The Bletchley Park Codebreakers

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The Bletchley Park Codebreakers Page 56

by Michael Smith


  Page 63 circulated bearing only: N. Stern, ‘John von Neumann’s Influence on Electronic Digital Computing, 1944–1946’, Annals of the History of Computing, 2 (1980), 354.

  Page 64 gave his engineers Turing’s ‘On Computable Numbers’: private communication from Julian Bigelow to William Aspray, reported in W. Aspray, John von Neumann and the Origins of Modern Computing (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1990), 313.

  Page 65 was working by the summer of 1951: J. Bigelow, ‘Computer Development at the Institute for Advanced Study’, in Metropolis, Hewlett and Rota, op. cit.

  Page 66 ‘the great positive contribution of Turing’: letter from von Neumann to Wiener, 29 November 1946 (Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Washington DC).

  Page 67 ‘The importance of Turing’s research is just this’: the text of von Neumann’s lecture ‘Rigorous Theories of Control and Information’ is printed in J. von Neumann, Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata, A.W. Burks (ed.) (University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1966), 50.

  Page 68 ‘I know that in or about 1943 or ‘44’: letter from Frankel to Randell, 1972, printed in Randell, ‘On Alan Turing and the Origins of Digital Computers’, p. 10.

  CHAPTER 20 ENIGMA’S SECURITY: WHAT THE GERMANS REALLY KNEW

  Ralph Erskine would like to thank Philip Marks for his comments on aspects of Chapter 20.

  Page 1 Army’s Signal Security Agency exploited: ‘Report on the Work Carried Out at S.S.A. on GEE’ (NACP HCC Box 202, Nr. 970); Cecil Phillips, ‘The American Solution of a German One-Time-Pad Cryptographic System’, Cryptologia, 24 (2000), 324. Despite claims to the contrary by a former member of GC&CS, GEE was not solved by GC&CS.

  Page 2 set out the Grundstellungen: Der Schlüssel M Allgemeine Bestimmungen (M. Dv. Nr. 32/3 – NHB), paras 23, 90.

  Page 3 a second ‘Greek’ rotor (gamma): see p. 173.

  Page 4 should replace Enigma by a codebook: ‘German Naval Communications Intelligence’ (NACP HCC Box 625, Nr. 1695), 256.

  Page 5 carried out many inquiries: see R. A. Ratcliff, Delusions of Intelligence: Enigma, Ultra, and the End of Secure Ciphers (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2006); R. A. Ratcliff, ‘Searching for Security: The German Investigations into Enigma’s Security’, Intelligence and National Security, 14(1) (1999), 146.

  Page 6 capture of Schiff 26: see p. 168.

  Page 7 special Stichwort: ‘Verlust Schiff 26 und 37 und Schlüsselsicherheit’, 3 May 1940, OKM KTB 2/SKL (NHB, microfilm); on U-13, ibid., 11 June 1940.

  Page 8 ‘Either our ciphers have been compromised’: BdU, KTB, 28 September 1941 (NACP microfilm T1022, reel 4063) – translation from Ministry of Defence (Navy) [Günter Hessler], The U-Boat War in the Atlantic (HMSO, London, 1989), 1: 163.

  Page 9 ‘The more important ciphers’: Skl, Chef MND 2557/41, 24 October 1940 cited in ibid.

  Page 10–2 BdU recorded that: BdU, KTB, 25 March 1943, as cited in Lt.-Cdr.K. W. McMahan, ‘The German Navy’s Use of Special Intelligence and Reactions to Allied Use’, 211.

  Page 11 disturbing report: ‘Entzifferung deutschen Marinecodes’, OKM/A Ausl/Abw IM/T B.Nr. 1663/43, 18 August 1943; cf. ‘Operative Geheimhaltung Allgemeines SKL Chef MND 1a 1O-OKM’ (NACP HCC Box 192, Nr. 908), 5; BdU, KTB, 13 August 1943 (copy held by author – this page was excised from the copy filmed for NACP T1022, reel 4063).

  Page 12 ‘… out of the question’: BdU, KTB, 13 August 1943.

