Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast episode 625, an ocean between us, part two. In the late of Japan podcast, Episode 625, An Ocean Between Us, Part 2.

In the late 1940s, a rumor began to circulate through the town of Port Angeles, Washington.

That rumor concerned the patriarch of the only Japanese family to have settled in the sleepy

little town, the Osasa's. Osasa Masaru, who lived in Port

Angeles until he returned to Japan in 1939 under somewhat unclear circumstances, was,

according to the town rumor mill, in fact, a spy. And this, so the story went, was what

explained both his presence and his disappearance.

Remember, Port Angeles had initially come into existence as a federal town,

admittedly one created mostly so a corrupt customs inspector who died in a mysterious shipwreck

could more effectively launder the money he stole, and it still had several federal facilities nearby.

Plus, it was along the route into the Puget Sound, where Bremerton, Washington, served and still

serves as one of the main U.S. naval bases on the Pacific coast. It made sense the locals all said

to each other that Masaru, who was known to have served in the imperial military, who kept to himself who had a reputation for walking along the harbor

district, his eyes out to sea watching the U.S. Navy vessels as he chain-smoked Chesterfield

cigarettes, had been sent by the Japanese government to report back on the strength of American

naval preparations along the western coast.

In the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, the story took on a strange

specificity. It became common wisdom that Osasa Masaru had in fact been working for the Imperial Japanese Navy,

keeping an eye on American fleet movements in and out of the Puget Sound,

and that he had been recalled back to Japan in 1939 to present on his findings, hence the disappearance,

and that his report, that American naval strength in the Pacific was more than Japan could ever

handle, had been buried by an arrogant Navy leadership, unwilling to admit the futility of trying

...