WAR SECRETS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 4 January 1928, Page 5

WAR SECRETS

MORE REVELATIONS GERMAN WIRELESS SIGNALS. HOW BRITISH WERE TRICKED. V CABLE-PRESS ASSOCIATION- OOPYRIGHI. ■Received 0.40 a.m. to-day. LONDON, Jan. 3. The Berlin correspondent of ”3 ho Times” states, following Ewing’s disclosures, an ex-wireless officer, Lieut. Commander Ivraschultzki, in an article in the “Vossichc Zeitung, ” regarding the Gorman department corresponding to Room 40, says that it was housed in a mysterious barbed-wired wireless station on a. lonely moor at Neumunster. Astonishing achievements were recorded, but it was long before the officers responsible for naval cyphers learned the obvious lesson that their discovery of the British code key the first night after the monthly change implied that the British could discover the German key with equal ease, especially since it was much simpler than the British, even if the British -had not secured it from German .submarines sunk in shallow coastal waters. Nevertheless German keys were unaltered for months. Even if German wireless operators forgot to secure the new signs when it was eventually changed, they could work them out from the first message received. Only in 1916 was a new, faultless code book issued and the key was thereafter changed daily. The British knew the Dogger Bank plans beforehand, but at Jutland Germany changed the long-standing wireless call signals, substituting flagships for that of Wilhelmshaven land station. The British concluded that the flagships were still in harbour, and only cruisers were at sea. The trick was not realised until the cruiser Southampton reported that the whole German fleet was retreating.— ‘ 1 Times. ’ ’