Hitler's Japanese Confidant: General Oshima Hiroshi and MAGIC Intelligence, 1941-45 (Modern War Studies) - Hardcover

Boyd, Carl

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 070060569X ISBN 13: 9780700605699

Publisher: University Press of Kansas, 2005

Synopsis

In 1940, the US Army Signal Intelligence Service broke the Japanese diplomatic code. In 1975 Oshima Hiroshi, Japan's ambassador to Berlin during World War II, died, never knowing that the hundreds of messages he transmitted to Tokyo had been fully decoded by the Americans and whisked off to Washington, providing a major source of information for the Allies on Nazi activities. Resurrecting Oshima's decoded communications, which had remained classified for several decades, Carl Boyd looks at the Nazis from the perspective of a close foreign observer and ally. He uses Oshima's own words to reveal the thought and strategies of Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Nazis with whom Oshima associated. In addition to providing insight into Nazi activities and attitudes - military build-up in North Africa, the unwillingness to accept a separate peace with the Soviets - Boyd illustrates the functions of MAGIC. He demonstrates how that intelligence, gathered by teams of American cryptographers, influenced Allied strategy and helped bring about the downfall of Hitler and his Japanese confidant.

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Review:

"An essential contribution to our understanding of major aspects of World War II history. This book will have a special place in the story of the war in Europe and also in that of the wartime relations of Germany and Japan, which has been much neglected."--Harold C. Deutsch, author of The Conspiracy Against Hitler in the Twilight War.

"Boyd skillfully integrates interviews with surviving American cryptanalysts who worked with MAGIC to reconstruct the distribution system for the precious intelligence. In particular his ingenious unraveling of the complex distribution system in effect during presidential trips strikes me as model detective work. First-rate scholarship complemented by superior writing skills."--Edward J. Drea, author of MacArthur's ULTRA: Codebreaking and the War Against Japan.

"Every student of the history of the present century, in which the war of 1939-45 formed so crucial a part, must read this-and one uses the word advisedly-definitive account."--Robert H. Ferrell, author of American Diplomacy: The Twentieth Century.

"Offers new insight into the otherwise obscure story of how American ability to penetrate Japanese codes provided unique, valuable knowledge of German military plans and capabilities."--Stanley L. Falk, author of Seventy Days to Singapore.

"An extremely valuable work. It clears up many puzzles, and it helps to make understandable how high-level communications intelligence was used in Washington during World War II."--Ernest R. May, author of Imperial Democracy: The Emergence of America as a Great Power.

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 070060569X
• ISBN 13: 9780700605699
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272