the first place, able to pull the message out of the air, then they had to be able to decode it and translate it so it could be understood in English, and then passed on to whoever was expected to get it finally; is that true?

General MILES. Yes, sir. The same personnel that pulled it out of the air was not the same that decoded and translated it.

The CHAIRMAN. He could pull it out of the air just like it was but he could not translate it after he got it [2250] out of the air? General MILES. That is so, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. I notice many of these messages were translated and decoded within a few days after they had been received and in many other cases it was a month, or maybe in some cases, 2 months, before the translation and decoding took place. How did that happen? It seems they were not being decoded or translated in the order of their receipt or in the order of their being pulled out of the air.

How did that happen, that they were not decoded and translated in relation to the date of their receipt?

For instance, some messages received in December were not decoded and translated until February, and others were translated within a few days. Now, until they were decoded and translated, did any

body have any idea of the relative importance of these messages so as to give priority to their translation and decoding? And if that is true, how did it happen that some of them waited a month, or 2 months, to be decoded and translated while others were decoded and translated within a week and in some cases, 3 or 4 days, and some on the same day?

General MILES. Obviously, Senator, we could not evaluate the messages or give them any priority in the ordinary case. In the case that we were looking for a particular message, [2251] as was the case in the days before the receipt of the Japanese reply beginning on the 6th of December, we knew that message would be coming. We knew it would be along, we knew to whom it would be addressed, and undoubtedly that got a high priority.

But to answer your question, primarily the delay was due two factors: One, the fact, as I have already testified, that, as I understand it, the intercepting stations that picked these out of the air-and there were various stations-did not have the same facilities for transmitting that message to Washington. Some had teletypes, and they could put the message on in teletype and send it through.

Sometimes I imagine they had to be checked and re-sent because many errors were made, and would be a perfectly meaningless message to the person sending or receiving it. Other stations had no such facilities, and had to send them by mail, and airmail usually was used. The second reason, of course, was the traffic rate. Sometimes that increased enormously, and a backlog was created in the decoding and translating agencies here in Washington.

The CHAIRMAN. I find here a message intercepted from Honolulu (Okuda) which I suppose means the Japanese repre- [2252] sentative there, to Tokyo. It is No. 003. It seems to be in reply to No. 002.

Battleships New Mexico (flag)—

which I presume means flagship—

Oklahoma, Idaho, and Mississippi, together with many cruisers and destroyers left Pearl Harbor on the morning of the 6th for training.

That is the day before this message was sent.

It is reported that they will return on the (12th?)

Then there is a question mark after that in parentheses, indicating probably some doubt as to whether they would return on that day. That was a Navy translation on the 10th, which is three days after that message was transmitted.

Then there is another one on January 9, 1941, translated on the 25th, with reference to other movements:

It is reported that the light cruiser Cincinnati returned here from the Philip pine Islands. This message sent to Washington and Manila.

That is a message by some Japanese representative to the Japanese Government at Tokyo.

Then on the 16th of January, 1941:

1. The capital ships returned to Pearl Harbor immediately. The Pennsylvania arrived on the 14th.

2. The number of vessels seen in the harbor on the morning of the 16th was as follows: Five battleships [2253] (Mississippi, New Mexico, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma), five light cruisers of the Omaha class (of which one is in dock) 19 destroyers, 2 destroyer tenders, 1 - - - - -, about 6 small submarines. 1 submarine tender, 1 patrol boat, 7 vessels which may have been patrol boats. 2 transports.

3. The Yorktown is not in port.

All of which would indicate that somebody in Honolulu almost day by day was reporting to Tokyo the movement of all of our ships in and out of Pearl Harbor, and in and out of Honolulu. Some of these messages were translated and decoded within a very few days, while others were not.

Some of these translations were by the Navy, probably most by the Navy, and some by the Army.

Do you know, as head of the Intelligence Division of the War Department, by what rules, or lack of rules, some of these messages detailing the movements of our ships in and out of Pearl Harbor and in and out of Honolulu as far back as January 1941, nearly a year before the attack was made, were translated and decoded in some cases almost immediately, and in other cases not for weeks? Have you any explanation from your knowledge, as to why that happened?

