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UNDERGROUND FACTORIES IN GERMANY
"ITEM N° 21,22,31
FILE N° XXXIII-36 SECRET UNDERGROUND FACTORIES IN GERMANY Reported by C.I.O.S. Party 536 (L) HAMMERWERKE FACTORY, near Hausberg Porta Westfalica, Minden This factory, of the multi-storey type, was constructed in underground quarries on the East side of the Weiser gap south of Minden. The quarries were situated in the Porta Sandstone above the Dachs I Refinery, and had been enlarged by the Gewerkeschaft Porta to house the Phillips Radio Valve factory from Eindhoven, in Holland. Constructional work is said to have started in March, 1944 and to have been completed in September, 1944. Production started in February, 1945. Contracts The following were interrogated- Herr Goosens, engineer, Dutch, speak English. Herr Pott, mining engineer, manager of the Gewerkeschaft Porta. Herr Haupt, formerly engineer on plant installation now custodian of the factory for the military Government Geology The geology of the area has already been described in the sections dealing with Dachs I and Denkmal Stollen. The Hammerwerke factory nine storeys high was constructed in the Porta sandstone (photograph No. 21) and being south of Dachs I was at a higher level as a result of the dip of this stratum as can be seen in the geological motion attached to this report (Fig. 8A.) The two factories were to have been connected by an internal shaft. There was no evidence of rock falls in the factory area. Lining & Support The workings were for the most part unsupported and the rock surface only whitewashed. At a few points steel joists and timber laggings had been used. Excavation The little excavation done on this site was carried out simultaneously with Dachs I and no separate data was available on labour, costs or progress. Entrance The main entrance, on the seventh floor, was protected by a blast wall of concrete 1.1 metres thick, and was connected with the main road at Hausberg by funicular railway. Water Supply Process water was pumped from the River Weser. Water was available from the town supply. Sewage Disposal Sewage was disposed by gravity into the Weser after treatment. Air Attack There was no evidence of air attack on this site. Engineering Services (a) Heating The Boiler House was located on the surface at road adjacent to the entrance of the Porta (Dachs I) factory. The boiler was of the horizontal type in three sections:- 1. Cornish boiler design with corrugated flue. 2. Section comprising smoke tubes. 3. Smoke box section. Steam was taken off the middle section, which was also provided with dead weight safety valve, and thence proceeds to the super heater section located round the crown of the smoke box. Steam and condense mains were taken through the entrance of the Dachs I factory and thence by means of a sloping tunnel up to the ground floor of the Hammerwerke Factory and to the various steam heater batteries associated with the ventilation plants. (b) Ventilation Six separate plenum extract systems were installed all of similar character and dealing with the floors in groups. Each system draws fresh air from, and discharges vitiated air to, the cliff face. Each inlet system comprised a main inlet fitted with a wire grill leading into a concrete spray chamber thence to an eliminator and finally to the fan chamber. The water sprays were not connected, but it was clear that they were to be supplied with water from the main supply and that this water would be rejected to waste. Two types of delivery fan were used:– 1. Double inlet type in an enclosed fan chamber following spray and eliminator chamber. 2. Single inlet fan with duct connection to the spray and eliminator chamber. Each inlet fan discharged into a main delivery duct constructed in building board, at the respective ceiling level, and vertical metal ducts were taken down to floors as required with adjustable discharge openings near each floor level. Vertical extraction ducts with inlets at high level, as required, were connected to a main extraction duct, also constructed in building board, running adjacent to the corresponding main fresh air delivery duct. The main extraction duct was connected to the extraction fan chamber and thence to atmosphere. At the time of the inspection all fans were running but heater batteries and water sprays were out of commission. Condensation was evident on the lower floors but the general state of the factory suggests that production heat energy in conjunction with the use of steam heater batteries had resulted in a reasonable air condition. (c) Electric Power and Lighting The electric supply was taken from the sub-station at Porta (Dachs I) at 6,000 volts and the high tension cables were brought up through the service tunnel and taken to four transformer stations. The voltage was than transformed from 6,000 volts to 400 volts 3 phase 4 wire, each of these transformers was rated at 800 KVA. Low tension feeder cable were taken as risers to metal closed cabinets containing main switches, fuses, circuit breakers and relays. Circuit wiring was taken at high level and in general was supported by a series of galvanised multi-strand steel cables which also served as earthing wire collectors. Each steel cable was thoroughly bonded to the rising watermain. Drops to machines and table inspection lights were taken from special metal junction boxes with porcelain interiors. All metal parts and components were earthed on to the galvanised straining cables by means of single strand cables, approximately No. 18 gauge. An attempt was made by interrogation to gain information regarding the type of earth leakage system installed but the only information offered was that every power unit had a leakage trip and that transformer were earthed at the star point. The general illumination and local bench lighting were of a high standard for example 4 kilowatts of lighting load has been installed in an inspection bay approximately 25' x 25'. (d) Fire Protection Fire hydrants complete with hose reels were provided in metal cabinets fixed to walls and connected to the rising waterman. Portable fire extinguishers were also provided. (e) Gas Installation Gas for process work was obtained from the town supply and the installation followed conventional standards for the class of work under consideration. Production and Layout This factory consisted of nine floors with layout as shown on the attached print and situated in the same hill as the Oil Refinery, Dachs I, which is the subject of a separate report. This factory was first put into operation in February, 1945 when it was intended to reinstate the production hitherto obtained from Philips Eindhoven factory, Holland. All plant and equipment even down to the inspection benches and stools were transferred from Eindhoven. This factory was very impressive in so far that there was ample spacing, and lighting was particularly good. The ultimate production was to have been 12,000 radio valves per day, but it was ascertained that up to the date of ceasing production, some 7,000 serviceable valves only had been issued. This in no way represents the total number of valves actually manufactured since it was made clear by the Production Engineer (Dutch) that the number of defective was considerable and this in the main was due to inclusion of dust at the final assembly stages. It should be appreciated that this dust trouble would not be discernible by casual observation. Nevertheless, the question of dust did not apparently interfere with the manufacture of component parts nor did it affect work carried out in the tool room and maintenance shop. Walls had been whitewashed but not otherwise treated or lined. The total labour force spread over three shift would have been 1,200/1,400, the vast majority being female, mainly young Jewish girls from concentration camps. Three shifts were arranged via:- two of 6 hours, and one of 8 hours, the break coming between 3.0 am and 7.0 am. Production arrangements were as follows :- lst floor - Toolroom and general maintenance shop. This plant was in first class condition, amply spaced and machines were of first class make, including several American tools such as Gorton and Milwaukee Milling machines. This floor also housed the gas production mixing plant required in production and was distributed to the required stations on the other floors by normal pipe distributing system. 2nd floor - This was essentially devoted to grid rolling and all the requisite plant for this operation had been installed and its condition was good. 3rd floor - Allocated to component assembly. This floor was also used as a main stores for component parts. 4th floor - Mainly for assembly and testing. 5th floor - This was laid out for the drawing of filament wire. and testing, but it was obviously not yet in full production. A side gallery on this floor was occupied by a separate firm, Carsten of Hamburg, who were apparently responsible for stamping out the mica parts which were subsequently used by Philips in the assembly. 6th floor - Had no defined use at the time of visit, except for a few offices and it was understood to have been used as sleeping quarters. 7th floor - This was the main entrance and exit for the whole factory, and contained a certain amount of plant for preparation of cathodes and filaments. 8th floor - Preparation of cathodes and filaments. 9th floor - This was used for offices and ablution, and had a small exit probably used by staff only. Access for employees to the respective floors was by stairway, and for goods, a lift 4 x 3 metres and having a capacity of 5,000 kilograms was installed to serve floors 1 to 7. The only external access provided to this factory from the main road was by means of a funicular railway which terminated at the level of floor 7 and about 200 ft. from the tunnel entrance."
