Codebreakers Victory (54 page)

Andrew Hodges has written the fine biography
Alan Turing: The Enigma,
while Gordon Welchman has told of his own days at BP in
The Hut Six Story.
More on Welchman is reported in Nigel West's
The Sigint Secrets.

Details of Alastair Denniston's contributions are from numerous sources, especially Kahn's
Seizing the Enigma.

The report on Herivel's tip relies mostly on Michael Smith's
Station X,
while that on "cillis" is drawn from Welchman.

The Wrens' problems with the bombes: Diana Payne's essay "The Bombes," in Hinsley and Stripp's
Codebreakers.

In
Ultra Goes to War,
Ronald Lewin tells of Welchman's organization plan for BP.

An entire section of Hinsley and Stripp's
Codebreakers
is devoted to various slants on Fish. Other useful texts: Michael Smith's
Station X,
Lewin's
Ultra Goes to War
and Singh's
The Code Book.

These sources have been supplemented by personal research in the historical files of Bletchley Park, at Britain's Public Record Office (PRO) and at Hall Place, Bexley, Kent, where the Santa Fe intercept station was operated. Also by interviews with Pat Bing and Molly Brewster of the BP staff, with Anthony Sale, who rebuilt the Colossus as a BP exhibit, and with the late George Vergine, an Ultra American who worked on Fish and who left with me a copy of his own reminiscences of those days.

 

Chapter 4. BP Begins Exploiting Its "Gold Mine"

To the usual sources of Churchill, Winterbotham, Hinsley, Calvocoressi, Kahn, Lewin, Keegan and Gilbert, I've added Len Deighton and Max Hastings's
Battle of Britain,
Peter Wescombe's
Bletchley Park and the Luftwaffe,
R. V. Jones's
Most Secret War
and Correlli Barnett's
The Desert Generals.

The Welchman quote about the gold mine is not from his
Hut Six Story
but from his later essay "From Polish Bomba to British Bombe: The Birth of Ultra," in
Codebreaking and Signals Intelligence,
edited by Christopher Andrew.

The commander's quote about the Germans' knowledge of British shipping is from Hinsley et al.

Hinsley tells of his
post-Glorious
improvement in status with the Admiralty in his essay "Bletchley Park, the Admiralty and Naval Enigma," in
Codebreakers.

Frederick Pile's quote about Dowding: Deighton and Hastings.

Hitler's furious response to the bombing of Berlin: Lewin. His quote about the losses from a Channel crossing: Gilbert.

The doggerel about the local scorn BP males had to endure: Irene Young's
Enigma Variations.

The Brauchitsch quote is from Liddell Hart's
The German Generals Talk,
and that of Kesselring from his
A Soldier's Record.

Churchill's words about the German leaders' passing the buck to Goring is from his
Their Finest Hour.

The debate over Churchill's competence as a wartime leader is covered at length by Christopher Hitchens in his article "The Medals of His Defeats," in
The Atlantic Monthly,
April 2002.

Much of the section on O'Connor's victory in North Africa follows Barnett, with Ultra details from Hinsley. The section on Matapan is told well by Sebag-Montefiore.

 

Chapter
5.
Battle of the Atlantic: Cryptologic Seesaw

Since Harry Hinsley not only wrote the official history of British intelligence in World War II but also played a major role in winning the fight against the U-boats, his writings were a main source for this chapter.

David Kahn's far more readable account in
Seizing the Enigma
was especially useful concerning the efforts of Hinsley along with Turing and his associates in Hut 8 to engineer the capture of materials that broke open the tough German naval codes.

As a general history of the U-boat war, Barrie Pitt's Time-Life book,
The Battle of the Atlantic,
proved a good source.

My report on B-Dienst's successes in breaking British Admiralty codes borrows from
The Battle of the Atlantic
by Terry Hughes and John Costello, and from Patrick Beesly's
Very Special Intelligence.

If my accounts of the methods used by B-Dienst and, conversely, by Turing are understandable, thank Budiansky's
Battle of Wits
and Sebag-Montefiore's
Enigma: The Battle for the Code
for their skillful explanations.

Rolf Noskwith's own memoir of breaking the Offizier code is included in Hinsley and Stripp's
Codebreakers.

