User:Jbiard1955/Forrest R. "Tex" Biard

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: FORREST R. BIARD, CAPTAIN, U.S. NAVY (RET.)

Major Accomplishments As a Naval Intelligence Officer In the Pacific Theater During World War II Which Merit the Navy and Marine Corps Medal

Capt. Forrest R. (“Tex”) Biard, at age 90, is the sole surviving pre-war trained Japanese cryptolinguist member of the U.S. Naval codebreaking organization during World War II. Capt. Biard served in all of the three Navy codebreaking units during the war. However, Capt. Biard has never been adequately recognized for his substantial contributions to codebreaking and other key Naval intelligence efforts, which are summarized briefly below.


 * In February of 1944, then-Lt. Cdr. Biard and fellow linguist and codebreaker Lt. Cdr. Tom Mackie were dispatched to Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s intelligence center in Brisbane to decrypt messages encoded in Japanese Army code books found in New Guinea, which Gen. MacArthur’s “ULTRA” codebreakers could not convert into useful intelligence. Lts. Biard and Mackie decrypted communications identifying the detailed immediate Japanese defensive plans in the New Guinea area, a key strategic stronghold for the Japanese.  The information developed at Brisbane, which Lt. Cdr. Biard alone insisted must be presented to Gen. MacArthur at once, over the strong objections from the General’s reluctant staff (because one part of a critical thirteen-part message was missing), enabled Gen. MacArthur to anticipate the enemy’s movements, and, thereby, to execute his successful island-hopping strategy to reclaim New Guinea in just a few weeks, and, consequently, to accelerate the end of the war in the Pacific by several months, with minimal casualties.


 * In September of 1941, Lt. Cdr. Biard was stationed at Pearl Harbor, where he served as a top language officer in the Station Hypo codebreaking unit that worked around the clock to break JN-25, the key strategic code used by the Japanese Navy. From February 15 to May 27, 1942, Lt. Cdr. Biard also was temporarily assigned to the carrier USS Yorktown as the radio intelligence officer.  Not only did Lt. Cdr. Biard’s tireless codebreaking efforts at Station Hypo contribute substantially to the strategic victory at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the subsequent victorious Battle of Midway; but, Lt. Cdr. Biard’s extraordinary leadership in taking the initiative to rally the troops on the eve of the major and final engagement of the Battle of the Coral Sea, in the absence of any effort to do so by the senior officers aboard the USS Yorktown, focused, directed, and inspired the pilots and junior officers.  Lt. Cdr. Biard’s forceful talk that evening culminated in a critical instruction session by the Squadron Gunnery Officer on effective dive-bombing techniques, which, on the following day, ensured that neither of the two Japanese carriers present at the Coral Sea would be able to participate in the war-turning battle of Midway one month later.


 * In September of 1941, Lt. Cdr. Biard, then a Navy language student in Japan, demonstrated extreme resourcefulness and persuasive powers, against the resistance of the Tokyo shipping office, to secure passage out of Japan for a group of ten expert Navy linguists just weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As a result of Lt. Cdr. Biard’s accomplishment in the face of tightening Japanese security measures, these linguists were able to make major contributions to U.S. military intelligence operations during the war in codebreaking, radio intelligence, interrogation, and other critical capacities which made possible the war-turning Battle of Midway.