Former PACFLEET Cryptologist/Intel Officer to retire from Supreme Court

John Paul Stevens began work on his Master's degree in English at the university in 1941, but soon decided to join the United States Navy serving as a cryptologist/intelligence officer in the Pacific Theater from 1942 to 1945. Stevens was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for his service in the codebreaking team whose work led to the downing of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's plane in 1943.

One day Stevens was approached by the dean of students, an undercover recruiting agent for the U.S. Navy, to take a correspondence course in cryptography. Over the semester he progressed to the point that the Navy notified him that he had qualified for a commission. On Dec. 6, 1941, Stevens went to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in North Chicago, Ill., to fill out the paperwork. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor the following morning.

After a brief posting to Washington, D.C., Stevens was sent to Pearl Harbor, where he spent most of the war as a cryptologic/intelligence officer. He was part of a code-breaking team working on Japanese intercepts. The group's efforts uncovered information that led to the shooting down of a plane carrying the Japanese architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, in 1943.