The section on the war against Germany's surface raiders synthesizes material from Hinsley, Kahn, Calvocoressi and Hughes and Costello, as does the section on Shark.

Martin Gilbert recounts the story of the German sailors trapped within the
Tirpitz.

Hinsley is the source for the Admiralty's fears of defeat in early 1943.

The report on the
Petard's
capture of
U-559,
and on the sacrifice of Fasson and Grazier, condenses Kahn's account in
Seizing the Enigma.

The climax of the Atlantic battle reflects the very full treatment in Michael Gannon's
Black May.

Again, research at the PRO strengthened my accumulated knowledge of this long and sanguinary struggle.

 

Chapter 6. When Superior Intelligence Was Not Enough

Among its offerings, the Internet presents a translation in English of the whole of
Mein Kampf.
My reading left me wondrous of how opposing leaders during the war could have so ignored its import.

The facts about Paul Thummel and other British agents on the continent are from Hinsley et al.

Churchill's quote doubting that Germany would attack the Soviets is from his volume
Their Finest Hour,
as is his "lightning flash" conversion to believing it would happen. His riposte about Hitler invading hell is cited in Nicholas Bethel's
Russia Besieged.

Hinsley details Britain's intelligence heads' resistance to the idea of a German attack on the Soviets and their turnaround to accepting the idea that Hitler might be anticipating "a lightning victory."

Churchill's lines about Hitler's tantrum over the coup in Yugoslavia are from
Their Finest Hour.

As noted, the section on William Stephenson and William Donovan draws, rather gingerly, on William Stevenson's overblown biography of Stephenson,
A Man Called Intrepid,
and, more confidently, on H. Montgomery Hyde's
The Quiet Canadian.
Nigel West's
Counterfeit Spies
documents the incredible fictionalizing by Stevenson of his near namesake's story.

The section on Crete owes much to John Keegan's
The Second World War
for its historical coverage and to Hinsley for the codebreakers' role. Churchill's
Their Finest Hour
is again the source for his quotes about Crete and about Moscow being saved by the delayed start of Barbarossa.

 

Chapter 7. The Spies Who Never Were

Any account of the double agents who served Britain while convincing the Nazis they were serving
them
must begin with J. C. Masterman's
The Double-Cross System.
Since it was drafted soon after the war's end but not authorized for publication until 1972, it can only hint at the Ultra secret. That aspect is well covered by Hinsley. Other books that proved to be useful sources: Kahn's
Hitler's Spies,
Cave Brown's
Bodyguard of Lies,
Jeffrey Richelson's
A Century of Spies,
Ewen Montagu's
Beyond Top Secret Ultra
and Ernest Volkman's
Spies: The Secret Agents Who Changed the Course of History.

I'm indebted to Nigel West's
Operation Garbo
for additional information about Garbo-Pujol and the belated recognition given his incredible wartime services.

Tricycle—Dusko Popov—also could not get his memoir,
Spy/Counterspy,
approved for publication until well after the war. The pro-FBI counterattack against his version of his failed attempt to alert the U.S. to the approach of the Pearl Harbor raid is detailed in Thomas Troy's "The British Assault on J. Edgar Hoover: The Tricycle Case" and in B. Bruce-Briggs's "Another Ride on Tricycle."

 

Chapter 8. The U.S. Tackles Japan's Codes

This chapter in particular benefits from personal research at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration facility.

Sources for the story of William and Elizebeth Friedman, include Ronald Clark's
The Man Who Broke Purple,
Kahn's
The Codebreakers
and Frank Rowlett's
The Story of Magic.

My account of Joseph Rochefort and his Hypo operation is also compiled from many sources, led by his own oral history recorded by navy scribes. Others: Edwin Layton's
And I Was There,
Jasper Holmes's
Double-edged Secrets,
Lewin''s
The American Magic,
Winton's
Ultra in the Pacific
and Kahn's
The Codebreakers.

The reference to Admiral Stark's memorandum to FDR is from Joseph Persico's
Roosevelt's Secret War.

Among the scurrilous publications claiming that FDR conspired in the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor in order to bring the U.S. into the war, my favorite dart target is Mark Emerson Willey's
Pearl Harbor: The Mother of All Conspiracies.
Refutations abound, as noted in the text, including books by Prange, Wohlstetter, Keegan and Persico, among others.

