CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Finding the Words
Then for some more news, which will also be a surprise. Remember when I first landed on the island and was up for draft a couple of times and got taken off? Well, I really wasn’t taken off the draft.—September 2, 1945
In all of the time he had been at war, my father’s letters were censored by the army. So I never expected to find any direct information about his code-breaking work in them. Even after the war ended, I assumed he’d leave that out of his letters.
“I was thrilled when they lifted all censorship,” he’d told me. “But I still didn’t tell my folks exactly what I’d done during the war. I told them part of it, but I didn’t want my mom to worry, so I figured I’d just tell her when I got home. Plus, I knew there were still things I couldn’t talk about. Whenever you work in intelligence, the military will let you know in writing when you are free to talk about your work. And I hadn’t received anything in writing.”
But then, I came to a letter that changed everything.
September 2, 1945
Dear Folks,
Well, this should be the letter to end all letters. All censorship has been lifted as of today so here goes nothing. First of all things happen fast when they get started in the Navy, as you already know. Yesterday someone called and wanted five radiomen to act as volunteers to be in the V-J Day parade today in Honolulu. Only it wasn’t exactly in the parade—you see they wanted to put on a demonstration of radio communications between the airplanes and ground at the reviewing stand in down town Honolulu. One each of us radiomen hopped a fast boat over to Ford Island a few steps from here and got our radio gear aboard five B-24’s and took off on a few practice sessions. That in itself is surprise enough I guess, that is for us land going sailors. But then…anything is a surprise. Then today we got aboard again for the final test before the parade and everything went off perfect. They had loud speakers in front of the reviewing stand and also broadcast parts of our conversations over the two local radio stations. Of course they had equipment. Ours was portable you wouldn’t know it if you heard it but it’s the model 610 which is a small portable set—it’s called the “walkie talkie” but not as small as what the public calls the walkie talkie. It can be carried by one man on a pack board in a pinch but is really two man gear. The little tiny two way hand phone is really called the “handie-talkie.” Now you should be more mixed up than ever. Anyway that shows it was as much a surprise to me as to you. There were a few hundred planes in the air all at once—as far as you could see in every direction were planes of every type—Army, Navy and Marine. Really had a turnout at the parade, on the ground too, according to the papers. It was all quite an experience.
Then for some more news, which will also be a surprise. Remember when I first landed on the island and was up for draft a couple of times and got taken off? Well, I really wasn’t taken off the draft. On account of I could copy the Jap Katakana code, they transferred me to Naval Intelligence and right away I and a few others caught a plane for east points. Up to now of course couldn’t breathe a word but guess it’s OK this time. At the time, we had no idea what was up, but went by PB2Y I believe it was—anyway a four motor sea-plane thru the Johnson Islands and on down to Guam and then thru Tinian and Saipan where we stopped for almost a day—getting equipment and orders. Then went to another small island along the route and caught the sub “sailfish” which you’ve probably read about by now. It used to be called the Squalus you know and was rechristened. Anyway the whole thing was practically a repetition scene for scene of the sub “Copperfin” in that movie “Destination Tokyo” only we went toward Iwo Jima. Of course then, it didn’t mean a thing at all to us. It was supposed to be occupied but no one had any inkling as to how heavily. This was all on D-Day minus four, or four days before the American invasion by the fifth marines. All five of us hunted up this Jap frequency that was sending coded messages and copied it (all was in the Jap Katakana). And one of the other officers who was a cryptograph specialist, got out his machines and tried to break it down, and succeeded right away. We worked on the sub all the time in pitch black night for about 18 hours and never a patrol plane or ship came within sound of our radar. Then we got back out of sight and headed back along the same route and sent out the messages we had broken down, only in our own codes back to HQ at Guam. Really very dull which was very much to our liking. So far they warned us never to breathe a word to our closest friend or relative. The only one here who knows about it is my commanding officer at the school.
We did the identical same thing at Okinawa on D minus three. All this took place in a grand total of 8 days from start to finish, so out of my eight months overseas today I haven’t had a bad deal at all. Of course now all the fighting is over so all I have to worry about now is getting a ship, which I’m not going to like at all. That is, I don’t think I will. By the way, if you’ve recovered yet. I wouldn’t have Pink and Pat put in the paper or anything. It’s OK to tell anyway you want to, but people have been court marshaled for letting out information ahead of time and I really haven’t permission from intelligence to have it published. They always give permission in a written form for special missions, like that. Anyway, I’m proud of it, because I really think we did a lot of good. That’s about all the story. I’ll tell you the details when I get home. Well so far this hasn’t been much about recent happenings. Went on liberty Sunday and went to church. I didn’t go to the dinner afterwards tho—had quite a crowd due to V-J day worship so decided to keep out of the road. Didn’t do much else except to go to a show at Kaimuki Theatre.
Murray
I couldn’t believe it. My father had written about his code breaking. Over the course of our journey, he’d convinced me that there was no use looking for it. He was sure he hadn’t written about it. But there it was.
I marveled at his memory. The stories he’d told me months ago, decades after the war, were identical. The only thing that was missing was Mal. He’d written about everything surrounding Mal’s death, but Mal himself wasn’t anywhere to be found. I continued to read his letters, but Mal’s name never came up.
My father continued to write letters home on a regular basis. But there wasn’t much to write about now. The war was over, and his family anxiously awaited his return. Just as predicted, the office was almost completely cleared out when he finally had enough points to go home.
After two years in the service, and finally on his way home, he walked into a diner, ordered a meal, and looked around. He was struck by one thought: no one knew what he’d been through. The family sitting at the table next to his was eating their dinner, never knowing they were sitting next to someone who was just back from the war.
When he got home, he hung his uniform in the closet, and his memories stayed there too. There wasn’t a huge celebration. Like most soldiers, he simply wanted to get back to the life he’d left. And after a home-cooked meal and a quiet celebration at home, he did just that.
Ironically, the job he worried would be taken by the woman who’d replaced him during the war was taken by a veteran who had more points and seniority. So instead, he was given a railroad job in Walla Walla, Washington.
A few years passed before his mother gave him the two notebooks full of his letters. He stored them away like any other book on the shelf. And that promise he’d made to his folks, that he would tell them more when he got home, never happened. It just didn’t seem important anymore.