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37-711: Japanese army (IJA) and diplomatic codes were studied at Arlington Hall (US), Bletchley Park (UK), Central Bureau or CBB (Australian, US; in Melbourne, then Brisbane), the FECB (British Far East Combined Bureau ) at Hong Kong, Singapore, Kilindi then Colombo and the British Wireless Experimental Centre in Delhi. Arlington Hall had initially delayed study of the Army codes until 1942 because of

74-624: A 1944 message listing prominent atomic scientists, including several with the Manhattan Project . Efforts to decipher Soviet codes continued under the classified and caveated Venona project . Another problem soon arose—that of determining how and to whom to disseminate the extraordinary information Gardner was developing. SIS's reporting procedures did not seem appropriate because the decrypted messages could not even be paraphrased for Arlington Hall's regular intelligence customers without divulging their source. By 1946, SIS knew nothing about

111-602: A buried trunk found during the Battle of Sio in New Guinea by Australian troops of the 9th Division. The records had been left by retreating Japanese Army troops of the 20th Division. Tokyo was told the papers had been burnt, but the Japanese lieutenant did not want to reveal his position by burning them, so they were buried in a metal strongbox near a stream. They included the army codebook Rikugun Angosho Number Four , which

148-565: A move that was complete by December 1984. Arlington Hall was also home in the late 1950s and early 1960s to the Armed Services Technical Information Agency (ASTIA) which disseminated classified research to defense contractors. In 1989, the U.S. Department of Defense transferred the eastern portion of Arlington Hall to the Department of State . In October 1993, this portion of the site became

185-626: The Army National Guard Readiness Center, which was named for Herbert R. Temple Jr. in 2017. 38°52′03″N 77°06′13″W  /  38.8676°N 77.1036°W  / 38.8676; -77.1036 Tex Biard Captain Forrest Rosecrans "Tex" Biard (December 21, 1912, in Bonham, Texas – November 2, 2009 ) was an American linguist in the U.S. Navy codebreaking organization during

222-554: The Enigma machine , they chose to base their cipher machine on a different technology, using a stepping switch rather than several rotors. The LA code was a low-grade code for consular messages, and was broken by the Sydney University group of Monterey codebreakers in 1941 before they moved to FRUMEL. Athanasius Treweek said, "there were several grades of diplomatic code, and they came to pieces fairly easily. The LA code

259-545: The George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center and the Army National Guard 's Herbert R. Temple Jr. Readiness Center. It is located on Arlington Boulevard ( U.S. Route 50 ) between S. Glebe Road ( State Route 120 ) and S. George Mason Drive. Arlington Hall was founded in 1927 as a private post-secondary women's educational institution , which by 1941, was on a 100-acre (0.40 km ) campus and

296-691: The National Foreign Affairs Training Center when the State Department's Foreign Service Institute (FSI) moved there from its prior location in the Mayfair Building in Washington, D.C. The National Foreign Affairs Training Center was renamed as the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center in a ceremony held on May 29, 2002, named for George P. Shultz , former Secretary of

333-724: The National Security Agency after the agency was created in 1952. From 1945 to 1977, Arlington Hall was the headquarters of the United States Army Security Agency and for a brief time in late 1948, the newly formed United States Air Force Security Service (USAFSS) until they moved to Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas . When the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM)

370-629: The Second World War . A pre-war student of Japanese , Biard's translation work is considered to have been an important part of American military success. Biard graduated from North Dallas High School in 1930 and from the United States Naval Academy in 1934. He served as an ensign on the heavy cruiser USS  New Orleans from 1935 to 1937. Biard was sent to Tokyo in 1939 for full-immersion Japanese language and culture training. His planned three-year assignment

407-616: The "high payoff" from diplomatic codes, but were not successful until 1943. Then, with success on Army codes in April, the increasing workload was put under Solomon Kullback in branch B-II in September. Other mainly diplomatic work was put under Frank Rowlett in B-III. Branch B-I translated Japanese. Initially, "brute-force" IBM runs on Army codes from April 1942 to the end of the year did not work. but U.S. Army Sgt. Joe Richard noticed that

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444-867: The American Seventh Fleet , submarine attacks. Breaking it in 1943 gave the Allies insight into other Army codes. A three-figure reciphered air-to-ground code used by the IJA, kuuchi renraku kanji-hyoo 2-goo was known to the British as BULBUL. First broken by the Bletchley Park air section, it provided vital tactical information, so work on it was carried out in India at the Wireless Experimental Centre in Delhi. Traffic from

481-486: The Army codes they were put under Solomon Kullback in a separate branch B-II, with other mainly diplomatic work under Frank Rowlett in B-III (which also had the Bombes and Rapid Analytical Machinery). The third branch B-I translated Japanese decrypts. The Arlington Hall effort was comparable in influence to other Anglo-American Second World War -era technological efforts, such as the cryptographic work at Bletchley Park,

