Hitler's Japanese Confidant: General Oshima Hiroshi and MAGIC Intelligence, 1941-1945 [Hardcover]

Carl Boyd (Author), Peter Paret (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: Modern War Studies | Publication Date: May 1993

In 1940 the U.S. 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 provides a unique look 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 illuminating insight into Nazi activities and attitudes--military buildup 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.

This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Allied cryptographers broke the Japanese diplomatic code in 1941, after which Ambassador Oshima Hiroshi's messages from Berlin to Tokyo were intercepted, deciphered, translated and passed along to U.S. and British intelligence operatives. Gen. George Marshall, the U.S. Army chief of staff, called the Oshima intercepts the "main basis of information regarding Hitler's intentions in Europe." Oshima inadvertently provided the Allies with advance information about Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, the Axis buildup in North Africa and the Wehrmacht's defensive system along the Normandy coast (which proved vital to the success of the Allied invasion of June 1944). In this valuable study, Boyd carefully analyzes Oshima's messages and reports, places them in political and military contexts, and sheds new light on Germany's strategies during the war as well as on German-Japanese relations. Oshima died in 1975, never having learned that the enemy had read his mail throughout WW II. Boyd is a history professor at Old Dominion University in Virginia. Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

General Oshima, Japan's ambassador to Berlin throughout World War II, sent detailed reports to Tokyo on his Axis partner. Oshima was an intelligent observer, and from his notes we are able to obtain a new view of Germany. Unbeknownst to Oshima, the Japanese diplomatic code had been broken by the United States, and the ambassador's comments proved to be of great value to the Allies. Indeed, the information gathered from deciphered Japanese codes was called Magic. Author Boyd (history, Old Dominion Univ.) here presents two works: one deals with observations on Germany and the other with the uses of military intelligence. Because there is little available on Magic during the conflict, this book fills a definite need. Combined with Ronald Lewin's The American Magic: Codes, Ciphers, and the Defeat of Japan (Farrar, 1982), this will give readers a good understanding of Magic. Recommended for academic libraries and large public libraries. Smaller libraries may also want to purchase in order to give their users a background on intelligence work in World War II.
- Dennis L. Noble, Lewistown P.L. , Mont.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 294 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas; First edition (May 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 070060569X
• ISBN-13: 978-0700605699
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,145,673 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great study of US attack on Japan's WWII diplomatic comms., August 23, 1998

By 

Howard L. Chambers (Tallahassee, FL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hitler's Japanese Confidant: General Oshima Hiroshi and MAGIC Intelligence, 1941-1945 (Hardcover)

Carl Boyd has produced an exceptionally lucid and revealing book that traces U.S. decoding attack on Berlin-Tokyo radio communications of Gen. Oshima Hiroshi, Japanese Ambassdor to the Third Reich, and its impact on the outcome of WWII. According to Boyd, these decoded diplomatic messages, known in the U.S. and Great Britain as MAGIC, were pivotal in Allied decision-making at critical junctures during the war. The author contends that, because the British were unable to read the secret communications of the top Nazi leadership, MAGIC filled a crucial gap in British ULTRA message decoding efforts. According to Boyd, Oshima was covertly converted into "an inadvertent informer of incalculable importance in leading the Allies to victory." Because Oshima had a very close personal relationship with Hitler and foreign minister von Ribbentropp, had their trust and respect, and had access to their higest level secrets, his MAGIC decoded radio messages were especially revealing and valuable for Allied planners. His military experience and analytical abilities also made his detailed characterizations of the disposition and condition of German forces in Europe and on the eastern front especially enlightening to the Allies and critical to planning for Operation OVERLORD. Boyd observes that "The margin of success on the Normandy beaches was narrow, but MAGIC and Anglo-American cooperation made the difference." Boyd's book is the first detailed account of Oshima's role as a primary source of Allied wartime intelligence through MAGIC. He draws heavily on declassified National Security Agency documents recently released to the National Archives. There is more, however, to this story of decoding covertly collected enemy radio intercepts that remains classified, especially in the British archives, which won't be declassified for more than twenty years. This is a thoroughly documented, superbly written, and rich account of the application of communications intelligence during WWII. It should be a stimulating read for all serious WWII historians and an entertaining read for all others.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very scholarly, and detailed, August 10, 2010

By 

David W. Nicholas (Van Nuys, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hitler's Japanese Confidant: General Oshima Hiroshi and MAGIC Intelligence, 1941-1945 (Hardcover)

This is an account of a circumstance that I suspect most World War II buffs are at least vaguely aware of: the fact that since the Japanese codes were compromised by the Allies even before the war, the Allies got a lot of information on German high-level strategy and diplomatic thinking through the intercepted communiques that the Japanese ambassador to Berlin sent back to Tokyo, informing his masters what the Germans were intending. "Hitler's Japanese Confidant" by Carl Boyd outlines what the messages contained, and the information that the Allies gleaned therefrom, and in turn what actions they took as a result, in considerable detail.

Oshima Hiroshi (the name arranged in the Japanese style with the family name first, unlike in the title of Boyd's first book on him) was a general in the Japanese army who served as ambassador (with a short break early in the war) throughout the conflict. He was an enthusiastic supporter of Naziism and the Nazi cause, and spent much of the war advocating a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union, for instance (Stalingrad finally persuaded him this was a bad idea). He spent much of the war repeating to Tokyo Hitler's optimistic pronouncements about the progress of the war and the state of his allies and enemies. As the war progressed, Oshima became a bit skeptical of Hitler's opinions, but only a bit: towards the end he was still an optimist at heart.

This book is fairly interesting, though the author has a lot of information to convey and he's not going to win any awards for gracious prose. Most of the book consists of synopses of the various messages that were intercepted and translated, and a discussion of what occurred as a result. This means the heart of the book is an account of the high-level decision-making process during the war, with a special emphasis on these messages and their impact on those decisions. This is very interesting, and very detailed. The author conveys a lot of information here concisely.

I enjoyed this book, and felt I learned a good deal from it. I would recommend it to anyone reading about this subject seriously, but this book isn't for the casual reader.