Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor

Wada’s office, the 14th Naval District Intelligence Office, moves from the Federal Building to the Alexander Young Hotel. They are now only miles from Pearl Harbor’s Naval base. ONI now believe nearly every Japanese group or organization is run by the consulate, a vast, spy-infused network working toward the Japanese war effort. Official reports from the winter of 1941 reveal that the US was keenly aware of the Japanese Army’s (and intelligence apparatus’s) utilization of predominately Japanese groups in Hawaii to sow dissent, spread propaganda, and seek recruits for the Japanese cause. Realistically, most Japanese in Hawaii just wanted to wait out the war, causing harm to neither side.

Warrant Officer Theodore “Ted” Emanuel is tasked with capturing communications from Japan, assigned to Wada’s ONI. He is busy tapping the consulate phones, thinking about the linguist Denzel Carr and his assistant Douglas Wada, who will translate whatever his wire taps capture.

Captain Irving Mayfield arrives at the newly appointed head of the ONI’s 15th District Intelligence Office. His task is to monitor the Japanese consulate. His predecessor, Captain Hart, has moved to the fleet deck. Mayfield laments that there is no coordination between the various US intelligence agencies working on the “Japanese problem.”

Nagao Kita, the new Consul General at the Japanese Consulate, arrives in Hawaii in March of 1941. Upon arrival, he is added to the detention lists, should war ignite.

Takeo Yoshikawa arrives in Hawaii in March of 1941, assigned to the consulate under official diplomatic cover, though he is there for Army intelligence. He begins his work under the false name Tadashi Morimura. He is met by vice-consul Otojiro Okuda, who Yoshikawa instantly dislikes. Upon arriving at the consulate, he immediately meets Nagao Kita, the new consul general. His predecessor is tasked with being his assistant, a role Third Secretary Kokichi Seki finds humiliating. Further, he meets a driver named Masayuki Kotoshirodo, a local who can be discreet and helpful. The driver takes them to call the Naval ports, discusses the fleet’s movements, and helps direct them toward interesting waypoints. Yoshikawa likes the driver and is eager to ditch Seki.

Gero Iwai is an enlisted Army soldier in the Army Corps of Intelligence Police (CIP), the first Japanese American. He is discharged in April of 1941 and sent undercover to Hawaii to monitor the Japanese population and create detention lists. Unlike others in counterintelligence, Iwai believes the consulate holds the spies and that most Japanese-centric organizations are innocuous. His only friend is Douglas Wada, a counterpart who understands what it is like to live in a shadow between his heritage and his nationalism. Their friendship is profound and impactful, and they collaborate.

In Los Angeles in the summer of 1941, a young Japanese language student is arrested as a spy. Itaru Tachibana was a commander in the Japanese Imperial Navy. He ran a spy ring that included a British war hero named Frederick Rutland, Charlie Chaplin’s assistant named Toraichi Kono, and silent film star named Al Blake. After Kono attempts to recruit him, Blake, a former Naval officer himself, informs the US Navy. At the same time, Rutland is being sought by MI5, and both MI5 and the US Navy are working counterintelligence operations against Tachibana’s network.

With enough evidence, they arrest Kono, Tachibana, Blake, and Rutland, and although responsible for bringing down the network, Blake is nearly destroyed when the newspapers call him a traitor. Rutland is deported, the Japanese pay Tachibana’s bail, and Kono stays behind bars until the case is dropped. The American public is enraged by the spies among them, and the Japanese American population suffers scorn. Ringle, who has been working in LA, understands that the consulate lies at the heart of the spy networks. He firmly believes that the majority of the Japanese Americans in the US are loyal to the US.

Ringle decides to break into the consulate himself and enlists the help of a safe cracker from a nearby prison. He succeeds in getting a cache of intel and returns the prisoner to his cell before morning.