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G.A.F. INTELLIGENCE IN THE WAR
"SECRET A. D. I. (K) Report No. 394/1945
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM P/W AS THE STATEMENTS HAVE NOT AS YET BEEN VERIFIED, NO MENTION OF THEM SHOULD BE MADE IN INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OF COMMANDS OR LOWER FORMATIONS, NOR SHOULD THEY BE ACCEPTED UNTIL COMMENTED ON AIR MINISTRY INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OR SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS. G.A.F. INTELLIGENCE IN THE WAR – II. Sources and Dissemination of Intelligence. 1. This, the second report of the series dealing with G.A.F. Intelligence during the War, is based mainly on the interrogation of Hauptmann ZETZSCHE who, during the Period of Major WODARG's office, was in control of Gruppe A of the department "Foreign Air Forces West" under Chef Ic. 2. The infuriation set out in this report falls into two main headings of "Sources" and "Publications". The paragraphs dealing with the German "Y" Service as a source of intelligence have been purposely reduced to a minimum, since a series of eight reports covering that subject alone is to be issued shortly by A.D.I.(K). SOURCES OF INTELLIGENCE. FOREIGN AIR FORCES WEST. 3. The department of Foreign Air Forces West, under Major OWE (see A.D.I.(K) 393/1945, Appendix IV) and with a staff of about 100, was responsible for covering Great Britain, the Empire, the U.S.A., France, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal and the Middle East. 4. The two Gruppen of the department "A" and "B", dealt respectively with military aspects and political and economic questions. In spite of the far greater commitments of Gruppe A, departmental strength was equally distributed between the two Gruppen. 5. The following are the sources upon which Foreign Air Forces West depended for collation of intelligence. German "Y" Service. 6. The German Y-Service - Abteilung 3 of General MARTINI's staff – supplied collated data to Chef Ic. In spite of Generalleutnant SCHMID's complaints of that department's methods of working (see Part I para. 31), Hauptmann ZETZSCHE stated that this source provided extensive data for Allied Order of Battle, subordinations and chains of command, operations, radar developments and ferryings of aircraft from the U.S.A. 7. Four sub-sections of Abteilung 3 covered all aspects of Allied activities, and issued daily intelligence summaries which were telephoned or teleprinted to Chef Ic. Ten-day and monthly appreciations of Allied activity were also issued, the latter containing valuable Statistics of Allied incursions. 8. One section, Chi-Stelle (codes and cyphers) Referat B covered all radio and radar intelligence on the western front such as details of current air operations, including Gee-H and Oboe attacks. The southern front was similarly covered by Chi-Stelle Referat C, and a sub-section, Referat C-1, dealt with Allied transport and ferrying traffic, this latter was of special value to Ic in assessing Allied production and losses. 9. Radar intelligence from both Western and Southern fronts was collated by a section known as Funkleitstand. A monthly report was issued which was of great help to Ic in assessing Allied radar and the effects of German jamming. A liaison officer was maintained by Funkleitstand with the P/W Interrogation Centre at Oberursel for the purpose of clearing up obscure points by interrogation of Allied aircrew. 10. Another section, the Zentrale Funkaufklärung (ZAF) was set up at Treuenbrietzen for tactical evaluation of radio and radar data received in the area of Jagdkorps I. As this section was solely concerned with tactical considerations, its relations with Chef Ic were not close. Prisoner of War Interrogation. 11. Excellent results were obtained from the close co-operation with Auswertestelle West - formerly Dulag Luft; collated reports resulting from detailed interrogation of Allied aircrew provided valuable matter for Ic publications as well as for filling in gaps in Order of Battle, etc., left by the "Y" service, and supplying the Y-Service itself with working data. 12. The actual methods employed by the Germans in the interrogation of their prisoners has been set out in detail in A.D.I.(K) 388/1945. It is perhaps worth recording that Oberst WODARG was frequently caused no little embarrassment as a result of Generalleutnant SCHMID of Jagdkorps I being on the distribution list for P/W interrogation reports; SCHMID usually had his copy first, and WODARG found it disconcerting to have to tell GOERING things he already knew. Air Reconnaissance. 13. The G.A.F. strategic reconnaissance effort was limited by lack of fast aircraft types. During the period leading up to the invasion, reconnaissance of England by day had been practically nil; at the end of May 1944 two Me.109's succeeded in carrying out a probing reconnaissance of the Isle of Wight under cover of cloud and an American four-engined sortie. The invasion fleet in Southampton was covered only once - whereupon a night attack by Fliegerkorps IX followed. Beyond a few isolated daylight efforts, reconnaissance results consisted entirely of night flash bomb cover - mainly valueless - and visual reconnaissance by Me.410's. 14. With the introduction of the Ar.234 subsequent to the invasion, the situation improved steadily. Airfields, harbours, London etc. could then be effectively covered. Nevertheless there were still too few aircraft (three names of pilots only were to be read on aerial photographs), and the enemy picture obtained continued to be only a partial one. This state of affairs was partly due to the emphasis placed on tactical reconnaissance, the results of which were of interest only to the Army and G.A.F. operation commands. 15. Scientific evaluation and appreciation of aerial photographs by Ic was made difficult through bad organisation, the G.A.F. Hauptbildabteilung being subordinated to the General der Aufklärungsflieger. Fremde Heere West (Foreign Armies West) and 3 S.K.L. 16. Ic placed great value on the information on Order of Battle, subordinations and directions of thrust of Allied ground forces supplied by Fremde Heere West, which for its own part found the Ic enemy air situation report extremely useful, in that the Order of Battle of air ground support units showed a clearer cut and timelier picture of enemy intentions than the movement of military ground forces. 17. Fr.H.W. issued extremely good appreciations. Alone with Ic/West it pointed continually to the probability of one sole landing on the Normandy coast, in opposition to the firm Wehrmachtsführungsstab belief in the likelihood of a second landing in the Straits of Dover. 18. Intelligence received from 3.S.K.L. the Naval liaison unit, was for the most part scrappy, owing to the dearth of information regarding the occupation of Allied harbours and the distribution of the Allied navies, landing craft and merchant fleets. Reports from Operational Commands. 19. Ic officers at the front complied only partially with Chef Ic's requirements, owing to a variety of reasons, such as Chef Ic's lack of personal influence, the sometimes poor quality of the Ic officers themselves, and the emphasis placed at the front on the reporting of the enemy’s actions rather than on knowledge about him, such knowledge being merely designated as enemy propaganda. 20. The main teak of Operational Command Ic's was to teleprint to Ops. Staff In a current enemy situation report, comprising Order of Battle, operations, tactics and any special considerations such as possibilities of air landings, invasion eta. These reports were, however, only forthcoming at irregular intervals and even then seemingly with an ill grace. Thus, with the exception of the Luftflotte 3 Ic appreciation prior to the invasion, Front Ic reports could not be considered as a regular source of intelligence comparable with Auswertestelle West or the W/T Listening Service. 21. A further duty was also neglected by Ic's at the front, that of passing up Staffel reports to Chef Ic and passing down Chef Ic reports to the Staffeln. Instead, every month each Operational Command painstakingly produced its own comprehensive report of the air situation carefully printed and edited and covering enemy incursions, operation., Order of Battle strength, subordination., etc., the figures naturally differing between one Command and another, and from those of Chef Ic who had other sources at his disposal. 