ULTRA doc of September 1943

[PMoz99]

Might be a silly question, but did you click the green box marked Search? See the attachment for what the page should look like with your parameters keyed in. Works for me.

Ha! Nick beat me by 4 mins ......

[byron-]

Thanks Nick,

i got it now, there are for September 1943 some more than 30 ULTRA docs, HW 5-330 to 360. If some body has any of them, we can change with others i possess.
Byron

[Bruce Dennis]

Hello Byron,
Each of those HW5 files is a bound book of daily intel reports made up of decrypted messages from several sources. There are typically 200-250 pages in each book. The reports consist of 'highlights' taken from a much larger collection of the day's decrypts, and they are broken down into geographical sections such as 'SOUTH', 'GERMANY', 'RUMANIA', 'EAST' etc. If there was nothing to report, then a section was omitted. If there was new information about a message from an earlier report, it was usually added on at the end of the section with the date and number of the previous message. There is no index. As you can guess from this description, to find something in these volumes you need (A) a date; (B) an area; and (C) time to trawl through each of the daily reports.

All the HW5 material is from what is called ‘High Grade Machine Decrypts (CX/FJ, CX/JQ and CX/MSS Reports)’ which includes ULTRA so yes, ULTRA material was included but so was material from other sources. ULTRA is one source of information but the majority of the decrypts that contained details of Axis units and movements came from other high grade machines.

My point is, tell us what you are looking for and it may be that someone has an answer. Maybe there was an ULTRA message covering your subject, maybe one from another source. There are hundreds of pages within HW1 and HW5 that cover September 1943 so it is not possible to go further without a target.

By the way, have you looked at the TSAMO thread?

I hope this helps.
Regards,
Bruce

[byron-]

Hello Bruce,

thank you for your helpful explanations. The target, as i said, are the activities of the Luftwaffe against the islands of the Ionian sea, foremost against Kefalonia and incidentally against Korfu. In particular planes, losses, crews, dates of the attacks. Critical period of the operations12.09.43 to 23.09.43.

Byron

[Bruce Dennis]

Just a suggestion: start a new thread with that description in the title. Who knows, someone may have something?

Regards,
Bruce

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Bruce Dennis

Hello Byron,
All the HW5 material is from what is called ‘High Grade Machine Decrypts (CX/FJ, CX/JQ and CX/MSS Reports)’ which includes ULTRA so yes, ULTRA material was included but so was material from other sources. ULTRA is one source of information but the majority of the decrypts that contained details of Axis units and movements came from other high grade machines.
Bruce

A little misleading perhaps. ULTRA is simply a security classification for decrypts of machine ciphers. In Europe that meant the Enigma machine (in its various models) and the Lorenz Geheimschreiber teleprinter. In the files we are discussing those are the only sources, so far as I know. The Lorenz was used at the higher command levels, whereas just about every ship, army or Luftwaffe unit had its own Enigma.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by byron-

Thanks Nick,

i got it now, there are for September 1943 some more than 30 ULTRA docs, HW 5-330 to 360. If some body has any of them, we can change with others i possess.

Byron

I have hardly looked at this period: I have photographed only 24 pages from September 1943 and none of them relate to Greece, so I can't help.

[Bruce Dennis]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

A little misleading perhaps. ULTRA is simply a security classification for decrypts of machine ciphers. In Europe that meant the Enigma machine (in its various models) and the Lorenz Geheimschreiber teleprinter. In the files we are discussing those are the only sources, so far as I know. The Lorenz was used at the higher command levels, whereas just about every ship, army or Luftwaffe unit had its own Enigma.

