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Fascinating and Lesser Known People Who Changed American History

Khalid Elhassan May 5, 2020 33 min

Normandy landings - Operation Overlord — Men of the 320th in Normandy. YouTube

32. The Cryptanalyst Who Set the Stage For Japan’s Defeat at Midway

Japanese carriers aflame at the Battle of Midway. YouTube

At 10:25 AM, June 4^th, 1942, Japan was mistress of the Pacific, possessed the world’s most powerful aircraft carrier force, and was dictating the terms of the war. By 10:30 AM, Japan had effectively lost WWII after suffering a stunning defeat at the Battle of Midway: three of her aircraft carriers were burning wrecks, and a fourth was destroyed later that day.

The stage was set a few months earlier when Jimmy Doolittle’s bombing of Tokyo in the spring of 1942 gave the Japanese military a black eye. So they set out to draw the US Navy into a climactic battle in which they hoped to win a decisive victory. Evidence began piling up that the Japanese were gearing up for a major move, but nobody was sure about their target. Then Navy cryptanalyst Joseph Rochefort tricked the Japanese into tipping their hand, thus allowing American carriers to set up a devastating ambush at Midway.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.