22. As for the sources available to Operational Commands, on which the reports were based, Oberstleutnant OHLETZ, one-time Chief Intelligence Officer of Luftflotte 6, gave the following as sources available between January 1941 and March 1943:- i) The Luftflotte tactical and strategical reconnaissance units. These were at the disposal of the Ic as and when required. ii) A signals intercept unit for the Luftflotte 6 area. iii) The interrogation centre for Russian flying and Flak personnel. iv) A photographic unit. v) Evaluation of battle experience of Luftflotte 6 units. vi) A captured equipment evaluation centre. vii) Current data from adjacent Luftflotten. viii) Reports from Ic-Heer, supplied by the Army Group Centre. ix) Reports from the Military Intelligence Service affecting Luftflotte 6 area. 23. OHLEZ states that results of a tactical nature were distributed by him to Luftflotte 6 units. Full details were sent to O.K.L. Ic and Army Group Centre, and brought to the daily conferences of the Flottenchef with his Chief of General Staff and officers in charge of operations. 24. It is therefore not difficult to understand why Operational Command Ic's with such resources at their disposal and in view of their special operational commitments, should feel themselves independent and to some extent intolerant of control by Chef Ic, and why Chef Ic on his side, with responsibility for the accurate assessment of the full enemy situation, and viewing the situation solely from this standpoint, should maintain that Ic's at the front were overstaffed and negligent of their true functions. Evaluation of the Press. 25. Each Intelligence organisation in Germany made its own arrangements for the procuring and evaluating of foreign newspapers and periodicals. Chef Ic obtained its papers either through the R.S.H.A. or the G.A.F. Air Attachés in Bern, Stockholm and, up to 1944, Madrid, Lisbon and Ankara; Papers were at least four weeks out of date when received owing to poor R.S.H.A. organisation. American newspapers and periodicals were received only occasionally and in small numbers. Luftwesen was responsible for supply within Ic, and thus provided a further cause of delay. 26. Intelligence was extracted from press reports concerning personalities (e.g. from "Aeroplane, "Tatler" and "Sphere"), production figures, photographic material, tactics and economics matters. Technical Intelligence. 27. Enemy aircraft armament was covered mainly by Chef Technische Luftrüstung section A/Rü, and Ic could neither guide nor co-ordinate its work. Generally speaking, A/Rü took upon itself to keep industry and Operation Commands informed, Ic serving to pass its reports down to unit level. 28. These reports mare very good and complete, but came much too late to be really valuable, since TLR-Rü invariably waited until the last details were known on any subject before issuing a report upon it. For the same reason Ic only received at long and irregular intervals reports on Allied aircraft shot down. Broadcast Monitoring. 29. Of special interest and value were the broadcast links between the news agencies and their correspondents in the various capitals of the world. Of broadcasting stations, the B.B.C. and Swiss stations were considered the most reliable, Daventry in particular being appreciated for its figures concerning Allied sorties and losses. Indeed, during the period between the invasion and collapse, BBC reports were often the only source of reliable information on the war situation. 30. Radio monitoring was done by O.K.W.-Chi, its Naval counterpart the Seehausdienst, and the Forschungsamt, the results being sorted out and distributed by Ic/Luftwesen. Agents. 31. The complete failure of the German Agent Organisation as a source of reliable information was attributed by ZETZSCHE to the following causes:- i) The unsuitability of personnel both at home and abroad. ii) Lack of agents in high positions. iii) Many agents inspired by British Intelligence, e.g. Hector, Josephine probably, and Ostra for certain. iv) No agents in America. v) Agents' reports evaluated and issued without reference to Ic, final judgment on them being passed by Abwehr I/Luft (later R.S.H.A. Mil.Amt). vi) The splitting of the Agent organisation between Haupt Amt IV and Haupt Amt VI of the Mil.Amt, thus giving rise to two separate organisations abroad. vii) The final assumption of control by the S.D. causing the whole organisation to fall to pieces, and the flow of useful reports to cease altogether. 32. Liaison was maintained with the Militärisches Amt through Oberstleutnant von DEWITZ. From the middle of 1944, however, agents' reports were not passed out to Commands owing to their proved unreliability. Attaché Reports. 33. Attaché reports came from Amtsgruppe Ausland (Admiral BÖRKNER) of O.K.W. which passed to Ic important reports from military, Naval and G.A.F. attachés, as well as direct from Air Attachés in neutral countries, organised by the Ic Attaché Gruppe. 34. For the most part attaché reports consisted of descriptions of economic conditions and morale abroad, sometimes amounting to no more than translations of newspaper reports. Little of any value was ever received concerning England, France or U.S.A. On the other hand attachés often swallowed whole rumours issued by the Allies for German consumption, e.g. rumours concerning the imminent invasion of Norway, the Balkans, etc. 35. Air attaches were not held in very high esteem partly owing to their being considered poorly chosen for the task and partly owing to lack of firm direction by Ic (Luftwesen). Diplomatic Reports. 36. Reports from the Foreign Office and agencies abroad came to Ic both through Amtsgruppe Ausland of O.K.H. and through the Ic Liaison Officer with the Foreign Office, Hauptmann EHRENHAUS (Ic/Luftwesen/Pol). They were of little military value. 37. Intelligence concerning foreign diplomatic exchanges was received from the Forschungsamt (subordinated directly to GOERING) through Ic/Luftwesen/Abwehr, and was given a restricted distribution. It consisted of intercepted Allied radio-telegrams (e.g. London-Stockholm), ordinary radio reports (e.g. Atlantic Radio) and intercepted traffic between diplomats and ministers on certain links, Ankara-Moscow (Turks), Bern-Washington (Americans), London Washington (Poles). 36. The last-mentioned source was of great value before and during the invasion and after the breaking-off of Turkish-German relations. In general the Forschungsamt reports contained a great deal of significant information concerning economic and political matters. Reports from Repatriated Germans. 39. The Army, Navy, G.A.F. and Gestapo interrogated at will both military and civilian repatriates. A general lack of direction and coordination resulted. Auswertestelle West, Oberursel, was responsible for the G.A.F. interrogations and obtained many interesting details on enemy morale and supply. FREMDE LUFTWAFFE OST (FOREIGN AIR FORCES EAST). 40. This section, the eastern front counterpart of Fremde Luftwaffe West, covered the Soviet Union, China, Sweden, Finland and the Balkans. It was organised into the following subsections:- i) Aufmarsch. In this section the Russian Order of Battle was worked out in the greatest detail. Since the bulk of the Soviet Air Forces was employed tactically in support of the Armies at the front, this work was of the utmost scope and importance. Appreciations of the air situation were issued whenever necessary, on average every three to five days. Maps showing the locations of Soviet flying units were issued on the 1st and 15th of each month. ii) Training and Organisation. This section covered Soviet subordinations and chains of command, the organisation of Soviet flying schools and the training of pilots. iii) Archives. This section was responsible for provision of target data. It covered Soviet Industry, power plants, oil installations, ball bearing factories, etc. It issued industrial reports, based mainly on P/W statements and W/T intercept material supplied by the Forschungsamt. iv) Auswertestelle Ost (Evaluation Centre East). This organisation differed from Auswertestelle West in that it dealt only with the most important and knowledgeable prisoners, as for instance the Russian Inspector of Fighters who landed with his staff by mistake on a German airfield in 1943. Thirty to forty P/W at the most were at Auswertestelle Ost at any one time. The remainder were dealt with by the interrogation centres of the individual Luftflotten, which reported anything of interest daily. Since the Listening Service provided the complete Soviet Order of Battle, and knowledge of Soviet tactics was deemed unimportant, P/W were only kept for what information they might provide concerning Soviet organisation. Auswertestelle Ost was located near Karlsbad and was under the command of Oberstleutnant MOLTERS. MELDEWESEN. 