WWII Innovations - Codebreaking, Radar, Espionage, New Bombs, and More

Part 6: WWII Innovation s - Codebreaking, Radar, Espionage, New Bombs, and More. Part 7: WWII Innovations - Codebreaking, Radar, Espionage, New Bombs, and More. Objective: How new innovations impacted the war, people in the war, and people after the war. Assessment Goals: 1. Research and understand at least three of the innovations of WWII that made a difference on the war and after the war. (Learning Target 3) 2. Determine whether you think dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a wise decision or not. (Learning Target 2) Resources: Resources in Binder (Video links, websites, and articles) Note Graph (Create something similar in your notes): Use this graph for researching innovations: Innovation #1: ______________________ Innovation #2: ______________________ Innovation #3: ______________________ (Specific notes about impact on war and after) (Specific notes about impact on war and after) (Specific notes about impact on war and after) Use the graph on the next page to organize your research about the atomic bomb. Evidence that dropping the bombs was wise: Evidence that dropping the bombs was not wise: (Include quotes, document citations, and (Include quotes, document citations, and statistics) statistics) ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● My position: My overall thoughts about the choice to drop the bombs: If I were a Japanese civilian, what would I have wanted to happen and why? If I were a U.S. soldier, what would I have wanted to happen and why? Resources: Part 7 - WW2 Innovations - Codebreaking, Radar, Espionage, New Bombs, and More. Links: ● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hAzmh6XSr8 World War II Code Breaking Video Part 1 (There are more available on YouTube) ● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M7q44gVHIE Documentary about FDR and Espionage during WW2 ● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27AFh4aIBis Video highlighting types of technology used in WW2 to give ideas for further research ● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IqKdf6In_k Video about Manhattan Project, The Science ● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kFr5zTxsUM Documentary about the Manhattan Project ● http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-navajo-code-talkers.htm Interview with Navajo Code Talker Chester Nez ● http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/code_breaking/ More information about:Code breaking Cryptography was used extensively during World War II, with a plethora of code and cipher systems fielded by the nations involved. In addition, the theoretical and practical aspects of cryptanalysis, or codebreaking, was much advanced. Probably the most important codebreaking event of the war was the successful decryption by the Allies of the German "Enigma" Cipher. The first complete break into Enigma was accomplished by Poland around 1932; the techniques and insights used were passed to the French and British Allies just before the outbreak of the War in 1939. They were substantially improved by British efforts at the Bletchley Park research station during the War. Decryption of the Enigma Cipher allowed the Allies to read important parts of German radio traffic on important networks and was an invaluable source of military intelligence throughout the War. Intelligence from this source (and other high level sources, including the Fish ciphers) was eventually called Ultra. A similar break into an important Japanese cipher (PURPLE) by the US Army Signals Intelligence Service started before the US entered the War. Product from this source was called MAGIC. It was the highest security Japanese diplomatic cipher. World War II: Navajo Code Talkers http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-navajo-code-talkers.htm As 1942 dawned, World War II was not going well for America and her Allies. Japanese carrier-borne bombers and fighters had crippled the U.S. Navy’s proud Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941; attacked American bases in the Philippines and on Guam; and were intent on seizing other island bases in the south and central Pacific. In Europe, France had fallen to Germany’s blitzkrieg, and stalwart Britain was still staggering from the Nazis’ relentless nighttime bombing during the previous year. Half a world away, two great British ships — the battleship Prince of Wales and battle cruiser Repulse — and members of their crews lay at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Malaya, unfortunate victims of Japanese bombing attacks on December 10, 1941. Meanwhile, Germany’s armies continued to advance methodically into the Soviet Union, while Hitler’s submarines wreaked havoc on supply convoys outbound to Russian ports from the United States. For the U.S. Armed Forces, communications, which had always been a complex issue, had now become a bewildering problem. Japanese cryptographers were proving themselves amazingly adept at breaking top secret military codes almost as rapidly as newer, more complicated procedures could be devised. Many of the Japanese code breakers had been educated in the United States where they had learned to speak English and had become familiar with American colloquialisms, including slang terms and profanity. As a result, American battle plans became known to the enemy almost immediately, often before they had become operational, and there appeared to be no immediate workable solution. The result was an appalling loss of American lives. One war analyst commented, ‘Military communications were made available to the enemy like sand sifting through a sieve.’ Some months before, Philip Johnston, a middle-aged civil engineer who lived in Los Angeles, read a newspaper article on military security. During World War I, he had served with U.S. forces in France, and although too old to fight in World War II, Johnston wanted to aid the current war effort in some way. From the age of four, he had lived on the Navajo Indian Reservation, where his parents were Protestant missionaries, and had consequently grown up speaking the Navajo tongue with his playmates. Now, as he read, the concept of a secret military code based on the Navajo language flashed across his mind. In February 1942, after formulating his idea, Johnston traveled south to Camp Elliott near San Diego, where he tried to convince Lieutenant Colonel James E. Jones, the Marines’ Signal Corps Communications Officer, that a code based on the Navajo language could not be broken by the enemy. Jones, after listening intently to Johnston’s idea, responded: ‘In all the history of warfare, that has never been done. No code, no cipher is completely secure from enemy interception. We change our codes frequently for this reason.’ But Johnston’s graphic presentation proved so convincing that the two men agreed to set up a test. Johnston’s confidence in his theory lay in the fact that the Navajo language includes a number of words that, when spoken with varying inflections, may have as many as four totally different meanings. Navajo verb forms are especially complex. To most listeners, the language is virtually incomprehensible and has been variously likened to the rumble of a moving freight train, the gurgling noises of a partially blocked sink drain, or, jokingly, the resonant thunder of an old-fashioned commode being flushed. As a result, use of the Navajo tongue was confined almost entirely to the reservation; few non-Navajos spoke or understood it. And it was a ‘hidden language,’ there not yet being an alphabet or written form for others to study. Returning to Los Angeles, Johnston spent nearly two weeks seeking bilingual Navajos from among that city’s population. On February 28, 1942, he returned to Camp Elliott with four Indians in order to prove their linguistic capability before a group of skeptical Marine staff officers. Sent in pairs to separate rooms, the first two Navajos were given a typical military field order to transmit in their own language to the others several doors away. When retranslated back into English, the message received by the second pair proved to be an accurate copy of the order as it was given. The Marines were amazed at the speed and accuracy of the interpretation, and the presentation was pronounced a complete success. Major General Clayton Vogel, Camp Elliott’s commanding officer, composed an urgent letter — supported by another from Johnston — describing the demonstration to the Marine Corps commandant in Washington, D.C., and urging the immediate recruitment of two hundred young, well-educated Navajos to serve as Marine communications specialists. After an agonizing delay, General Vogel was authorized by Washington to recruit just thirty Navajos for training in a trial project. The commandant of the Marine Corps, unwilling to risk turning over such a vital element of the war effort to a civilian and two hundred Navajo Indians, reasoned that if a program using the thirty men did not work out, the Marines would not have expended too much time and effort. By mid-April, Marine recruiting personnel appeared on the Navajo Reservation. They proceeded to enlist thirty volunteers from agency schools at Fort Wingate and Shiprock, New Mexico, and Fort Defiance, Arizona. In addition to being fluent in both the Navajo tongue and English, each enlistee had to be physically fit in order to serve as a messenger in combat. The Navajos were told only that they would be’specialists’ and would serve both in the United States and overseas. Some members of the group were underage, but as birth records were not usually kept on the reservation, it was easy for a recruit to lie or be mistaken about his age. Carl Gorman, a 36-year-old Navajo from Fort Defiance, was too old to be considered by the Marines, so he lied about his age in order to be accepted. For almost all of the Navajos, travel was a brand new experience. Some had never been off the reservation, and many had never ridden on a bus or train. The majority of them had never seen an ocean and did not realize that they would soon be a part of the ferocious war being fought in the middle of the Pacific.

Load more