Hitler's Japanese Confidant

Allied cryptographers broke the Japanese diplomatic code in 1941, after which Ambassador Oshima Hiroshi's messages from Berlin to Tokyo were intercepted, deciphered, translated and passed along to U.S. and British intelligence operatives. Gen. George Marshall, the U.S. Army chief of staff, called the Oshima intercepts the ``main basis of information regarding Hitler's intentions in Europe.'' Oshima inadvertently provided the Allies with advance information about Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, the Axis buildup in North Africa and the Wehrmacht's defensive system along the Normandy coast (which proved vital to the success of the Allied invasion of June 1944). In this valuable study, Boyd carefully analyzes Oshima's messages and reports, places them in political and military contexts, and sheds new light on Germany's strategies during the war as well as on German-Japanese relations. Oshima died in 1975, never having learned that the enemy had read his mail throughout WW II. Boyd is a history professor at Old Dominion University in Virginia. Photos. (Mar.)