Using Ultra to research the Luftwaffe

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Marcel Hogenhuis

Hello Andreas,

In order to prepare a visit/multiple visits to the National Archives, I wonder whether you can be more specific about two questions:

- the (average!) number of pages with decrypts for, let us say, a week?
- the number of pages that can be done by using a digital camera?

In 1944-45 files usually cover two days' messages each (one day each during Summer 1944, however). I've never counted the pages but I think that a two-day file would have maybe 300-350 pages.

Using a camera, I can get through about six or seven two-day files in a full day. You could definitely speed up the photography by using one of the camera stands provided but you still have to read the pages to look for things that are of interest to you - something that becomes faster with practice. You gradually learn the "language" of the decrypts.

Note to Andreas: all the messages in HW1 should also be in HW5, so there is a "back-up copy" if something is missing from HW1.