Pearl Harbor: The Man Who Spied For Japan

Summary

Episode Summary: "Pearl Harbor: The Man Who Spied For Japan"

In this riveting episode of American History Hit, host Don Wildman explores the shadowy world of espionage that played a pivotal role in one of the most significant events in American history—the attack on Pearl Harbor. Through an insightful interview with Ronald Drabkin, author of Beverly Hills Spy: The Double Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor, listeners are introduced to Frederick Joseph Rutland, a decorated British aviator whose covert activities significantly influenced the course of World War II.

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Introduction to the Pearl Harbor Attack

Don Wildman sets the stage by describing the serene beauty of Oahu, Hawaii, juxtaposed with the impending doom that would unfold on December 7, 1941. He meticulously outlines the early warning signs and the series of events that led to the devastating Japanese assault on the U.S. naval base.

"The island of Oahu is the third largest in the Hawaiian archipelago... It is idyllic. Honestly, just looking it up on the Internet puts you at high risk of booking a flight to Hawaii." ([01:33])

Wildman narrates the tense hours leading up to the attack, highlighting the missed opportunities and the chaos that ensued as the first wave of Japanese aircraft struck, resulting in the tragic loss of over 2,400 lives.

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Frederick Rutland: From Hero to Spy

Ronald Drabkin provides a comprehensive background on Rutland, portraying him as a man of exceptional talent and ambition whose choices led him down a treacherous path.

"Rutland began as an aviator in the Royal Navy at age 15, earning various commendations for his bravery and innovative contributions to military aviation." ([12:25])

Rutland's early career is marked by his involvement in pioneering the use of aircraft in naval warfare, a foresight that would later prove both beneficial and disastrous.

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Transition to Espionage

Despite his illustrious career, Rutland faced stagnation within the post-World War I Royal Air Force. Feeling undervalued and disillusioned, he made a fateful decision to offer his expertise to the Japanese Navy.

"He walked right into the Japanese naval office in Westminster, London, and volunteered his expertise, effectively becoming a key asset for the Japanese Navy." ([17:26])

Drabkin explains that Rutland's social ambition and frustration with the British military hierarchy made him susceptible to Japanese recruitment, where his technical genius was highly prized.

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Espionage Activities in Hollywood

Rutland's assignment in Hollywood was strategic, leveraging the glamour and influence of the entertainment capital to facilitate espionage activities. Here, he orchestrated social gatherings, building relationships with influential figures to extract valuable intelligence.

"He threw major parties in Hollywood, where he mingled with movie stars and naval officers alike, extracting valuable information under the guise of socializing." ([32:36])

These gatherings served as perfect covers for intelligence gathering, allowing Rutland to discreetly obtain critical information about American military advancements and strategies.

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Impact on Pearl Harbor Attack

Rutland's espionage efforts were instrumental in the planning and execution of the Pearl Harbor attack. His insights into aircraft technology and naval strategies provided the Japanese Navy with significant tactical advantages.

"His fingerprints are all over the design of the carriers and the tactics used in the sudden aerial assault that took the U.S. by surprise." ([38:53])

Drabkin emphasizes that Rutland's contributions were not merely supplementary but were central to the effectiveness of the Japanese strike, showcasing the profound impact a single individual's intelligence activities can have on global events.

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Double Agent and Capture

As global tensions escalated, Rutland attempted to mitigate his involvement by approaching U.S. Navy intelligence, offering his services as a double agent. However, his dual allegiance left him vulnerable, leading to his eventual capture.

"He contacted the U.S. Navy intelligence, presenting himself as an invaluable asset with unparalleled knowledge of the Japanese Navy." ([40:07])

Despite his efforts to balance loyalties, Rutland's intricate web of espionage activities was eventually unraveled, resulting in his internment without trial as geopolitical tensions reached their zenith.

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Downfall and Legacy

Rutland's fall from grace was both swift and tragic. Interned by British authorities, he faced isolation and legal suppression, leading to a profound personal crisis.

"What a depressing ending to this heroic life. This man who was so high, now he's in jail." ([43:47])

His eventual suicide, discovered years after the war, marked the end of a complex figure whose actions had far-reaching consequences. Drabkin reflects on Rutland's legacy, underscoring the moral ambiguities and personal tragedies entwined with his espionage.

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Conclusion

This episode sheds light on the intricate and often overlooked aspects of espionage that shaped pivotal historical events. Through Ronald Drabkin's meticulous research and compelling storytelling, listeners gain a nuanced understanding of Frederick Rutland's role in the Pearl Harbor attack. The narrative serves as a poignant reminder of how personal ambitions and clandestine activities can influence the course of history.

