One Day in August

by David O'Keefe

  CRUISER: a warship that is smaller than a battleship but larger than a destroyer. Types of cruisers used in the Second World War include the heavy cruiser, the anti-aircraft cruiser and the German pocket battleship.

  CRYPTANALYSIS: the process of decoding/deciphering codes and ciphers using analysis

  CRYPTOGRAPHY: the process of writing or decoding/deciphering codes and ciphers. Cryptanalysis is a form of cryptography.

  DIRECTION FINDING, or DFING: the process of establishing the direction from which a received signal was transmitted. Methods included HF/DF (Huff Duff), or high-frequency direction finding, and VHF/DF, or very high-frequency direction finding.

  E-BAR: a type of German short signal

  E-BOAT: the English name for a German motor torpedo boat, which the Germans called S-boot (Schnellboot, “fast boat” or “speedboat”)

  KRIEGSMARINE: the name given to the German navy between 1935 and 1945

  MARES (Marine Einsatzkommando): the German naval commando unit

  M-BOAT (Minensuchboote): large German minesweeping vessels

  PINCH: a military operation in which sensitive material, such as intelligence material, is stolen (or “pinched”) from the enemy

  POCKET BATTLESHIP: a form of heavily armed cruiser peculiar to the Kriegsmarine. There were only three pocket battleships: the Deutschland, the Admiral Scheer and the Admiral Graf Spee.

  RADIO FINGER PRINTING, or RFP: a technology that was capable of identifying the particular wireless set from which a message was transmitted by photographing its wave form

  R-BOAT (Räumboote): small German minesweeping vessels

  RHV (Reservehandverfahren): an emergency hand cipher used by vessels as a backup for Enigma when it broke down or on vessels not yet outfitted with the machine

  S-BOAT: see E-boat

  SHORT SIGNAL: a coded wireless message of fewer than twenty-two characters. German short signals included E-bars and Z-bars.

  SIGINT: signals intelligence, which included cryptography, direction finding, radio finger printing and traffic analysis

  SPECIAL INTELLIGENCE: see Ultra

  SUPER-BATTLESHIP: an unofficial classification used to denote the very largest German battleships, such as the Bismarck and Tirpitz, as opposed to the pocket battleships

  SURFACE RAIDER (also known as merchant raider): an armed military vessel disguised as a non-combatant commercial vessel

  TINA: see traffic analysis

  TRAFFIC ANALYSIS (code-named TINA): a form of intelligence in which the patterns in wireless communication are analyzed (even if the messages themselves cannot be decrypted)

  TRIBAL-CLASS DESTROYER: a type of destroyer constructed for the Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy before and during the Second World War, including HMS Bedouin and HMCS Haida

  U-BOAT (Unterseeboot, “undersea boat”): the English name for a German military submarine, specifically those used during the First and Second World Wars

  UJ BOAT (U-Jäger, “submarine hunter”): a German anti-submarine vessel

  ULTRA: a security classification for intelligence derived from tapping into enemy communications, via cryptanalysis or signals intelligence. The cryptographic component of this was known in the Royal Navy as Special Intelligence.

  WRENS: members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS)

  ENDNOTES

  ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THESE NOTES:

  ADM, Admiralty; CAB, Cabinet Office (U.K.); CAFO, Confidential Admiralty Fleet Order; CANUKUS, Canada–U.K.–U.S.; DEFE, Ministry of Defence (U.K.); DHH, Directorate of History and Heritage (Department of National Defence, Canada); DU, Dieppe Uncovered (Northernsky Entertainment, 2012, producer/director Wayne Abbott, for History Television in Canada and UKTV in the United Kingdom, first aired August 19, 2012); FO, Foreign Office (U.K.); GOD, Godfrey Papers; GRO, Baillie-Grohman Papers; HW, Government Communications Headquarters; LAC, Library and Archives Canada; MG, Manuscript Group; NMM, National Maritime Museum (Greenwich, U.K.); RG, Record Group; RMM, Royal Marine Museum Archives (Portsmouth, U.K.); TNA, National Archives (United Kingdom).

  ONE: THE CANADIAN ALBATROSS

  1. Ronald Atkin, Dieppe 1942: The Jubilee Disaster (London: Macmillan, 1980), 252.

  2. Juno Beach Centre, “The Dieppe Raid,” http://www.junobeach.org/e/2/caneve-mob-die-e.htm (accessed February 18, 2013).

  3. Jock Gardner, “Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay,” in Stephen Howarth, ed., Men of War: Great Naval Leaders of World War Two (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1992), 360.

  4. Sir Harry Hinsley, “The Influence of Ultra in the Second World War” (lecture, Cambridge University, 19 October 1993).

  TWO: A VERY SPECIAL BOND

  1. The nickname “Blinker” came from Hall’s chronic facial twitch, which caused one of his eyes to “flash like a navy signal lamp.”