  Page 13 ‘At present no possible way …’: ‘Operative Geheimhaltung Allgemeines’, 2.

  Page 14 ‘… could not have taken place’: ibid., 7.

  Page 15 report on Kriegsmarine cipher security: ‘Naval Cyphers and WT Procedures’, 10 July 1944, 4/SKL, 2339/44 (PG 17626 – ADM 223/505).

  Page 16 Stichwort procedure: this is set out in Der Schlüssel M - Allgemeine Bestimmungen, as amended, paras 100 ff., and described in Ralph Erskine, ‘Ultra and Some U. S. Navy Carrier Operations’, Cryptologia, 19 (1988), 93. The procedure was made much more complicated as the war progressed, but to no avail.

  Page 17 protecting captured key-lists: ‘Operative Geheimhaltung Allgemeines’, 2.

  Page 18 ‘infallible confirmation’: ‘Naval Cyphers and WT Procedures’, 5.

  Page 19 ‘no trace or even hint …’: ibid., 5–6.

  Page 20 the contents of Allied signals: see e.g. ZTPGU 751 of 4 December 1942 (orders to RN submarine), ZTPGU 14736 of 27 May 1943 (destination of US Navy submarine).

  Page 21 true HF-DF: signals 0142Z/10 April 1943 (true HF-DF) and 0959B/11 April 1943 (HF-DF as Ultra cover) (PRO ADM 199/575, 370).

  Page 22 As Tranow observed: TICOM I-38 (Lt. Frowein), para. 33.

  Page 23 made little real progress: ‘German Naval Communications Intelligence’, 259.

  Page 24 also convinced: Wladyslaw Kozaczuk, Geheim-Operation WICHER: Polnische Mathematiker Knackenden den deutschen Funkschlüssel ‘Enigma’ (Bernard & Graefe, Koblenz, 1989), p. 340.

  Page 25 MND’s major report: ‘Naval Cyphers and WT Procedures’.

  Page 26 the dropping of double encipherment: see Appendix II.

  Page 27 ‘change in the system’: TICOM I-92 (Wachtmeister Otto Buggisch), 5 (PRO, HW 40/167).

  Page 28 remained a dead letter: TICOM I-96 (Oberstlt Mettig), cited in ‘German Naval Communications Intelligence’, 256.

  Page 29 ‘secure when used according to regulations’: TICOM I-45 (OKW/Chi Cryptanalytic Research on Enigma, Hagelin and Cipher Teleprinter Machines - by Dr Erich Hüttenhain and Dr Fricke), 4.

  Page 30 were well aware: Buggisch as quoted in ‘European Axis Signal Intelligence in World War II as Revealed by “TICOM” Investigations’, vol. 2 (EASI, 2), 12, ‘Notes on German High Level Cryptography and Cryptanalysis’. My thanks to David Alvarez for supplying this document, which is now available at-

  http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/european_axis_sigint.shtml (accessed 5 November 2010).

  Page 31 ‘given extraordinary mechanical outlay …’: ‘Naval Cyphers and WT Procedures’, 21; cf. TICOM I-45, 5; cf. EASI, 2: 10.

  Page 32 catalogues of the enciphered letter ‘e’: TICOM I-45, 4.

  Page 33 whether a practical solution: ibid., 5. A manuscript note on this file adds ‘the army did according to [TICOM] DF 190’.

  Page 34 rewired Enigma used by the Swiss: ‘Analysis of the Cipher Machine “Enigma,” Type K’ (NACP HCC Box 1112, Nr. 3448), cited in David H. Hamer, Geoff Sullivan and Frode Weierud, ‘Enigma Variations: An Extended Family of Machines’, Cryptologia, 22 (1998), 222.

  Page 35 re-enciphered at a different setting: TICOM I-92 (Wachtmeister Otto Buggisch), cited in EASI, 2: 9.

  Page 36 to solve Railway Enigma traffic so successfully: see p. 61.

  Page 37 cribs of only ten letters: TICOM I-77 (Dr Hüttenhain, Dr Fricke on Zählwerk (counter) Enigma).