General MILES. Beyond what I have testified, Senator, I have not. I understand you are going to have Colonel Sadtler [2254]

as

a witness, who can give you the details of that. I could add, however, of course, that these messages we had already discarded. We knew the Japanese were following the movement of our ships, very naturally, in Hawaii.

Much has already been said before this committee as to whether or not the presence of that fleet was a deterrent to the Japanese, but their interest in the movement of the ships was a perfectly natural activity on their part, because of the obvious fact that there was a fleet on their flank, whatever direction they chose to go, north or south.

The CHAIRMAN. The question which arises in my mind is, in view of the fact that these decoded, intercepted, and translated messages go all the way from January practically up to the attack, showing that they had detailed information with respect to the movement of the ships in and out of Pearl Harbor and in and out of Honolulu in the Hawaiian Islands, whether that gave any emphasis to the possibility of an attack in Pearl Harbor more or less than any emphasis that might have been given with respect to a possible attack on Panama, in view of the same information they were receiving from Panama or Manila, in view of the information they were receiving from Manila, or the Southwest Pacific, or southeast Asia, with respect to the same traffic information they were [2255] receiving from that region. In other words, as these intercepted messages show that Japan at Tokyo was receiving from these various points similar information with respect to the movement of all ships in these four or five regions, did the War Department, through you or your division, give any particular emphasis to anyone of these points over other points about which the same information was being conveyed?

General MILES. No, sir. Those messages as a whole, as I tried to testify yesterday, meant simply to us what we already knew, or suspected, that the Japanese were following the movement of all of our ships anywhere they appeared.

The CHAIRMAN. Did the knowledge of that fact cause any particular apprehension to the Intelligence Division that there might be an attack at any of these points in the event the situation developed to a point where there might be hostilities between the two countries?

General MILES. We knew, Senator, that, as I have said before, attack on our principal bases, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Panama, in

cluding the Philippines, was practically inherent as a high possi bility or probability in any war with Japan. The messages themselves had very little effect in emphasizing that point.

The CHAIRMAN. You testified, I believe this morning, [2256] with respect to the possibility of an attack at Pearl Harbor and the possibility of a sudden surprise attack. How do you evaluate the possibility of a sudden and surprise attack at Pearl Harbor or Hawaii with relation to the possibility of a sudden or surprise attack on Manila or on the Panama Canal, or any other of these points about which the Japanese Government was making inquiry as to the movement of ships?

General MILES. I should say that our evaluation would have been that Hawaii and the Panama Canal were about equally likely to be attacked for somewhat different reasons, but both of them were of immense strategic importance to us and immense value to the Japanese, if they could be injured or put out of business.

The CHAIRMAN. When you were in Hawaii-as operations officer was it?

General MILES. G-3, operations officer; yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. For how long? Some three years?
General MILES. Three years, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And you indulged in many war games, based upon assumptions of various kinds?

General MILES. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And in those war games you assumed that there might be an actual physical invasion of the [2257] Hawaiian Islands by the landing of troops in the harbor at Honolulu, did you, or Pearl Harbor, or both? Which was it?

General MILES. I only remembered one in which we envisaged the lading of Japanese troops in Honolulu Harbor. It was generally presumed they would land at different points of the island.

The CHAIRMAN. That was based, of course, on the possibility of landing military troops from transports and engaging such forces as we might have on land in the Hawaiian Islands?

General MILES. Based on the principle of surprise.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. That they might produce a surprise landing of troops and actually invade the Hawaiian Islands.

General MILES. Yes, sir. One maneuver, or war game, that I mentioned was based on that.

The CHAIRMAN. Testimony has been adduced here to the effect that the Japanese rather insisted that we take the entire Pacific Fleet out of the Pacific Ocean and put it back into the Atlantic, in which event, of course, the air raid on the fleet itself in Pearl Harbor would not have taken place. But if that had been the situation, would you wish to express an opinion-which may be more or less speculative-as to whether the Japanese would have attempted or could have attempted and succeeded in effectuating a landing [2258] on the Hawaiian Islands by an army and thereby capture the islands themselves, instead of bombing from the air the fleet that was in Pearl Harbor? Would you care to express any opinion on that?

General MILES. Well, sir, it was subject to a long study during my time in Hawaii, and also it was up time and time again during my course of duty here in the War Plans Division.