[SFDXA] Taps for Bill Tremblay

[Bill Marx]

Taps for Bill Tremblay 

Bill Tremblay of Corregidor and Fleet Radio Unit Melbourne
passed away Sunday March 10 after a stay in the hospital.
He was taken off life support.  He is survived by his wife
and children.  His funeral was held on Tuesday March 12.

You may recall that it was Bill who recognized the message
that turned out to be the Japanese Fleet Plan for the attack
on Midway.  He was subtracting the cipher from the
intercepted messages to produce the raw code.  He had
finished processing the regular traffic, and he turned to
a box of garbles or "junk" traffic. He had been working a
12-hour shift, and  in a 14 part message, he recognized the
code group for ATTACK and saw the geographic code AF. He
notified the Watch Officer, CDR Gil Richardson who had it
decoded and translated.  HYPO and OP-20-G were quickly
notified.  After it was brought to their attention, HYPO
found their copy of the intercept, which was also garbled.
OP-20-G had not intercepted the message.

With this alert recognition, our Navy was able to "ambush"
the IJN attackers and win the Battle for Midway, one of
the greatest Naval victories in history.  The 60th
Anniversary of that battle will be recognized at all Naval
installations this June 4, 2002.

 http://www.centuryinter.net/midway
 http://www.history.navy.mil/midway.htm
 http://www.combinedfleet.com