  Page 38 started to use a new reflector: Ultra/Zip CCR 38, 22 December 1944, ‘German Signals Security Improvements During 1944’, para. 1 (RIP 403, NACP RG 38, Radio Intelligence Publications, Box 169).

  Page 39 beta rotor/thin reflector Bruno combination: see p. 171.

  Page 40 Umkehrwalze D: for an outstanding study of UKD, see Philip Marks, ‘Umkehrwalze D: Enigma’s Rewirable Reflector, Part I’, Cryptologia, 25 (2001), 101.

  Page 41 3.2×1011 different possible wirings: ibid., 112. The letters J and Y could not be rewired.

  Page 42 did not enter service until November: OP-20-GY-A-1 war diary, 4 and 13 November 1944 (NACP RG 38, Crane Library, 5750/159).

  Page 43 ‘a pathetically meagre result’: S. Milner-Barr, memorandum, 25 July 1944, ‘Operation Dora’, 2 (PRO HW 14/108).

  Page 44 much less than anticipated: S. Milner-Barry, memorandum, 7 August 1944, ‘Uncle D’, in Fried Report #73 of 8 August 1944 (NACP HCC Box 880, Nr. 2612).

  Page 45 The Autoscritcher: the Autoscritcher, Superscritcher and Duenna are fully described in Philip Marks, ‘Umkehrwalze D: Enigma’s Rewirable Reflector, Part II’, Cryptologia, 25 (2001), 177.

  Page 46 four successful
solutions: ‘Signal Security Agency General Cryptanalytic Branch – Annual Report FY 1945’, 20 (NACP HCC Box 1380, Nr. 4360).

  Page 47 solved only eleven keys: ‘Summary of Duenna Operations to June 1945’, Exhibit 1, RIP 608, E6 – 147 (NACP RG 38, Radio Intelligence Publications, Box 171).

  Page 48 without any warning: ‘German Signals Security Improvements During 1944’, 2, 6.

  Page 49 Uhr: the Uhr is referred to, but not by name, in Gordon Welchman, The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes (Allen Lane, London, 1982), pp. 136–7. It is fully described in Heinz Ulbricht, ‘The Enigma Uhr’, Cryptologia, 23 (1999), 193.

  Page 50 embodying a rewirable reflector: TICOM I-53 (Construction of ‘Schlüsselgerat 39’); EASI, 2: 16.

  Page 51 Allies could not have broken: EASI, 2: 14.

  Page 52 Plans were made in December: minutes of conferences held by OKW/Chi on 13 December 1943, as quoted in EASI, 2: 14.

  Page 53 SG 41: for a description, see TICOM I-72 (Buggisch on SG 41).

  Page 54 A post-war United States Army study concluded: EASI, 2: 13.

  CHAPTER 21 FROM AMATEURS TO PROFESSIONALS: GC&CS AND INSTITUTION-BUI LDING IN SIGINT

  Page 1 displayed a greater flair: Alan Judd, The Quest for C: Mansfield Cumming and the Founding of the Secret Service (HarperCollins, London, 1999).

  Page 2 intelligence … a departmental concern: Philip H. J. Davies, ‘Organisational Politics and Britain’s Intelligence Producer/Consumer Interface’, Intelligence and National Security, 10(4) (1985), 114; Philip H. J. Davies, ‘MI6’s Requirements Directorate: Integrating Intelligence into the Machinery of British Central Government’, Public Administration 78(1) (2000), 29.

  Page 3 ‘50 per cent … drawn from overt published sources’: Reginald Hibbert, ‘Intelligence and Policy’, Intelligence and National Security 5(1) (1990), 112.

  Page 4 Hence, during the Napoleonic Wars: on military intelligence in the Peninsular Wars, see for example, Jock Hasswell, The First Respectable Spy: The Life and Times of Colquhoun Grant, Wellington’s Head of Intelligence (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1969) and Julia Page, Intelligence Officer in the Peninsula: the Letters and Diaries of Major the Hon. Edward Charles Coles 1786–1812 (Hippocrene, New York, 1986).