Wada tells Mayfield that the majority of the consulate calls are about the men trying to find sex workers and an affair between Kita and his maid. Washington still refuses to arrest consular officers, believing it will hurt Japanese American military recruitment and might endanger US diplomats abroad. Mayfield has finally convinced a cable company to tap the consular diplomatic cables, but this won’t take effect until December 1st, 1941.

At Tokyo High, the Nisei are Americanized and loyal to the United States, led by Japanese American leaders who meet with FBI Special Agent Shivers on security issues. Chief among them is respected attorney Masai Marumoto, who is by this time friends with Shivers. At a rally, more than 100 Nisei volunteer as reserve police officers and are trained by the force. Some enlist in the military. Others help take down Japanese signage and replace them with English. With these successes, Shivers hopes to demonstrate the potential for Japanese American loyalty to J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI.

General Walter Short is being reprimanded for his lack of war-time preparedness in Hawaii. Lt. Col. Burwell authors the report. Burwell is an investigator who was Shivers, Bricknell, and others aid in Hawaii’s intelligence. In response, Short lines up their planes wing-to-wing to prevent saboteurs from inflicting fleet-wide damage. Frustrated by poor, mixed communication out of Hawaii, Roosevelt puts the FBI in charge of coordination on the “Japanese Problem.”

FDR’s retreat from Washington to his summer home offers respite from the war. Japan has seized French Indochina. Roosevelt is prepared to seize all Japanese assets in the US; the text states: “It’s a drastic action that will cost Japan access to three-fourths of its overseas trade and 88 percent of its imported oil” (86). Amid rumors of the seizure, Issei withdraw funds, transfer titles, and panic. After the announcement, Japan sacks Saigon.

The US intercepts a Japanese military message to the Japanese consulate in Hawaii requesting information on the US Naval fleet at Pearl Harbor. The interception goes to DC but not to Hawaii.

Takeo Yoshikawa, under his false name Tadashi Morimura, joins the kendo club in Hawaii and attempts to befriend Americans who frequent the club.

Takeo Yoshikawa, under his false name Tadashi Morimura, sits at a tea house and watches the US Naval fleet. They are used to seeing him there, and he attempts to get intel from the geisha girls and staff. He has found a new driver and thoroughly understands the US Naval holdings on the island. By the end of November, the US Navy suspects a Japanese attack but does not suspect Hawaii. As a result, no defenses are strengthened in Oahu as a massive Japanese fleet bears down.

Takeo Yoshikawa is acting as courier for funds from Japan to a Nazi spy named Otto Kuehn, who is helping him monitor the Naval fleet in Hawaii. The Nazi’s two beach homes offer perfect vantage points and potential bases in the event of consulate closure. Kuehn’s 17-year-old daughter was Joseph Goebbels’s mistress, and Goebbels sent the entire family to Hawaii out of fear Hitler would retaliate against the girl for their affair. The whole family work as spies in the war effort. Although the FBI is aware of their activities and the transfer of funds, they cannot prove he is a spy. Kuehn devises a series of codes for the Japanese and agrees to offer his home and his skills when war ignites. Cables from Japan to the consulate increasingly demand intel on the US fleet.

Mayfield gets word the Japanese are burning confidential documents at the consulate, a sure sign that something big is coming. Both the FBI and the Navy believe the other is listening to consulate phones, but neither has taps. Nobody is aware of this oversight as word from DC confirms Japanese consulates around the US are burning documents. Although Mayfield’s cable tap is now active, with decipher and translation time it’ll be mid-December by the time he gets the first cables.

Shivers signs a report of 347 Issei names, those to be detained in the event of war. Hoover approves the list the next day and tells Shivers to ready the pickups (the list of those to be arrested). Meanwhile, Consul General Kita informs Japan that Pearl Harbor has limited defenses and no aerial surveillance or torpedo nets.

It is shortly after midnight on December 7 as two Japanese seamen in a sub approach Pearl Harbor. Using the maps and details from Yoshikawa, they approach the ships. The soldiers in one sub have a malfunctioning gyrocompass and can only tell their direction by surfacing. Still, they forge ahead toward Peal Harbor.