[Nick Beale]

I'm sorry but I'm just not persuaded that these are anything other than intercepted radio traffic:

1. As Andrew says, the files are classed "machine decrypts."

2. GC&CS did not run agents, that was done by two separate British organisations, MI6 (aka the Secret Intelligence Service) and the Special Operations Executive (replacing Section D of MI6 and promoting sabotage and subversion in the occupied countries, but the resistance movements it supported also fed back intelligence on German forces).

3. An SOE radio operator reportedly had a life expectancy of a few weeks before capture or wihdrawal yet there is material in HW5 coming day after day from the same units for months on end.

4. What is more, usually that material is somehow reaching Bletchley Park and being decoded, translated and commented on within 24 hours or less of the message's time of origin. The "spies" Andreas believes are responsible would have needed to be free use their radios almost any time they wished.

5. The comments and notes attached to the HW5 messages do not indicate that the Bletchley Park staff had seen other intelligence: e.g. prisoner interrogations, the Y-Service (e.g. radio traffic to and from German aircraft) or technical intelligence from crashed or captured machines.

6. In the front of each file, as I've said, you find pages after page of data, referencing each paragraph and item to its source and each has a network name and a radio frequency. (See the attached example).

7. Implying a human source is a great cover story. If anyone saw one of the items and the word got back to the Germans, they would start hunting imaginary spies. It even seems to have worked on one or two people on this board! Please note that the document I have attached was copy No. 25, so there were apparently several in circulation and so a leak was a possibility.

8. It may be that the Official History of British Intelligence in the Second World War could shed more light on this if anyone has those volumes available.