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Notable Quotes

• Ronald Drabkin on Rutland's Recruitment:

  "He walked right into the Japanese naval office... effectively becoming a key asset for the Japanese Navy." ([17:26])

• On Rutland's Espionage in Hollywood:

  "He threw major parties in Hollywood, where he mingled with movie stars and naval officers alike, extracting valuable information under the guise of socializing." ([32:36])

• Reflecting on Rutland’s Downfall:

  "What a depressing ending to this heroic life. This man who was so high, now he's in jail." ([43:47])

---

This episode of American History Hit offers a deep dive into the complex interplay of espionage, personal ambition, and global conflict, presenting a narrative that is both informative and emotionally resonant. Through Rutland's story, listeners are reminded of the profound and often personal dimensions of historical events.

Transcript

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[Don Wildman]

The island of Oahu is the third largest in the Hawaiian archipelago, with Kauai to the northwest and Molokai to the southeast. It lies about 2,400 miles from the west coast of the mainland United States. Deep in the Pacific Ocean. The southern coast of the island is characterized by sandy palm tree lined beaches interspersed with rocky cliffs, all against a backdrop of green carpeted volcanic mountains. It is idyllic. Honestly, just looking it up on the Internet puts you at high risk of.

[Ron Drabkin]

Booking a flight to Hawaii.

[Don Wildman]

But near the center of this southern coast, the calm turquoise waters flow inland into a lagoon. Here, palm trees make way for the sprawling concrete structures of Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam. It is here, approaching the mouth of the harbor three hours before sunrise on 7 December 1940. One, a crew aboard the minesweeper USS Condor sight what looks like a submarine periscope. It is around 3:42am and the crew immediately report their sighting to the watchdog on guard at the harbor mouth, the USS Ward. Aboard this World War I destroyer, Lieutenant William W. Outerbridge is engaged in his first mission as ship command. Outerbridge and his crew search fruitlessly for the source of the sighting, eventually dismissing it as bogus. Outerbridge returns to his cabin to sleep, not knowing that the Condor's crew had in fact sighted a periscope and that it was attached to one of the five 46 ton Japanese midget submarines tasked with penetrating the harbor. Two and a half hours after the periscope was spotted, another ship is approaching the harbor mouth. This time it's the store ship USS Antares. Aboard the watchdog USS Ward. The phone by outer bridge's bunk rings. Captain, come on the bridge. At 6:37am lookouts on the Antares had sighted a small submarine tower and this time it is confirmed. At 6:45am Two shots are fired from the USS Ward's 4 inch guns followed by a depth charge. The Japanese sub slows and sinks to the ocean floor. And from USS Ward, the following message is broadcast to Pacific fleet headquarters. At 6:53am we have attacked, fired upon and dropped depth charges on a submarine operating in the defensive sea area. These are the first shots fired by the US in the Second World War. The duty officer receiving Ward's message, however, does not sound the alarm, but instead seeks verification. The alert only reaches Admiral Bloch's staff at 7:15am Whilst the reports into the thwarted submarine are decoded and investigated in the Naval Headquarters, warning signs are starting to blink in the Air Information Center. At 7am Radar at Opana, Oahu spiked, suggesting a major flight of aircraft to the north, about 88 miles out. Army Lt. Kermit Tyler, on receiving the radar report at 7:20am disregards it. There is a flight of US B17 bombers due in from California this morning and this must be what the radar has picked up on. Neither the privates making the report nor the lieutenant offer up the numbers of aircraft indicated or expected. The flight of B17s is only meant to be a dozen aircraft and the radar spike suggests at least 50 incoming. So though it would have just taken 10 minutes for the base to get all battleships to general quarters and all watertight enclosures secured at sea, the base at Pearl harbor remains in a state of relative calm as the first wave of 177 Japanese aircraft reach Oahu at 7:40am four hours after the first possible warning sign. At almost 10 minutes to 8am the Japanese aerial commander orders the attack on Pearl harbor to begin. The Japanese bomb hangars and park aircraft on airfields and launch torpedoes against US warships. Four battleships are hit in the first five minutes. One of them is the USS Arizona. 12,500 tons of armor which at 8:10am is lifted out of the water by the force of the explosion of up to eight bombs which hit the ship. One armor piercing incendiary has struck over £1 million. That's £450,000 of gunpowder. Immediately everything from the main mast forwards is aflame as is the water surrounding the Arizona where burning oil makes escape near impossible. The crew who have survived the initial blast rush to fight the blaze and.

[Ron Drabkin]

Evacuate wounded from the ship.