41. As the receiving and distributing centre for all data concerning German and Allied operations, Meldewesen constituted an information bureau highly appreciated by its users, i.e. O.K.W., O.K.L., GOERING, Operational sub-areas, etc. The limited communications and staff of Ic were however, insufficient to cope with the stream of enquiries from HITLER, GOERING, Chief of General Staff and the rest, so that the flying units were perforce neglected and the very success of this section tended to have a detrimental effect on the work of Ic as a whole. LUFTWESEN. 42. This department was an unhappy attempt to co-ordinate a number of widely differing functions. It comprised the following sub-sections, some of which have been already referred to:- L/Abwehr, which was responsible for the maintenance of security within the G.A.F. and for the security training of the flying units. For the first task it did not dispose of sufficient personnel, and as already indicated, Fremde Luftwaffen West and Ost were the only departments competent to carry out the second. However, from the middle of 1944 an Oberleutnant ROLFES was appointed liaison officer with German P/W camps with the object of exploiting the intelligence possibilities of this source. L/Pol. Maintained Ic liaison with the Foreign Office. His main effort was to produce his "Aussenpolitischen Wochenbericht", a weekly report on the political situation, reflecting Foreign Office views and mainly emphasising the reasons for an Anglo-American-Soviet Russian conflict of views. L/Informationsdienst sorted and distributed radio reports sent in by O.K.W./Chi. L/Presse received reports from the Army, Field Propaganda companies etc. as well as foreign publications. Liaison with the S.D. was provided by Major MERKWITZ and Hauptmann BULA. Attaché Gruppe. Owing to the total lack of accommodation in Berlin, the close direction of Attachés by Luftwesen was made impossible and their control virtually ineffective. INDEPENDENT SPECIALISTS. 43. Ic Wirtschaft. In this section Oberstleutnant SEIDL, with the assistance of one officer, issued a monthly report on Anglo-American bombing attacks, comprising details of damage, falling-off of production etc. and predicting probable future Allied tactics. Ic/See. This department covered purely Naval matters. Ic/Bild. Theoretically for the purpose of Ic-liaison with the Main Photographic Section, this department was rendered superfluous owing to the practice of subordinate units by-passing Ic and dealing direct with the Hauptbildabteilung. PUBLICLTIONS ISSUED BY Ic. 44. The succeeding paragraphs in this report are in the form of a catalogue of publications issued by Chef Ic. Hauptmann ZETZSCHE's assessment of the scale of contribution to the subject matter of these reports by the various sources of intelligence already mentioned will be found in Appendix I to this report. A diagram prepared by Hauptmann ZETZSCHE summarising the sources which went to make up Ic's publications appears in Appendix II. (a) Maps showing Order of Battle. Maps of the Western Front (Great Britain and France), Southern Front (Italy), Mediterranean area and the world as a whole were issued monthly down to Divisional level and to O.K.W., O.K.L., O.K.H. and O.K.M. Printing difficulties were responsible for this limiting of distribution. (b) Rechenzettel (Allied Strength Estimate). Issued monthly down to Divisional level and to the Flugmeldedienst. (c) Truppenfeststellungen. Covered unit transfers, rearmament and changes of subordination and command, quoting the source of each item, e.g. Presse, Grönbild (covername for Listening Service). (Issued every two to three days to Luftflotte Ic's and the Flugmeldedienst). (d) Appreciations of the Air Situation. Teleprinted at three to five-daily intervals to specialist departments of O.K.W, O.K.H., O.K.M., Luftflotte Ic's and Air Observation Units, these appreciations covered tactics employed against special targets, new operational procedures, estimates of Allied production and losses, ferrying figures, invasion potentialities. (e) Red Books. Issued by Gruppe B of Fremde Luftwaffen West, the so-called Red Books contained data concerning Allied targets and airfields and those of neutral countries. (f) Target Data and Photographs. Also issued by Gruppe B. (g) Notes on Allied Air Armament. Figures of Allied production and losses, derived mainly from press and radio reports were prepared for O.K.L. headquarters units. German and agent reports of aircraft shot down were disregarded owing to unreliability. These figures, as well as Ic predictions, proved more accurate than those issued by TLR/Rü. (h) Reports on Allied Morale. Contained notes on morale, supplies, political questions, economy, etc. derived from P/W statements and extracts from captured letters. (i) Foreign Comment on the Air War. Press and radio opinion concerning the German and Allied air forces, presented in tendencious form to illustrate various themes, such as, for instance, that the G.A.F. was handmaiden of the German Army. (j) Ic Kurzmeldungen. Immediate reports on new aircraft types, new operational procedures, new commanders and their characteristics, new weapons and apparatus, etc. Distribution was extremely varied to include all possible interest parties. Up to the middle of 1944 advance warnings of Allied attacks, derived from P/W interrogations, captured maps and target data, were also promulgated in this form. After that date, to avoid unnecessary delay, they were issued independently at source by Auswertestelle West. (k) Stichworte zum Feindeinsatz (Notes on Enemy Operations). Contained extracts from P/W interrogation reports of special interest, evaluations of captured documents, press and radio reports etc. Cartoons from the foreign press added immensely to its popularity. It was issued every three to five days and distributed to some 60 departments (O.K.L., Commands, Flugmeldedienst Units, Research, Industry, etc.). (l) P/W Interrogation Reports. Demand for these was great largely owing to the political observations they contained, and until about August 1944 they were allowed a wide distribution. After this data the original reports were limited to Commands sod Air Observation Units, the remainder receiving "Stichworte sum Feindeinsatz" instead. (m) Blue Books. Instituted by KIENITZ at the end of 1943, the Blue Books dealt with subjects of a confidential nature, e.g. American day operations, A1lied ground support, British navigation, etc. However, in spite of a wealth of illustration and good printing they proved a failure, being too bulky to be easily read, apart from the contention in certain high quarters that they only amounted to Allied propaganda. (n) Einzelnachrichten des Ic Dienstes (Special Ic Studies). The first of this series was brought out in the middle of 1943, nothing of the kind having been attempted before. At first they appeared weekly on such subjects as "American day and British night operations", "Experiences of Fliegerkorps IX in the bombing of London", etc. With the dropping of the Blue Book series round about June 1944, E-N began to include such restricted subjects as "Allied twin-engined operations', "American fighter navigation", etc. Difficulties were encountered in its distribution, which were countered by the printing of 3,000 copies. It was highly valued by such as managed to get hold of it, and was in constant demand by the Wehrmacht, industry and research. (o) Schnellbildsendungen (Rapid Photo Delivery). This was a system, inaugurated by Ic/See, of delivering negatives to Commands in order that the latter might run off as many prints as were required by subordinate units. The system was originally utilised by Ic/See for distributing Ship types, but Ic applied the idea generally to the swift distribution of new aircraft types, captured H2X negatives, and apparatus, aerial photographs of airfields, etc. The system did not work effectively; for instance, it took longer to procure both positives and negatives from the Main Photographic Section than to obtain the required number of prints. Moreover, the shortage of photographic material at Commands made it difficult for them to do the necessary printing from the negatives which they received. Finally, the previous system of delivering normal prints had to be reverted to. A.D.I.