Japan intended to deliver a declaration of war 30 minutes prior to the beginning of the attack, but bureaucrats at the Japanese embassy in Washington were slow in decoding, typing, and delivering the message to Secretary of State Cordell Hull.
The U.S. Army had already decrypted the declaration on the evening of December 6 and dispatched war warnings to all Pacific area commands. Communication problems delayed receipt of the warning in Honolulu until after 7:30 AM, Hawaii time. A Japanese-American bicycle messenger was immediately sent to deliver the warning to General Walter Short, who was in charge of defending Pearl Harbor. The messenger was pedaling to Ft Shafter when, at 7:55 AM, the cyclist was caught in the attack. He finally delivered his message through falling bombs and bullets two hours after the start of the attack.
There's no word on if this unnamed messenger received a tip for his services.
16 comments:
What a lame bike messenger! This guy was 2 hours late for the lame reason of falling bombs?!
Bike messengers in NYC can weave in and out of traffic, blow red lights to cross the 3 lanes, somehow not get shot by every taxi driver they piss off and shrug it all off while eating a gourmet burrito and wearing $400 tight pants like it's just a typical day of work.
:D
I know what you mean, Andy. I'm always bragging about how bikes would be perfect for disaster scenarios, but then this messenger in Honolulu lets us down.
After watching the bike messenger race videos from digave.com, if given the choice I'd actually have to think about whether I would rather race with those guys or dodge falling bombs.
That website, by the way, was the only thing that inspired me to ride for more than 5 minutes on my rollers last winter. It was a bit dangerous when you get into it and have to remind yourself not to swerve.
...sheesh...i was reading your post w/ reverence because to my parents generation, a day like today held a certain seriousness but i did chuckle on reading your last line...
...btw, a little known about telegram was discovered after the war at ft shafter, hawaii...it read - "bike messenger[stop]...message now irrelevant[stop]...thanks for effort[stop]...no tip, sorry...money used for war effort[stop]...you get the shaft[end]"...
...at least, that's how i heard it...
@Andy: I can totally picture tipping over while riding with those videos!
@BGW: What's cool is that I also ran across mentions where teens volunteered as bike messengers on and after Pearl Harbor Day.
......very cool & i'm sure there are some heartfelt stories in there...
...& no doubt about it, fritz...were there to be a serious "break" in our modern day infrastructure, the relevancy of bicycles would suddenly become vastly obvious...
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They should have used twitter...
Hmm, military and diplomatic encrypted messages on Twitter.
It occurs to me that Twitter would be a decent way to steganographically exchange hidden messages. "A doctor who specializes in skin diseases will dream that he has fallen asleep in front of the television."
..."understood, san jose rolly...a wet bird flies not at night except when he's hungry"...
...damn !!!...my ellipses give me away as a source...
That's the idea with hidden messages -- it's okay that the source is known because nobody knows there's a secret message.
Pretty cool man!
Kamikaze cycles!
He probably didn't get at a tip. As a japamese-American in Hawaii, he more than likely spent the rest of the war in an internment camp.
@Dergeis - there was no internment in Hawaii. That was all mainland west coast.
where watching the bike messenger race videos? someone help me please
...nice "photoshop" work, bud...i'm guessing dull scissors, a glue stick, a library book & a cell phone camera...
...btw...this is not a secret message...
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