  2. Nicholas Rankin, Ian Fleming’s Commandos: The Story of 30 Assault Unit in WWII (London: Faber and Faber, 2011), 29.

  3. Donald McCormick, 17F: The Life of Ian Fleming (London: Peter Owen, 1994), 47. Donald McCormick was a historian and journalist who served with Fleming in the NID and later alongside him as a journalist on the foreign desk of the Sunday Times in the postwar years.

  4. Ibid., 48.

  5. Ben Macintyre, For Your Eyes Only (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 231–33. Kindle edition.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Ibid., 123–25. According to Macintyre, Ian Fleming kept a signed, framed copy of the eulogy as a personal treasure throughout his life.

  8. J.H. Godfrey, “The Naval Memoirs of Admiral J.H. Godfrey,” Vol. V, 1947–1950 NID, Part II, 284 and 387, NMM GOD/171. Godfrey’s memoirs (called “Naval Memoirs” in these notes) and the hundreds of pages he either penned or had produced for what he hoped would eventually form a definitive history of the NID have remained in their unpublished form at several archival repositories, including the British National Archives, the National Maritime Museum and the Churchill College Archives in Cambridge.

  9. William Plomer, “Ian Fleming Remembered,” in Encounter (January 1965), quoted in Godfrey, “Naval Memoirs,” 397.

  10. Macintyre, For Your Eyes Only, 160–62.

  11. Plomer, “Ian Fleming Remembered,” 400.

  12. Charles Babbage, The Writings of Charles Babbage (Alvin, TX: Halcyon Press, 2009), Kindle edition; Bruce Collier and James MacLachlan, Charles Babbage and the Engines of Perfection (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Abdul Montaqim, Pioneers of the Computer Age: From Charles Babbage to Steve Jobs (London: Monsoon Media, 2012).

  13. McCormick, 17F, 40.

  14. Ibid., 41. Fleming wrote a paper on Babbage’s work on cryptography for Godfrey, which apparently has never been found.

  15. Ibid., 30.

  16. J.H. Godfrey, “Ian Fleming,” NMM GOD/177.

  17. Godfrey Papers, 10 November 1966, NMM GOD/161.

  18. Ibid.

  19. Godfrey, “Ian Fleming.”

  20. William Plomer, address given at the Memorial Service for Ian Fleming, 15 September 1964, NMM (Papers of Vice Admiral Sir Norman Denning 2/4).

  21. J.H. Godfrey, “Room 39,” 10 July 1948, 1–3, NMM GOD/93.

  22. Godfrey, “Naval Memoirs,” Vol. 5, Part II, 386.

  23. “Ian Fleming: The Playboy Interview,” in 50 Years of the Playboy Interview, Kindle 2012.

  24. NMM GOD/161.

  25. Godfrey, “Ian Fleming.”

  26. Nigel West, Historical Dictionary of Ian Fleming’s World of Intelligence: Fact and Fiction (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009), 67.

  27. J.H. Godfrey, “The Significance of British Naval Intelligence during WWII, and Post War Security,” 6 April 1965, NMM GOD/97; Naval Section miscellaneous papers, TNA HW 8/23.

  28. NMM GOD/161. Italics are underlined in original.

  29. NMM GOD/161.

  30. J.H. Godfrey to Donald McLachlan, 5 April 1965, NMM GOD/97.

  31. Godfrey, “Significance of British Naval Intelligence.”

  32. Godfrey, “Ian Fleming.”
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  33. Godfrey, “Naval Memoirs,” Vol. 5, Part II, 387.

  34. Personnel file of John Henry Godfrey, TNA ADM 196/92/39.

  35. Patrick Beesly, Very Special Admiral: The Life of Admiral J.H. Godfrey, CB (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1980), 84.

  36. NMM GOD/170.

  37. ADM 196/92/39.

  38. Godfrey, “Naval Memoirs,” Vol. 5, Part II, 271.

  39. NMM GOD/161/2.

  40. Ibid.

  41. Godfrey, “Naval Memoirs,” Vol. 5, Part I, 105.

  42. NMM GOD/161/2.

  43. Ibid.

  44. Ibid.

  45. McCormick, 17F, 53.

  46. NMM GOD/161/2.

  47. Ibid.

  48. J.H. Godfrey, “History of Naval Intelligence Division 1939–1942,” 12, TNA ADM 223/464.

  49. Godfrey, “Naval Memoirs,” Vol. 5, Part II, 207.

  50. Ibid.

  51. Ibid.

  52. NMM GOD/161/2.

  53. Godfrey, “Naval Memoirs,” Vol. 5, Part II, 207.

  54. NMM GOD/161/2.

  55. Godfrey, “Naval Memoirs,” Vol. 5, Part II, 387.

  56. “Madrid: the Claire Case,” TNA FO 1093/225.