(K) and Walter A. Frank U.S. Air Interrogation. for:- S.D. Felkin 2nd October 1945 Group Captain. SECRET. APPENDIX I. AN ASSESSEMENT BY HAUPTMANN ZETSCHE OF THE RELATIVE CONTRIBUTIONS OF IC SOURCES TOWARDS FINAL APPRECIATIONS BY CHEF IC. A. ORDER OF BATTLE. W/T Listening Service……………………………………… 70% P/W Statements ) Captured Material )…………………………………………… 20% Press ……………………………………………………………………………… 1% Air Photos ………………………………………………………………… 9% B. SUBORDINATIONS AND CHAINS OF COMMAND. W/T Listening Service……………………………………… 50% P/W Statements ) Captured Material )………………………………………… 5% Press ……………………………………………………………………………… 45% C. PERSONALITIES. Press ……………………………………………………………………………… 90% P/W Statements ) Captured Material )…………………………………………… 10% D. OPS. APPRECIATIONS. P/W Statements ……………………………………………………… 55% Captured Material ……………………………………………… 20% W/T Listening Service …………………………………… 20% Press ……………………………………………………………………………… 5% E. TECHNICAL APPRECIATIONS. P/W Statements ……………………………………………………… 30% Captured Equipment …………………………………………… 50% Press ……………………………………………………………………………… 20% F. ESTIMATES OF ENEMY PRODUCTION. Ferrying and O.B. Data (Mainly W/T Listening Service) …………………………………………… 35% Enemy Losses …………………………………………………………… 30% Radio and Press …………………………………………………… 30% P/W Statements ……………………………………………………… 4% Agents' Reports …………………………………………………… 1% G. ESTIMATES OF ENEMY LOSSES. P/W Statements ……………………………………………………… 20% Press and Radio …………………………………………………… 40% W/T Listening Service ………………………………… 30% Neutral Reports …………………………………………………… 9% Agents' Reports …………………………………………………… 1%"
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Radio and radar equipment in the luftwaffe
"A. D. I. (K) Report No. 365/1945
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM P/W AS THE STATEMENTS HAVE NOT AS YET BEEN VERIFIED, NO MENTION OF THEM SHOULD BE MADE IN INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OF COMMANDS OR LOWER FORMATIONS, NOR SHOULD THEY BE ACCEPTED UNTIL COMMENTED ON AIR MINISTRY INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OR SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS. RADIO AND RADAR EQUIPMENT IN THE LUFTWAFFE – V. I.F.F. 1. This report is the fifth of the series dealing with radio and radar equipment in the Luftwaffe. As in the case of the previous four reports (A.D.I.(K) 343, 357, 362 and 363/1945), it is based on interrogation of General Nachrichtenführer MARTINI, Director General of G.A.F. Signals, and some members of his staff, and has been supported by a number of relevant documents of recent date which were in the possession of the General's Chief of Staff. 2. For convenience in reading, the report is divided into three main sections covering the following applications of I.F.F. A - Flak. B - Early Warning Radar. C - Air-to-Air Recognition. GERMAN VIEWS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF I.F.F. 3. Before the outbreak of war the practical application of radar was mainly concentrated upon its use as an aid to Flak, and the Germans did not realise the importance of an early warning service until after hostilities had begun. In consequence the need for the identification of friendly aircraft picked up by radar sets arose initially mainly in conjunction with Flak requirements. 4. Owing possibly to the fact that the first solution to the Flak problem was not as successful as that achieved in connection with early-warning radar, while at the time great importance was attached to Flak as a defensive weapon, much effort was devoted in the first few years to producing a suitable identification system for that arm. 5. By 1944, the American bomber force was able to bomb Berlin by daylight in clear weather with insignificant losses by Flak, despite the application of various radar and optical aids. As a result, Flak had fallen into disrepute as to defensive weapon. 6. This opinion of the ineffectiveness of Flak was very pronounced among the members of the Signals Staff of the G.A.F. and it is hoped to give their reasons for this view in a later report in this series on Ground Radar. Flak was regarded by them as an out of date weapon and for this reason as well as on account of the inherent difficulties of the problem, practically no effort was made to provide a means of identification of friendly aircraft for Flak purposes during the later stages of the war. 7. On the other hand the position of early warning radar was exactly the reverse and as early warning became vital so the G.A.F. attached ever greater importance to I.F.F. for early Warning radars, particularly in connection with bad weather and night raids involving feints and spoof sorties. It was considered essential to obtain a clear picture of the tracks of Allied raiding aircraft and to avoid any confusion with German fighter aircraft which also flew in group. The latest endeavour in this field went so far as to provide separate identification for different G.A.F. night fighter units in order to assist ground control still further. 8. Increasing attention was also being paid to air-to-air recognition between German aircraft but this, though considered desirable, was not thought to be nearly so important as the essential requirement that friendly aircraft should be recognisable to the early warning service In order that a true picture of the progress of Allied bomber attacks could be obtained and fighter aircraft vectored to the attack by ground control. A – I.F.F. FOR FLAK 9. At the beginning of 1939 it was intended to equip all Flak sites with a radar fire control apparatus then being developed by the firm of Lorenz. The Lorenz apparatus proved unsatisfactory and in the course of 1939 the Würzburg, produced by Telefunken, was adopted for Flak fire control. 10. The need for the recognition of friendly aircraft for Flak purposes had been apparent to the Germans and an I.F.F. set for use with the Würzburg was produced, and was available at the outbreak of war. It was known as the Zwilling and was given the designation FuGe 25. 11. The 50 cm. Würzburg transmission received by the FuGe 25 caused the FuGe 25 transmitter to broadcast an audible morse signal on the same frequency, which could then be heard by the Würzburg operator in his headphones. As this was not a retransmission of the Würzburg radar pulses, it gave no indication of range and might equally well have originated from an aircraft in the vicinity beamed by some other Würzburg. General MARTINI was fully aware at this stage that the FuGe 25 was no real solution to the identification problem. 12. Meanwhile, the firm of Gema had produced the Freya for the Navy, and in October 1939 eight of these had been taken over by the G.A.F. and were stationed on the East end North Frisian Islands, where they proved their value la combatting early British bombing attacks directed against the North Sea ports. 13. In November 1939 Gema demonstrated an I.F.F. set for use with Freya which proved to be forerunner of the FuGe 25A Erstling. General MARTINI recognised immediately that this Freya I.F.F. which operated on the principle of returning the Freya pulses and which provided range measurement, was a far superior solution and he endeavoured to use his authority to have the new principle universally adopted for Flak. 14. At that time many different departments were involved and partly on this account and partly because FuGe 25 Zwilling was sponsored by the Technisches Amt, MARTINI failed to gain his point. (see also A.D.I.(K) 334/1945),paras. 