Pearl Harbor , the Spies
Two decades or so ago, after release of a story I had brought to the Fifth Estate, an investigative program of Canada’s television network, the CBC, about a civilian of the RCMP Security Service who was falsely accused of being a Soviet spy, (Leslie James Bennett story, 1993), I was asked if I had anything else in mind. What came to mind was a story about Canadian signals intelligence, paricularly of the Second War, a topic virtually unknown to the Canadian public. “Go ahead”, they said. “If you find anything interesting, let us know.” Which brought me to interviewing persons involved in Canadian signals intelligence, some in the early years of the War, 1939 – 1942. And to two decades of inquiry, to a story that might well change the history of the Second World War.
There were two Canadian signals intelligence organizations in the Second War, both with headquarters in Ottawa. The “Examination Unit”, directed mainly to civilian targets, and a unit of the Canadian Army, responsible for military signals intelligence, closely associated with an equivalent British organization.
It was from Somerset House, in downtown Ottawa, from where Canadian military intelligence tracked Kido Butai, of the Imperial Japanese Navy, to its attack, on 7 December 1941, on Pearl Harbor. Which brought the US into the war in the Pacific, and the war in Europe. An event that made Somerset House one of the most important historical buildings sites in Canada. Of which the Canadian public, and the world, has no knowledge.
A state of mind of which Canadian, and several other authorities, very much wish to maintain.
The success of the Canadian team that tracked Kido Butai, and determined that Pearl Harbor would be the target, and its story, solves one of the great remaining mysteries of the Second World War.
Which takes us back to my interview of a man, at Somerset House, who lead a team set up to watch the Imperial Japanes Navy. In particular, at a time when it thought that Japan might attack British, French, Dutch or US colonies or assets in the Pacific, that did just that. And to the spies who have made every effort to try to ensure that the story not be told.
The Interview
Of the several interviews I made in Ottawa was with one Thomas (TGS) Colls, of British origin, who came to Canada in th 1930’s. During the First World War, he had joined the Coldstream Regiment, but the war ended just as he finished his training. A disapointment, he said, “But, at least, I would live.” Having been with the oldest, and one of the most storied, British guards regiments, upon his arrival in Canada he was quickly accepted into the Canadian Army at the beginning of the Second War. He chose, and was chosen, by the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, the RCCS, responsible for Canadian Army communication. and quickly was made a lieutenant.
For a signals regiment, of any military, communications security is a primary concerns. So, too, is signalsd intelligence, which of course becomes much more prominent in time of war.
Lieutenant was with MI2 during the Second World War, including at Somerset House, as intelligence analyst. More specifically, involved in traffic analysis, or TA, the primary task of MI2, which involved analyzing the external characteristics of targeted communications traffic, such as call signs, frequency, location, visual form of the signal on screens, distinctive tempo of sending operators, and much more. Everything apart from the message itself, which was the concern of decryption and communications intelligence in regard to meaning.
Colls became an important figure in Canadian postwar signals intelligence organization, Communications Branch National Research Council (CBNRC). Several years as Head of Group “O”, responsible for Communications Intelligence (COMINT); advisor to CBNRC Directors; Liaison Officer to the leading members of the world’s most exclusive association, the ‘Five Eyes’, Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and USA’s National Security Agency (NSA).
In sum, an important figure in Canada’s most secret intelligence activity. And of its most significant success. Which became the topic of discussion for our interview: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the 7th of December 1941.
More specifically, the answers to the two questions that remain: What did Winston Churchill, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, know about the attack on Pearl Harbor?, and, most important, When did they know it?
Questions that five special Congressional inquiries, numerous investigations by historians and other specialists, learned academics and observers, knowledgeable and curious about the true meaning of the Second World War, have been unable to answer. At the cost of much disputation and risk to reputation. Answers that he, the MI2 team that in 1941 he led, and MI2, under the brilliant leadership of Director Colonel Edward Michael Drake, discovered, in one of the most brilliant achievements of Canadian most secret intelligence. Of which of Canada and the world has precisely no knowledge.
The interview began abruptly with the statement “I solved the problem of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He went on to say that he discovered that Kido Butai, the Japanese attack fleet, “was in movement”, after leaving Hitokappu-Wan, where it had ‘staged’ after the vessels arrived from ports in the Home Islands. “We did not know where it was headed, but not long after concluded that the three most likely targets were Singapore, Philippines, and Pearl Harbor.
Days before the attack, he determined, and reported, that the target was Pearl Harbor.
An extraordinary discovery, one that provided much of the answer to the great mystery of the attack on Pearl Harbor. But not quite. That would come much later.
An answer that would be given by a document, which I discovered in Canada’s National Archives, a dozen blocks from Somerset House, where Colls and the MI2 team he headed made their discovery. A document that not only tells us What Churchill and Roosevelt knew, and When they knew it, but provides the undeniable, concrete, evidence that over eighty years of inquiry has failed to produce.
Which brings us to a further drama in the great mystery of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and insight as to its origin, and why it has existed as long as it has.
The Theft
It had been over a decade that I had refrained from writing about my discovery with regard to the true story of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, for a quite simple reason. There had been such an orchestrated denial of the truth, I reasoned, that the public would be incapable of escaping that denial. Unless, I reasoned, I could discover documentary evidence. Which I recently discovered, two documents in Canada’s National Archives. One, a single page in an unbound file of draft entries to a diary, one page with a brief penciled note by Colonel Ed Drake, Commanding Officer of MI2, on duty December 6, 1941, about the “grave matter of the emergency meeting to be held that evening. And about his travels to the Pacific Coast, both Canada’s British Columbia and Washington State of the US. A day that ended with a visit to Washington DC, home of OP-20-G, the headquarters of the US Navy’s signals intelligence organization, close to the White House, closely allied and interoperative with Canada’s MI2. A precious access to the truth of Pearl Harbor. The second document, a bound volume, entitled “Diary 1940”, for which the draft entries in the loose sheets were meant to be added
It so happened that on 30 January 2024 mentioned my discovery of the two precious documents to an acquaintance, who had spent several years in Canada’s signals intelligence CBNRC, later renamed CSE, Communications Security Establishment. He left CSE and joined Canadian Security Intelligence Service. On the 29th of February, I visited Canada’s National Library and Archives, with the intention of again studying the two previous documents, and discovered they were missing from the LAC volumes where they had been. I made inquiries, and learned that two CSIS agents had visited LAC, obtained accessed records assigned to me. More recently, I have learned that a group of CSIS agents were filmed going through the records, and removing several. From LAC witnesses to whom I spoke, it seems they had a festive time going through the records.
Certainly, for CSIS to access the records assigned to me by Library and Archives Canada required them to request and receive the assistance of LAC, and to have a judicial warrant. Also, the warrant must be presented to the LAC officials effecting the access. Otherwise, the search is in conflict with the Canadian Charter of Rights, within the Canadian Constitution, in particular, to Section 8, Search and Seizure.
At a Justice Canada site, I consulted the file that that lists all judicial warrants, listed by the name, and quickly confirmed that now judicia warrant had every been issued against me. That meant that CSIS had both was able to consult the
For CSIS to commit such an act, without a judicial
Which has brought to mind the possibility of an action against both Library and Archives Canada, and CISIS, for a denial of Charter Rights, specifically contrary to Section 8, Search and Seizure, without Judicial Warrant. Others could be added.