Source for the near misses in sounding the alert: Kahn's
The Code-breakers.
The account of Ralph Briggs's reception of the East Wind message is by Ellsworth Boyd in the November 2000 issue of Primedia's
World War II
magazine.

John Prados's
Combined Fleet Decoded
supplies a clear analysis of Japanese thinking behind the raid.

Layton's memoir expresses his indignation at the treatment of Kimmel and Short.

The admiral who in Prange's interview scanted the Japanese destruction at Pearl Harbor was Claude C. Bloch.

Admiral Morison's quote about Pearl Harbor being a "strategic imbecility" is from his
The Rising Sun in the Pacific.

Layton and Prados expressed sharp criticism of MacArthur for the follow-up losses on Luzon.

In the use of Japanese names, I've followed the Western practice of putting the surname
after
the given name. In Japanese style, it's the reverse.

The section on Baron Oshima relies mostly, as mentioned, on Carl Boyd's
Hitler's Japanese Confidant.
Also, Bruce Lee documents in his book
Marching Orders
the incredibly diverse flow of information provided by the Magic summaries placed daily on the desks of General Marshall and Secretary of War Stimson.

 

Chapter 9. North Africa: A Pendulum Swung by Codebreakers

The terrible story of Bonner Frank Fellers was not to be overlooked by writers. Kahn tells it in a couple of his books. Welchman dwells on it. So does Cave Brown. They all gave me aid in forming my own account.

Both Welchman and Kahn tell of Seebohm's field intercept unit and its fate.

A prime source for coverage of the North African battles is Barnett's
The Desert Generals,
despite his obvious animus toward Bernard Montgomery.

Rommel quotes are from
The Rommel Papers,
edited by Hart with the aid of Rommel's family. Kesselring's quote is from his
A Soldier's Record.

The Edgar Williams and William Mather quotes are from Nigel Hamilton's
Monty: The Making of a General.

Hinsley is, as ever, indispensable in pinning down specific decrypts that were of great benefit to British generals. His quote about the number of submarines and recon aircraft based on Malta is from his answer to a question following his 1993 lecture at a Security Group Seminar.

The section on Operation Torch is compiled from Keegan, Gilbert and Lewin, with Ultra information from Hinsley and from Omar Bradley's autobiography.

 

Chapter 10. Turnaround in the Pacific War

Details of the Japanese double delay in changing JN-25 come from Lewin's
The American Magic
and Edward Van Der Rhoer's
Deadly Magic.

Layton's memoir sets forth clearly the effects of Doolittle's raid, as does Frederick Parker's
A Priceless Advantage,
from the United States Cryptologic History available on the Web. Yamamoto's quote about the "disgrace" of the raid is from Layton.

As cited, Prados's
Combined Fleet Decoded
proved a valuable resource for understanding all the Decisive Battles of the Pacific war.

Sources for the treatment of the Battle of Midway include Rochefort's own
Reminiscences,
Layton, Holmes, Kahn and particularly Prange's
Miracle at Midway.

The David Kennedy quote is from his essay "Victory at Sea," in the March 1999 issue of
The Atlantic Monthly.

Admiral Nimitz's postbattle praise of Rochefort is from Winton's
Ultra in the Pacific.

In addition to the sources cited, the section on MacArthur's Port Moresby operations includes details from Edward Drea's
MacArthur's Ultra
and William Manchester's
American Caesar.

 

Chapter 11. USSR: Intelligence Guides the Major Victories

Most of the sources here are cited in the text. Otherwise, Jozef Garlin-ski's
The Enigma War
supplied information on the Red Three as well as the Red Orchestra.

Alexander Foote's quote is from his
Handbook for Spies.

Material on the Cambridge ring came from Phillip Knightley's
The Master Spy,
among other sources.

My main source on Richard Sorge is Robert Whymant's
Stalin's Spy.

The David Glantz quote is from his
The Role of Intelligence in Soviet Military Strategy in World War II.

Keegan supplied Hitler's quote about kicking down the Russian door, while Gilbert contributed the Hitler lines about flouting the Hague Convention rules and the führer's plans for Operation Typhoon.