95-96). It was only with great difficulty that he was able to persuade the R.L.M. in early 1940 that an order for 3,000 FuGe 25A for Freyas should be placed and even then considerable delay occurred before they were supplied. 15. During 1940 and 1941 the shortcomings of the Zwilling gradually became apparent, particularly in connection with night fighter operations, but by the time the advantages of the FuGe 25A Erstling had been recognised and the set had been finally adopted, over 10,000 Zwilling sets had already been manufactured. 16. The original Freya used a wavelength of 2.40 metres to which the FuGe 25A Erstling responded on 1.90 metres. To permit of the universal application of the FuGe 25A a small transmitter called the Kuh had to be built into other types of early warning radar in order to interrogate the airborne set. The response was picked up by the Gemse receiver unit. In this manner a simple pair of wavelengths were, in effect, set aside for aircraft I.F.F. purposes. 17. In spite of these achievements the Flak problem had not been completely solved, as it was not possible to produce a sufficiently beamed transmission on 2.40 metres to be certain that a response seen on the recognition tube was that of the aircraft in the Würzburg beam. Various expedients were tried out but as mentioned above, the problem still remained unsolved up to the end of the war and was finally abandoned. FUGE 25 - ZWILLING. 18. The FuGe 25 Zwilling (= twin) received the Würzburg pulses on a 50 cm. carrier wave and re-transmitted a morse recognition signal on the same frequency, but as it did not re-transmit the pulses received, no range could be obtained by the ground set. The shortcomings of this system were recognised in 1941 end a series of attempts was made to overcome them by using responder technique as detailed below. HÄUPTLING. 19. In order that the Flak Würzburgs should get a range with their recognition signal, the FuGe 25 Zwilling was converted so that the pulses received on 50 cm. were re-transmitted on the FuGe 25a wavelength of 1.90 m. This conversion was complete by the autumn of 1942. The new set was called Häuptling. About this time, however, Allied jamming of Würzburgs commenced and the Germans were forced to produce Würzburgs on various wavelengths known as Insel A 53.0-54.2 cm. and Insel B 56.7-58.0 cm. As a result, the FuGe 25 no longer responded to all Würzburgs and so the Häuptling did not fulfil its task. KUCKUCK. 20. When Würzburgs on various frequencies were introduced, the basic FuGe 25 set was finally given up and the FuGe 25A Erstling became the standard airborne set. 21. All Würzburg radars were provided with a Kuh type transmitter on 2.40 m. called the Kuckuck, the aerials for which were placed in the Würzburg paraboloid. The resultant polar diagram was extremely wide-angled as compared with the Würzburg beam and a response at the same range as that of the aircraft held in the beam was not positive proof of identity if many aircraft were about. 22. In addition the 2.40 metre transmission spilled over and could be picked up at distances of as much as 10/15 km. behind the Würzburg set, so that even aircraft behind the Würzburg were triggered off. As Flak was only interested in aircraft within firing range of the Würzburg, this procedure was at its weakest with the very type of recognition for which it had been expressly designed, and in consequence Kuckuck was finally condemned as a failure in 1943. WOBBELBIENE. 23. With the failure of Kuckuck the Germans decided that the only solution to the Flak problem was to apply British I.F.F. technic. The FuGe 225, known as Wobbelbiene, which was designed to sweep through (Wobbeln) the 50 cm. to 60 cm. band and act as responder (Biene), was developed for this purpose and was to have been introduced in the winter of 1943/1944. This, however, still did not cover the new Würzburg Insel C of 62.3 - 63.8 cm., which was being introduced in 1944. 24. Further modifications to Wobbelbiene were considered in order to cover this waveband but many difficulties, both mechanical and electrical, had been encountered with the design despite the fact that the set was said to be a direct copy of British R.F.3090. 25. The project was ultimately given up before being used operationally and up to the end of the war no satisfactory solution to the Flak problem had been found. B - I.F.F. FOR EARLY-WARNING RADAR. 26. The Kuh and Gemse arrangement in conjunction with the FuGe 25A whereby two wavelengths, 2.40 m. for interrogation and 1.90 for response, had been set aside for I.F.F., worked satisfactorily for early-warning radars. MARTINI's staff considered that this system was superior to the then current British principle of an I.F.F. set sweeping through the various early-warning wave bands and responding only intermittently to a particular frequency. 27. When Allied jamming became serious, it was fully realised that the use of one special wavelength for recognition purposes, rendered recognition very vulnerable to Allied countermeasures although it was considered difficult from a technical point of view to carry out effective jamming. 28. To anticipate this eventuality, a tactical requirement was formulated in 1943/1944 calling for a FuGe 25A working on a new frequency and the Erstling-Grün was designed and manufactured, but never put into use as the Allies did not employ the expected counter-measures. 29. With the advent, during the course of 1944, of automatic sweeping ground radar with a P.P.I. presentation like Jagdschloss, a new problem for I.F.F. arose. So long as the recognition signal emitted by the aircraft in responding was a morse letter there was no guarantee that it would come up effectively as the beam swept over the target aircraft. 30. The Germans' first solution of this problem, was the Erstling-Rot, a form of FuGe 25A, which responded with the morse identifications separated by a six-second dash, thereby ensuring that response was sufficiently continuous for the ground set to sweep the aircraft at least once whilst the airborne set was transmitting the long dash. 31. In 1944 Allied radio countermeasures became more intense and it was realised by the Germans that the general principle applied in all their anti-jamming countermeasures must also hold for I.F.F. This principle was to have a number of alternative frequencies available for every type of set and a new tactical requirement embodying this facility was, therefore, formulated. 32. It was decided that the new I.F.F. set must also give continuous presentation of the recognition response so that ground controllers could immediately identify friendly aircraft. At the same time this would solve the identification problem for panoramic ground equipment of the Jagdschloss type. 33. This requirement led to the development of the Neuling which, however, had not been used operationally up to the end of the war. It appears to have been a set with a number of novel features which are discussed below at some length. 34. In complete contradiction of the principles used in all earlier sets, the problem of I.F.F. for centimetre radar was to be solved by using the searching beam to trigger off the I.F.F. set. A small unit called the Frischling was to convert the centimetre wavelength to a frequency which would be accepted by the standard Erstling receiver. FuGe 25A – ERSTLING. 35. The FuGe 25A is the well known set which has been installed in every German aircraft since about the beginning of 1942 and which had also been used for Egon control(see A.D.I.(K) 357/1945). It was often referred to as the Erstling. 36. It was a responding transmitter receiving on 2.40 m.(the original Freya frequency) and re-transmitting the pulses received on 1.90 metre. A morse signal repeated roughly every two seconds was superimposed on the re-transmission, six alternative codes being available. It was claimed that an advantage of using a morse letter as recognition was that it could easily be read by ear through the operator's headphones and that this was easier than following the recognition C.R. tube by eye. ERSTLING-ROT. 37. In the early part of 1945 the G.A.F. began to introduce a form of FuGe 25A known as the Erstling-Rot. It was designed to deal with recognition difficulties occurring with ground radar of the automatic sweeping type such as Jagdschloss. 