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Niitakayama Nobore.
I don’t really know how to pronounce it properly, but the English translation is one of the more famous coded messages in American history…and the subject of this evening’s very brief lesson.
When Admiral Nagumo left Kyushu in late November of 1941, he did so with what was, at that time, the largest fleet (named the Kido Butai) in the world. He also left with a bit of unfinished business. The fleet was headed for a spot a couple of hundred miles northwest of Hawai’i, from where it would launch attacks against Pearl Harbor. The actual attack orders comprised the unfinished business.
The Japanese government pretty much knew that it was going to war, but still held out a bit of hope that diplomacy would win the day. The problem was that Japan wasn’t really interested in making any serious concessions, so “diplomacy” basically came down to the United States giving Japan whatever she wanted in the Pacific. And that wasn’t going to happen.
So on December 2, 1941, the coded message, Niitakayama Nobore (“Climb Mount Niitaka“), arrived on Nagumo’s flagship. The Admiral then opened a set of top secret documents which confirmed that Japan would be going to war with the United States, Britain, and Holland. It also gave a date for the opening of hostilities…December 8th (the 7th on the Pearl Harbor side of the International Date Line).
The stage was set…unless the U.S. discovered Kido Butai, Pearl Harbor was squarely centered in the Japanese bullseye.
Today's History Lesson 
President Roosevelt forced the Japanese to try to destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Roosevelt had been committing acts of war against Japan for four years by arming Japan’s war-enemy China for four years, had been bullying, insulting and threatening the Japanese with unacceptable diplomatic ultimatums, had cut off Japan’s access to U.S. oil, forcing the Japanese to seize the oilfields of the Dutch East Indies, and had secretly agreed with Britain to go to war against Japan if Japan attacked the Dutch in the East Indies. Roosevelt had moved the U.S. Pacific Battleship Fleet from its base in San Diego to Pearl Harbor to give the Japanese something to attack that they could reach—over the objection of his own Fleet Admiral, whom he fired (Adm. James O. Richardson). Furthermore, the Dutch, the Australians and his own codebreakers had informed Roosevelt that a Japanese task force of six aircraft carriers was steaming directly for Pearl Harbor, but Roosevelt kept this a secret from his Army and Navy Commanders at Pearl Harbor because he knew he could get the U.S. to go to war against the Axis, which is what he wanted to do all along, to avenge Japan’s attack. Now, go and read all the lies in the U.S. historybooks that make it look like Japan was the villain.