[Don Wildman]

But eventually they get the order to abandon her. 1,177 US servicemen and 68 civilians have lost their lives. Only 334 survive. Fires burn across the base. People run to the aid of others, fighting fires and moving casualties towards aid. Against all odds, some American servicemen manage to fight back. Doris Miller aboard USS West Virginia moves his wounded captain to safety before firing a Browning 50 caliber anti aircraft machine gun until he is out of ammunition. At 8:17am the destroyer USS Helm fires at and sinks a Japanese submarine at the entrance to the harbor. And second lieutenants Kenneth M. Taylor and George Welch, dressed in black tie from last night's Christmas party, manage to get their aircraft into the sky from burning bombed runways. Once in flight, they shoot down seven Japanese aircraft. But the Imperial Japanese Navy are not done. At 8:54am the second wave of attacks begins. 163 more aircraft swoop in. Anchored ships in harbor make easy targets for the bombers. By the end of the attack, besides the destroyed Arizona, the Oklahoma is capsized and the California, Nevada and West Virginia are sinking in the shallow waters. In total, 21 US warships have been sunk or damaged, 188 aircraft destroyed and 2,403Americans killed. Just 29 of the 353 Japanese aircraft have been shot down and the rest returned to the Japanese fleet of 67 ships floating just 200 miles north of Oahu. Ships from which the air fleet took off using Allied technology and innovation, handed to the Japanese navy by a man from Britain, a man who had spent years in Beverly Hills hosting and hobnobbing with the cream of Hollywood society, a man named Frederick Rutland.

[Ron Drabkin]

Greetings dear listeners. I'm Don Wildman and you're listening to American history. Hit. Hello. A surprising tale about World War II espionage and counterintelligence has come to light in the last few years, thanks to research done by the author who will join us for today's episode. It is a remarkable, gripping story that exposes the shadowy work of an ex British aviator in the Royal Naval Air Service, a decorated hero in battle and a bold pioneer in aviation, military design and strategy, who in the intervening years between the great wars, covertly exported his expertise to the Japanese, providing intelligence critical to the developments of their flying forces, which they would then use to attack Pearl Harbor. The spy was Frederick Joseph Rutland, but it's a name that would likely have faded from history had it not been for the research done by Ronald Drabkin, who just this year released, to huge praise and great reviews, Beverly Hills Spy, the double agent war hero who helped Japan attack Pearl Harbor. Ron Drabkin, welcome. You've been on a long book tour for this. Appreciate including us.

Thank you, Don. It's great to be here.

I understand this was a story that actually came out of research you were doing about your own father and your grandfather's activities in military intelligence. How did this land you in an entirely different tale?

Yeah, there's a joke about, you know, people who research their own roots, they always write about their own roots. And I found actually a story that's completely different, and it was really compelling. But, yeah, as you implied, my dad was a counterintelligence working for the US government, chasing spies, Soviet spies mostly, around 1950s Louisiana. After he passed away, we figured out that his. His father had also been involved. I guess he'd gotten into counterintelligence from his dad calling someone. But after dad passed away, I decided I needed to figure out what was going on. You know, we'd found in his locked office, there was some counterintelligence manuals. There was, you know, rubles in a State Department envelope. There was all this crazy stuff. Yeah. And, you know, I'm more of a businessman, but I called the FBI and I found out that they're super helpful. You know, Don, you can call the FBI and say, hey, I'm looking for information on my grandfather. Do you have a file on the guy? Right. And you know what they say? They will. If they have something, they will say.

Yes, and if it's, well, we are paying them.

Yeah.

The main subject of the book is a charismatic fellow. I've already mentioned his name, Frederick Rutland, who would become a spy for the Japanese. But he began as an aviator, as I said. Joined the Royal Navy in 1901, age 15. Then by 1915, he's a flyer. I mean, this is early days of aviation. SOP with camels, all that stuff. He earns his aviation certificate back then. He's in active service in 1915 on the HMS. Help me with pronunciation on Jardine. Right. For the British, Sure.

Yeah.

Good. Yeah. Okay. He earns various commendations. This guy is real talent in the military. Can you explain this period of his career?

Yeah. So, you know, he's this lower class Englishman. His dad's a laborer who had just really worked his way up through the Royal Navy based on his just smarts and skill and hard work. And he became a pilot. And then in 1916, there was something happening there. It was about to be the largest naval battle of history, the Battle of Jutland. And in this battle, you had. On one side you had 99 German ships, and on the other side you had 150 British ships and one airplane. And Frederick Rutland was the pilot of this one airplane. And you know, what he did with these little canvas and wood, you know, it's like the old Snoopy, you know, plane. World War I planes.

Right.

He took off in his little seaplane. He flew over the German fleet. He tapped out the Morse code to say, hey, the Germans are over here. Every gun in the German fleet shot at him and missed. Because I guess they weren't used to seeing airplanes flying over them at the time. And that was history. That was the first time that an aircraft was used for that. And you can see where it was going. If you were an expert there. This was an unarmed plane. It was going about 80 miles an hour. It was going by 900ft in the air. But, you know, going forward 20 years, you know, these planes were going hundreds of miles an hour and carrying bombs and sinking battleships, as we saw at Pearl Harbor.

Yeah. So he's commended for several things in this time. What you're explaining is he's the first time an airplane was used in reconnaissance, which is an interesting little factoid in battle also. He then receives the Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry and persistence in flying close to the enemy. But he also saves a soldier who drops into the water, and he jumps in with a bowline tied around his waist, the whole thing. The guys are a real intrepid fellow.

