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Originally Posted by Boomerang
Interesting that the original post refers to Dec 1944 ULTRA decrypts related to Bodenplatte, yet the Bodenplatte attack still maintained the element of surprise (while recognising the detection of some of the attackers by conventional means). Does this point to the limitations of UlLTRA? Boomerang
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Actually there are several signs of the impending attack from about November 1944 onward - provided you know, as we do now, what they mean.
The Allies realised that a lot of fighter units were being moved to the western front and wondered why. They speculated that a big strike against airfields might be one reason and there is a mention (can't find it now!) of
"Ein scharfer Einsatz".
There were other signs too. For example HP 8689, issued at 01.03 hours on 6 December 1944. Part of this long signal is from Jagdkorps I to Jafue Mittelrhein on the evening of the 4th about the allocation of two night fighters and crews…
"to ensure the assembly of strong day fighter formations in bad weather conditions…"
HP 8620 is a similar message.
HP 8624 is about the convening of a conference of all day fighter Geschwader and Gruppe commanding officers (except JG 300 and JG 301) on the afternoon of 5 December at Flammersfeld, 30 km north of Koblenz.
However
Bodenplatte didn't happen at the outset of the Ardennes offensive and so (I'm guessing) the Allies assumed that the moment for such an operation had passed, all those German fighters must have been assembled in direct support of the ground offensive.
ULTRA's inherent limitation was that not every German message was sent by radio and even then not all of it was picked up, let alone deciphered. (And some of what was sent by radio was not exactly of strategic importance: could someone bring back the gas mask that someone else left behind, for example).