Remembering CAPT Joseph J. Rochefort, USN, (Ret.) Cryptologist

Captain Joseph John Rochefort was a major figure in the U.S. Navy’s cryptologic and intelligence developments from 1925 to 1947. He headed the Navy’s fledgling cryptanalytic organization in the 1920s and provided singularly superb cryptologic support to the U.S. fleet during World War II, leading to victory in the war in the Pacific. At the end of his career (1942-1946), Rochefort successfully headed the Pacific Strategic Intelligence Group in Washington.

Rochefort was born in 1898 and enlisted in the navy in 1918. He was commissioned an ensign after graduation from the Stevens Institute of Technology. Rochefort’s tours ashore included cryptanalytic training under both Captain Laurance Safford and Agnes Meyer Driscoll in 1925; a stint as second chief of the Department of Naval Communications’ newly created cryptanalytic organization, OP-20-G, from 1926 to 1929; training in the Japanese language from 1929 to 1932; and a two-year intelligence assignment in the Eleventh Naval District, San Diego, from 1936 to 1938. Until 1941, Rochefort spent nine years in cryptologic or intelligence-related assignments and fourteen years at sea with the U.S. fleet in positions of increasing responsibility.