Yep. Very motivated, very smart, and world famous. You know, he's. His name was Rutland. It was the Battle of Jutland. And there you go.

Made for a bumper sticker.

Yeah, it was made for a bumper sticker. Rutland. Jutland got really famous. He's in the London Times. He's going to be hanging out with the King. He's just a very, very famous star pilot.

Yeah. His accomplishments have everything to do with the pioneering of flat deck aircraft carriers. That was obviously the problem in these days. They had this new idea of using air power in war. But how do you get these planes to the battlefield? You know, they can only fly a certain distance. The whole idea of bringing planes onto ships was going to require a whole bunch of new thinking as to how to take them off the ship, how to build ships that could do this. He becomes a very big voice in this department, isn't he?

Yeah. There's really two really hard parts about flying a plane from a ship. You know, one is taking off and the other is landing. Right. Both of them were really dangerous at the time. You know, the planes were so light, you know, we. I don't know if you have friends in the Navy who. They talk about landing on ships all the time. They love it anyway. Right. You know, the planes will come in. They're big, metal, powerful planes that come in hot. Then it was very different. There were canvas and wood planes, and what they would actually do is they'd come in for a landing and they'd bounce. You know, there's no light, it would bounce, A gust of wind would hit, then the flame go over the side. And that was just really bad for your air force and your. And your pilots. Right. You know, and so basically, he helped the Royal Navy as, first of all, as, you know, the star famous guy, second, as head of the squadron of naval aviators, and then finally helping being the admiralty guy who helps oversee the. The design of the new carriers. And, you know, the aircraft carriers became basically as we saw them In World War II, you know, big flat decks where planes could, you know, land. And the planes themselves had the landing gear and they had the aerodynamics and they had everything to land safely.

Yeah, it's a fascinating time. I mean, I have seen pictures of, you know, when they were training pilots in the Midwest here, they had to sort of refashion ships into aircraft carriers in the Great Lakes. And they. They would take ships and sort of build these crazy platforms on top of it. This was the beginning of all of that. And people like Rutland were central to kind of envisioning this entire idea, which really takes off, no pun intended, in the process, over a period of 10 years, they kind of come up with this whole other idea of how to create this new force. But so much for that. I Mean, after the war ends, things sort of shift for him. His work becomes more questionable. In the early 1920s, he resigns from the Royal Air Force, which had become an institution now, and he makes a choice to work for the Japanese. Now, I suppose this was not an abnormal thing to do. I mean, people were always hired as consultants and so forth. But how was he approached and why did he do this?

Well, I was mentioning he was a lower class, you know, son of a laborer, and he just wasn't doing well in the post World War I Royal Air Force. And there's all these, you know, like, remember, I don't know if you saw the first Rambo movie. You know, the guy who's good in war is not. Doesn't get promotions in peacetime. He does some things. You know, having an affair after a war is over is not uncommon. But what you don't do in the Royal Air Force is you don't sleep with your fellow officer's wife. That's just not bad choice. Yeah, you want promotion or at least. And basically he gets told, look, you're not going to get promoted. We'll keep you around because you're a technical genius. But, you know, this is the guy, he was hanging out with the King. He was, you know, in the London Times. He didn't like that. The last thing you want to do is become a bureaucrat. The Japanese Navy had a little office where in Westminster in London, where they were trying to get new technology. He walked in one day and he says, you know, my name is Rutland, I'd like to speak with someone. And the Japanese pilots were there, were saying, well, we know exactly who you are, come on in. And they make him an offer.

Wow. So he wasn't recruited. He kind of volunteered for this.

Yeah, that's what it seems like. Yeah. He's walked right in and the Japanese were being chartered to get British technology, and this guy walks into their office.

I mean, they're just like, whoa, interesting. It has a lot to do with his social class, as you mentioned. I mean. And that would have been true within the British Air Force, for sure, or the British military. There was a real caste system, depending on where you were from in life.

Yeah, yeah, indeed.

So he goes to work for the Japanese under the COVID of working for Mitsubishi. Right. Which was a huge company in those days already. What was happening in Japan at this time, that is the backdrop to all of this. I mean, we have a lot of internal struggles within the military there. The emergence of a. Of a real hawkish wing that's going to lead to all the problems.

Yeah, yeah, that was definitely a major issue. They were expanding rapidly and you know, it's a cautionary tale. You don't let your army or your navy declare war on other countries. That's not done. But that's what was happening there, you know, at the time. Right. You know, we don't have our Secretary of Army or Navy in the cabinet.

Right.

