Commander Rochefort Quotes in Midway (1976)

Captain Garth: Can I ask you something personal? Very personal?

Commander Rochefort: Sure.

Captain Garth: You know, it really stinks down here. How often do some of your people take a bath?

Commander Rochefort: Bath? Hell, I don't know. What *day* is it?

Captain Garth: How much can you decipher?

Commander Rochefort: Fifteen percent.

Captain Garth: Really decipher?

Commander Rochefort: Ten percent.

Captain Garth: Ten percent? That's one word in ten, Joe! You're *guessing*!

Commander Rochefort: [slightly hurt] We like to call it "analysis."

Captain Garth: Admiral, Commander Rochefort has something he would like to tell you.

Commander Rochefort: It's about objective AF, sir, the meaning of AF. Now, our listening posts have been picking up alot of traffic between Yamamoto's staff commanders.

Captain Garth: There has been a heavy volume of traffic, sir, with the recurring references to Objective AF and... what was the other one?

Commander Rochefort: AO. Now, AO is still a mystery, Admiral, maybe a diverson, but I think we've identified Objective AF as Midway. Now, it really had us stymied there, until one of my men remembered an enemy intercept we decoded last March. Now, a Jap reconnaissance pilot radioed his base that he was passing close to AF. Now we plotted every possible course this plane might have taken, and the only appreciable land mass he could have overflown at the time was Midway.

Captain Garth: Joe...

Commander Rochefort: Look, I know it's thin...

Admiral Nimitz: Thin? Damn near invisible.

Commander Rochefort: But I found a way to confirm it, sir.

[Takes out a message and passes it to Nimitz]

Commander Rochefort: If you will have this flown to Midway. It's a fake message, sir, reporting that Midway's fresh water condenser has broken down. Now, it should be transmitted in the clear, so there's no question of Japanese operators getting every word of it.

Admiral Nimitz: [Smiles and nods, passing it over to Blake] Instruct Midway to include that in their housekeeping traffic tomorrow.

Lieutenant Commander Ernest L. Blake: Aye, sir.

Commander Rochefort: [Last lines] I wonder if Matt knew how big we won.

Admiral Nimitz: I think I know what he'd have said: It doesn't make any sense, Admiral. Yamamoto had everything going for him, power, experience, confidence. Were we better than the Japanese, or just luckier?

Admiral Nimitz: [after the Midway operation] Joe, I want you to know that you've earned your pay this month.

Commander Rochefort: Thank you, sir.