518-680: The Army codes until 1942 because of the "high payoff" from diplomatic codes, but were not successful with Army codes until 1943. The fourteen-part message breaking off negotiations with the United States in December 1941 on the eve of Pearl Harbor was in Purple; and was translated by the Americans in advance of the Japanese embassy staff who were preparing it for delivery. The Japanese ambassador to Nazi Germany , General Hiroshi Oshima

555-834: The Naval Communications Annex, development of sophisticated microwave radar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT )'s Radiation Lab , and the Manhattan Project 's development of the atomic bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 to abruptly end the war and which later initiated further development of nuclear weapons . After World War II, the "Russian Section" at Arlington Hall expanded. Work on diplomatic messages benefited from additional technical personnel and new analysts—among them Samuel Chew, who had focused on Japan , and linguist Meredith Gardner , who had worked on both German and Japanese messages. Chew had considerable success at defining

592-507: The Treasury and Secretary of State . In January 2008, construction workers discovered an unexploded Civil War -era Parrott rifle shell underneath Arlington Hall. The shell had a length of one foot and a diameter of five inches. U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technicians from Fort Belvoir were brought in to dispose of the antique munition . The National Park Service determined that Arlington Hall Station Historic District

629-691: The West, probably in November (the " Battle of the Bulge "). He was described by General George Marshall as "our main basis of information regarding Hitler's intentions in Europe". The Purple cipher was used by the Japanese Foreign Office as its most secure system. The U.S. called this the "Purple" code, because they kept intercepted traffic in purple binders. Although the Japanese purchased

666-591: The allocation of high-level army codes. The Army Water Transport Code senpaku angoshu 2 ( 2468 or JEK) was used by the Water Transport organization, the Army's own Navy, when moving troops around the Pacific. Ships signalled their noontime position, course, speed and other movement items. As the Japanese relied extensively on sea transport for isolated garrisons, the information assisted in planning air raids and action against Japanese air raids, and, through

703-567: The army operational flying units based around Meiktila in Burma was particularly valuable, aided by a book and some additive sheets from a Japanese aircraft shot down over India. By November 1944 many messages predicting air raids were intercepted, decoded and sent out as intelligence in ninety minutes. On one occasion Allied night fighters got the lot and all night we could hear Mingaladon air base calling for its lost children . In January 1944, Mainline Japanese Army codes were broken with help from

740-656: The cipher text digits. As well as " kana ", the Chinese Telegraph Code was used to explain places or words, and the code groups 1951 or 5734 indicated that the CTC follows; an "absurd security flaw" as it was like "Stop" as a key. The CTC code group was often preceded by the "kana" groups for the same character. Many of the Army codes were known to the Allies by their four-figure discriminant numbers. The SIS at Arlington Hall gave them three-letter codes, e.g. , JEM. A conference at Arlington Hall in early 1944 decided on

777-580: The federal grand jury impaneled in Manhattan, New York to probe the espionage and disloyalty charges stemming from Elizabeth Bentley 's defection and other defectors from Soviet intelligence, so no one in the U.S. Government was aware that evidence against the Soviets was suddenly developing on two adjacent tracks. In late August or early September 1947, the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI )

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814-660: The headquarters of the U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Service , for decryption. The Allies went from decrypting only 1,846 Japanese Army messages in January 1944 to 36,000 messages in March. This intelligence windfall was so beneficial to MacArthur that he accelerated the timetable and the Admiralty Islands campaign began immediately in late February followed by the joint invasions of Hollandia and Aitape , far behind enemy lines, in late April. The Admiralty Islands campaign

851-561: The system for 2468 changed every three weeks, so the messages could be arranged by IBM tabulators by group and time period. Richard was assisted at Central Bureau by Major Harry Clark and by the head, Abraham "Abe" Sinkov , and broke 2468 on 6 April 1943, for which he was awarded the Legion of Merit. Wilfrid Noyce at the Wireless Experimental Centre had realised that the first letter of the third group of each message

888-557: The underlying structure of the coded Russian texts. Gardner and his colleagues began analytically reconstructing the KGB (the Soviet Union 's Committee for State Security) spy agency codebooks. Late in 1946, Gardner broke the codebook's "spell table" for encoding English letters. With the solution of the spell table, SIS could read significant portions of messages which included English names and phrases. Gardner soon found himself reading

925-577: Was able to use Biard and Mackie's data to accelerate his " island-hopping " strategy to liberate New Guinea and hasten the end of the war. In 1946, Biard served as executive officer in the Intelligence Division and Chief of the Security Section for Operation Crossroads , the first nuclear weapons tests conducted by Joint Army/Navy Task Force One at Bikini Atoll . Biard retired from the U.S. Navy in January 1955 and received

