Breaking the Code

by Karen Fisher-Alaniz

  Copyright © 2011 by Karen Fisher-Alaniz

  Cover and internal design © 2011 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Kathleen Lynch/Black Kat Design

  Cover image © Susan Fox/Trevillion Images

  Inset photographs and internal images courtesy of the author

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  This book is a memoir. It reflects the author’s present recollections of her experiences. Some names and characteristics have been changed, some events have been compressed, and some dialogue has been re-created.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Fisher-Alaniz, Karen.

  Breaking the code : a father’s secret, a daughter’s journey, and the question that changed everything / Karen Fisher-Alaniz.

  p. cm.

  1. Fisher, Murray William 2. Fisher, Murray William—Correspondence. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Personal narratives, American. 4. World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—Pacific Area. 5. World War, 1939–1945—Cryptography. 6. Sailors—United States—Biography. 7. Fathers and daughters—United States—Biography. 8. Fisher-Alaniz, Karen. I. Title.

  D767.9.F56 2011

  940.54’8673092—dc23

  [B]

  2011027566

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  VP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To my father, Murray William Fisher

  And in memory of

  my grandmother, Ruby Lavinia Fisher,

  and my father’s comrade, Mal

  Contents

  PREFACE

  A WORD ABOUT WORDS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE: Healing Waters

  CHAPTER TWO: A Line in the Sand

  CHAPTER THREE: Between the Lines

  CHAPTER FOUR: Across the Years

  CHAPTER FIVE: Tell Me a Word

  CHAPTER SIX: Two Questions, One Answer

  CHAPTER SEVEN: Wednesdays with Murray

  CHAPTER EIGHT: By Design

  CHAPTER NINE: Searching for Answers

  CHAPTER TEN: Limbo

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: Nightmares Return

  CHAPTER TWELVE: When I Get Home

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Pieces

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Pearl

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Iwo Jima

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Katakana

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Women Folk

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Church

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: Breakdown

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Secrets

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Remembering

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Mourning

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Lost Time

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Office Work

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Life or Death

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: A Blurred Line

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Write Your Mother

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: Anticipating the End

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: The Bomb

  CHAPTER THIRTY: Waiting

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: Finding the Words

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: Intentional Time of Remembrance

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: Never Good-Bye

  AFTERWORD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Preface

  Regulations required that messages containing communication intelligence be destroyed, and as a consequence, no record of the many successes due to this intelligence can ever be compiled.—Vice Admiral C.A. Lockwood in a letter to the Chief of Naval Communications, June 17, 1947.

  The journey we embarked on almost ten years ago was a simple one: my father was suffering from nightmares and flashbacks, and I wanted to help him. But as time went on, I learned that in order to help him, I needed to know more about the war.

  I am not a historian. I simply learned what was pertinent to helping my father and, eventually, to writing the book you hold in your hands. My father’s little corner of the war is just that—a tiny piece of a very intricate puzzle. As such, the information contained here is by no means a complete history of the war or even of his part in it.

  It is simply a story, told over time, to the most unlikely of people—me.

  A Word about Words

  When I originally transcribed more than four hundred pages of my father’s letters, I did so with meticulous accuracy. I spelled things just as he had, even if it was incorrect (which was rare). I made a note if he wrote something and then crossed it out. The last half of his letters were typewritten in caps, so I even went so far as to hit the caps lock on my computer. However, when the project evolved into a book, some changes had to be made.

  In order to keep the story moving, I have left out sections that were redundant or not relevant to the overall story. Where grammar was concerned, I only intervened if an error made the meaning unclear (most of the time, it was a simple issue, like taking out a dash and replacing it with a period or comma). I did, however, choose to keep the spelling of some words, such as “tho” and “tonite,” to retain the letter’s original flavor. I have also kept some of my father’s words that are considered offensive by today’s standards.

  Obviously, my father did not keep copious notes in the middle of a war. As is the case with most memoirs, I have filled in conversations from memory, notes, and from knowing the cadence and personality of our speech. Every effort was made to stay true to what happened.

  I have watched my father struggle over the past ten years to put memories together that his mind had clearly protected him from for more than fifty years. The memories came back in bits and pieces, often seemingly unrelated. It was in the writing of the book that I was able to piece the whole story together. Thus, the chronology of the book does not necessarily reflect the chronology of how his memories came back. As the author of this book, I take sole responsibility for any unintended errors.