In the U.S. right. For example. So anyway, they're very expansionist and they really want to get this navy done and done well for expansion purposes. Right. So they're building their first couple large aircraft carriers, the Akagi and the Kaga, which end up being the two lead carriers on the Pearl harbor strike. They were converted from other types of vessels and basically he was undercover. The British never knew that he was working directly for the Japanese navy. They thought he was working for Mitsubishi. So they gave him a house down by the main Japanese naval base, which was very unusual. Normally the foreigners all lived together in Yokohama. Right. And basically the Japanese naval officers would walk over his house in plain clothes a couple times a week for a year and they're like, okay, we're going to do the Akagi's hangars. How do the British do it? Let's design this. And then most importantly, how do you get the design so that the planes don't crash when they try to land? There's all these, where's the funnel going to be, where's the smokestack, how does the wind go over the deck, all that kind of stuff.

It makes sense that the Japanese would be so forward thinking on all this because of course, they're an island nation. They see any kind of chance of, of creating empire hand in hand with their ability to launch an air force, you know, from ships. That's going to be their strategy and that's why they're so much at the cutting edge. What were relations like between Japan and the UK in those years?

Quite warm. Initially, the British had kind of helped put the Japanese navy in business. The Japanese Naval Academy was just modeled after the British one and it was all to counterbalance Russia.

Sure. So how much would they be watching with concern the fact that one of their, you know, ex heroes is over there working for Japanese industry supposedly.

They were definitely concerned. MI5 and MI6 were both involved. And there's a couple funny situations like there's a Japanese military parade in the middle of Tokyo. One of the MI6 guys goes to watch the parade and there's the seats, the bleachers, right and then there's all the Japanese admirals and the captains up in these bleachers and there's this one Caucasian guy up there and he's like, that's Frederick Rowland. What's he doing up in the bleachers? Sitting next to the chief pilot of the Japanese Navy. And they're like, what the heck's going on? And they go talk to him. He's like, oh, I'm just, just my friends. And they just never really quite figure it out.

It's a good cover story, I'll tell you. I'll say that one of his pals is a captain in the Navy, Isoroku Yamamoto, who then becomes the Admiral and the visionary behind the Pearl harbor attack. That's how in this guy is.

Yeah, they were living a couple blocks away in Kamakura and the two of them, Yamamoto, he was the Japanese embassy in Washington. And so Yamamoto and Rutland both came to Japan right about the same time in 1923. And they're both interested in aircraft and the two of them had a bunch of things in common. And in particular, both of them, they're very kind of, you know, going back to, you know, I watched a lot of movies, you know, Top Gun, you know, all the pilots will do whatever the heck they want, right? They're cowboys, right? That seems to be true for pilots anywhere in the world. This was Yamamoto's problem at the time. All these cowboy pilots, how do you crack down on it and how do you make a Santa process? So basically he was doing really similar to Rutland had done in Britain. You know, you systematize it. You know, if you want to take off, these are the steps. At this many feet down the Runway, you pull the stick and you do all these things. Right. So the two of them were both involved in the systemization basically.

Yeah, exactly.

Of the air arm.

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[Matt Lewis]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Ron Drabkin]

It's an interesting perspective because we today, we so lose the fact that, you know, if you're in the late 20s and early 30s, this time the world was not concerned about another world war. You know, today we think of it as a bookend situation and all these other things that happen in the middle don't matter as much as the wars. But in fact, it was life as usual. I mean, we were moving on from a great war behind us and the world was modernizing. So here we are in 1928, Rutland moves back to London to work for his brother's truck company. But again, it's not too long before he gets restless and the Japanese hire him again. I'm curious why the British intelligence hadn't sort of locked in on the fact that this guy was a outright spy.

There was a lot of plausible deniability here. Right. They didn't know who he was working for. They didn't know exactly what he was doing. And he always had a cover story that seemed to work. You know, there's British laws, there's American laws, there's Japanese laws. And he was just really good about, you know, like, oh, I'm a trading company executive and, you know, this is what I'm doing. Yeah, smart guy.

He was good. He was a good spy is what he was. Right. I mean, he was a very charismatic fellow. Yeah, that's going to carry him into this next chapter for sure, because he's really good at socializing. And once you're good at socializing, you can cover up a lot. They have a code name for him which I find fascinating. Agent Shinkawa, which translates as New River. I looked that up. It's really interesting. So he is sent by the Japanese. At that point, they hire him in London to go to Hollywood, which was, of course, quite the chic place to be in those days. At that moment, you're into a whole nother sphere of influence. What was the Japanese and American relations at this point when he arrives in Hollywood?

Well, Japan and the US Were the two biggest naval powers in the Pacific. So if you were to dream about if there's going to be a big naval war in the Pacific, these would be the two countries. But it really didn't seem very likely. I mean, they're very far apart. Japan's a, you know, very small country, much smaller than the US Tiny economy. You know, they're pretty accomplished. But it, you know, there was. There was various kind of, you know, yellow peril kind of racist stuff going out there, but it really didn't seem like it would ever happen.

Right.

For us Americans, you know, it's. At least at those days, it was very Atlantic and Europe focused.