  Page 5 Just as the Indian government… the Great Game: see, for example, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game (John Murray, London, 1990).

  Page 6 Secret Department of the Post Office: on the Post Office see, variously, P. Aubrey, Mr. Secretary Thurloe (Athlone, London, 1990), K. Ellis, The Post Office in the Eighteenth Century (OUP, Oxford, 1958).

  Page 7 the Boer war: for the Boer War influence on pre-war thinking in MI6 and MI5’s predecessor MO 5, see ‘Secret Service in the Event of a European War’, cover letter dated 17 October 1905 (PRO HD 3/124).

  Page 8 Admiralty and War Office before the Haldane Committee: ‘Report and Proceedings of the Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence Appointed by the Prime Minister to Consider the Question of Foreign Espionage in the United Kingdom’ (PRO CAB 61/8).

  Page 9 MacDonough Scheme: Judd, The Quest for C, pp. 391–3.

  Page 10 ‘independent sections … known as the SIS’: Vivian to Menzies, appendix to Robert Cecil, ‘C’s War’, Intelligence and National Security, 1(2) (1986), 186.

  Page 11 led to a postwar scheme: H. A. R. ‘Kim’ Philby, My Silent War (Ballantine, New York, 1983), p. 124; Davies, ‘MI6 Requirements Directorate’.

  Page 12 interwar and early wartime years: F. H. Hinsley and C. A. G. Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War: Volume 4 Security and Counter-Intelligence (HMSO, London, 1990), 4.

  Page 13 excessively rigid bureaucracy: see, for example, criticisms of the Security Service in the Security Commission Report on the Michael Bettaney Case, Report of the Security Commission (HMSO, London, 1985), Cmd. 9514.

  Page 14 rivalry and hostility existed: Christopher Andrew, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (Sceptre, London, 1986), p. 142.

  Page 15 Foreign Office and SIS control of GC&CS: ibid., p. 421.

  Page 16 six senior assistants …: ibid., pp. 374–5.

  Page 17 ‘technical success and organizational confusion’: John Ferris, ‘Whitehall’s Black Chamber: British Cryptology and the Government Code and Cypher School 1919–1929’, Intelligence and National Security, 2(1) (1987), 54.

  Page 18 service branch complaints: Andrew, Secret Service, p. 421.

  Page 19 naval, air and army sections formed: F. H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War (HMSO, London, 1979), 1: 22.

  Page 20 commercial section was set up: ibid., p. 26; A. G. Denniston, ‘The Government Code and Cypher School Between the Wars’, Intelligence and National Security, 1(1) (1986), 63; ‘ATB and (EPG) 13 and 14, Item 2(b) Organization of an Intelligence Service, Interim Report’ with cover noted from Morton to Jones, 31 March 1938, FCI 968 (PRO BT 61/69/2).

  Page 21 GPO-manned system of stations: Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, 1: 26; Denniston, ‘The Government Code and Cypher School Between the Wars’, 68.

  Page 22 meteorological section: Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, 1: 339.

  Page 23 MI6 circulating sections which tasked: Denniston, ‘The Government Code and Cypher School Between the Wars’, 57.

  Page 24 acute lack of receivers: Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, 1: 51.

  Page 25 moved mainly to landlines: ibid., p. 52.

  Page 26 increasingly crowded circumstances: ibid., p. 270.

  Page 27 demanded an investigation: ibid., pp. 270–1.

  Page 28 the reconvened Y Board and its conclusions: ibid., p. 271.

  Page 29 traffic analysis proved a very valuable auxiliary method: see, for example, Gordon Welchman, The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes (Allen Lane, London, 1982).

  Page 30 Y Board, the Y and cryptanalysis sub-committees: Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, 1: 271.

  Page 31 cryptanalysis sub-committee petered out, ADI based at the OIC: ibid., p. 272.

  Page 32 GC&CS quadrupled: ibid., p. 273.

  Page 33 GC&CS staff numbers in 1941, 1942: F. H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War (HMSO, London, 1981), 2: 25.

  Page 34 exotic assortment of civilians, ‘loose collection of groups’, senior staff still performed: Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, 1: 273.

