Station HYPO

Less than 7 hours after the late movie the calm would be shattered by FIRE! Fire of such magnitude that it would take several days to grasp the full extent of the tragedy. Today, some 40 years later the event is still talked about. In all of Security Group there is still only one “THE FIRE” – the Kamiseya fire.

CTIC Frederick A. Randall
September 11, 1939 – April 15, 1969

Fall came early to the Kanto Plain that year. Winter’s cold bite was surely not far off. The new gymnasium, under construction since May, was progressing on schedule. The change of command ceremony held in July had been a success and the command was getting used to the new Commanding Officer – Captain James William Pearson. Kamiseya’s first Bon Odori festival, back in August had been a great success, twenty-one teams competed that year.

On July 28, 1917, the American Expeditionary Forces G2, Brigadier General Dennis Nolan, tasked Captain Frank Moorman, a Coast Artillery officer, to form a new Radio Intelligence Section under the General Staff. Moorman understood that the mission of the new Section was to read German code and decipher messages, but that was where his guidance ended.