Hello Nick,
Quite right about ULTRA, but not about HW5 so perhaps I could have been a bit more clear. HW5 is the collection of daily intel reports based on high grade machine decrypts but not confined to that source: many of the excerpts from decrypted messages are then backed up with comments which incorporate information from different sources.
They were a bit careful in describing this series:
"Description: This series contains summaries produced by the Government Code and Cypher School, of German Air Force, Army and some Navy reports on a wide range of subjects including operational, administrative and logistics matters, obtained by the interception and decryption of signalled communications.
There are also reports issued by the German Intelligence Service and from agents, the German Y Service (Signals Interception and Interpretation Service) and, occasionally, reports from the Italian services (including the Italian Y Service). Some files relate to the German V weapons (flying bombs or guided missiles) programme; others relate to Luftwaffe use of navigational beams to guide bombing raids."

No confusion intended, I believe there is a popular belief that these reports are entirely Enigma traffic and, as you point out, they are not. I simply want to emphasise that the reports are based on decrypted machine traffic but includes data from across the board.

Bruce

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Bruce Dennis

Hello Nick,
… many of the excerpts from decrypted messages are then backed up with comments which incorporate information from different sources.
They were a bit careful in describing this series:
"Description: … There are also reports issued by the German Intelligence Service and from agents, the German Y Service (Signals Interception and Interpretation Service) and, occasionally, reports from the Italian services (including the Italian Y Service). Some files relate to the German V weapons (flying bombs or guided missiles) programme; others relate to Luftwaffe use of navigational beams to guide bombing raids."
Bruce

The HW 5 files were have been talking about (HW 5/1 to HW 5/703) are Enigma/Lorenz decrypts. The "based on" bit means that they are not verbatim translations—to have issued them in that form would have given the Germans potential "cribs" to break into Allied cipher traffic. I cannot recall ever seeing a comment in one of those messages which was not based on earlier decrypts and it was customary to give the serial number of such messages (invaluable to the present-day researcher).

The German intelligence services used Enigma, as did the Italian armed services, each with their own models of the machine and different key settings. The files navigational beams are the so-called "BROWN reports", e.g. HW 5/719, /720 and /721. These do seem to be verbatim, sometimes covering no more than a request for a new valve, but they were not issued to overseas commands but passed to Dr. R.V. Jones of Air Scientific Intelligence. V-weapons are covered in HW 5/708 to /717 and /722 to /731 but I've not looked at these.

Other HW 5 files numbered in the 700s are based on low and medium-grade ciphers, including some hand ciphers as far as I remember (I looked but didn't find them very useful).

So far as I am aware, the bulk of the Abwehr, Security Service (SD) and Police traffic is in other HW series but I have only looked at a tiny fraction of this. I believe that there is also Reichsbahn traffic somewhere (they too used Enigma).

[Bruce Dennis]

Well I must say it has proved harder to prove my statement than I expected, but here goes:

(These extracts are inserted as a ‘NOTE’ after individual decrypted messages.)
HW5/249 – CX/MSS/2561 – after a decrypted message this appears:
‘NOTES 1) … above was addressed to Kommodore JG.3 from Stab. JG.3’
2) Major EWALD is known to be connected with JG.3’
(These two notes are inserting information from other sources to identify the recipient of the message. Major EWALD signed the message but the addressee was not part of the text. No source is cited and if it had been from other CX/MSS traffic it would always be spelled out.)

HW5/247 – a note explains the meaning of ‘Q code’ within a message;
HW5/227 – notes adding identity and location of NJ units mentioned in preceding text.

There are other notes like this in the main reports. Then you get the TO/xx messages which were handled differently and included as a separate section within the weekly report.

The naval TO/xx series of messages are filed within each weeks summary and focus on KM traffic in the Mediterranean. From memory, some messages that reported shipping or convoys were followed by notes referring to other sightings from non-TO or CX/MSS sources. Also these notes might name likely identities of the subjects, either Allied or Axis. I have not taken the time to dig out any examples of TO/xx pages.

So, in short, I have seen examples of the daily high grade machine decrypt reports now held in HW5 using alternative sources for added details. I discussed the point with a TNA staffer and he agreed. It should not be a big deal, as the function of the reports at the time was enhanced by the occasional addition of extra information, and the reader at the time would have been able to differentiate if needed between the ULTRA content and the ‘extras’.

Bruce