Starting tomorrow there will be multi-series postings outlining the Winds Code Message controversy.
The Winds Code Message order was an instruction from Tokyo to Japanese legations worldwide that diplomatic relations were in danger of being ruptured. While the code was set up, the question is whether the code was transmitted as a precursor to war in the Pacific. This is the bases for the following series. The last of the series starting on August 29 disagree with Captain Safford and Mr. Briggs, but, what will be your conclusions when present with testimony?
The following posts will start tomorrow:
August 10: Biography of Mr. Ralph Briggs. Briggs reignited the controversy by stating in a 1977 interview that he intercepted the Winds Code Message while serving as an intercept Morse code operator at Cheltenham, Maryland. Mr. Briggs was born on this date, 1914.
August 14-20: Seven part series of the actual 1977 interview with Mr. Briggs that reignited the controversy. At the collusion of this series a copy of the interview will be available for downloading.
August 21: A single post with Mr. Briggs Log entry explanation. A copy of the original document will be available for downloading.
August 22-27: Six part series, giving Captain Safford’s statement he made in January 1946 regarding Winds Message. At the conclusion of this series a copy of the original document will be available for downloading.
August 28: A single post giving a statement by LT D. W. Wigle, the Chief Radioman in-charge at Cheltenham regarding the Winds Code messages. This is the same Wigle that Mr. Briggs mentioned in his 1977 interview.
August 29-September 02: Five part series by Robert J. Hanyok and David P. Mowry from the Center for Cryptologic History National Security Agency, 2008 refuting Captain Safford’s and Mr. Briggs’ claims regarding Winds Code messages.
Station HYPO 
10 August 2022 at 00:21
Nice work, Mario! I’m delighted your Station HYPO blog is giving the winds execute the attention that it deserves.
There were various witnesses who testified prior to the Joint Congressional Committee in 1945-1946 that they believed a winds execute message meaning war between Japan and the United States had been received. Three names stand out in my memory. All three of these officers testified as much to the Navy Court of Inquiry in 1944. These officers are: Admiral Royal E. Ingersoll, who in the rank of rear admiral was “assistant chief of naval operations” in 1941; Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, who in the rank of rear admiral was director, war plans division in 1941; Captain Alwin D. Kramer, who was head of OP-20-GZ in 1941. Captain Safford, of course, had also testified to the NCI of the winds execute’s receipt. Kramer reversed his testimony in 1945 when he went before the Hewitt Inquiry; Admiral Ingersoll and then Vice Admiral Turner did not testify before the Hewitt Inquiry.
“East Wind, Rain,” is the English language translation for Higashi No Kaze Ame. This is the message that was to imply war between Japan with the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands East Indies.
I have read NSA’s West Wind Clear, but that was quite a few years ago. Argument over whether or not the actual winds execute message (rather than the “winds set-up messages”) was broadcast has been played out over and over again in books. I’ve read John Toland’s INFAMY: PEARL HARBOR and ITS AFTERMATH. This was back in the 1980’s. Every now and then I look minor matters up in Toland’s INFAMY. INFAMY’s greatest asset is Toland’s writing style and the fact he interviewed quite a few people who died many years ago. (Before Toland’s INFAMY, writers who believed the U.S. Government provoked Japan into WWII were still labelled “revisionists” and “anti-Roosevelt.”)
The major reason so many writers got into the winds execute controversy, in my opinion, is because the major claim given to the eighth U.S. Government investigation into Pearl Harbor, that’s to say the JCC’s investigation of 1945-1946, can best be summed up by stating that no one in Washington or Hawaii had concrete evidence prior to Japan’s raid of 7 Dec. 1941 that Japan was on the verge of going to war with the United States. (Sorry for the run-on sentence, but this is where the JCC did its best to make it appear such was the case. That investigation wanted the record to show that no American knew for certain that Japan was on the verge of going to war with the United States.)
