Winds Code facts for kids

The "Winds Code" was a secret message system used during World War II. It was part of a big mystery about whether the United States knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor before it happened in 1941.

The idea was that Japan would send a hidden message in regular news or weather broadcasts. This message would tell their embassies around the world that war was about to begin. The big question is: Was this secret message ever sent, and did the U.S. receive it?

Many historians believe the message was never sent, or if it was, it wasn't clearly recorded by U.S. officials. Japan had other ways to communicate, even right up to the attack on December 7. Some experts think the "Winds Code" story is a distraction from the real events.

What Was the Winds Code?

The Winds Code was a special plan set up by Japan. If regular communication lines were cut off, a secret message would be hidden in daily Japanese international news broadcasts.

How the Code Worked

The secret messages were hidden within weather reports. They would be repeated twice. Here's what they meant:

• "East wind rain" (Higashi no kaze ame): This meant a major break with the United States was coming.
• "West wind clear" (Nishi no kaze hare): This meant a break with Britain (and possibly an invasion of Thailand).
• "North wind cloudy" (Kitano kaze kumori): This meant a break with the Soviet Union.

In 1941, if any messages were sent, it would likely have been the "East wind rain" and "West wind clear" messages, as the Soviet Union message didn't apply then.

How the US Knew About the Code

The United States Navy found out about the Winds Code plan. A code-breaker named Commander Laurance Safford at OP-20-G in Washington intercepted and figured out the signal that set up the code.

After this, the Americans started listening very closely to Japanese shortwave radio broadcasts every day. They called this secret monitoring effort the Winds Code watch.

Was the Message Received?

This is where the story gets confusing. A U.S. Navy operator named Ralph T. Briggs said he heard the "East wind rain" message on December 4. This message was supposedly sent to the Fleet Intelligence Office at Pearl Harbor.

Commander Laurance Safford also claimed he reported this message to his bosses in Washington. However, there is no official record of this message after that point. Several other officers also said they remembered seeing a "winds execute" message, but their memories were unclear or changed later.

Official Investigations and Lost Records

None of the official investigations after the war accepted Safford's claim as fact. They suggested his memory might have been wrong.

It was also claimed that many important documents went missing from the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington in the week after the Pearl Harbor attack.

In 2008, historians from the National Security Agency looked at all the old intelligence records. They concluded that the "winds execute" message probably never reached Washington. If it did, it was not passed on properly by the military.

What Japanese Officials Said

After the war ended, Japanese officials told General MacArthur that no "Winds" signal about the United States was ever sent. Commander Joseph Rochefort, who worked at Naval Headquarters in Pearl Harbor, also supported this idea.

However, an American intelligence team in Japan found that Japanese intelligence experts often gave them "half-truths or outright lies." This was partly because they worried Americans might punish those involved in intelligence.

A Later Report

Interestingly, a "Winds message" was reported from Hong Kong late on December 7, local time. The message was "higashi no kaze, ame; nishi no kaze, hare" (Easterly wind, rain; Westerly wind, fine). This meant Japan was about to declare war on Britain and America. Japan did attack British Malaya before Hawaii.