“Secret War’ men swap stories

Press, 17 January 1979, Page 9

“Secret War’ men swap stories

By

HERBERT MARCHANT

Ultra was the covername given to Allied intelligence derived from the deciphered signals of German army, air and naval commands during World War two. But in the interest and excitement aroused by the “revelations” about the success of this operation, few will have stopped to ask how successful the cryptographers on the other side had been. German cryptographers regularly read British naval codes from the outbreak of the war until well into 1943. If the Battle of the Atlantic was won later that year, largely because the British experts at Bletchley Park, their secret headquarters near London, were able to break the U-code, it had very nearly been lost earlier because the Germans were reading the codes used by the convoys. This was the consensus of a recent international conference on W/T intelligence in World War two held in Germany. It was a curious confrontation of World War two adversaries, when for four days Allied cryptographers, intelligence officers and communications experts — British, American, Canadians and a Pole — lived it all over again with their German opposite numbers. For the first two days the practitioners discussed the technical aspects before an audience of more than 500 — an indication of the enormous interest the German nation still has in military matters.

They were mostly former members of the Wehrmacht and included topranking officers of all thr>e services, whose sigincidentally, had been regularly deciphered at Bletchley Park 35 years ago. One old Luftwaffe general turned out to be as uncompromising and peppery as we remembered his war-time messages to have been. The object of the conference — sponsored by university bodies, publishing firms and technical industries — was to enable historians to pick the brains of those who had taken part in the intelligence w'ar before memories — already shaky — failed altogether. It was clearly also hoped to put the story of Ultra into perspective. The sensational claims made in some recent bestsellers had caused people in Britain and the United States to ask why, if the Allies consistently knew the German order of battle on land and at sea as well as their plans, they did not win the war sooner. In his own country, as one German historian noted, these unqualified statements — often only half truths — could well be used by some of his contemporaries to build up a sort of “stab in the back” myth, such as was spread abroad by Nazi propa-

ganda about World War One.

But cryptographic successes were not all on one side. It is now well known that during the North African campaign Montgomery was kept well supplied with timely information, based on Ultra, of Rommel’s order of battle and intentions. It is less well known that earlier in that campaign Rommel was receiving a similar service about British plans from his own W/T intelligence centre, which was busy reading the code used by the American military attache in Cairo. (Service attaches, incidentally, seem to have been particularly vulnerable. The Americans were able to read the messages to Tokyo from the Japanese attache in Berlin, giving details of German plans and dispositions in the West, obligingly fed to him by the German High Command.) But theer was little doubt in the minds of both the Allied and German speakers that the over-all output of Bletchley’s full and harmoniously integrated effort had been markedly superior to that of the German cryptographic establishments. In Germany each of the armed services, the Foreign Office and the Secret Service had its own agency with the consequen bureaucratic muddles and jealousies inherent in such fragmentation; added to which the Allies used a variety of codes, while the Germans used almost exclusively the one Enigma machine, on which British cryptographers could concentrate their efforts.

It was also suggested that with their aggressiveness, their pre-occupation with early military success, the Nazis felt little inclination to concentrate resources on cryptography, and that because of their war against the Jews they may well have driven out or killed potential code-breakers.

After two days in Bonn the conference moved to Stuttgart, where before a smaller gathering a brave, if inconclusive, attempt was made by a panel of 30 to assess the impact of Ultra on the course of the war.

The panel — most of whom were historians — had little difficulty in showing how Ultra had often been vital in deci-sion-making at the tactical level, when on land or at sea commanders had prior

knowledge from decrypts of the enemy’s dispositions and intentions. Admittedly there were nearly always other sources of information on hand — photo reconnaissance, reports from the resistance and from spies, wireless traffic analysis — but Ultra, when available was the 100 per cent reliable basis, with which all other forms of intelligence could be related. . If Ultra did not win the war, the conference decided, it undoubtedly shortened it. (There was much interestine speculation on the probable course of the war had the Battle of the Atlantic been lost which might well have been th' case if Bletchley had not broken the U-boat code when it did, just whe; the losses to Britain’s merchant fleet had become all but intolerable). But all agreed that intelligence by itself cannot win wars, not even battles.

You .ill need adequate arms, men, equipment and generalship. Early warning that 100 heave tanks are heading your way serves little purpose if you have only Home Guard troops to deal /.th them. The conference finished with a word of warning to historians who hoped to write the definitive history of the war and include in it their own reassessment of the generalship of commanders on both sides. Most of the Ultra documents are still under wraps, and you cannot complete a jig-saw puzzle when more than ha of the pieces are still missing. No materia! concerning the Battle of Britain, the North African campaign, the landings in Sicily and at Anzio has so far been made public — only to the fortunate historians still a. work on the official history of intelligence in World War Two. Their first volume, due for publication in a few months, it eagerly awaited, not only by those who only recently learned about Ultra, but also by those who, because of the passage of time and of the imposed secrecy, have forgotten much of what they knew.

One final question raised by an American historian remained unanswered:

“If Benjamin Franklin was right when he said 'hat ‘three may keep a secre if two are dead,’ how come the secret of Ultra, known to perhaps 2000 people, was kept for over 30 'ears?’f

How “indeed did so many men and women of all ages and from all stations of life resist the temptation to boast to husband, wife. parent, child or lover about what the' did in the Great War?

■”he odds against breaking the Ultra ciphers were said to be more than a million to one; the chances of keeping Ultra a secret must have been about the same — O.F.N.S. copyright.

Several books during the last few years have disclosed some details about the “Ultra” system — Allied interception of German signals in World War 11. Sir Herbert Marchant, former British Ambassador to Cuba and Tunisia, wa one of those involved on this highly secret operation and he recently had the chance to talk to some of his German opposite numbers.