Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
before the
attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii ...
on December 7, 1941.
Early career
A 1933 graduate of the
Imperial Japanese Naval Academy The was a school established to train line officers for the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was originally located in Nagasaki, moved to Yokohama in 1866, and was relocated to Tsukiji, Tokyo in 1869. It moved to Etajima, Hiroshima in 1888. Students st ...
at
Etajima
, also called , ''Nomijima'', ''Nomi Island'', or is an island in Hiroshima Bay located in southwestern Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The mess with island name originates from the ancient (and possibly legendary) strait at now town .
Geography
Th ...
(graduating at the top of his class), Yoshikawa served briefly at sea aboard the
armored cruiser
The armored cruiser was a type of warship of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was designed like other types of cruisers to operate as a long-range, independent warship, capable of defeating any ship apart from a battleship and fast eno ...
submarine
A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...
s. He had begun training as a naval pilot near the end of 1934 when a severe stomach ailment prevented his completing his training. He was subsequently discharged from the
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...
in 1936. As a result, he briefly contemplated suicide.
A year later he began a career in Naval intelligence, being assigned to Navy Headquarters in
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...
. He became an expert regarding the
U.S. Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...
, perusing every source he could possibly get his hands on. While on intelligence duty he intercepted a shortwave radio message in plain
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
that 17 troop transports were en route to
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
, having cleared the port of
Freetown
Freetown is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educ ...
,
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierr ...
. He passed this information to the Nazi Germany, German Embassy, and many of the ships were destroyed as a result. Yoshikawa subsequently received a personal letter of thanks from
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
. In 1940 he became a junior diplomat after passing the
Foreign Ministry In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The entit ...
English examinations.
A spy in Hawaii
Because of his expertise on the U.S. Navy, Yoshikawa was sent to Hawaii posing as a vice-consul named Tadashi Morimura (森村 正 ''Morimura Tadashi''), arriving on March 27, 1941, with Nagao Kita (喜多 長雄 ''Kita Nagao''), the new Japanese Consul-General aboard the liner '' Nitta Maru''. He rented a second-story apartment that overlooked Pearl Harbor and would often wander around the island of
Oahu
Oahu () ( Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over two-thirds of the population of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The island of O ...
, taking notes on fleet movements and security measures. He rented small airplanes at
John Rodgers Airport
Daniel K. Inouye International Airport , also known as Honolulu International Airport, is the main airport of Oahu, Hawaii. He gathered information by taking the Navy's own harbor tugboat and listening to local gossip. He worked closely with German
Abwehr
The ''Abwehr'' ( German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', but the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context; ) was the German military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the '' Wehrmacht'' from 1920 to 1944. ...
agent Bernard Kuehn, as well as another former Etajima graduate, Kokichi Seki (関 興吉 ''Seki Kō'kichi''), an untrained spy who served as the consulate's treasurer.
According to Yoshikawa, although some 160,000 persons of Japanese ancestry lived in Hawaii at that time, he never tried to make use of this resource in his
espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tang ...
activities. He and Seki agreed that, while Hawaii should be the "easiest place" to carry out such work in view of the large Japanese population, both looked upon the locals with disdain. " ose men of influence and character who might have assisted me in my secret mission were unanimously uncooperative...."
Although he had no knowledge of a planned attack on
Naval Station Pearl Harbor
Naval Station Pearl Harbor is a United States naval base on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. In 2010, along with the United States Air Force's Hickam Air Force Base, the facility was merged to form Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam. Pearl Harbor is ...
, Yoshikawa assumed that the intelligence would help prepare for such an eventuality and worked tirelessly to that end. His reports were transmitted by the Japanese consulate in
PURPLE
Purple is any of a variety of colors with hue between red and blue. In the RGB color model used in computer and television screens, purples are produced by mixing red and blue light. In the RYB color model historically used by painters ...
code to the Foreign Ministry, which passed them on to the Navy. Although the code had been broken by Allied codebreakers and messages to and from Tokyo were intercepted and decrypted, communications between Tokyo and the consulate were considered low-priority because they contained so many messages that were entirely commercial in nature. However, one such message addressed to Kita (but actually to Yoshikawa) and sent on September 24, 1941, should have received more attention. It divided Pearl Harbor into five distinct zones and requested that the location and number of warships be indicated on a "plot" (i.e., grid) of the harbor. However, due to delays caused by staff shortages and other priorities the message was not decrypted and distributed until mid-October, and then dismissed as being of little consequence. However, it was the reports that he sent twice a week based on this request that enabled Admiral
Isoroku Yamamoto
was a Marshal Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II until he was killed.
Yamamoto held several important posts in the IJN, and undertook many of its changes and reor ...
to finalize his plan for the attack.
When he heard the "East wind, rain" code phrase on the short wave radio bringing the news from Tokyo to signal that an attack against the United States was to proceed, Yoshikawa destroyed all evidence of his activities. When the FBI picked him up on the day of the attack, there was no incriminating evidence of his espionage. He eventually returned to Japan in August 1942 in a diplomat prisoner exchange. It was not known for some time that he was the chief Japanese agent in Hawaii.
Return to Japan and later life
Yoshikawa continued to work for naval intelligence during the remainder of the war. When the war ended and Japan was occupied by U.S. forces, he went into hiding (disguised as a
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
monk) for fear of being prosecuted for his role in the Pearl Harbor attack.The Pearl Harbor Spy, Part II by Miss Cellania in The Bathroom Reader, History, Weapons & War, Dec 6, 2010. He returned to his wife (whom he had married shortly after his return from the U.S.) when the occupation ended.
Yoshikawa never received official recognition of his services during the war. In 1955, he opened a candy business but it failed as word spread of his role in the war. The locals blamed Yoshikawa for the war. "They even blamed me for the atomic bomb," he declared in one interview. Penniless and jobless, he was supported by his wife for the rest of his life via her position selling insurance. "My wife alone shows me great respect," said the old former spy. "Every day she bows to me. She knows I am a man of history." He died in a nursing home.
Over the years, the mysterious spies of
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the ...
were always mentioned in passing in history books. While the Yoshikawa case was used to retroactively justify the decision to
intern
An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and gove ...
Japanese American
are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...
s, he claimed that he distrusted the Japanese-American community and that it was loyal to America over Japan.