CRAIG T. KOJIMA / STAR-BULLETIN
Donald M. Showers, who served as a cryptographic research
assistant during World War II, looks over photographs of the
Battle of Midway today at CINCPAC Fleet
Headquarters in Halawa.

Midway
breakthrough
remembered

Today's ceremony commemorates
cracking Japan's main code,
which helped lead to victory

---

By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-Bulletin

The Navy today saluted its intelligence service, which was responsible for the decisive Battle of Midway victory nearly six decades ago.

That victory gave the United States sea power over the Japanese in World War II.

Adm. Thomas Fargo, Pacific Fleet commander, recalled that after the intelligence failure that led to the Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Navy specialists "rolled up their sleeves and faced the task of breaking the main Japanese code -- JN-25."

Naval intelligence was born out of the necessity of war and was developed in a basement unit at Pearl Harbor following the Japanese raid, added retired Rear Adm. Donald M. Showers, who as a lieutenant was stationed at "Station HYPO" -- the Navy's first intelligence and cryptography unit.

Fargo said that Station HYPO, after breaking the Japanese code, allowed Pacific Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz to take Midway Atoll June 4-7, 1942, and tipped the balance of naval power in the Pacific in favor of the United States.

Fargo and Showers this morning dedicated an exhibit that traces the history of Navy's intelligence unit and the historic Midway battle.

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / STAR-BULLETIN
Navy and Marine personnel marked the
59th anniversary of the Battle of Midway.

It will be on display at the Pacific Fleet's Makalapa headquarters. Following the dedication, tours also were given of the basement headquarters of Station HYPO.

In an effort to secure land for Pacific Ocean operations, Japan sent a sizable fleet -- including four of its nine aircraft carriers, the same ships that six months earlier had attacked Pearl Harbor -- to capture Midway Island.

However, after cracking Japan's naval code, Nimitz dispatched three aircraft carriers and many of the ships that had survived Pearl Harbor and the Battle of the Coral Sea to Midway.

During the ensuing three-day fight, more than 350 Americans were killed and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown and the destroyer USS Hammann were lost.

The Japanese lost four carriers, 291 planes, one cruiser and 4,800 personnel.

Showers recalled that naval intelligence prior to Dec. 7, 1941 was non-existent.

"It was primitive," he said.

There were no computers, satellite connections, data links or rapid communications.

To break the Japanese code. Cmdr. Joseph Rochefort, the officer in charge of Station HYPO, and his staff had to do everything by hand.