Eric Nave

Captain Eric Nave (18 March 1899 – 23 June 1993) was an Australian cryptographer and intelligence officer in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and Royal Navy, noted for his work with joint Allied intelligence units during World War II. He served in the navy from 1916 to 1949, then served as an officer in the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation until 1959.

Early life and background Nave was born in Croydon, Adelaide, the son of Thomas Henry Theodore Nave and Ethel Sophie (née Peterson). His father worked for South Australian Railways (SAR), serving as chief clerk in the office of the Comptroller of Accounts. Thomas was also a long-standing member of the Adelaide Repertory Theatre, initially as an actor and producer, then as business manager, acting secretary, and chairman. He was subsequently made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1948 Birthday Honours for his "services in cultural life of Adelaide".

Eric Nave began working for South Australian Railways as an office boy in his father's office on 8 December 1913, He took the Civil Service Examination in early December 1914, but came 22nd out of 26 in his group. He remained with SAR, and was appointed a junior clerk on 17 May 1915. the RAN training establishment south of Melbourne, where on 1 March, he was appointed a paymasters' clerk on probation. He served aboard the second-class protected cruiser from April 1917 to October 1918,

From 6 October 1918 to 4 July 1919 he was stationed aboard the training ship at Rose Bay, Sydney, then from 5 July 1919 to 30 September 1920 aboard the battlecruiser , From 1 October 1920 to 17 January 1921 he was posted to , a depot ship at Sydney. also receiving promotion to paymaster lieutenant on 1 September 1921. He returned to service at sea aboard from April 1923 to January 1924, He was sent to Hong Kong and posted to the heavy cruiser . Nave expected to be employed as an interpreter, but instead was presented with intercepted coded Japanese naval signals and ordered by the Commander-in-Chief, China, to break them. Within two months Nave had not only broken the code, but had also worked out the Imperial Japanese Navy's radio protocols and relay system, and the organisation of their various commands. He also broke another code before his period of loan service was completed

The loan was promptly renewed in December 1927 and Nave was assigned to the Japanese desk in the Government Code and Cypher School in England. There he broke the code of the Japanese naval attaché, which meant that during London Naval Conference of 1930, the Admiralty were fully aware of the Japanese negotiating position, and also the Japanese Navy's strategy for fighting a war with the United States. and on 29 August 1930 "in view of his exceptional qualifications and experience in certain specialist duties" he was transferred to the Royal Navy. This required an Order in Council from the Privy Council because of the different systems of pay and pensions in the two services. Nave was the first officer to be transferred from the Royal Australian Navy to the Royal Navy.

Nave's codebreaking career continued, serving in the China Fleet and in London. He was promoted to paymaster commander on 30 June 1937, until 17 March 1949, when he retired from the Royal Navy.

Personal life Nave had four children with his first wife, Helene Elizabeth Ray. The book apparently reflects Rusbridger's views rather than those of Nave, particularly the claim that Winston Churchill deliberately did not pass on warnings about the attack on Pearl Harbor, in order to get the United States involved the war. According to British historian Peter Elphick, in a 1991 interview on Japanese television, Nave "repudiated a large slice of what Rusbridger had written, calling it speculation". Dufty said that the Allies had "solved" the JN-25 code as they knew how it worked; with five numbers, an additive book and an indicator system. But they had not "broken" the code by having enough code words and indicators to read a message. American military historian Stephen E. Ambrose pointed out that the claim "makes no sense at all", since if Churchill "knew the attack was coming, he certainly would have wanted the United States Navy to meet and defeat it – after all, the United States would be fully into the war the moment the battle began."