Sure.

A war didn't seem to be, you know, an option at all.

But it is a strategic choice of the Japanese by his handlers to send him to Hollywood because they're. They are very aware of the fact that this is the way that things are going to go.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Ron Drabkin]

I mean, they have a whole chess game in mind here. One of the events that's interesting to me is in 1932, Henry Stimson, the Secretary of War under FDR, has really squared off against Japan over their actions in Manchuria. This contributes to the tensions between the governments. There had also been, you mentioned immigration policies that have been passed in the United States that were very anti Asian.

Yeah.

So there was a lot. Things were beginning to ratchet up. Yeah. That was fueling this radical fringe in Japan. They come up with quite an elaborate plan to kidnap one Charlie Chaplin in order to create an incident.

Yeah, it's a crazy story, actually. Some of the hotheads that we were talking about in the Japanese navy and army, they actually would really like to have a war with the US and their admirals and their prime minister are not going for it, but they would love to inflame tensions. And Charlie Chaplin's visiting, and he really makes them mad for a couple of reasons. One is that he's just, you know, they're saying, oh, these Americans. And they're just these terrible, greedy people who want to keep us down and they're racist and blah, blah, blah. Here's this guy who comes over, he's making everyone laugh. You just think that everyone loves him, Right. So these guys are very patriotic and very excited, very aggressive, and maybe not all that smart. But they decide if they were to, like, bump off Charlie Chaplin in Japan, then the US Would be so mad, they would start a war with Japan, and that's where they'll get what they would want. And it's funny. Like, if you see the records of what Chaplin thought about this, you know, he's like, I'm British.

Yeah, exactly. What does it say?

He's like, I'm not even American. But anyway, that's kind of in the background.

Right. But it's important to Realize that there's a ramping up going on here throughout the 30s, and Hollywood will be a hotbed of this kind of intelligence work for the Japanese. They have lots of access there. As you mentioned, relations aren't bad right now. They're getting worse, but they can come and go. And so they're beginning to watch how to play this game out. Rutland actually stops in Japan in 1933 before he sails off to LA on this mission they are sending to them. What were those meetings in Japan about?

Basically giving him his orders, you know, arranging his contract. And, you know, he wants to make sure he's, you know, being paid well. And. And the Japanese have different ideas on what they want from him. And so they're kind of working out, you know, is he a sleeper? Is he going to be stealing aircraft technology, battleship technology? You know, is he going to go to Pearl Harbor? He's going to hang out in la. You know, there's all these different options. So they're basically Ms. Martin orders.

And they kind of set him up in a stock brokerage. Cover story. Right. He's going to be a stockbroker living in Hollywood. He's got a lot of money. They're going to pay him very handsomely. As you say, he can also sell aircraft in Santa Monica. It's a whole thing.

Yeah, the guy must have adhd, right? Are we allowed to diagnose historical figures? I don't know. He was doing a lot of things. Yeah, he was selling aircraft. He's like, oh, yeah, I'll just sell some aircraft and that'll give me. He's like, so that's why I'm going to Japan. I'm going to sell some aircraft. You know, he's got handlers, but cover story is selling aircraft, Right.

Well, he's a perfect spy for this. This is the whole point of your book, is that this guy was just made for the role, because Santa Monica for. In those days, I mean, Louisiana, in those days was the place for advancing airlines. Still is in some ways, but it was where the B1 bomber was made in Burbank. I mean, this is where it's always happened for American aircraft technology. So the fact that this British flyer would land in Los Angeles working for the Japanese, well, it makes kind of sense, you know, because he's going to be making business out of this. The banker who handles his. His payments. A fascinating twist here is. Help me with the pronunciation. Isuke Ono, is that correct?

Yeah, Esuk Ono, who turns out to be.

This is just obscure stuff here. He Turns out to be the father of Yoko Ono.

Yeah.

Who I didn't even realize grew up in California.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes over, leaves his new newborn daughter behind and goes to San Francisco, and he's running the Japanese bank in California, and he's, you know, the Japanese Navy's biggest customer, presumably. Right. With all the money they're putting out. And, yeah, he's the paymaster.

He's got a whole act now. He's going to throw major parties. He's going to be the big wig in Hollywood. And he pulls this off with great aplomb. I mean, he's a very popular fellow in Hollywood in those days, paying for all the catering. You know, that's the way to make friends.

If you buy drinks for people, you can be very popular, even if you're not looking for information.

Yeah, yeah.

And if you want to be even more popular, what you do is you invite your friends, the movie stars to these parties, and then from there you get some guys from the US Navy coming out and some folks in the airline manufacturers, and you get those folks drunk and they're going to tell you a lot of information, and the last thing they're going to expect is this British war hero and ace pilots, a Japanese spy. That was not what anyone would have dreamed.

Right, sure, yeah. I mean, the book is entitled Beverly Hills Spy.