38. The Erstling-Rot separated the morse signals by a dash of six seconds duration - a period sufficient to ensure that the ground radar swept the target. It embodied an improvement in that it permitted of 18 different morse recognition signals being superimposed on the re-transmission instead of only six as in the case of the original Erstling. 39. Originally it was to have a more powerful transmitter but this requirement was allowed to lapse when it was realised that the factors limiting range were the sensitivity of the FuGe 25A receiver or the power of the ground interrogator. A project for a more powerful ground interrogator called the Gross Kuh was considered, but as the ranges obtained with the normal Kuh were thought to be adequate this idea was abandoned. ERSTLING GRÜN 40. The G.A.F. signals staff realised that the use of a single frequency for recognition purposes exposed them to the danger of Allied R.C.M. In view of this a version of the FuGe 25A operating on a new frequency was produced which was known as the Erstling-Grün. The wavelengths used were to be 2.52 metres for interrogation and about 2.00 metres for the response. 41. The small shift in wavelength was dictated by the need to avoid new ground equipment. With the relatively small frequency change the Kuh and Gemse were capable of being adjusted to the new frequencies by the field "S. und I" (maintenance and repair) teams, and so an economy was effected. 42. Erstling-Grün was never used operationally as Allied jamming of the original Erstling frequency was never experienced. NEULING. 43. The FuGe 226, usually referred to as the Neuling, was to have been available for installation in operational aircraft by December 1944, but owing to difficulties encountered during the trials carried out at Rechlin it was not yet ready at the time of the capitulation. Lorenz were responsible for its production and Dr. KRAMAR of that firm was considered the expert on its technical aspects. 44. The Neuling, which was considered to be a good solution to the identification problem, was designed to overcome previous difficulties and to provide new facilities. The tactical requirement originally called for were:- (a) Continuous presentation of I.F.F. signals on all types of early-warning radar including panoramic radars such as Jagdschloss. (b) Twelve alternative pairs of frequencies for I.F.F. (later reduced to six pairs) - each pair to consist of an interrogating and response frequency. (c) Air to air recognition between German aircraft. 45. This ambitious programme was not fulfilled when the FuGe 226 was tried out in the later part of 1944 at Rechlin, but the experts who carried out the trials believed that the main requirements could be met by sacrificing half the pairs of frequencies, thereby limiting the set to six frequency pairs. 46. To meet requirement (a) and provide continuous presentation of the recognition signal on the ground radar, and at the same time permit the simultaneous use of a number of different frequencies, the responder and transmitter were to sweep very rapidly through the selected band which was believed to be 125 - 167 mc/s. 47. The receiver and transmitter sweeps were synchronised a few megacycles apart, so that the response was always on a slightly different frequency to that of the interrogation. This sweep was to be carried out sufficiently rapidly for the blip on the recognition tube of a ground set interrogating on one of the frequencies to appear continuous to the eye of the operator. 48. Presumably, even allowing for after-glow effects, the frequency of sweep must have been extremely high. It was not known exactly what repetition rate was used, nor what technical method was employed to obtain such a high rate of sweep through the band. 49. Great importance was attached to requirement (a) as it allowed ground controllers to obtain continuous recognition on Jagdschloss type P.P.I. tubes and so distinguish between friendlies and hostiles. It also greatly assisted the control of friendly fighters by Freya stations. 50. The requirement (a) for continuous presentation of the recognition signal appeared to have precedence over the requirement (b) for twelve alternative pairs of frequencies since in order to meet (a) Rechlin decided that the number of channels available would have to be cut from twelve to six pairs. It was found by Rechlin that squeezing twelve separate frequencies for response (which could not overlap with interrogation frequencies) into the swept band caused the band width of the individual responder frequencies to be so narrow that the recognition blip became too thin and indistinct on the ground radar recognition tube. 51. It was hoped that requirement (b) - the provision of alternative frequencies - would prove a safeguard against possible Allied R.C.M. It was also believed that it would aid in mitigating clutter on the recognition tubes of Freya etc., since interrogation would be spread over a number of frequencies. Wandering blips resulting from neighbouring ground radars which triggered off other aircraft obscured the tube and caused this clutter. 52. Efforts had also been made to overcome this trouble by building an arrangement into ground radars which prevented interrogation being carried out continuously as was often the undesirable habit of operators. By means of this arrangement power was cut off from the Kuh aerials about a minute after the interrogation switch had been depressed and this device also prevented interrogation until a further short period had elapsed. 53. Requirement (c) was only third in importance. The air to air I.P.F. facility, however, entailed a disadvantage which was regarded as a serious one, namely that when being used for that purpose the Neuling was no longer capable of responding to interrogating by other radar apparatus on the ground. 54. The tactical application of the Neuling must be considered in relation to the defence problems which the Allied bomber forces set Germany in 1944. The Germans regarded it as essential for the defence and more particularly for night defence that they should be able to obtain an absolutely clear picture of the air situation and identify Allied bomber streams unequivocally and at a glance. The P.P.I. presentation of ground radar like Jagdschloss and Forsthaus was beginning to be appreciated and attempts were being made to control directly from these panoramic displays. 55. It will be remembered too that German night fighter Gruppen operating under the Verbandsflug system flew together in loose groups or patrolled in the area of a selected beacon. It was, therefor, considered essential that these aircraft should be immediately identified as friendly on the P.P.I. tube and not confused with a bomber stream. It was also held to be of great value to ground controllers to have a means available for identifying one Gruppe from another with equal immediacy. 56. To attain these requirement one of the six interrogating frequencies available was allotted to early-warning radar and the remaining five were to be given to different night fighter Gruppen or Geschwader. The Neuling in each aircraft was then so switched that it could receive and respond to two of the six Neuling frequency pairs, viz. the early-warning frequency and the frequency allotted to the Gruppe to which the aircraft belonged. 57. For Jagdschloss panoramic ground equipment a complete continuous identification picture divided into friendlies and hostiles could be obtained by interrogating on the earlywarning frequency. 58. By simply training a knob the transmitter and receiver could be switched to the frequency pair of a particular operational Gruppe and this presented no technical difficulty with Breitband aerials. Aircraft of that Gruppe could then be identified immediately in the over-all picture on the P.P.I. tube. This facility was considered a great advance both from the point of view of I.F.F. and of ease of ground control of night fighters. 59. P/W who claimed to have seen a ground P.P.I. display during the Neuling trials stated that the recognition blip came up on the tube as an extension of the reflected blip at slightly greater range and that it subtended a greater angle in the display. He described it as a "sausage rather longer than the aircraft blip and sitting on it". 