ULTRA

Rodger Herbst · Post by **Rodger Herbst** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 8:12 pm

do you think the allies depended on ultra a little too much?i mean like in the bulge,the german orders probably went out by land line,so ultra couldn't pick them up.had the allies adoped the attitude,"nothing is going to happen because ultra didn't say so".the us hq's must have got an inkling from thier front line patrols and hearing things,but did hq's believe them or ultra?

Enrico Cernuschi · Post by **Enrico Cernuschi** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 1:30 am

A deep historian and good friend of mine, Franco Bandini, well known here in Italy, suspected that the ULTRA matter (at once much propagandized by the media without explaining why, after thirty years of total silence, the British had decided to say, if not everything, very much indeed) could be have been used to cover others and more important sources that a day, maybe, could be useful again, which the ordinary work of the historians could put in jeopardy. Quite a sort of decoy.
Bye EC

sid guttridge · Post by **sid guttridge** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 5:18 am

Hi Rodger,

I suppose the Bulge case depends on whether the front line patrol reports were passed up high enough to reach the very small number of people who had access to Ultra. Only then would there have been a choice between the two to be made.

Do we know the answer to this question?

Cheers,

Sid.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hi Enrico,

What more important sources might there be than reading the enemy's most secret codes in real time?

Cheers,

Sid.

Liam · Post by **Liam** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 5:52 am

I would imagine that the Germans would have been able to send most information via landline for the Ardennes attack simply due to the close proximity of the German command to the front line. Ultra was of most use in a theatre where constant radio traffic was required to be sent due to distance - like the Battle of the Atlantic or the North African campaign.

Rodger Herbst · Post by **Rodger Herbst** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 7:11 am

I realize ULTRA was a radio intercept service and really gave some real good info,but i think the HQ's got so dependent on this service that they seemed to think it was the only service.
Did any Germans have a clue that thier mail was being read,or were so low in the pecking order that know body would listen,or was it ego on part of the code makers that nobody can break thier code and that the doubters were a bunch of PITA's(Pain In The Ass)?

Liam · Post by **Liam** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 9:20 am

It seems that the Kriegsmarine were more aware of potential problems with Enigma than, say, the Luftwaffe were as their constant increasing of security (more rotors, etc) showed. But I've never seen or heard anything that suggested the Germans were genuinely aware about their comms security being broken. After all, the problems involved in decrypting Enigma, let alone the Lorenz Geheimschreiber codes were astronomical.

redcoat · Post by **redcoat** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 3:43 pm

Ultra did in fact give some warning of the German attack in the Battle of the Bulge, however these warnings were ignored by Bradley and other senior Allied commanders who thought that the launching of a large scale attack was beyond the capabilities of the Germans at that stage of the war.
So the intelligence provided by Ultra was ignored because it didn't fit the views of the Allied high Command, a similar situation to the intelligence given to the German high command before the invasion of the Soviet Union

nigelfe · Post by **nigelfe** » Mon Feb 16, 2004 4:04 am

In May 1976 there was a 'name supplied but witheld' letter to an international magazine from a person who was in OKW/AG/WNV/Fu/III (Supreme Comd of the Armed Forces/Armed Forces Telecommunications Division/Radio Communications Dept/Intelligence Sect). This guy stated 'The statements concerning the successes achieved with Ultra are absurd'. Basically he was still in denial, although they recognised that clear text could be obtained by 'trial and error' methods.

Ultra success depended on bad COMSEC discipline, the unsuprisingly the Luftwaffe were by far the worst and the Gestapo the best. The army and navy had traditions of careful communications but the sheer size of the army meant the probabilities of some poor discipline was far greater, success against the navy seems to have hinged on capturing settings.

It's useful to remember that just as the German military enigma machines were derived from the original commercial versions so too were the British encryption machines, and such machines were in widespread use until the advent of electronic machines in - the late 60s/early 70s, ie when Ultra broke. The logical deduction is that the Brits didn't want to reveal their success while they continued to use similar devices as did many other countries, who they wanted to keep in blissful ignorance of their wartime (and later?) successes.

I know it's trendy to blame 'the high command', but intelligence has always been about 'systematic exploitation of all sources'. If no sources were indicating a possible offensive then that is how the high command was being briefed. It's also useful to remember that the offensive was mounted in Germany. This meant that there were no partisans reporting what was happening on the ground and no friendly sources operating the civil phone system. This meant that miltary intelligence was relying on traditional sources: air recce, tactical intercept, artillery activity, PW, local civvies and their own patrol activities. Weather was against air recce. If the strategic intercept was indicating nothing then it was a matter of comd/staff at a suitable level saying 'I think something is afoot' and tasking sources accordingly. If the view was that the Germans were incapable of mounting an offensive then such a contrary view was unlikely.

Enrico Cernuschi · Post by **Enrico Cernuschi** » Mon Feb 16, 2004 6:27 am

I can confirm that the British activity against the Italian Navy C 38 Hagelin cyphering machine went on until 1954, when it was at least discovered by a then young Midshipman.

Bye EC

nigelfe · Post by **nigelfe** » Tue Feb 17, 2004 2:19 am

The anonymous letter I previously referred to also gave some other quite interesting tidbits. First that the author had personally destroyed their section's records and the various radio intelleigence companies also destroyed theirs 1-5 May 1945 and submitted destruction certificates. I would expect nothing less from professionals.

Points about Ultra mesages, individual mesage length was not supposed to exceed 30 characers, if longer then a new message was used. Codewords were to be used as much as possible in message texts. Over radio only Geheim category with KR urgency were permitted, this meant information becoming of no tactical values after a few hours.

All other secret material had to be sent by enciphering teleprinter which worked with an Enigma system using 13 or more cylinders. Top secret material was sent by either these e-teleprinters or by officer couriers.

The British called the e-teleprinter traffic 'Magic' and had cracked it. Technically a far more remarkable feat than Enigma itself, they started from discovering the radio traffic!