Using Ultra to research the Luftwaffe

[Bruce Dennis]

Thank you, Nick.

[Nick Beale]

The latest set of updates to the Ghost Bombers website includes a three-page listing of DEFE3 series files for 1944–45 in date order and with serial numbers of the messages in each one.

Apart from being something I should have done for my own use years ago, I hope that this will be helpful to anyone who browses these files online.

[Andrew Arthy]

Hi Nick,

Very useful indeed. Thanks for putting these pages up.

Cheers,
Andrew A.
Air War Publications - www.airwarpublications.com

[Steve Coates]

Thanks Nick. I remember seeing the handwritten Filofax version many years ago.

[lpunktlpunkt]

Hi Nick,

I just read through your "Using Ultra" posts on the ghostbombers website. I was wondering whether you ever came across any intercepted messages that mentioned individual German fighter pilots (e.g. Galland, Mölders, etc.) by name.

I would be interested whether there are intercepted messages in which pilots get recommended for awards or to be mentioned in the dispatches (or "Wehrmachtberichte").

Before I dive deeper into the DEFE3 files it would be good to know if there are at least any clues of such intercepts actually existing.

Thank you very much for your great work and help!

-LL

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by lpunktlpunkt

Hi Nick,

I just read through your "Using Ultra" posts on the ghostbombers website. I was wondering whether you ever came across any intercepted messages that mentioned individual German fighter pilots (e.g. Galland, Mölders, etc.) by name.

I would be interested whether there are intercepted messages in which pilots get recommended for awards or to be mentioned in the dispatches (or "Wehrmachtberichte").

Before I dive deeper into the DEFE3 files it would be good to know if there are at least any clues of such intercepts actually existing.

Thank you very much for your great work and help!

-LL

Many, many personnel are mentioned by name in the messages. I don't recall any recommendations for awards but there are numerous announcements of medals given to individuals, or congratulations. Sometimes a unit will report the victories achieved by its pilots.

From memory, I've only seen Galland mentioned as a general and Moelders as the name of a Geschwader, maybe because my main interest is 1944-45 and I have never looked at anything between January 1941 and the end of 1943.

You may not see much of this in DEFE3 because it was not information of much value to senior Allied commanders. The HW5 files are the place to look.

[lpunktlpunkt]

Thank you Nick!
That helps a lot. I will have to look at the HW5 files instead.
If I understand correctly, they are not yet digitized. Do you by any chance already have scans of some files that you would be willing to share?

I also saw that it is possible to request scanned copies from the National Archive. Do you have any experience with this process? If yes, do you think they would be willing to scan large amounts of files, and how much would you think this would cost per page?

I am also unsure how many pages we are speaking about. You mentioned that it goes in the tens of thousands in total. So it is a few hundred pages per file?

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by lpunktlpunkt

Thank you Nick!
That helps a lot. I will have to look at the HW5 files instead.
If I understand correctly, they are not yet digitized.

Correct, they are not digitised.

Do you by any chance already have scans of some files that you would be willing to share?

I have photos of about 18,000 HW5 pages, mostly from 1944–45. I have collected these over the last nine years and they were taken either because they related to something I was already working on or just because I thought they looked interesting. There was no system beyond that, which is probably why I now spend time at Kew revisiting files to get things I missed or didn't realise I would need. I do not have any index of the messages' individual numbers or content (and it's too late to start now), I just keep a folder on my computer for each HW5 file I've looked at; each folder contains photos I took of pages from that file.

So the only time that I can share something is when someone gives me the serial number of the message they want (assuming it's one I have). Anything else would just take too much time away from my own research. Realistically, I could not read through 18,000 pages in search of the words "Knight's Cross" (for example) and even if you knew there was an announcement on a specific date, it would still mean searching a few hundred pages to be certain, because not everything was deciphered right away.

ULTRA is a fantastic source but it needs enormous time and effort to get anything from it. For example I have recently read online through about 14,000 frames of naval messages and found just a dozen relevant to my Kommando Rastedter project.

Bletchley Park did keep an elaborate index of names, places, aircraft, topics etc. As far as I know, that is not held by the National Archives and may not have survived the war. However, the BP Museum has a long-term project to digitise about 3 million pages of archive material they hold, so maybe the index is part of that. I first heard about this project in 2011 but nothing has emerged so far that I know of.

I also saw that it is possible to request scanned copies from the National Archive. Do you have any experience with this process?

No, I don't. Sorry.

I am also unsure how many pages we are speaking about. You mentioned that it goes in the tens of thousands in total. So it is a few hundred pages per file?

If we are talking about the entire war, then the series runs from file HW5/1 (6 Feb–16 July 1940) to HW5/703 (7–23 May 1945). That's just the Army/Luftwaffe material and does not include the Naval, Police, Abwehr, Diplomatic and other decrypts. I never counted but I guess that each file would average about 300–400 pages.

[Steve Coates]

I haven't spent nearly as much time as Nick delving into HW5 but can confirm that it's unlikely to offer up masses in relation to the effort, however, here's a sample page from HW5/694 where an award is requested.

[S Sheflin]

Hello Steve,

I want to add an aside to your sample from HW5/694.

The Uffz. Rudolf Grossauer mentioned is one of the pilots listed in the Großostheim Kladde, a compendium of I./JG 2 operations from 17 to 25 March 1945.

Steve Sheflin