This was originally posted as "America's 75 Year Mystery".
How about a spy story, that provides the answer to an enduring mystery? Even in these days, when hacking has largely replaced traditional spying, spy stories are still popular.
THE DEADLY DOUBLEEvery anniversary of the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, we are reminded of a bizarre mystery that has yet to be solved.
Two weeks before the attack, an ad was placed in a magazine called The New Yorker. The ad was for sales of a game involving dice, made by a company called Monarch Publishing. The game was called "The Deadly Double".
The image in the ad featured a pair of dice, with the numbers 12 and 7 prominently displayed. According to one account that I read, this was unusual because no dice at the time featured the numbers 12 or 7. The ad also had the words for "warning" in three languages, and was about the dice game as something to do in an air raid shelter.
The following image is from the New Yorker magazine, November 22, 1941. The main ad included an image of people playing a dice game in an air raid shelter, although America wasn't at war at the time.
As it turns out the attack on Pearl Harbor soon took place, as an air raid on the 7th day of the 12th month.
After the attack, the U.S. Government launched an investigation into the ad. It was soon found that neither the game nor Monarch Publishing existed. A man had come to the offices of the magazine, paid for the ad in cash without giving his name, and had the type for the ad all set up. He handed the clerk the set of type, and insisted that it be used to print the ad. The man was not Japanese.
According to another account of the Deadly Double that I read, investigators managed to find the man who placed the ad, but he had recently died in a mysterious accident.
It does not seem possible that the ad was a coded warning to any Japanese agents that the attack was about to take place because there were Japanese diplomats in the U.S. at the time of the attack, who clearly did not know that the attack was going to take place. Adolf Hitler was officially an ally of Japan, but was reportedly just as shocked as anyone at news of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The "Deadly Double" remains a much-pondered mystery to this day. Even if the game did exist, why would a company market a game as something to do while in an air raid shelter, when the country wasn't even at war?
RICHARD SORGE
Now, let's go to another spy story. In fact, the story of Richard Sorge has got to be the greatest spy story there ever was.
Richard Sorge's father was German, and his mother Russian. While recuperating from wounds suffered while serving in the German Army during the First World War, he became a devout convert to Communism. By the Second World War, he was a journalist reporting from Tokyo, seeming to be a Nazi, but actually spying for the Soviet Union.
Sorge reportedly found out about the imminent Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and warned his NKVD contacts (the NKVD was the predecessor to the KGB, which is the predecessor to the present FSB, the state security organization), but Josef Stalin apparently didn't believe him.
After Imperial Japan occupied Manchuria, transforming it into a client state called Manchukuo, a dispute arose over the border between that state and the Soviet Union. Several battles were fought, in which the Soviets secured their territory. These are known as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol. There was also, of course, the major naval battle in the area between Japan and Russia, in 1905.
After the Nazis, allies of Japan, invaded the Soviet Union in the west, the Soviet leadership was very concerned that Japan would join in by attacking from the east. A large military force was stationed in the Soviet far east, even though it was very much needed to oppose the invasion in the west.
This was where Richard Sorge came into the picture. His job was to pretend to be a Nazi, reporting as a journalist on events in ally Japan, but actually finding out and reporting to the Soviet Union what Japan's military plans were.
The Wikipedia article on Richard Sorge states that he was a master spy who relayed to the Soviets, through secret radio transmissions, that Japan had no intention of joining the war against the Soviet Union any time soon. The reason was that there were other military plans in the works. This must have been a great relief to the Soviets, and the bulk of the large military force in the far east was moved westward, where it reportedly played vital roles in the Battles of Moscow and Stalingrad.
It is not in the Wikipedia article, but I have seen information that Sorge not only managed to relay that there were "other military plans" in the works, but exactly what those plans were. The military of Japan was, of course, planning the attack on Pearl Harbor.
As one example, my father had an old set of books about the Second World War. I recall that a book titled "Barbarossa", by John Keegan, stated that Sorge had actually informed the NKVD that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked. Japan was not necessarily seeking a full-scale war with the U.S, but only wanted to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet so that it could not interfere with Japan's conquests in Asia.
