Laurance Safford
Encyclopedia
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and headed the effort more or less constantly until shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
. His identification with the Naval effort was so close that he was the Friedman
William F. Friedman
William Frederick Friedman was a US Army cryptographer who ran the research division of the Army's Signals Intelligence Service in the 1930s, and parts of its follow-on services into the 1950s...
of the Navy.
Safford was born in 1890 in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. He secured an appointment to Annapolis, and graduated fifteenth in the class of 1916. In January 1924 he was called from command of a minesweeper off the China coast to head the "research desk" of the Code and Signal Section within the Office of Naval Communications. In the beginning his sole task was to exploit a Japanese naval codebook that had been filched from the Japanese consulate in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. To do this he had four civilian clerical employees.
Safford promoted the effort throughout the Navy, attracting Agnes Meyer Driscoll
Agnes Meyer Driscoll
Agnes Meyer Driscoll was, known as Miss Aggie or Madame X, an Americancryptanalyst during both World War I and World War II.-Early years:...
, Joseph Rochefort
Joseph Rochefort
Joseph John Rochefort was an American Naval officer and cryptanalyst. His contributions and those of his team were pivotal to victory in the Pacific War....
, Joseph Wenger
Joseph Wenger
Joseph Wenger was a Rear-Admiral of the United States Navy who served as the first Deputy Director of the Armed Forces Security Agency , and later as the first Vice Director of the National Security Agency, from December 1952 to November 1953, after the separate divisions of the AFSA merged into...
, and others who were to lead the business through World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and into the postwar period. He was the first to begin organizing the worldwide Naval collection and direction finding effort, so that when the United States entered World War II it already had a system of intercept stations. Safford himself was wrenched out of the job in 1926, returning in 1929. He remained with the effort except for another sea tour from 1932 to 1936. Meanwhile, the effort that he headed broke Japanese naval codes, and began mechanizing its operations with the addition of IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
equipment. Safford himself was directly involved with building cryptographic machines, and collaborated with the Army's Frank Rowlett
Frank Rowlett
Frank Byron Rowlett was an American cryptologist.Rowlett was born in Rose Hill, Virginia and attended Emory & Henry College in Emory, Virginia, where he was a member of the Beta Lambda Zeta fraternity. In 1929 he received a bachelor's degree in mathematics and chemistry...
in the invention of the Sigaba
SIGABA
In the history of cryptography, the ECM Mark II was a cipher machine used by the United States for message encryption from World War II until the 1950s...
, a cipher machine not known to be broken by any country during World War II.
Safford promoted collaboration with the Army on several fronts, and was largely responsible for the Navy entry into a joint effort with the Army on the Japanese diplomatic systems. He recognized the signs of war that appeared in the diplomatic traffic, and tried to get a warning message to Pearl Harbor several days before the attack, but was rebuffed by Admiral Noyes, the director of Naval communication. Organizationally, he promoted a decentralized system with Naval COMINT sections in Washington, Hawaii and Manila. He gave the chief Japanese naval code problem to the organization in Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, and named Joseph Rochefort
Joseph Rochefort
Joseph John Rochefort was an American Naval officer and cryptanalyst. His contributions and those of his team were pivotal to victory in the Pacific War....
to head the effort. (He also gave Rochefort a blank check to obtain the very best Navy cryptanalysts.) This paid off in the spring of 1942 when Rochefort's team, though unable to break JN-25
JN-25
The vulnerability of Japanese naval codes and ciphers was crucial to the conduct of World War II, and had an important influence on foreign relations between Japan and the west in the years leading up to the war as well...
, the main Japanese naval operational code, was able to deduce important information from it, largely through traffic analysis
Traffic analysis
Traffic analysis is the process of intercepting and examining messages in order to deduce information from patterns in communication. It can be performed even when the messages are encrypted and cannot be decrypted. In general, the greater the number of messages observed, or even intercepted and...
, in time to help win the Battle of Midway
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy decisively defeated...
. Rochefort's team was also able to trick the Japanese Navy into sending a message which revealed that it was Midway that was the focus of the attack, not the Aleutians, as Washington cryptanalysts maintained.
Power struggles with the Navy had by that time already led to Safford's ouster, and he was sidelined for the remainder of the war, as ultimately was Rochefort.
He retired from active duty in 1953 and died in May 1973.
Amelia Earhart
About 1970 he began a lengthy analysis of the 1937 flight across the Pacific on which Amelia EarhartAmelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean...
disappeared, and after establishing the intricate radio transmission documentation he concluded poor planning, worse execution. A book was subsequently published:
Earhart's flight into yesterday: the facts without the fiction by Laurance F. Safford with Cameron A. Warren & Robert R. Payne (c2003, Paladwr Press, McLean VA USA) ISBN 1888962208