  Acknowledgments

  To my family, who helped me do the research for the book and then stood back and made me look smart. We know who the real smart ones are: to my mother, Bettye Fisher, for her relentless prayers; my husband, Ric; and my children, Danielle, Micah, and Caleb, who sacrificed so much.

  To my friends, who encouraged me along the way. To Shirley Pope Waite, my mother’s friend, who years ago encouraged me to write. To my friend since childhood, Kristin Dewey, who always believed in me. To Randy LaBarge, who said, “This is a story that has to be told. What can I do to help?” Your belief in my father and his story breathed new life into the book. To Christine Koehler, your faith in me was contagious.

  To the many people wh
o prayed for this project. To Chuck Hindman, for writing the memorial for Mal and for encouraging us to create an intentional time of remembrance. To Ed and Nila Hamshar, for listening.

  To Master Chief Intelligence Specialist (Surface Warfare), David L. Murdock U.S.N. (Ret.), a stranger who became a friend. Thank you for lending me your expertise in naval intelligence. You were a lifeline when I needed one.

  To Lt. Col. Richard Dixon, U.S. Army (Ret.), who whispered in my ear, “You have to get this book published. It’s not just for your father. It’s for all of us.”

  To Dr. Jauhiainen, “Dr. J.,” MD, for understanding PTSD and its impact on my father. And for taking the time during your busy workday to listen to his story.

  To the strangers who shook my father’s hand and thanked him for his service. Words can never express how important each instance was to him.

  To the veterans of wars both past and present. Thank you for your sacrifices that continue long after you return. You are not forgotten. Your story matters.

  To the family and friends of veterans, for welcoming our heroes home and for helping them put the pieces of their lives back together long after the homecoming celebration is over.

  To the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association for putting together a conference that was instrumental in getting this work published.

  To all of the wonderful and passionate people at Sourcebooks. And especially to my editor, Peter Lynch, for believing in this book.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Healing Waters

  Well, here we are but where are we going? That is the question.—January 9, 1945

  He stood at the end of the pier watching the petals drift out to sea. He leaned on his cane. No longer the young sailor he’d once been, he was an old man now, something his comrade, his friend, never got to be. The red and white petals followed an unseen path, becoming tiny specks in a vast ocean—an ocean that, during the war, held only sorrow and loss. But now those same waters were a place of healing.

  “Never good-bye,” he said softly. “Never good-bye.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  A Line in the Sand

  It’s sure tough alright but it’s going to be worth it. I’ve learned more about the Navy in the past two days in the barracks room lecture than in two months at home.—April 28, 1944

  I always knew my father had been in a war. But as a child it was of little importance to me. I had bicycles to ride, friends to play with, and trees to climb.

  He would tell us stories about the war. He was in the Navy and stationed at Pearl Harbor a few years after it was bombed in 1941. He spent his days working in an office. On liberty, he went to the movies or exploring with friends. These were the stories he told, which were never terribly interesting. And although he didn’t tell them on a regular basis, during our childhood years, my sisters and I heard each one many times.

  It would always begin the same way—with something that sparked the memory—and then the retelling would begin. The details never changed. His memory never wavered. Each story had a beginning, middle, and end.

  My sisters and I, all born years after the war, must have had some innate sense that these stories were important, even sacred. Following my mother’s lead, we stopped whatever we were doing to listen. We didn’t interrupt or ask questions. We never informed him that we’d heard this one before.

  When he got to the end, he would simply go back to what he’d been doing. Then weeks, months, and even years would pass without a single story being told. If I’d ever written them down, I’m sure there would have been only eight or ten stories overall. New stories were never added.

  In my teens, my patience for the repeated stories ran out. When I heard a story coming, I looked for the nearest exit. I rolled my eyes or sighed loudly, hoping he’d get the hint. He never did. Once the story began, nothing could stop him from finishing it. To me, the stories were just that: stories, ancient history. I filed them away with the stories of my grandfather walking to school in a blizzard. They were irrelevant, intangible. As I got older, he told them less and less.

  What I didn’t know then was that the stories he told weren’t the whole story at all. They were an abbreviation. He told the version that fit comfortably into his middle-class life—the version where everyone lived happily ever after. But more than anything, he told the version that didn’t hurt and didn’t require answering questions. The rest of the story, the whole and true story, would have remained untold. But one day, many years later, in a single moment, everything I thought I knew about my father’s war was turned inside out. We didn’t know it then, but it was the first step on a long journey we’d take together.