The conclusion was that Stalin was delighted, and did not warn America about the pending attack, not because of anything against the U.S., but because the U.S. would surely respond to such an attack, and this would keep the forces of Japan preoccupied so that they could not invade the Soviet far east. The bulk of the large military force guarding the Soviet far east could then be moved westward to join the battle against the Nazis.
THE SOLUTION TO "THE DEADLY DOUBLE"
Now, let's go back to the mysterious ad for the "Deadly Double", that was placed just before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Even though the U.S. and the Soviet Union were on the same side in the Second World War, it was no secret that there were any number of NKVD spies in the U.S. They knew all about the Manhattan Project, and what they really wanted was the plans for the atomic bomb. They would achieve their goal by getting Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to give them those plans.
As soon as I first became aware of this ad for "The Deadly Double", my thought was that this was a technique of communication that Communists around this time might have used.
The Soviets knew that there was an impending attack on the U.S., and that it would likely open up an entirely new dimension to the war. But they may not have known exactly what the coming Japanese military action might entail, whether it would be Pearl Harbor or the U.S. forces in the Philippines that might be attacked. It was actually part of a wider military action that included attacks on Malaya, Hong Kong and, the Philippines. They did not know how the coming attack would play out, how successful it would be, or how the U.S. and other countries would react to it.
By the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Soviet Union had been at war with the Nazis and their allies for nearly six months. They may have been unsure whether the leadership of Germany and Italy knew about the upcoming attack, if they had plans to join in some coordinated action if they did know, and how they might react if they didn't.
The following image is of a Communist pamphlet that was widely circulated in the U.S. during the late 1930s, from the Wikipedia article "Earl Browder". There was plenty of Communist sympathy in the U.S. at the time, due to the stock market crash and the following Great Depression. Every Communist in the U.S., some of which were active NKVD agents, would likely be familiar with this pamphlet.
Notice how the number 4 and the name of July are prominently displayed, in exactly the same way as the 12 and the 7 in the ad for "The Deadly Double".
It was done this way because spies had been instructed to read The New Yorker magazine, to find out how to get further instructions as the Communist leadership watched events unfold after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The 12 and the 7, the day of the attack, were rendered in such a way as to be reminiscent of the above pamphlet, so that they wouldn't miss the ad. In fact, this ad for "The Deadly Double" might have been put together by the same source as the pamphlet.
There was also a double-headed eagle, in the main ad, which looked a lot like the Nazi eagle, as well as XX which is 20 in Roman numerals. This was further intended to catch the attention of agents who had been instructed to read the magazine to find out where to get further instructions. This likely stood for Germany and Italy, the Soviets' two Axis enemies, as did the name of "The Deadly Double". "Warning" was also written in German and Italian.
The 12 and the 7, the date of the attack, are the numbers most prominently displayed on the dice in the ad. But what about the four other numbers? The ad also displays, on the dice, the numbers 0, 5, XX (20) and, 24.
Remember that this is a notice for agents to access further instructions. Without these further instructions, all that the ad would accomplish was to let the agents know when the attack would occur, which they would find out anyway by listening to the news on the radio. There is not much that any secret agent could have done to make the attack any more devastating than it was. There is no sign that any secret agent had anything at all to do with the attack on Pearl Harbor. The ad would really not accomplish much if all it did was to let a few people know when the attack was going to take place.
The ad was instructions on how to listen to further instructions after the attack had taken place, as the Communist leadership watched unfolding events and decided on any possible new course of action.
Shortwave radio had become popular by this time. The wavelength band used in shortwave radio has the property of bouncing off the ionosphere, which is a layer of the earth's atmosphere that holds charged particles due to the effect of the sun. Short-wavelength radio waves travel in straight lines, and are not reflected by the ionosphere. But the shortwave band can be transmitted literally around the world by "bouncing" between the ionosphere and the earth's surface one or more times.
In more recent times, satellites relay shorter wavelengths of radio and television signals that would not bounce off the ionosphere at all, making propagation by way of the ionosphere unnecessary for these wavelengths.
