{"id":4070,"date":"2023-04-11T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=4070"},"modified":"2023-04-11T16:07:27","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T16:07:27","slug":"veteranoftheday-navy-veteran-joseph-rochefort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=4070","title":{"rendered":"#VeteranOfTheDay Navy Veteran Joseph Rochefort"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
Today\u2019s #VeteranOfTheDay is Navy Veteran Joseph Rochefort, a WWII codebreaker who played a crucial role in the Pacific war effort.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joseph Rochefort was born in 1900<\/span><\/a> in Dayton, Ohio. However, hoping to gain eligibility for admission to the Navy\u2019s Steam Engineering School, he listed his date of birth as 1898. After succeeding and then graduating, he served on USS Cuyama for five years. During his service, he demonstrated a remarkable ability to solve puzzles and riddles, encouraging his superiors to transfer him to the Code and Signal Section of the Office of Naval Communications in 1925. He quickly became officer-in-charge there in 1926.<\/p>\n

In preparation for possible conflict in the Pacific, Rochefort traveled to Tokyo, Japan, in 1929 to study<\/span> <\/a>Japanese. He stayed until 1932. Shortly afterward, he served in San Diego\u2019s 11th Naval District for two years. In 1941, he moved to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, where he became officer-in-charge of Station Hypo, the central base of the Navy\u2019s cryptologic work. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he played a crucial role in gathering intelligence on Japanese activity, often analyzing as many as 140 Japanese messages in a single day. They were even able to decipher JN-25, which was the most secure Japanese code.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In what was likely his most important contribution to the war effort, Rochefort provided timely cryptologic support for the Battle of Midway. More specifically, he intercepted a message suggesting plans for a Japanese attack on \u201cAF,\u201d a code name for an American location. Rochefort believed the location to be a U.S. airbase on Midway Atoll, but his superiors disagreed with him. His team thus conducted a successful test proving the accuracy of their claims. Specifically, they relayed a fake message for the Japanese, who responded by referring to \u201cAF\u201d as Midway Atoll. Rochefort\u2019s efforts convinced the commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz to respond accordingly, leading to a U.S. victory in the crucial Battle of Midway.<\/p>\n

After the battle, Rochefort returned to the U.S. to serve in San Francisco. He then led the Navy\u2019s Pacific Strategic Intelligence Section in 1944 and retired as a captain nine years later.<\/p>\n

Rochefort died in July 1976 in California at the age of 76. He was posthumously awarded a President\u2019s National Defense Service Medal and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2012, a building at the National Security Agency\u2019s Pearl Harbor facility was named after him.<\/p>\n

We honor his service.<\/p>\n

\n

Nominate a Veteran for\u00a0#VeteranOfTheDay<\/a><\/h2>\n

Do you want to light up the face of a special Veteran? Have you been wondering how to tell your Veteran they are special to you? You\u2019re in luck! VA\u2019s #VeteranOfTheDay social media feature is an opportunity to highlight your Veteran and his\/her service.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to nominate a Veteran. All it takes is an email to\u00a0newmedia@va.gov<\/a>\u00a0with as much information as you can put together, along with some good photos. Visit our\u00a0blog post about nominating<\/a>\u00a0to learn how to create the best submission.<\/p>\n

\n

Writer:<\/strong> Khaled Maalouf<\/p>\n

Editors:<\/strong>\u00a0Delaney Tracy<\/p>\n

Graphic Designer: <\/strong>Samantha Mejia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s #VeteranOfTheDay is Navy Veteran Joseph Rochefort, a WWII codebreaker who played a crucial role in the Pacific war effort. Joseph Rochefort was born in 1900 in Dayton, Ohio. However, hoping to gain eligibility for admission to the Navy\u2019s Steam Engineering School, he listed his date of birth as 1898. After succeeding and then graduating, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":4072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,94,13,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-veteranoftheday","category-navy-veteran","category-veteran-of-the-day","category-wwii-veterans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4070"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4078,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4070\/revisions\/4078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}