American cryptanalysts suspected that the Japanese code name AF referred to Midway Atoll. Midway was instructed to transmit an uncoded report that its water plant had failed, after which Japanese communications reported that AF lacked fresh water. This deceptive message confirmed the target and helped the United States prepare an ambush.

The episode made language, code names and planted information central to the cultural memory of the Pacific War. It influenced naval histories and fiction in which unseen cryptanalysts rival combatants as agents of victory.