Yeah.

So how long was this period for him that he was in la and how systematic was it? He was working different angles. He was very active, as you say, naughty sleeper spy.

Yeah, he was there almost 10 years.

Really?

Yeah. It's funny, all the newspapers went online. You can scan them now and read them. And the Hollywood parties are very well documented, you know, and so, you know, you look at this and like, oh, yeah, here's the party and he's planning it. And, you know, he's invited Charlie Chaplin to join. And Boris Karloff is all over the FBI docs, and he gets all these. You know, a lot of these early actors in Hollywood were all British. Right. Chaplin and Karloff and a lot of the others. Right. So he fits in really well with them.

I'll be back with more American history after this short break.

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[Ron Drabkin]

He also installs an Irishman that he knows as a night janitor at the Lockheed factory.

Yeah, it's kind of a hilarious episode really. You know, Lockheed is, well, it is today still, you know, the leading manufacturer of warplanes for the US and they were, the planes in, they were, they were developing, were going just really, really far, which is what you want in the Pacific for a future, you know, for a future battle. And the Japanese very interested in seeing how the Lockheed was getting the planes to go that far. Now Lockheed made the plane for Emilia Earhart and that one did go very far, right? It didn't work out, but the technology was there. And so he wants to get into the details of the lockheed planes, the P38 Lightning. So anyway, he's hanging out with his buddy Boris Karloff and he meets this fellow who's an Irish nationalist and hires this guy. Irish nationalists are not typically hanging out with British officers, but the money was there, right? And so what he does is he's hanging out with the guys at Lockheed and they need a new janitor. And he says, I got the perfect guy for you. And he sends his Irish friend over there. Well recommended. Boris Karloff recommends the guy. Rutland recommends him. Douglas Fairbanks brother recommends him. This guy gets hired in as the night janitor. And if you, you know, it's one of these things, if you're not thinking about espionage, you would never think about it. But the night janitor is the perfect job for someone who's helping a spy, right? Because he's going through the Lockheed plan at night, he's going in every room in the plant and he can steal the drawings or take pictures of the drawings of the new planes. And that's what he does.

Does he have allegiance to the Japanese? Does he see war Coming. Does he know about that?

He really doesn't seem to think it would really happen. Maybe he's fooling himself. There's definitely. We call it slippery slope. Right. Things are getting worse and worse. It didn't seem that bad, but it kept getting like, you know, all of a sudden, you know, this is getting more tense. That's more tense. And he didn't seem to really think it was coming for a very long time.

Yeah. And part of the problem is the US and the UK are not in touch with their intelligence services at this point. Right. We're Pre World War II here. They have nothing to do with each other.

Yeah. I found some internal documents with MI6 where basically, the US and British intelligence agencies were not talking about the Rutland case, even though he was British, and they weren't talking about anything to do with Japan at all. Because of the Rutland case. Because from the British perspective, if they start cooperating with the Americans, talk about the threat of Japan, and how are they going to say, like, well, by the way, one of our most famous war heroes is actually in Hollywood, and he's been spying on you, and we've been intercepting some communication. He's stolen a bunch of your big secrets, and it's been going on for the last six years, and we never mentioned it. You know, and as you keep going down the line here, it never gets easier to mention. Right?

Yeah, exactly. Not to mention we completely lack our own organization. I mean, this is all a developing circumstance. You know, we don't have a CIA. We don't have a, you know, the FBI exists, but barely, and it's certainly not talking to the Office of Naval Intelligence on a regular basis. So that's the problem. And that's really what post World War II is so much about, which is this organization of these intelligence agencies realizing that this is a big threat from whatever quarter. There were FBI files released in 2017, I suppose you ran across in your research that confirmed the fact that he was actually working for both sides. Right. I mean, he had become a double agent working for the US as well.

Yeah. Later on, as things start to get hotter, he decided to. He approached the US Navy intelligence folks and offered his services.

How much did Rutland's intelligence, that which he delivered to the Japanese, how much did that play a part in the attack on Pearl Harbor?

There's, you know, maybe three different parts where his fingerprints are, like, all over all these different places. Right. One is, you know, helping design the carriers that did the attack. That was. That was earlier on. Secondly, helping Giving them a technology to make the planes be able to attack Pearl Harbor. They started from very far out and they were given that technology. And third of all, he spent a lot of time in Pearl Harbor. So what he would do is, you know, before he would go to meet his handlers in Japan every year, he'd go out there every summer. Typically he'd go and the boat or the China Clipper would stop in Hawaii. He'd spend a good couple of weeks there taking pictures and scouting things out. His fingerprints are all these different places.

Wow. I had assumed that that was probably Japanese spies themselves. I mean, who were, you know, able to live in Hawaii and take these pictures and stuff like that. No idea that it was some British guy in Hollywood throwing parties for the stars. It's amazing. When he became a double agent, did he have to admit that he was also. I guess they must have known at that point that he was working for the Japanese, right?