  April 27, 2002, was my father’s eighty-first birthday. We gathered at my parents’ house—the small, but sunny home I’d grown up in—for the party. Our family is small and most of us live in the same small town. When we’re all together, we take up the three comfortable chairs (recliner reserved for Dad), one sofa, and the hearth in front of the fireplace; a few kids sit on the carpeted floor. Although the house has gone through many transformations, one of which was the floor-to-ceiling brick fireplace, my father never seemed to change.

  He had looked virtually the same all of my life. The only thing that changed was the color of his now gray hair, and probably the prescription for his eyeglasses. He was one of those people that you go to high school with and then see thirty years later and they truly haven’t changed; they’ve just gotten a little older.

  After dinner, as everyone settled into comfortable conversation, Dad slipped away. A few minutes later, I looked up to see him in the middle of the room. With a nod of his head, he gestured away from the crowd. I looked around to see who he was nodding at but quickly realized he was looking at me.

  No one seemed to notice when, in the midst of his celebration, we went to the sunroom just two steps down from the living room. The cathedral windows that let light pour in from three sides, coupled with my mother’s abundant house plants, made it feel more like an atrium. Dad sat on the curved sofa that hugged one corner of the room and patted the seat next to him. When I sat down, he placed two binders on my lap, one black and one blue.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Letters,” he said. “I wrote them to my folks during the war. You can throw them in the garbage or burn them if you want. I don’t care.”

  “Dad! Why would you say that?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  I opened one of the two-ring binders to find letters written in my father’s notoriously tiny handwriting. I skimmed them and asked a few questions. But no matter how general the question, my father had no answer. I read aloud, a line or two at first and then a whole paragraph.

  “I wrote that?” he asked. “I don’t remember writing that.”

  With that, he quietly but firmly drew a line in the sand. He was on one side; I was on the other. My questions unanswered, I wanted to implore, “What is this? All these years you’ve had these and you didn’t tell me? Why? Tell me now. Tell me everything.” I stepped over the line cautiously, looking into his eyes, but then I backed up in silence, deafening silence. I retreated to the other side of that line. And then he bowed his head and walked away.

  Alone that night, my family sleeping peacefully, I sat in near darkness. Only a small table lamp with beaded fringe illuminated the notebooks on my lap. I ran my hand across the weathered notebooks and cried. I cried for what I didn’t know. I cried for all the times I didn’t care and didn’t listen. And I cried for the years those letters remained tucked away. Why had he kept them a secret for more than fifty years? There had to be a reason.

  About six months prior to his birthday, he had become depressed. He seemed to be driven to watch war movies that were more and more graphic. Bookshelves were filled with WWII books he’d read, often in one day. It was then that I began asking him questions about the war. All he told me were the same stories I’d heard before. But now I wondered about these letters. Was there something i
n them that he wanted me to know?

  I opened the notebook and began reading. The first letter was from boot camp in Farragut, Idaho. Every letter began with the same salutation, “Dear Folks.”

  4/28/44

  Dear Folks,

  First of all, please send about 10 airmail stamps (8 centers) and a couple of small packages of writing paper with envelopes, a pad would be best. So many things happening I can’t even start. Arrived at about 1730 yesterday, got skinned alive. In other words, my wavy locks are almost a minus quality. Have two stripes on my lower sleeve but guess they are just saving time as we all get that when we graduate from here. The traveling kit is just what the doctor ordered but could only have one bottle in it—that’s OK tho. We are all in the United States Navy Reserves now. I passed the physical again with 100% so I am resigned to the fact that I’m OK. Spent most of the day at physical exam and getting clothes, shots etc. The shots were the very least of the trouble—didn’t even notice when they did it, but tonite left upper arm’s sore. But at that not so bad as when Gerry or Ray [brothers] swats me one on the shoulder. It’s sure tough alright but it’s going to be worth it. I’ve learned more about the Navy in the past two days in the barracks room lecture than in two months at home. Will Write. Write real soon, Murray

  My father was a good writer. I don’t know why this surprised me, but it did. In the short letter home, he’d managed to paint a picture of boot camp that danced vividly in my imagination. And his quirky sense of humor was there too. I went to bed that night hopeful and excited. It was as if I’d boarded a plane and would be told where I’d be going mid-flight; I didn’t know the place, but was excited to experience it.