As the 353 Japanese aircraft rained death and destruction across the Island of Oahu, Takeo Yoshikawa, using his alias of vice-counsel Tadashi Morimura, was hurriedly burning his implicating files inside the Japanese Consulate on Nuuanu Avenue. The 13,400-square-foot grounds of the Japanese consulate, in a well-to-do neighborhood, displayed a gold imperial chrysanthemum crest outside the two-story main building where the smoke billowed from the chimney, as the pile of incriminating evidence was destroyed.
When the FBI arrived at the Japanese consulate around 9:30 to place Takeo and his accomplices, untrained spies, Counsul-General Nagao Kita, Kokichi Seki the acting treasurer, and other staff members under house arrest, they were too late. Early that morning Takeo had been listening to his short-wave radio and heard the secret code words “East-Wind-Rain” which carried the heavy weight of Japan announcing their planned attack against America. The FBI unearthed nothing that linked Takeo to his crimes. [Read more…] about The Japanese Spy Who Predestined the Fate of Pearl Harbor
In the fall of 1941, a young U.S. Navy Ensign, Richard McNees, had time on his hands while he waited at the San Diego Naval Base to be shipped to Hawaii for duty. Originally from Salem, Oregon, then Washington State, Dick had just completed his training at the navy’s boot camp in Great Lakes, situated in northern Chicago. Restless, he spent his three weeks back on the West Coast reading navy regulations on how to handle top secret information. Boredom was directing his future.
Being a Sunday, at 7:00 a.m. the morning of December 7, 1941, most of the sailors were still in bed. Dick and three others were in the mess hall enjoying their breakfast as the duty officers were returning from their scouting missions in their PBY’s. They had canvased the southern portion of the island and were back to give their reports. The first two pilots sauntered in, relaxed, it had been a beautiful sunrise with the ghost of the full moon suspended over the Pali Mountains. But then the third scout arrived breathless. Ensign Bill Tanner, commander of a PBY, had patrolled the shore to the north of Pearl Harbor and spotted a submerged submarine. He dropped a depth charge which brought the sub to the surface, and radioed in his findings. (Later it would be discovered that the USS Ward, patrolling nearby, received the transmission and sunk the Japanese Ko-hyoteki class two-man midget submarine as it was attempting to enter Pearl Harbor.)
As a fighter pilot, Dick led formations in several battles. He survived the battles of Midway, Tinian, Le Shima, (now Lejima), Iwo Jima, where his brother was going ashore as a navy seal, and Okinawa, to mention a few. His career spanned 35 years and he flew over 40 different types of planes.
His wife Ginny was a freshmen and student librarian in college, yet had no idea of the location. She remembers that soon after the attack and war was declared, there were very few men left in any classes, until the Air Corps Cadets arrived.
I finally happened on Barbara Stewart Bradford, (pictured right), who, as a young woman, along with other Seminary Students in Utah, packed Thanksgiving boxes for the service men and sent some to Pearl Harbor. Alas, she had friends at Pearl who were among the approximate 2,403 American’s who lost their lives. This number did not include the almost 1,200 injured.