Yep. Yeah. He said, I've known these guys and he's making the US Navy intelligence quite an offer. He's like, look, you're not going to find anyone who knows the Japanese Navy as well as I do.

So he volunteers himself to them as well.

As far as we know. Yeah. He seemed to approach them.

Wow.

Doesn't seem like a very high moral kind of fellow is maybe what you're thinking. But he gets pretty aggressive. Like, there's going to be a war between us and Japan. It's going to be a war of the navies. And you, the US Navy, need to know more about the Japanese Navy. Right. They're like, yes, get to the point. Right. And he says, look, no foreigner knows the Japanese Navy as well as I do. You know, I've been working with these guys for 20 years. You know, these guys, you know, Yamamoto, Shiman, all the top admirals. I knew them from when they were, you know, mid level officers 15 years ago. Right. I know how they work and I know their intelligence structure.

I'm your guy. What year was that that he approached them?

That was 1939.

Wow. This is really close. That's amazing.

Yeah.

This is a pretty good story, Ron.

Pretty compelling.

This is amazing stuff. Basically, you're talking about a guy who has taken this sort of brilliant mind, which was on a fast track, had he not run into his problem of social status. That's really what it was all about. Right. I mean, he would only go so far and he knew it. And that kind of turns him around in the early days of his life into a kind of cynic I suppose this is so much the story of so many spies out there. Did he. Did he run into any other spies in Hollywood? I'm curious if they. If they all knew each other.

Yeah. That's a fantastic question, Don. I've never been asked that before. Yeah, I would, I would assume there.

Must have been a community of these guys. I mean, it was such the place.

Yeah. I mean, you had the Nazi spy, you had the Soviets everywhere.

Yeah, exactly.

Even Mexicans.

Yeah.

Mexicans send people down.

One can only imagine.

Yeah.

In 1941, October 1941, just before America's. I mean, now there's a huge war going on over in Europe. Rutland returns to Britain and was interned for alleged hostile association. They finally catch up to this guy. They finally decide to do something about them. He is jailed with no trial under a certain regulation. What happens at that point to him and how does he proceed?

Yeah, well, he's potentially really embarrassing to a lot of people. The Americans are not excited about kind of being fooled by this guy. Right. The British are appalled that their guy would be, you know, helping the, you know, the Japanese navy. Right. And so everyone wants him quiet. So what the British do is they do a very, maybe not a very nice thing. They basically say, look, we'd like you back in the UK and we think we can use your services. And things are not going very well for you here in the us it seems your people in Japan are probably not going to be long term, your good friends. Why do you come back to the uk?

Wow. He was set up.

Yeah. And they put him on a bomber to fly back during U boat season, which is like the E ticket at the time.

Right.

And he's feeling pretty good about his ability to, you know, get back and become a hero in the UK again. When the plane lands, all of a sudden his baggage is confiscated and his ID is taken. He goes, wait a second, what's going on here? And the British decide they need to basically throw him away so that no one knows what he was doing. And there's no. No trial. It's, you know, they actually sent him to, if you know, the Isle of Man, this very small island. Yeah. To try to keep him as far away from anyone. And he's a really smart guy. He's got a lot of very powerful friends, the British Royal Navy people, a lot of the admirals, they love the guy and they have no idea he was being a spy. And so basically he arranges to write letters to every member of Parliament saying he's been railroaded his friends are trying to get him out of jail and it gets pretty nasty for a while there. Yeah.

What a depressing ending to this heroic life. This is a fall from grace story. This man who was so high. Wow. You know, the metaphors of being in a. In a plane are so, you know, Icarus and all the rest of that. There he is in jail, his nation is at war. I mean, majorly under threat of attack, etc. Etc. He was the guy who would have saved it in another lifetime. And now he's in jail. It comes to a sad end for him, doesn't it?

Yeah. At the end of the war, he's one of the last guys that let out of jail. Even the head of the British Nazi party gets out of jail before he does. And they basically say, look, you will not be talking. Right. We have this understanding and he starts to talk a little bit. And his son, a couple years after the war ended, finds a suicide note and goes and looks for his father and gets a call from the cops and come find the body.

Wow. He killed himself.

Yeah.

This is an incredible story. We've told a lot of it here, but only in the barest minimum. This is what's so important about your book. It's gotten a lot of praise because you've told it in a very compelling story. It is a compelling tale anyway, but you really move it along like the spy story. It truly is great tale told.

Thanks, Don.

Ronald Drapian is the writer and expert in espionage history, author of the book we have been talking so much about, Beverly Hills Spy, the double agent war hero who helped Japan attack Pearl Harbor. We have had this interview, Ron, I want to tell the audience that you are sitting in Tokyo as we speak. The irony is thick. Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. Nice to meet you.

Likewise.

Hey, thanks for listening to American history hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American history hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support.

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