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And I Was There : Breaking the Secrets - Pearl Harbor and Midway

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This was one of the best analytical war books that I have ever read. First, I was impressed with the product. I ordered a used book, and it arrived perfect, like new. Beyond expectations. Second, I was familiar with Axis and Allied Intelligence, but this book was like a training manual in code breaking and code writing on both sides. My best friends liked the insights into the jealousies between branches of the services in consolidating and sharing in intelligence data, but my fascination was how advanced and secret were the facts that we knew about what the Germans and Japanese were doing and planning, and what they knew about what we were doing too...until the Navajo Code Talkers. A fascinating read. Essential for a total comprehension of what went on behind the scenes of all the planning and execution of the Super Powers involved. Perhaps the most challenging question raised was whether the Russians knew about the whereabouts of the Japanese fleet while on its way to Pearl Harbor? Especially, since the Kremlin had made a deal to have one of their boats pass the Japanese fleet safely in the Pacific without interruption and in clear sight of what was happening. This is a book that a serious scholar can't put down.

RADM. Ed Layton speaks, often from years of frustration with overly classified papers and knowledge, about the intelligence management failures that led to Japanese success at Pearl Harbor and the turn-around successes that reversed the course of the war within a year. His personal bitterness sometimes gets a bit long in the tooth, but his depth of first hand knowledge more than makes up for it. This book is a must for anyone interested in the beginning and the all-important first year of the war and debunking conspiracy theorists like Toland. Conspiracies become completely unnecessary when stupidity, ego and general incompetence among top politicians and military leaders abound.

And I Was There is the memoir of Edwin Layton, fleet intelligence officer first for Admiral Kimmel during the time leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack, and then for Admiral Nimitz for the remainder of the war. Layton tells about the intelligence situation in the Pacific fleet up to the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, through the battle of Midway, and then Guadalcanal. The rest of the war is treated in an epilogue. Layton was prompted to write this memoir when important intelligence documents pertaining to the Pacific War were declassified in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Layton's purpose is to vindicate his old boss, Admiral Kimmel, in the eyes of history by demonstrating that Kimmel was made a scapegoat in order to protect the careers and reputations of higher-ups in Washington. To a lesser extent, but no less convincingly, Layton also defends the memory of his old friend and colleague, Joseph Rochefort, head of station Hypo, the radio intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor. Rochefort and his team were responsible for the intelligence breakthroughs that allowed Admiral Nimitz to lie in wait for the Japanese at Midway and achieve that signal victory. For his trouble, Rochefort was sidelined only a few months after Midway by the intrigues of jealous rivals.

In the section of the book dealing with the run up to Pearl Harbor in 1941, Layton demonstrates that important intelligence, collected from decoded Japanese diplomatic radio traffic, was withheld from Admiral Kimmel at Pearl Harbor. The most startling of these was the so-called "bomb plot" message wherein the Japanese were to establish a grid layout of Pearl Harbor and environs, the existence of which could serve little purpose other than the planning of an attack. Layton concludes that the withholding of critical information from the commander at Pearl Harbor was due to bureaucratic bungling, and not to Washington foreknowledge of the attack.

The next part of And I Was There deals with the run up to the Battle of Midway and the struggle to gather as much useful intelligence as possible in order to catch the Japanese force by surprise. It is here that Layton comes to the defense of Joseph Rochefort. Before Midway, competition and controversy reigned between Rochefort's operation at Pearl Harbor, and the naval intelligence authorities in Washington who sought to take control of and credit for any breakthroughs that occurred in discerning Japanese intentions. This rivalry between Washington and Pearl Harbor intelligence analysis reached its climax with the debate over the true identity of the Japanese-encoded location, "AF". Rochefort and Hypo were long convinced that AF was indeed Midway, but Washington thought otherwise. Layton demonstrates that the famous ruse, where a false message was broadcast from Midway saying that their fresh water supply was endangered, was done not to convince Nimitz, but authorities in Washington. The resentment and jealousy fostered by Washington's being proven wrong resulted in Rochefort's removal from Hypo later in 1942, despite his having played such an indispensible part in the victory at Midway. Layton maintains that an outright conspiracy among ambitious officers in Washington was responsible for the ousting of Rochefort.

Aside from the main theme of vindicating old comrades, there are many compelling anecdotes in And I Was There. One that I found extremely interesting was that Layton, while serving as a naval attaché in Japan, had made the acquaintance of Admiral Yamamoto, with whom he played cards and attended theater. This made especially poignant the intelligence coup of April, 1943, where Layton was able to present Nimitz with an opportunity to intercept Yamamoto's plane at a certain place and time, and shoot it down. Layton briefly had qualms over this but reconciled that Yamamoto was leader of the enemy navy and that that trumped any personal considerations. Another interesting tidbit was Layton's claim to be the originator of the idea of the "eyes only" message that Nimitz sent Halsey, telling Halsey to intentionally be spotted by Japanese search planes in southern waters, so he could hightail it back to Pearl Harbor, against CNO King's inclination, in time for the Battle of Midway.

Other noteworthy details abound in Layton's book, and Layton's own analysis concerning developments in the Pacific War will prove invaluable to interested readers. And I Was There would never have been written, however, if Layton did not have an ax to grind over the treatment by the U.S. Navy, and the resulting dubious historical legacy, of his old boss, Admiral Kimmel. When documents supporting his case began to be declassified in the late 1970s, Layton was in his mid-70s, and would die in 1984, before his book reached publication the following year. In the meantime he took full advantage of the chance to bolster Kimmel's legacy, demonstrating through newly declassified documents that pertinent information had indeed been withheld from Kimmel in the months before the Pearl Harbor attack. A note in the front matter from Layton's widow, Miriam, attests to how heavily Kimmel's treatment had weighed upon Layton over the decades. In his final years, Layton was able to unburden himself, and Pacific War historiography is all the richer for it.

Before you jump on some revisionist books about Pearl Harbor, like Stinnet's Day of Deceipt, you should get it from the horses mouth! Layton, et al, tell a little known side of the war in the pacific. His opinions of some famous naval personalities like Stark and R.K. Turner will really have you thinking about how war is run when powerful, ambitious officers are running the show. It's a shame that lives had to be wasted while the U.S. got its act together to finally win the war in the pacific, but Layton's tale will give you a new perspective and supports much of what was previously written, like Prang's "At Dawn We Slept", about the debacle of Pearl Harbor and the genius that followed at Midway. Buy it!

I have long been a student of WWII history, and have read numerous books about the Pearl Harbor fiasco. This book is in my opinion the definitive study of the intelligence operations between U.S. and Japan in the period leading up to and throughout WWII, not by some historian and author, but by the man who was chief of naval intelligence for the Pacific fleet during the entire period. Too many revisionist historians have tried to place the blame, but have followed the official Washington coverup story or have come up with fantasies attempting to blame Roosevelt.

If you want to understand the war with Japan from beginning to end, and the circumstances leading to the use of the atom bombs, you must read two books: This book by Admiral Layton and another book titled "War's End" by Charles Sweeney. They are both written by men who were disgusted by all the distortions and revisionist accounts that have been written, and wanted to document the facts while someone was still alive who knew the truth.

Four or five dollars for a used book I wanted to read. It came immediately, too!