  Page 35 ‘undisciplined’ wartime staff: ibid., p. 274.

  Page 36 appeal directly to Churchill: Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, 2: 25; the letter is set out at pp. x–xii in the present book; for a personal account of the events, see also S. Milner-Barry, ‘Action This Day: the Letter from Bletchley Park Cryptanalysts to the Prime Minister, 21 October 1941’, Intelligence and National Security, 1(1) (1986), 272.

  Page 37 Double Cross, volume of work and MI5’s managerial crisis: see in particular Hinsley, British Intelligence, vol. 4; J. C. Masterman, The Double Cross System in the War of 1939 to 1945 (Pimlico, London, 1995); Nigel West, MI5: British Security Service Operations 1909–1945 (Granada, London, 1983).

  Page 38 ‘total operational control’; fell to quarrelling: Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, 2: 26.

  Page 39 GC&CS subdivided and civil side moved: ibid.; for a personal account, see P. W. Filby, ‘Bletchley Park and Berkeley Street’, Intelligence and National Security, 3(2) (1988), 272–4.

  Page 40 subsequently received replacements, etc.: Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, 2: 26–7, F. H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War (HMSO, London, 1984), 3(1): 460.

  Page 41 redesignated himself Director General, etc.: ibid., p. 461.

  Page 42 the Cold War GCHQ: for GCHQ’s Cold War internal management structure, see Duncan Campbell, Friends and Others, New Statesman and Society, 26 November 1982, 6; Michael Smith, New Cloak, Old Dagger (Gollancz, London, 1996), pp. 185–7.

  Page 43 JIC in the Cabinet Office: For the current version of the JIC’s role in Britain’s National Intelligence Mac
hinery, see the Open Government webpage on Central Intelligence Machinery, downloadable at http://www.archive. official-documents.co.uk/document/caboff/nim/0114301808.pdf (accessed 4 November 2010).

  CHAPTER 22 COLD WAR CODEBREAKING AND BEYOND: THE LEGACY OF BLETCH LEY PARK

  Page 1 As early as 1943: R. Aldrich and M. Coleman, ‘The Cold War, the JIC and British Signals Intelligence, 1948’, Intelligence and National Security, 4(3) (1989), 538–40; F. H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War (HMSO, London, 1984), 2: 618–19.

  Page 2 The team returned: P. Whitaker and L. Kruh, ‘From Bletchley Park to the Berchtesgaden’, Cryptologia, 11 (1987), 129: Michael Smith, Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park (Channel 4 Books, London, 1998), pp. 174–6.

  Page 3 GCHQ relocated: R. Lewin, Ultra goes to War (Hutchinson, London, 1978), pp. 129–33; R. V. Jones, Reflections on Intelligence (Heinemann, London, 1989), p. 15.

  Page 4 ‘From his remarks’: Wilson to Crombie, with attached memo, ‘Sigint Centre – Conditions of Service’, 13 November 1945 (FO 366/1518 PRO); Travis to Crombie with attached memo, ‘Sigint Centre’, n.d. [30 November 1945?] (ibid.); Travis to Crombie, 19 December 1945 (ibid.).

  Page 5 Moscow and its satellites: JIC (48) (0) (second revised draft), ‘Sigint intelligence requirements’ 1948, 11 May 1948 (L/WS/1196, IOLR).

  Page 6 Several tunnels: C. Andrew and O. Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1990), pp. 308–9. I am also grateful to Matthew Aid and David Stafford for their views on this matter.

  Page 7 During the Azerbaijan crisis: A. Stripp, Codebreaker in the Far East (Frank Cass, London, 1988), pp. 50–60; Jones, Reflections, pp. 14–16.

  Page 8 Each of the three services: A. Thomas, ‘British Signals Intelligence after the Second World War’, Intelligence and National Security, 3(4) (1988), 103–4.

  Page 9–60 GCHQ had overseas stations: Thomas, ‘British Signals Intelligence’, 106; J. Sawatsky, For Services Rendered (Penguin, London, 1983), pp. 23–4.

 

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