During World War Two, France with the largest army in the world at the time was defeated in six weeks by the Blitzkrieg. It took only one man Pétain also known as the traitor, France was erased from the European map to a merely puppet tributary of the Nazis. When the Sino-Japanese war broke out in 1937, Japan claimed conquering China in three months. While in China, traitors, puppets, pessimists, opportunists and deserters were numerous, then how could they fight alone for more than four years until Pearl Harbor? This is the story of the outcast American hero and genius, who helped America in defeating Japan at the Naval Conference 1921. What happened after “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail” would be even more melodramatic and adventurous.

Wellington said that the outcome of Waterloo was “The nearest-run thing”. With the vital intelligence by code breaking in modern warfare, the victory of an underdog in the Battle of Midway is much more decisive as manifested in the 2019 movie Midway. Cryptology is an esoteric knowledge that conventional historians did not realize. After the declassifications of those ultra secret archives of World War 2, they now know the reason for Axis powers’ downfall and defeat was code breaking. The 2014 film “Imitation Game” illustrates how the Brits cracked German Enigma machine, and a mistreated hero code breaker Alan Turing. If Herbert Yardley - the godfather of code breakers plus a modern saboteur and spy master - had not come to help the war effort, China would have been beaten like France long before Pearl Harbor. He was yet another war hero buried in history.

“Gentlemen Do Not” produced a sarcastic farce and Yardley's book “American Black Chamber” which shook the world politics. Why his “Chinese Black Chamber” wasn’t published for more than four decades? If you know how the Brits cracked the German Enigma, you would know why! The plot is as spectacular as a 007. The book review commented the “Chinese Black Chamber” was an Adventure of Huckleberry Finn with Yardley as the naughty boy. The story of “Tales of Two Chambers” is more entertaining and educational than the Imitation Game, Midway and 007combined. It will be a very profitable film.

Here is a psychological assessment to see if you are as good as a real 007. The scenario is from “Chinese Black Chamber” by Herbert Yardley, good for Hollywood. 

Now, imagine this: You were the master spy and code breaker, had to read into not only Japanese but also Chinese secret messages because there were many traitors around. You speak neither of the languages. After months of work, you figured out the keys and directed a group of linguists, specialists to interpret piles of the intercepted messages. It turned out to be the most unthinkable – the traitors within and a faction of the warlords, foreign spies told the Japanese to fly their bombers at twelve thousand feet high and “our” anti-aircraft fire would be set to burst at ten thousand feet. [Never in the field of human conflict was so much freaked out by so....!] There was also an impending coup d'état to kill the head of State Chiang Kai-Shek. Many names involved in the plots were revealed including a German anti-aircraft advisor Herr Wiener because the artillery was German-made. No wonder "our" fire never hit anything yet. Such intelligence had to be reported in person for phone lines could be eavesdropped, but your boss of the security forces was ten miles away. You could not trust everyone in you group either. The findings could leak faster than the traitors could be rounded up. In that case, you would become a prime suspected traitor too. This is a spy game. What would happen to the German double-crosser? He was a German military officer and Heil bloody Hitler would be outrageous if Wiener was arrested. Now, what should you do to report the situation safely? 

The outcome of the spy game will follow. 

A Huge Nazi Swastika flag painted on the roof of the German embassy in Chungking (Chongqing today), a spy hub in China, to alert away Japanese bombers, circa 1939

 Chungking terror bombing from February 1938 to August 1943 was operated by Chinese traitors together with the Japanese forces. ( From 2018 Movie "Air Strike" )

Yardley was in Chungking 1938~1940, with two of his student spies. Due to the intensive bombings worse than London Blitz, conditions there jeopardized his life, health and work. He had to leave for home after the Fall of France. However, his legacy had established a most effective intelligence and sabotage operations for the Nationalist government of China until the final victory of World War Two in 1945. 

The unseen spy games were raging beneath the surface and air wars. The results of the spy game must NOT be provoking any diplomatic or international incident. The art of war is deception with lion’s tear, a pretty trick in espionage. On the surface, the double-crossing German advisor was hired to help China's defense against Japanese air raids. He was simply liquidated. Then the Foreign Ministry would express sincere condolences to the German embassy and Herr Hitler, vowing to punish the “Japanese killer spy”. Meanwhile, asking Hitler to dispatch another artillery adviser, and eulogizing Mr. Wiener in the news media. Even if Wiener had been instructed by the Nazis to do so, they could only swallow the consequence and cover it up! It was before the European WW2 broke out; Yardley must be the first American to get rid of a Nazi. Poor Herr Wiener, a German officer, was unlikely to be bribed into doing so. It was possible that he had the order from above NOT to shoot down Japanese bombers. Nazi Germany and the militarist Japan were well on the way to the Axis Pact at that time.

As to how to make the report safely, Yardley stated in the book that he assembled the whole team, went as a group to meet the Intelligence and Security chief Dai Li (the Hatchet man) early morning, requesting a self-imposed house arrest until all the traitors were apprehended. By doing so, there would be no chance of a leak. Dai Li answered that he trusted every one of them, nevertheless, it was a wise suggestion and invited them to have a nap in the dormitory after days of hard work. To Yardley's surprise, Dai Li finished the job in just several hours. The whole team was freed and handsomely rewarded in the afternoon. 

Other than cracking the codes in two languages and many ciphers designed for different applications, Yardley also introduced means of sabotage, for example, the chemically timed fuse (same type of the time bomb used by von Stauffenberg to kill Hitler), pen sized bomb and silencer etc. The successful saboteurs behind enemy lines also contributed in making the war in China a stalemate. The effectiveness of the operations can be estimated by the numbers, for most of the Doolittle raiders crashed inside occupied territories were rescued and smuggled out to safety. Yardley's legacy with Dai's action turned out to be the turning point in China just like the Midway in the Pacific. 

Regarding to why Yardley's book "Chinese Black Chamber" was suppressed for more than forty years? The reason was he revealed the systematic methods of breaking into ciphered messages. He described in this book how the Achilles' heel of the encrypted communications could be exposed by traffic analysis, weather reports, careless operators and personal attributes or signature. These were the same methods that the Brits broke into German Enigma messages later. After the victory of World War two, the rise of Communists made it necessary to keep such know-how as secret as possible until well into the 1980's. Bin Laden was tracked and pinned down by means of the traffic analysis in 2010. 

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