Several years before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the aviator Amelia Earhart had disappeared while attempting a flight around the world. The plane had a shortwave transmitter. Numerous shortwave listeners claimed to have heard her calls for help, claiming that she had crash-landed on an atoll but couldn't describe exactly where she was. I recall reading of a teenage girl in Florida, who listened to her father's shortwave receiver, and received a signal that kept fading in and out with a voice calling for help and claiming to be Amelia Earhart, that kept repeating the words "New York City".
The girl knew that her plane would be over the Pacific, so why would she be saying "New York City"?
It turns out that a British cargo ship, named "Norwich City", had run aground on an atoll during a storm. The crew had been rescued, but the ship abandoned. The name of the ship would have been clearly visible to anyone who was on the atoll, and many people believe that this was where Amelia Earhart was calling from and was referring to the name of the beached ship. The plane could later have been pushed back out into the water by a storm, where it would have sank.
Anyway, shortwave radio was a staple means of communication for Communist spies. I remember reading stories of spies in North America, during the Cold War, who were instructed to get set up away from any high-tension power lines that might interfere with radio communications.
In the Wikipedia article on Earl Browder, who was leader of the U.S. Communist Party at the time, in the last paragraph of the section "Popular Front Leader", you can see that he arranged for shortwave radio communication in case international conflict made direct communication impossible. We also read in this paragraph that shortwave communication began in 1939 to convey the party's political line on the changing situation after the war began. This communication method would thus be in place in the days before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
One issue with shortwave radio communication is that conditions change. It requires bouncing signals off the ionosphere, which is very much affected by the sun. You may have noticed that very distant radio stations can be received on an AM radio, called long-wave outside of North America, at night that cannot be received during the day, and that cannot be received on much shorter wavelengths, such as FM, at all. That is because those much shorter wavelengths pass right through the ionosphere, and are not reflected.
There are also several layers to the ionosphere, each of which reflects radio waves under it's own conditions. Reflection of radio waves certainly varies between day and night, but also by the seasons. Put simply, a wavelength used for shortwave communications may be unreliable at any given time, although completely reliable at other times.
The solution is that shortwave stations usually broadcast on several different wavelengths, bringing the likelihood that at least one will be reliable at any given time. Notice on the pair of dice in the mysterious ad that the two low numbers, 0 and 5, are on the black dice, and the two high numbers, 20 (XX) and 24, are on the white dice. That could be an instruction to listen to the low channels at night and the high ones during the day, when the conditions of the ionosphere are different. Notice also how the exclamation point in the ad for "The Deadly Double" is extended, so that it looks a lot like a radio antenna.
The shortwave part of the radio spectrum runs from about 2 MHz (megahertz) to about 26 MHz. Thus, the other numbers, with the exception of the 0, could refer to shortwave frequencies, expressed in MHz.
The 0 could, of course, be a reference to not only the "rising sun" symbol that would be on the warplanes, but also to the name of the legendary Japanese carrier-based plane, the Zero. The following image is from the Wikipedia article "Mitsubishi A6M Zero".
Japan was no ally of the Soviet Union, and the United States was not an enemy, but it must have been really good news that Japan was planning an attack on the U.S. because that would keep Japan occupied, unable to invade the Soviet far east, and the large military force that the Soviets kept guarding that region could be moved westward to join the battle against the invading Nazis.
I think this solves the mystery that has perplexed America for so many years. The reason that it was not solved sooner is that the story of Richard Sorge is not widely known in the U.S., and did not get a lot of attention, but is necessary to solve this mystery.
Most of the ships that were in the attack on Pearl Harbor were at least partially salvaged. The exception is the battleship U.S.S. Arizona. The ship was not hit by torpedoes, but a bomb penetrated into the ship and detonated either the powder magazine, or the fuel tank, there are differing theories. The result was a massive explosion, and about half of the casualties in the attack were on board the Arizona.
One military advantage that the Allies had is that the Axis nations still believed in battleships, the ships with massive guns that were being made irrelevant by aircraft carriers. The attack got some of America's battleships, but took place when the aircraft carriers were away at sea. No aircraft carriers were damaged in the attack. The attack would have been much more devastating, in strategic terms, if it had been scheduled when the aircraft carriers were in port.
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