Using Ultra to research the Luftwaffe

[Larry deZeng]

Hi Rod,

Back in the late eighties/early nineties I brought in all the DEFE 3 series via interlibrary loan and sat at my desk at home in front of my microfilm reader and typewriter over a 3 or 4 years span extracting everything of interest, mostly order of battle, unit movements, operational activity and such. Then, in the late nineties, the PRO began opening up the HW 5 material and I developed an immediate craving for what I thought would be even richer and better than DEFE 3. I had a long wait but recently a good friend and colleague began sending me some of the HW 5 decrypts so I could see what I had missed. Apparently, not much. From a purely operational, order of battle standpoint, I am now convinced that the really important, comprehensive material is in DEFE 3. HW 5 seems to be the backwash material that Hut 3 did not determine met the criteria to be forwarded to the commands in the field for their use. Perhaps I just got into a bad run of HW 5, those I examined being from the May - July 1941 period.

What say you, Rod? Would you agree or do you feel otherwise?

Cheers,

Larry