Stanley Johnston's Blunder

Stanley Johnston's Blunder
Author :
Publisher : Naval Institute Press
Total Pages : 342
Release :
ISBN-13 : 9781682472743
ISBN-10 : 1682472744
Rating : 4/5 (44 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Stanley Johnston's Blunder by : Elliot W Carlson

Download or read book Stanley Johnston's Blunder written by Elliot W Carlson and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2017-10-15 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Stanley Johnston’s Blunder: The Reporter Who Spilled the Secret Behind the U.S. Navy's Victory at Midway, Elliot Carlson tells the story of Stanley Johnston, a Chicago Tribune reporter who may have exposed a vitally important U.S. naval secret during World War II. In 1942 Johnston is embarked in the aircraft carrier USS Lexington during the Battle of the Coral Sea. In addition to recording the crew’s doomed effort to save the ship, Johnston displays great heroism, rescuing many endangered officers and men from the sea and earning the praise of the Lexington’s senior officers. They even recommend him for a medal. Then his story darkens. On board the rescue ship Barnett, Johnston is assigned to a cabin where messages from the Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral Chester Nimitz, are routinely, and carelessly, circulated. One reveals the order of battle of Imperial Japanese Navy forces advancing on Midway Atoll. Containing information obtained by the Navy’s codebreakers, this dispatch is stamped “Top Secret.” Yet it is casually passed around to some of the Lexington’s officers in the cabin while Johnston is present. Carlson captures the outrage among U.S. Navy brass when they read the 7 June 1942 Chicago Tribune front-page headline, “NAVY HAD WORD OF JAP PLAN TO STRIKE AT SEA.” Admirals note that the information in the Tribune article parallels almost precisely the highly secret material in Nimitz’s dispatch. They fear Japanese commanders will discover the article, grasp that their code has been cracked, and quickly change it, thereby depriving the U.S. Navy of a priceless military asset. When Navy officials confirm that Johnston wrote the story after residing in that Barnett stateroom, they think they understand the “leak.” Drawing on seventy-five-year-old testimony never before released, Carlson takes readers inside the grand jury room where jurors convened by the Roosevelt administration consider charges that Johnston violated the Espionage Act. Jurors hear conflicting testimony from Navy officers while Johnston claims his story came from his own knowledge of the Japanese navy. Using FBI files, U.S. Navy records, archival materials from the Chicago Tribune, and Japanese sources, Carlson, at last, brings to light the full story of Stanley Johnston’s trial.


Stanley Johnston's Blunder Related Books

Stanley Johnston's Blunder
Language: en
Pages: 342
Authors: Elliot W Carlson
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-10-15 - Publisher: Naval Institute Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In Stanley Johnston’s Blunder: The Reporter Who Spilled the Secret Behind the U.S. Navy's Victory at Midway, Elliot Carlson tells the story of Stanley Johnsto
The Media Offensive
Language: en
Pages: 368
Authors: Alexander G. Lovelace
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2022-05-25 - Publisher: University Press of Kansas

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

World War II was a media war. President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the press to a great extent, of course, but as the war progressed, the media also came to inf
Nimitz’s Newsman
Language: en
Pages: 288
Authors: Hamilton Bean
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2024-09-17 - Publisher: Naval Institute Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

When Lt. Cdr. Waldo Drake, USNR arrived in Pearl Harbor in June 1941 as the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s first Public Relations Officer (PRO), he was an admired marit
Richard Tregaskis
Language: en
Pages: 384
Authors: Ray E. Boomhower
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021 - Publisher: University of New Mexico Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the late summer of 1942, more than ten thousand members of the First Marine Division held a tenuous toehold on the Pacific island of Guadalcanal. As American
Military Intelligence Blunders
Language: en
Pages: 556
Authors: John Hughes-Wilson
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2023-03-30 - Publisher: Kings Road Publishing

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

'A cracking good read... I will recommend this book to anyone' - Professor Richard Holmes, CBE 'The Falklands, Yom Kippur, Tet and Pearl Harbor? Avoidable intel