Japanese Cryptology From The 1500s To Meiji - Learning From Warsaw and Then in Warsaw

Learning From Warsaw and Then in Warsaw

The Japanese Army could not have asked for more distinguished teachers. Polish cryptanalysts would later break early versions of the German Enigma machine in 1932 and their work jump-started the French and British efforts to break later, more complicated, Enigma machines. In the 1920s and 1930s it is accurate to say that Polish cryptanalysts were some of the best in the world.

The arrangements were made and on 7 September 1924, Captain Jan Kowalefsky arrived in Yokohama. Kowalefsky taught a three-month joint Army-Navy course to at least seven officers: four from the Army and three from the Navy.

When the course finished, someone suggested that the novice cryptologists get some practical experience working with the Polish cryptologists in Poland. The Japanese students would go to Poland with their teacher. Arrangements were made and a study-abroad program of sorts was started. Five officers left for Poland with Kowalefsky late in 1924 (Taishō 13). They spent a year working in the Polish Army's Bureau of Ciphers before returning to Japan and taking up positions in the Japanese Army Cipher Department.

Takagawa and Hiyama both assert that each year for about the next fourteen (until Shōwa 14) years, two Japanese Army officers traveled to Warsaw for a year of cryptological training. Neither Smith nor Budiansky mentions Kowalefsky or anything about Japanese officers studying in Poland. Yardley mentions the “Polish expert” working for the Army but gets the timing wrong. In English, only Kahn actually gives this expert a name and provides some more details.