The Code Breaker in Battle of Midway (final version)

choi

Tom Nagorski, A Stealth Attack on Enemy Secrets. Wall Street Journal, Dec 24, 2011.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... SJ_Books_LS_Books_8
book review on Elliot Carlson, Joe Rochefort's War; The Odessy of the Codebraker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway. Naval Institute, 2011 )

Excerpt in the window of print: "I've got something so hot here, it's burning my desk," he said, having decoded Japan's plans for Midway.

Quote: "In 1929 he was posted to Tokyo, where he spent three years mastering Japanese. When war came, he was ideally trained, as a code-breaker and student of the Japanese people.

Note:
(a) Midway Atoll
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_Atoll
(near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago [but not part of state of Hawaii];  an unorganized, unincorporated territory of the United States; sighted in 1859, by [American] Captain NC Middlebrooks, though he was most commonly known as Captain Brooks, of the sealing ship Gambia)
(b) cryptanalysis (n): "the solving of cryptograms or cryptographic systems"
(c) curmudgeon (n; originunknown): "a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man"

crusty (adj): "giving an effect of surly incivility in address or disposition"
crust (n): "GALL, NERVE"

All definitions are from www.m-w.com.