IJA Secret Intelligence Team at Chofu

[Shinpachi]

Thanks kaigunair for your always strong encouragements.

My next translation will be the one relating to a B-29 which dropped a new type bomb on Hiroshima.
Author's team was capturing 3 (not 2) B-29s flying for Hiroshima on the day. Their flight looked strange because.....

 

[Wayne Little]

Bring it on Shinpachi san..

 

[Shinpachi]

Sorry Wayne for my obscure way of writing. It will be coming soon.

At the moment, I am drawing Stuka(Yes, JU-87) main spar as this is requested by a restorer in Belgium.
This will be completed in a couple of weeks at latest. So, please kindly be patient for a while.
Thank you very much for looking forward to my translation.
Domo arigato.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Excellent work sir!!! Work on, we shall wait patiently.

 

[Shinpachi]

Thanks Aaron for your kindest care.
Article Nos. 110-113 cover a story about the new type bomb on Hiroshima.


Article No.110

Manhattan Project
===========
Author: Mr. Teruo Miyoshi

It was the afternoon of hot summer sunshine on August 5, 1945.
2nd Lt. Hiraoka, Sergeant Fujita and I visited our commander's room as we had a message "I have a special message for you three" from Commander Morita.

Commander commenced
"In the early morning today, an operation meeting was held at the headquarters. I tell you what was discussed there and our future mission.

The planes we named "mysterious planes" are to be called "special mission planes" from now on.

Our Central Special Intelligence Division of Army captured a news from a foreign news agency that a new weapon experiment was carried out in New Mexico in the US on July 16.

Based on this news and our own reseach about the "Mysterious B-29s" which has been being taken place since early July, the destructive power of the new type weapon is thought much more advanced one than the conventional ones.

In addition, we must pay attention to the facts that these B-29s have had their training flights to access to our mainland several times before and the squadron numbers of V600s for B-29s deployed on the Mariana islands are handled as missing ones from the beginning.

That is, it is evident that the squadrons of V600s are charged with a special mission from the beginning.

Our headquarters commander's order is - Central Special Intelligence Division of Army and other comunication intelligence teams, radar bases are to keep watch on their actitivities of the 'special mission planes' without relaxing at any moment and to make our best efforts for our homeland defence with atmost attention.

That is all."


......this story continues.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

So the Japanese Military knew we had something going on. Very interesting Shinpachi. You keep coming up with exceptional pieces of history that I have not read or heard of. Don't let this get in the way of your work.

 

[Shinpachi]

Thanks Aaron. Yes, it seems that they knew something about the project in advance.
Here it continues....

*************************************
...... Our headquarters commander's order is - Central Special Intelligence Division of Army and other comunication intelligence teams, radar bases are to keep watch on their actitivities of the 'special mission planes' without relaxing at any moment and to make our best efforts for our homeland defence with atmost attention.

That is all."


I did not know why but I couldn't sleep well that night. The date had turned to August 6. At around 02:00, Sergeant Fujita talked to me "Wake up. We captured the V-codes from B-29s."

2nd Lt. Hiraoka, 1st Privates Iwaki and Matsumura together with 3 translation privates were already standing by in the communication room.

The staff who captured the V-codes was 1st Private Tada.
He was very good at capturing the radio frequency as he had sufficient experiences as a wireless communication engineer with many sea vessels at a coast radio station before he was enlisted.

He said the number would be 5 or 6 judging form the V-codes situation.
(* The V-code was dispatched by each B-29 to adjust her radio transmitter soon after her take-off.)

Changed the line to a speaker so that all could listen, we awaited for their next dispatch of the codes but nothing came in except noises.

At around 03:00, a translation soldier said
"One of the B-29s sent a short coded telegram to Washington DC."


....... this story continues.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Very interesting Shinpachi. Thank you very much.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Wow, I'd never heard of that either. Thanks Spinpachi for the information!

 

[Wayne Little]

Great stuff Shinpachi ...and your Stuka work is awesome too!!

 

[Shinpachi]

Thanks Aaron, vB and Wayne for reading my scattered translation patiently.
Here it goes...

*******************************************

..... At around 03:00, a translation soldier said
"One of the B-29s sent a short coded telegram to Washington DC."


We were unable to know what the telegram said as it was unknown code to us but I presumed that the fact they sent telegram to Washington, and what for, would be the key point to understand.

