TheCodeBreakers
By then its
direction-finding groups were scattered all over the South Pacific.
The unit worked near the front lines so as to get as many intercepts
as possible. So close were they that on Leyte late in 1944 Japanese
paratroops dropped on the unit, apparently having mistaken it for a
command post because of its numerous antennae. One startled
radioman, isolated in a direction-finding booth in the middle of a
clearing, suddenly heard bullets whizzing all around him. The
codebreakers dropped their pencils, grabbed their rifles, and engaged in
rather more direct action against the enemy than that to which they were
accustomed. The paratroopers were driven off, but not quickly enough to
save the unit's documents from the flames.
Its radio operators, specially trained in Japanese Morse, listened in 24
hours a day on at least some of its two dozen receivers. Sometimes just
the circuits being used would give Japanese intentions away
annaabi.ee 
