Station HYPO

If my memory is correct, Admiral Kimmel’s office, Admiral Nimitz’s predecessor was located in a building at the Submarine Base, Pearl Harbor. I believe that when Kimmel was relieved by Vice Admiral William S. Pye (who served as interim CinCPac from 17 Dec. to 31 Dec. 1941), Pye’s office, too, was in the same building. These buildings in those days were all numbered. I’ve never seen the number listed for the building that housed CinCPac at that time. I had a nice tour of Joint Base Pearl Harbor/Hickam (as it’s now called) on the 73rd or 74th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.. My wife and I were taken down the stairs to the steel vault door that opened in the office of the “Combat Intelligence Unit” at the time of Pearl Harbor. The rather loose nickname that’s often used for that office is Station HYPO. HYPO, as I understand it, was also located at several locations on Oahu between 1936 and into 1942 or later. In this latter instance, I’m using “Station HYPO” to indicate the location of the radio intercept towers where the “on the roof gang” intercept operators worked. According to what I’ve read, the original use of the “HYPO” name came from the intercept facility being located at Heeia, Oahu. I’m not positive, however, that this claim is technically correct, as “HYPO”—meaning those tall radio intercept towers—were located in several different locations on Oahu right up to shortly after 7 December. On that date, the intercept operators were actually located on Oahu’s north shore, as I recall from reading LtCdr. Elliott E. Okin’s To Spy or Not to Spy, published by Pateo Publishing Company, Chula Vista, CA, in 1985. It wasn’t long after the raid on our fleet at Pearl Harbor that these intercept operators were moved to a new facility in a different (and more secure) location that wasn’t “over the water” on the north shore of Oahu. This is what I read quite some time ago. I’ll have to get back into this book and various other books, articles and pamphlets to find the names of the locations for all the intercept facilities the Navy used on Oahu from 1936 through the end of World War II. My point in going into these details is to help better identify where the building was that Admiral Nimitz’s office was located in. It’s first location, as stated above, was in a building on the Submarine Base. The Combat Intelligence unit that then Commander Rochefort worked in the basement of was actually the headquarters building for the Fourteenth Naval District (where Com14’s, Rear Admiral Claude C. Bloch’s office) was located. According to Rochefort’s oral history his ComInt unit was originally located on the top deck of the HQ building for the 14th Naval District. To quote Rochefort’s oral history (pp. 123-124): “The office was down in the basement of the administration building, and it was being built particularly for us, and it was about completed, say, 1 December [1941]. It was just about being completed, so we hastily moved in there before December 7th, and we were down in that place on December 7th.” (Other books, including Joe Rochefort’s War, claim CIU, Pearl Harbor’s move into its “bomb-proof” basement quarters as having happened a few months before the Day of Infamy.) I’m less inclined to believe these other stories than what Rochefort himself states in his oral history. (There is also mention of the building of this facility without giving a date in the oral history of Captain Thomas H. Dyer. Dyer was the chief cryptanalyst at CIU, Pearl, and also executive officer of that unit during Rochefort’s tour as officer in charge.)

Long ago I saw a photograph of “Nimitz’s headquarters” (the building housing it) that stated that building was located in Makalapa. I also remember seeing that building various times during childhood in the mid-1950’s and again between 1959 and 1961. The Pearl Harbor Submarine Base itself is right on the waters of Pearl Harbor. Makalapa is across Nimitz Boulevard (H1) from the major part of Joint Base Pearl Harbor/Hickam.

Having just made a Google search after typing in “CinCPac headquarters 1941” and clicking on images, you will find a few photographs of the building that served as the CinCPac HQ in 1941 and, I think, into early 1942. It probably moved to the newer building in Makalapa in early 1942. We do know that when Nimitz took command of the Pacific Fleet on 31 December 1941, he did so aboard submarine USS Grayling. In about January 1945, as I recall, Nimitz’s (CinCPac’s) headquarters moved to Guam.

My best advice to you, Mrs. Fullerton, would be to do a Google search and type in CinCPac headquarters 1941 into your computer (or, if you don’t have one, a computer in a public library). A photograph of the various buildings housing CinCPac’s personal office and that of his staff from late 1941 through 1944 can be found by clicking “images” after clicking “CinCPac headquarters 1941” into a computer.

Thank you for your late husband’s service in the Navy, Mrs. Fullerton. I hope that you have recovered from your stroke and that you are now in fine health. The Admiral Furlong you refer to is then Rear Admiral William R. Furlong, a Naval Academy classmate of Chester W. Nimitz. Furlong was Commander Minecraft, Battle Force (of the Pacific Fleet) in 1941. My apology for a verbose response, but I’ll leave it as written as there are various matters referred to that may be of interest to you and other readers of the Station HYPO website. Andy McKane, Springville, Utah.

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