Past 04:00, the translation soldier reported us again
"One of the B-29s is having contact with Iwo-jima on their radio phone.
The message content is 'We are flying to the target'."

Where on earth is the target?

Adding to the telegram matter for Washington, why did they dare to report Iwo-jima their 'flying' just when they were passing over the island?

Thinking these things generally and comparing with their conventional air-raid missions, we found there were too many questions to answer.

At that hour, another communication team in the headquarters and the Central Special Intelligence Division of Army were also on their duty. 2nd Lt. Hiraoka was very busy for exchanging informations with them.

The translation soldier again reported
"The B-29s separated into two groups. According to my calculation based on their coordinates, though I don't know how many planes each group has, one is heading for Bungo Channel (Northern Kyusyu, far west of Hiroshima) and the other for Kii Peninsula (South of Osaka, leading to Hiroshima)."

Big tension stirred up among us.

...... this story continues.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Thank you again Shinpachi.

 

[proton45]

Thanks Shinpachi, that is some really interesting research...I might even say it is valuable information.

 

[Wayne Little]

 

[Shinpachi]

Thanks Aaron, proton45 and Wayne Stuka would be a long term project...

***********************************

...... Big tension stirred up among us.

Listening to the English sentences which were streaming out from the speaker, the translation soldier translated the contents for us -
"I have captured their communication. It says 'Sky is clear above the target. Visual attack is possible. We are heading to east for Harima-nada (*a sea between Hiroshima and Osaka)' but their communication partner is unknown."

Our team was vaguely perceiving the group for Bungo Channel would not be the main because if it had been a guide, there should have always been another formaion behind the guide but there was no sign at all. However, our Central Special Intelligence Division persisted to the phenomenon that B-29s appeared on Bungo Channel and had sent warning to the headquarters of 6th Air Force which was covering Kyusyu/Okinawa area then.

We had no idea where the other group who could have received the message "Visual attack is possible" was standing by but it had soon been turned out that they invaded flying above our less defended area and was circling waiting for the weather information from the leading group.

According to my flight experience with my former partner Warrant officer Takenaka (ex-Sergeant-major Takenaka - a Ki-45 pilot) that we flew over that area tailing B-29s who were invading to bomb Osaka-Kobe, the route from the middle point between Shingu City of Wakayama Prefecture and Owashi City of Mie Prefecture to Kawachi-nagano City of Osaka Prefecture by way of Kumano-kodo, Mt.Kohya, River Kinokawa and Hashimoto City of Wakayama Prefecture was presumed.

Also, according to 2nd Lt. Hiraoka's guess, the positon the other group was standing by would be within a radius of 200 to 300km (125 to 187miles) from the target point. Then, it might be above Lake Biwa(*north of Kyoto) but we had no evidence about our presumption.



/End of Article No.110 but this story continues.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Thank you again Shinpachi.

 

[Shinpachi]

You are welcome, Aaron.
I am enjoying presuming where they were too

 

[Shinpachi]

Article No.111

A Long Day of August 6
==============
Author: Mr. Teruo Miyoshi


We, the communication intelligence unit which happened to be organized temporarily by the Central Special Intelligence Division of Army, the naval communication unit and our communication team who had been chasing the US "special mission planes" since around 02:00 midnight of August 6 together were all hard to capture the radio frequencies of the US planes with the full concentration.

But -
It seemed for me that our General Headquarters not only ignored the information by our team - "the B-29s has separated into two groups above the offshore of Kii Peninsula to take different action each other" which had been analysed based on their radio communication, but had been preoccupied with a few B-29s of the leading group heading for Bungo Channel to issue the interception order to our air-defence units in the relevant region.

This would have been because they did not doubt the conventional B-29 tactics that where there was a guide who was missioned to search for our defence system and weather conditon, there was always a formation behind.

This time, however, it was easy for our team to know their trend because we had already grasped their exact bombing route for Nagoya (* located between Osaka and Tokyo). When the target was Nagoya or its nearby, they flew targetting the mountains of Kii Peninsula to enter and went out to Ensyu-nada(*a sea offshore Nagoya). This time, it was evidently shifted to the west from their Nagoya route.

Then, is their target Osaka or Kobe?
No, it was impossible for us to expect them such a rough air-raid on Osaka-Kobe(*highly defended area) with no escort fighters.


..... to be continued.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Nice work Shinpachi!! Thank you.

 

[Wayne Little]

Keep it coming Shinpachi, should be interesting to read of what comes next when the target is realised and they find out the result....