962-534: Was called that because every message began with the letters LA. It was child's play." Arlington Hall Arlington Hall (also called Arlington Hall Station ) is a historic building in Arlington, Virginia . Originally it was a girls' school and later the headquarters of the United States Army 's Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) cryptography operations during World War II . The site houses

999-670: Was called the Arlington Hall Junior College for Women. The school had financial problems in the 1930s and eventually became a non-profit institution in 1940. On June 10, 1942, the U.S. Army took possession of the facility under the War Powers Act for use by its Signals Intelligence Service . During World War II, Arlington Hall was in many respects similar to Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, England (although BP also covered naval codes) and

1036-657: Was commissioned at Arlington Hall on January 1, 1977, INSCOM absorbed the functions of the Army Security Agency into its operations. INSCOM remained at Arlington Hall until the summer of 1989, when INSCOM left for Fort Belvoir, Virginia . Beginning in January 1963, Arlington Hall served as the premier facility of the newly created Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). In 1984, DIA departed Arlington Hall for its new headquarters on Joint Base Anacostia–Bolling (former Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. ),

1073-505: Was cut short in September 1941 due to the rising tensions between Japan and the United States. Biard later earned a master's degree in physics from the Ohio State University in 1953. In September 1941, Biard (then a lieutenant ) was stationed at Pearl Harbor as a senior linguist for Station HYPO , part of American attempts to break Japanese military codes, including the key strategic code, JN-25 . In February 1942, he

1110-633: Was eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places on October 7, 1988 (although it has not been officially listed). The historic main building of the former girls' school now houses classrooms and administrative offices for components of the Foreign Service Institute , on the campus of the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center . The western portion of Arlington Hall site presently houses

1147-636: Was fed into Sinkov's IBM machines; two additive books and codes for traffic identifiers 2345, 5555, 6666, 7777 and 7870, which were now readable; and an instruction book on how to use the other books. The Central Bureau spent a day drying the damp pages, and the flood of decoded messages that ensued meant that MacArthur had to ask the U.S. Navy for assistance. Two translators, Forrest Biard and Thomas Mackie were sent from Fleet Radio Unit, Melbourne (FRUMEL). Major Sinkov and his team of Americans and Australians from Central Bureau photographed every dried page and sent these photocopies immediately to Arlington Hall ,

Japanese army and diplomatic codes - Misplaced Pages Continue

1184-410: Was informed that the Army Security Agency had begun to break into Soviet espionage messages. By 1945, the Soviets had penetrated Arlington Hall with the placement of Bill Weisband who worked there for several years. The government's knowledge of his treason apparently was not revealed until its publication in a 1990 book co-authored by a high-level KGB defector. Arlington Hall came under the aegis of

1221-399: Was not random and that other groups were paired in "doublets". At first, Arlington Hall could not find the non-randomness until Richard told them it changed about every four weeks. With this tip Arlington Hall broke the code, as did the Wireless Experimental Centre. It used a 10×10 conversion square with the plaintext digits 0-9 across the top, key digits down the side, and the table contained

1258-618: Was one of only two primary cryptography operations in Washington (the other was the Naval Communications Annex , which was also housed in a commandeered private girls' school ). Arlington Hall concentrated its efforts working on the Japanese systems (including PURPLE ) while Bletchley Park concentrated on European combatants. Initially work was on Japanese diplomatic codes as Japanese army codes were not solved until April 1943, but in September 1943 with success on

1295-650: Was originally scheduled to begin in June 1944 prior to the Japanese Army codes being broken. The most important diplomatic cipher used by the Foreign Office was Purple. The Japanese military (army) effectively controlled Japanese foreign policy , and told the Foreign Office little. But decrypted Purple traffic was valuable militarily, particularly reports from Nazi Germany by Japanese diplomats and military and naval attachés. Arlington Hall had delayed study of

1332-634: Was temporarily assigned to the USS ; Yorktown as the radio intelligence officer under Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher . His translation and decryption work on JN-25 contributed substantially to Allied efforts in the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway . He was promoted to lieutenant commander on March 1, 1943. Biard was promoted to commander on February 1, 1944. He then worked with Tom Mackie to decrypt and translate captured Japanese Army code books for Douglas MacArthur ; MacArthur

1369-664: Was well-informed on German military affairs and intimate with Nazi leaders. Examples of his despatches to Japan in Purple include a report that Hitler said on June 3, 1941 that in every probability war with Russia cannot be avoided . In July and August 1942 Oshima toured the Russian front, and in 1944 he saw the Atlantic Wall fortifications against the expected Allied invasion along the coasts of France and Belgium. On 4 September 1944 Hitler said to him that Germany would strike in

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