Usage

Figure 1: Admiral Yamamoto

The most prominent usage of the purple code was the battle of Midway. Admiral Nimitz sent a false message that Midway was out of water to verify the Japanese codename for Midway. Within hours, a message that was sent out and the Japanese sent their fleet to attack, but the US navy was waiting for them. The battle proved to be one of the most decisive of the war, for that battle marked the end of Japanese expansion. From that point on, Japanese defeat was an inevitability, not a possibility.      The decryption of purple did not prevent Pearl Harbor, though. Conspiracy theorists claim that it was a calculated plot by FDR to allow the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor. In all likelihood, though, it took too long to decode the communications. It would take close to eight days to fully translate a message. That meant that the communiqué received on December 1st would not have been fully decoded until December 9th.      Purple was also used in the assassination of Admiral Yamamoto (See Figure 1), mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Detailed plans of his plan to visit the Solomon Islands were in a secret communiqué which the US intercepted. A squadron was sent to shoot down his plane.