re: #73 HappyWarrior

Yeah he got a bad deal and the film version portrayed him as an eccentric. The thing that was interesting though looking at his memoirs was that he said that he decided to learn Japanese in the early 20’s while a young naval officer. Interesting because I don’t think too many officers were looking at Japan as a potential key player for the U.S to deal with.

The Wikipedia entry on him mentions doing encryption/intelligence work in 1924-29 before being sent to Japan to learn Japanese between 1929-31. So it looks like someone in the intelligence community saw a need for officers to be learning Japanese. And by that time it was becoming obvious that Japan was going to be the most likely potential adversary in the Pacific.