Prof. Greg Jackson

From here, Joe is quick to rationalize that the mysterious K option, as he puts it, is tied to the mass of Japanese forces in Saipan.

He knows that AH is Oahu and AK is the French frigate Shoals.

If supplies for air units are being prepared to be sent to this AF, it's pretty clear that AF has to be an island base near enough to Pearl Harbor.

Midway is really the only option.

And so Joe's done it.

He's pieced together enough of the JN-25B to know that the next Japanese target will be the Midway Atoll.

now if he can only get the rest of the U.S.

Navy on board.

The Discovery is immediately run up the chain of command until it reaches Admiral Chester Nimitz, who doesn't take much convincing to trust his codebreakers.

But the higher-ups in Washington aren't as easily swayed.

Is this mysterious AF actually Midway?

A few days later, on May 20th, Joe and his team make another incredible discovery.

The Kido Butai is set to depart from Japan on May 27th.

Now, you and I already know that, but Washington, D.C.

was thinking that this attack on AF, aka Midway, wouldn't be until late June.

Why then would the Japanese fleet be leaving so early?

Well, that's because, as this next round of decrypted information suggests, the attack is actually happening on June 2nd or 3rd.

Chester is ready to pounce, but he's being held back by that DC bureaucracy.

So Joe devises a scheme that's endorsed by the Admiral to confirm without a doubt that Midway is in fact what Japan means by AF.

A fake message is transmitted saying that the Atoll's distillation plant has broken.