In any case a code message in a news or weather programs was not needed, as ordinary commercial communication facilities were available to Japan right up to the December 7 attack.
Pearl Harbor historians Gordon Prange and Roberta Wholstetter sidestep the issue by saying that the intercepted codes-destruct messages of 2 December were a more accurate indication of war breaking out.
USN Chief Warrant Officer Ralph T. Briggs, an operator at Station M, the Navy's East Coast intercept installation at Cheltenham in Maryland,[4] stated he logged "Higashi no kaze ame" ("East wind rain") on the morning of December 4; this was transmitted to the Fleet Intelligence Office at Pearl through the secure TWX line.
In 2008 historians from the National Security Agency went back and analyzed all American and foreign intelligence sources and decrypted cables.
Following the end of the war, Japanese officials advised General MacArthur that no Winds signal was ever sent relating to the United States.
A skeleton staff had been left behind in Hong Kong when the British Far East Combined Bureau (FECB) moved to Singapore in August 1939.