The JCC was composed of ten members plus counsel. Six of those ten members came from the majority, the Democratic Party. Four were Republicans. Eight of the ten members signed the JCC’s majority report. Two of the ten, Republican senators Owen J. Brewster of Maine and Homer Ferguson of Michigan, wrote and signed the JCC’s minority report.
I had long hoped to keep politics and the nature of our political system entirely out of what I’m writing on Pearl Harbor. That was before receiving a copy of Alben W. Barkley’s book, THAT REMINDS ME, published in 1954. Barkley was Chairman of the JCC. Like Admiral Kimmel, Barkley was from Kentucky. In his book, Barkley claimed that Senators Brewster and Ferguson were politically motivated in their investigation into Pearl Harbor. Perhaps they were, but is anyone to believe Senator Barkley, Jere Cooper, Scott W. Lucas, J. Bayard Clark, John W. Murphy and Walter F. George were not politically motivated in their approach to investigating Pearl Harbor?
I personally couldn’t care less about politics and the role politics played in Pearl Harbor and its aftermath. The main issue, as I see it, was and will always remain national security. I have absolutely NO problem understanding why our government wanted to keep Pearl Harbor’s greatest secrets secret for all-time.
My interest is now, and it’s always been, historical honesty. Having studied Pearl Harbor in some considerable detail over the past 38 years, I’m still interested in and motivated by honest history.
Our leaders did what they did in the manner in which they did so after considering various options. Of this I have no doubt. I’ve had one person chirping away at what I’ve written for Station HYPO since this past April. That person considers President Roosevelt, General Marshall, Admiral Stark and two others “Murderers.” (The names of the two others changes from week to week in this other person’s missives. This other person claims there were five men, all of whom “were responsible for the murders” of those who died on 7 Dec)
I see Pearl Harbor in a strategic sense rather than a tactical sense. Certainly, our leadership could have waited for war on the Axis’ terms. Or, we could have gotten into the conflict earlier while we still have major allies to help our country win the war. How many Americans would have died had we not become involved in World War II until after Nazi Germany had eliminated the Soviet Union and Great Britain from the conflict?
I could go on and on about the winds execute and U.S. entry into the Second World War. Suffice it to say, I’ve had sufficient time to consider the what if’s and why’s. I’m not a philosopher. But I certainly have spent some years grasping the strategic basis for Pearl Harbor and United States participation in World War II.
As an aside, after reading Toland’s INFAMY a second time many years ago, I called Ralph T. Briggs by telephone. I don’t recall how long we spoke. I believed then, as I believe now, that there was a winds execute message. I don’t remember the details of the phone call I had with Briggs. As I recall, he was living in Oklahoma at the time. I said something to him to which his reply was, “Who told you that!” (It was more of an exclamation than a question.)
I still have not written the manuscript for what I intend to be the first of several books I’ll write on Pearl Harbor. One side of my brain is on the alert for people who want to hate our armed forces and or a former president. I have no desire to add fuel to the fires of hatred that lies within certain minds. But I certainly want people to learn from the past so we can avoid making the same mistakes again in the future.
I have great reverence for the lives of our country’s service members. The men and women who serve in our armed forces are the people who have given us our liberty, our freedom, and our very existence.
To quote Captain Safford: “There was a winds message. It meant war and we knew it meant war.” Note how LFS called it a “winds message,” not a winds execute. I personally believe that Captain Safford played a major role in the cover-up of Pearl Harbor. Some people, indeed, a number of Pearl Harbor writers, believed Safford was crazy. Safford’s main goal, I believe, was to make it appear that “no one in OPNAV can be trusted.” In other words, the folks in OPNAV, the folks in the War Department, had deliberately or accidentally withheld intelligence from Admiral Kimmel and General Short. It’s my opinion, my belief, that such was not the case.
The shortest possible summation I can give for what Pearl Harbor was: It was the first overt act that would unify our people and bring the United States and its people into the Second World War. This saved millions of lives.
This email was written on the fly after reading your message about the series of articles on the Winds Execute.
Andy McKane, Molokai, Hawaii, 1421 (Hawaiian time) Tuesday, 9 August 2022.
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