By Kevin Seabrooke

In a basement in Honolulu, Hawaii, a team of unconventional military cryptographers known as Station Hypo are led by Lt.-Com. Joseph Rochefort’s, who is sure he is close to breaking Japan’s top secret JN-25b code in April 1942.

Rochefort tells his skeptical superiors that Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is planning to send four aircraft carriers for an attack on Midway Island that would be larger than Pearl Harbor. Military intelligence is convinced that Australis is the next target, not a refueling station in the middle of nowhere.

Eventually, a test is devised after Rochefort believes he has the Japanese code for Midway (“AF”) and the Navy transmits a false message from Midway about a shortage of fresh water. Soon after, a Japanese message about a water shortage at “AF” is intercepted. The Battle of Midway in June 1942 was a significant turning point in the Pacific theater of World War II, and the Navy’s ability to break Japanese codes was a crucial part of the victory. Dugard is a New York Times bestselling author of several history books and coauthor with Bill O’Reilly of the Killing series.

Taking Midway: Naval Warfare, Secret Codes, and the Battle that Turned the Tide of World War II (Martin Dugard, Dutton, New York, NY, 2025, 368 pp., $32 HC)

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