  57. NMM GOD 171. Quoted in Robert Harling, “Where Bond Started,” Sunday Telegraph (London), August 16, 1964.

  58. NMM GOD/161/2.

  59. J.H. Godfrey, “Afterthoughts: Naval Propaganda,” 87, TNA ADM 223/619.

  60. Godfrey, “History,” 146, ADM 223/464.

  61. Rankin, Ian Fleming’s Commandos, 106.

  62. Godfrey “History,” 146.

  63. Quoted in McCormick, 17F, 51.

  64. Godfrey, “Naval Memoirs,” Vol. 5, Part II, 278.

  65. NMM GOD/170.

  66. McCormick, 17F, 71.

  67. Quoted in ibid., 55.

  68. Alan N. Scheider, “Ian and I,” Naval Intelligence Professionals Newsletter (Fall 1987).

  69. “Ian Fleming, 007—James Bond,” TNA Sefton Delmer Archive (accessed online August 11, 2013).

  70. McCormick, 17F, 96.

  71. Donald McLachlan, “Room 39: Top Secret Birthplace of Bond,” quoted in Godfrey, “Naval Memoirs,” Vol. 5, Part II, 394.

  THREE: A RUTHLESS START

  1. NMM GOD/161.

  2. Naval Section GC&CS, memo, 7 September 1940, TNA HW 25/18.

  3. Note by P.R. Chambers ADI, 17 October 1940, TNA AIR 20/5238.

  4. “Air Ministry Instructions for Operation ‘Ruthless,’ ” 17 October 1940, 3, TNA AIR 20/5238.

  5. J.H. Godfrey, “History of Naval Intelligence Division 1939–1942,” 263, TNA ADM 223/464.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Winston Churchill, speech to House of Commons, 21 January 1941.

  8. Old Mersey Times, “Loss of the Athenia 1939,” http://www.old-merseytimes.co.uk/ATHENIA.html (accessed August 12, 2013).

  9. Godfrey, “History,” 264.

  10. Ibid.

  11. “CANUKUS Joint Services SIGINT discussions held in Washington, 6–17 April 1942,” HW 14/46.

  12. Jak P. Mallmann Showell, Enigma U-Boats: Breaking the Code (Birmingham, U.K.: Ian Allan, 2009), 86. Kindle edition.

  13. The original Enigma machine, used by the German army and air force, offered only five wheels.

  14. B. Jack Copeland, Turing: Pioneer of the Information Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 644–46. Kindle edition.

  15. David Kahn, The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing (London: Macmillan, 1966).

  16. A.P. Mahon, “History of Hut 8,” 18, TNA HW 25/2.

  17. Mavis Batey, From Bletchley with Love (Bletchley, U.K.: Bletchley Park Trust, 2008).

  18. Copeland, Turing, 976–80.

  19. I.G. Good, “From Hut 8 to the Newmanry,” in B. Jack Copeland, Colossus: The Secret of Bletchley Park’s Codebreaking Computers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Kindle edition.

  20. Godfrey, “History,” 264.

  21. Head of Naval Section to Denniston, 19 October 1940, TNA HW 8/46.

  22. Godfrey, “History,” 264.

  23. GC&CS, “The Handling of Naval Special Intelligence,” app. B to ch. XIII “Activities of German Naval Units in the Channel,” 10 September 1940, TNA HW 8/46.

  24. Ibid.

  25. Ibid.

  26. Ibid., 5 December 1940.

  27. Ibid.

  28. Birch to Denniston, 21 December 1940, TNA HW 8/22.

  29. Ibid.

  30. Ibid.; Birch to Denniston, 27 December 1940, TNA HW 8/22.

  FOUR: ANNUS MIRABILIS

  1. J.H. Godfrey, “History of Naval Intelligence Division 1939–1942,” 246, TNA ADM 223/464.

  2. Dönitz had “absolute commitment to victory, absolute belief in his men and the force he commanded, absolute hatred of the enemy creed, indeed of the enemy, absolute commitment to his own country and creed. He was a convinced Nazi.” P. Padfield, “Grand Admiral Karl Donitz,” in S. Howarth, ed., Men of War: Great Naval Leaders of World War II (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1993), 178.

  3. Lord Hankey, Diplomacy by Conference: Studies in Public Affairs 1920–1946 (London: E.Benn, 1946), 148.

  4. Bernard Edwards, Attack and Sink: The Battle of the Atlantic 1941 (New York: Brick Tower Press, 2006), 80–81. Kindle edition.

  5. “Evidence as to the Use of SIGINT in certain Naval Operations,” TNA HW 50/95.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Christopher M. Bell, Churchill and Sea Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 203. Kindle edition.

