UK National Archives Files

[Mihai Pica]

Dear all, I am looking for several files that are available there, does anyone happen to have them and be able to share or could anyone point a researcher who could photograph them ?

These are the files in question :

DEFE 3/1019 / Nos 1-120
HW 11/7 / Vol. VII The Eastern Front
AIR 40/2687 / German Air Force: daily summaries of teleprints and special reports for the period 11 July 1944-6th May 1945
HW 5/567 - HW 5/608

Thanks in advance

[Nick Beale]

Hallo Mihai,

What are you actually looking for? If you are searching for Eastern Front material, from what I have seen you will not find very much after May 1945. It seems that most of the decoding effort was concentrated on the Western Front from then on.

A good way to approach HW 5 is to read through the DEFE Main Series for the same range of dates (see here for the file references: http://www.ghostbombers.com/Ultra/defe3list.html). All of those files can be viewed online or downloaded free and at the top left of each message (see attachment) is a CX/MSS/ serial number. That number is the correspponding message in an HW 5 file. The National Archives catalogue will show you which files each one is on.

(Each HW 5 file is maybe 250–300 pages, by the way).

[Mihai Pica]

Thanks for your reply Nick, I actually used the guide on your website to lookup the files, that being said sadly the DEFE 3 files that I am looking for are not available for download sadly. http://discovery.nationalarchives.go...ls/r/C11197258

I am looking only for a specific period of Eastern Front material, 23.08.1944-15.10.1944

[Nick Beale]

Hallo Mihai,

The point of my post was that if you download the DEFE3/ files for that period August–October period you can use the messages there to identify what there is in HW5/. The DEFE3 item caarries a serial number CX/MSS to show which HW5 item(s) it is based on. This will narrow down your search. Not everything was reported in DEFE3 but most items of operational significance were. A look at DEFE can save you a lot of time when you later get to the HW5 files. Also if you can identify individual messages, someone here may have some of them.

[steve sheridan]

Hi Nick, out of curiosity is there anything available to download for 1940-41 in these files you mention?

Best regs,
Steve.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by steve sheridan

Hi Nick, out of curiosity is there anything available to download for 1940-41 in these files you mention?

Best regs,
Steve.

Not for 1940, as far as I know. They’re on paper. May 1942 is the earliest downloadable stuff I’ve looked for.

Go to the National Archives site, “search the catalogue” and then “advanced search”. Under “must include” put “Cairo” then in the appropriate box ask it to search file series DEFE 3 and make the date range 1939 to 1942. When you get the results, sort them as “date ascending”. That will show you the earlist material available.

The point about the Cairo series reports is that these were the first non-naval Ultra reports sent to an overseas command, i.e. the Middle East. These were declassified first, they were individual items (sometimes loose) on very flimsy paper so they were microfilmed after a few years and later the microfilm could be easily scanned and put online. HW 5 material is compiled into hard cover bound volumes however.

[Mihai Pica]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

Hallo Mihai,

The point of my post was that if you download the DEFE3/ files for that period August–October period you can use the messages there to identify what there is in HW5/. The DEFE3 item caarries a serial number CX/MSS to show which HW5 item(s) it is based on. This will narrow down your search. Not everything was reported in DEFE3 but most items of operational significance were. A look at DEFE can save you a lot of time when you later get to the HW5 files. Also if you can identify individual messages, someone here may have some of them.

Ohh allright, sorry, it flew over my head,thanks a lot Nick, will give it a go.

[Mihai Pica]

Ok, so after reading through two HW5 files for August/September 1944 and finding absolutely no reference to Luftflotte 4 or the Eastern Front in general, I begin to wonder if there really was a complete lack of interest for this part of the front ? If so how come there is another AIR dossier with trivial romanian intercepts for the same period ?

I mean, it makes complete sense that the focus was shifted to the western front for obvious reasons..but still, I begin to wonder if the eastern front files are kept in other dossiers or unpublished ?

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Mihai Pica

I mean, it makes complete sense that the focus was shifted to the western front for obvious reasons..but still, I begin to wonder if the eastern front files are kept in other dossiers or unpublished ?

You might find your answer in the Bletchley Park policy correspondence (e.g. the HW 14 series, on paper at TNA) but I've not read any for your period. I can say that in Autumn 1940 there was a lot of discussion about what their resources in people and machines (the "Bombes") would allow, and what they might achieve given more. The question would be whether even at their peak they had enough to intercept, decrypt and analyse everything.