JOE ROCHEFORT'S WAR: The Odyssey of the Code Breaker Who Outwitted Yamamato at Midway

JOE ROCHEFORT'S WAR: The Odyssey of the Code Breaker Who Outwitted Yamamato at Midway, Elliott Carlson, USNI Press, Annapolis, MD, 2011, 616 pages, $36.95 ON 2 DECEMBER 1941, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel joked to Lieutenant Commander Edwin T. Layton, "What, you don't know where the carriers are? Do you mean to say they could be rounding Diamond Head and you wouldn't know it?" Layton replied that he hoped they would be sighted before then. In fact, the Japanese strike force was actually steaming northwest of Oahu en route to its rendezvous with destiny. Pearl Harbor is an American disaster that has attained iconic status. "Remember the Alamo," "Remember the Maine," and "Remember Pearl Harbor" all have this stature. There is a tragic sense that Pearl Harbor could have been avoided in the same way it seems unreal the Titanic sank on her maiden voyage. What matters about Pearl Harbor is not what might have been but what we have yet to learn from the sad events of that Sunday more than 70 years ago. Understanding what enabled a surprise attack illuminates aspects of American decision making that seem to be enduring, but need not be. Joe Rochefort's War is an essential addition to the library of any military professional who wants to learn the nature of signals intelligence from soup to nuts, including traffic analysis, which was particularly useful during the war. Commander Rochefort and his team later enabled the U.S. Navy to ambush the Imperial Japanese Navy at Midway and defeat them decisively. But in 1941, Joe Rochefort got it wrong. He came close to getting it right, but in the end, his analysis and equally important his assumptions led him to estimate the Japanese would attack, but not at Pearl Harbor. Rochefort was not alone in this assumption. U.S. decision makers widely shared this belief; it was an article of faith. Roberta Wohlstetter's Pearl Harbor : Warning and Decision is arguably the standard for understanding just how Japan managed to surprise the United States that December morning. Wohlstetter's examination ofthe decision-making apparatus in the United States that enabled good people to reach catastrophically wrong conclusions is, in a word, brilliant. Decision makers often demonstrate an almost terminal capacity to ignore evidence that does not meet their expectations. Mistakes similar to those made before Pearl Harbor occurred in the run up to 9/11 during Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Bureaucratic organization and competition often preclude unity of effort, let alone unity of command. Cohesion among decision makers limits their ability to examine alternatives or challenge assumptions. Excessive background noise inhibits their capacity to interpret the data accurately. Other important books about Pearl Harbor include Alan D. Zimm's Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Myths, Deceptions; Thomas B. Steely, Jr.'s, Pearl Harbor Countdown: Admiral James O. Richard son; and George Victor's The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable. Japanese sources include Hiroyuki Agawa's The Reluctant Admiral: Yamamoto and the Imperial Navy (translated by John Bester); Admiral Matome Ugaki's Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki, 1941-1945 (translated by Masataka Chihaya); and God's Samurai: Lead Pilot at Pearl Harbor by Gordon W. Prange with Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon. What emerges from these books deepens and enriches Wohlstetter's effort. …