  8. Bell, Churchill and Sea Power, 215.

  9. “Admiralty Use of Special Intelligence in Naval Operations,” 56, TNA ADM 223/88.

  10. Ibid.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Intelligence from intercepted German, Italian and Japanese radio communications, ZTP 819 (2355hrs, 25 May 1941), ZTP 820 (1925hrs, 25 May 1941), ZTP 822 (0111 hrs, 26 May 1941), TNA DEFE 3/1.

  13. “Admiralty Use of Special Intelligence,” 66.

  14. Tom McGowen, Sink the Bismarck: Germany’s Super-Battleship of World War II (Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First Century Books, 1999).

  15. William H. Garzke, Jr., and Robert O. Dulin, Jr., Battleships: Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1985).

  16. “Admiralty Use of Special Intelligence,” 76.

  17. Marc Milner, Battle of the Atlantic (Stroud, Gloucestershire, U.K.: History Press, 2011).

  18. “Technical Intelligence and the Processing of Captured Documents,” 56, TNA HW 43/23.

  19. Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997).

  20. TNA HW 8/103.

  21. “Handling of Naval Special Intelligence,” 171, TNA HW 8/46; “Report on British Procedure for Capturing and Exploiting Captured Enemy Naval Documents,” 2, HW 8/103.

  22. “German Ciphering Machines Quoted in Handling of Naval Special Intelligence,” CAFO 1544, 184, TNA HW 8/46.

  23. TNA HW 8/103.

  24. TNA HW 8/46.

  25. “Technical Intelligence and the Processing of Captured Documents,” 65, TNA HW 43/23.

  26. J.H. Godfrey, “Churchill and Combined Operations,” MM/GOD/161.

  27. “Handling of Naval Special Intelligence,” TNA HW 8/46.

  28. Ibid.

  29. Operation Claymore, TNA CAB 121/447.

  30. Most Secret memo to the Prime Minister, Operation Claymore, from Colonel Hollis, 27 January 1941, TNA CAB 121/447.

  31. Godfrey, “History,” 163.

  32. Ibid.

  33. TNA DEFE 2/142. As an example of the type of report that appeared in Allied papers, the Singleton Argus from New South Wales, Australia, ran the headline TEN GERMAN SHIPS SUNK: EFFECTIVE RAID ON LOFOTEN ISLAND on Friday, March 7, 1941. In the short article that followed, they stressed the ship sinkings, the destruction of the fish-oil plant, the rescue of Norwegian patriots and the capture of prisoners.

  34. “Handling of Special Naval Intelligence,” 175, TNA HW 8/46.

  35. Ibid.
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  36. Ibid.

  37. Ibid.

  38. Ibid.

  39. U-boat Archive, http://​www.​uboatarchive.​net/​U-​110-​3rd​Escort​Group​LTBalme​Report.​htm.

  40. “Handling of Special Naval Intelligence,” 176, TNA HW 8/46.

  41. David Kahn, Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939–1943 (Houghton Mifflin, 1991), 173.

  42. “Handling of Special Naval Intelligence,” 177, TNA HW 8/46.

  43. Ibid.

  44. Ibid., 175.

  45. Ibid., 177.

  46. Ibid.

  47. J.H. Godfrey, “The Naval Memoirs of Admiral J.H. Godfrey,” Vol. V, 1947–1950 NID, Part II, MM GOD/170.

  48. Although no current financial statements have been made public, it is a long-held view that GCHQ, the successor to GC&CS, maintains the largest budget of all the intelligence services in Great Britain, something echoed in the United States with the NSA and in Canada with the CSEC.

  FIVE: SWIMMING WITH SHARKS

  1. Ralph Erskine, “Naval Enigma: the Breaking of Heimisch and Triton,” Intelligence and National Security 3(1) (1988): 162–83.

  2. “History of Hut 8,” 74, TNA HW 25/2; and Schlüssel M (Form M4) c. 22 January 1942, HW 8/24.

  3. In fact, the “four-rotor” did not have a fully functioning fourth wheel but rather a set half-wheel that did not move with the others when the machine was in operation. Although this restriction theoretically reduced the machine’s efficiency, it still massively increased the odds against decryption.

  4. TNA HW 1/118; HW 1/122.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Short signals used a code book to make up messages that were then enciphered on Enigma. There were three editions of the book. Edition 1: 1939–20 January 1941, indicator taken from first letter of transmitted message. Edition 2: 20 January 1942–10 March 1943, indicating tables used: Weimar 20 January 1942–25 October 1942, Eisenach 25 October 1942–11 January 1943, Naumburg 11 January 1943–10 March 1943. Edition 3: 10 March 1943–8 May 1945, indicating tables changed on the first of every month.

  7. Naval Section memorandum, “A survey of ‘Werftschlüssel,’ ” 23 November 1941, TNA HW 8/23.