Preface

Regulations required that messages containing communication intelligence be destroyed, and as a consequence, no record of the many successes due to this intelligence can ever be compiled.—Vice Admiral C.A. Lockwood in a letter to the Chief of Naval Communications, June 17, 1947.

The journey we embarked on almost ten years ago was a simple one: my father was suffering from nightmares and flashbacks, and I wanted to help him. But as time went on, I learned that in order to help him, I needed to know more about the war.

I am not a historian. I simply learned what was pertinent to helping my father and, eventually, to writing the book you hold in your hands. My father’s little corner of the war is just that—a tiny piece of a very intricate puzzle. As such, the information contained here is by no means a complete history of the war or even of his part in it.

It is simply a story, told over time, to the most unlikely of people—me.