60. Reference has been found in a document to a Neuling covering the band 1,000-1,500 mc/s. The P/W who was responsible for the formulation of radar requirements stated that he had never heard of a Neuling on this frequency, but suggested that it might be for use in responding directly to the beam of 25 cm. ground radars such as Forsthaus F. This suggestion appears unlikely, however, as it seems to involve a departure from the Neuling principle. FRISCHLING. 61. In view of the introduction of highly beamed 9 cm. ground radar such as Forsthaus Z and Jagdschloss Z, it had been decided to depart from the principle of using a separate interrogation frequency and to employ the search beam to trigger off I.F.F. For this purpose a special attachment to the airborne Erstling called Frischling had been planned. This was a receiver on 9 cm. which converted the frequency to that of the Erstling so that it responded on 1.90 metres. 62. With the planned introduction of the Neuling, consideration was given to a modification of the Neuling whereby a Frischling attachment would be built in for the purpose of converting the frequency and so trigger off the Neuling in the same manner. P/W was not clear whether this would only apply to one frequency of the Neuling, nor did he know what technical method would be used to accomplish it. 63. Frischling was to be produced by Telefunken but was still in course of development when the ear came to an end. AIR-TO-AIR I.F.F. 64. For some reason as yet unexplained, the German interest in air-to-air recognition only became great enough for suitable equipment to be designed during the last stages of the war. During the year preceding the termination of hostilities, captured night fighter crews consistently maintained that some improved form of I.F.F. which would allow recognition of friendly aircraft was expected but no attempt appears to have been made to adapt the FuGe 25A for this purpose. 65. The present P/W assert that so long as I.F.F. and airto- air search operated on metric wavelengths and could not be sharply beamed, the problem of air-to-air recognition could only be half solved, as a range identification only was obtained. It was realised that with a dense bomber stream there would be so many aircraft comparatively near to the fighter that recognition by range only was not very valuable. Nevertheless the Neuling FuGe 226, which was shortly to be introduced, was to have provided air-to-air I.F.F. facilities. 66. In the beginning of 1945 the Germans tackled this problem for centimetric search gear and proposed to depart from their original principle of separating search and I.F.F. interrogation. The search beam of centimetre equipment was to be received by the Frischling attachment to the airborne I.F.F. set and the centimetre frequency so converted that the I.F.F. net was triggered off. NEULING. 67. In the Neuling, which has been described above in detail, it was planned to provide air-to-air I.F.F. facilities by the use of a special switch which, when depressed, reversed the roles of the receiver and responding transmitter. The interrogating aircraft could then trigger off the I.F.F. set of neighbouring aircraft and receive its response on the receiver portion of the Neuling. 68. The response was to be fed through to the SN 2 or other set in use and the presentation of this recognition signal was to take the same form as in the Freya, i.e. a second time base carrying the I.F.F. signal was to appear to one side of the main time base. 69. During this operation no I.F.F. response could be made to interrogating ground stations, and this caused some apprehension. To discourage excessive use of air-to-air interrogation, the switch in the aircraft was to be awkwardly placed and inconvenient to operate – a typically German solution to a problem of aircrew training. FRISCHLING. 70. The night fighter search apparatus – the Berlin N.1.A. and the Bremen 0 on 9 cm, and later probably the München on 3 cm were to go into service some time in 1945 as will be discussed in a future report in this series. 71. To provide air-to-air I.F.F. facilities the Frischling, mentioned in paras. 61-63 above, was to be attached to the FuGe 25A and later built into the Neuling as a modification. It was to convert the centimetric beam transmission of air-to-air search apparatus to the frequency of the Erstling FuGe 25A so that the latter was triggered off directly by the searching beam. FALTER WITH GÄNSEBRUST. 72. As early as 1940, experiments had been made with infrared homing on to aircraft exhausts using an infra-red telescope of the Bildwandler type called Spanner. This met with only limited success on account of restricted range and the dependency of infrared on clear weather conditions but the idea was never completely dropped. 73. With the introduction of night fighter commentary and the Verbandsflug tactics in 1944, it was required that night fighter units should fly in groups and keep as close together as possible. 74. It was, therefore, proposed to introduce an aid in the shape of some form of infra-red navigation lights to be viewed through an infra-red telescope. The latter, which was a form of Spanner, was named Falter. As, however, the field of view of this telescope was confined to about 15° it soon transpired during trials at Werneuchen that it was not a practical proposition. 75. In 1944 the idea of using infra-red for recognition which had long lain dormant was once more evoked by the discovery that British bombers were carrying en infra-red recognition light. It was, therefore, proposed that German night fighters should home on to the infra-red lights by means of the Falter. 76. For mutual recognition between night fighters an infrared lamp termed "Gänsebrust" was also planned. It was hoped that Gänsebrust might not only allow recognition between German aircraft but possibly afford some protection from British night fighters which might become uncertain in their recognition of a German night fighter if the Gänsebrust was flashed intermittently even though the British code in use for the night were not known. A.D.I.(K)and S.D. Felkin U.S. Air Interrogation. Group Captain 2nd August 1945"
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THE BERLIN GERÄT
"SECRET A. D. I. (K) Report No. 188/1945
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM P/W AS THE STATEMENTS HAVE NOT AS YET BEEN VERIFIED, NO MENTION OF THEM SHOULD BE MADE IN INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OF COMMANDS OR LOWER FORMATIONS, NOR SHOULD THEY BE ACCEPTED UNTIL COMMENTED ON AIR MINISTRY INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OR SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS. THE BERLIN GERÄT. 1. A recent German Army prisoner, a doctor of Physics of Vienna University, had worked for fifteen months up to 23rd October 1944 in the High frequency research laboratory of the G.E.M.A. G.m.b.H. at Berlin and latterly at Wahlstatt, near Liegnitz. During that period one of his tasks had been to determine the characteristics of the transmission lobe from the aerials of the Berlin Gerät. 2. The Berlin Gerät is a German development of the British H2S, on a wavelength of 9.1 cm., but employs a totally different aerial system developed by Siemens. Whilst P/W's description of the apparatus given in the following paragraphs, is considered to be reliable, he had no knowledge of its eventual operational use. 3. Acknowledgements are due to A.D.I.(Science) for their collaboration in the interrogation. AERIAL SYSTEM 4. The sketch in the Appendix to this report gives an impression of the Berlin aerial unit. 5. The four rods forming the aerial array are composed of a plastic called Trollitul and are of circular cross-section about 4 to 5 cm. in diameter at their base, tapering somewhat to a rounded end. The rods lie parallel to the plane of a circular metal plate of about 1 metre diameter, and about 15 cm, clear of it. 6. The energy to be radiated is led to the aerial rods by a concentric feeder which forks into too branches where it enters the metal plate and again fork; making 4 branches to feed the four aerials. At each of the forks the concentric feeder widens into a funnel shape called a transformer piece, the sloping side of which is a half wavelength long, that is, 4,5 cm. 7. A Trollitul dome some 40 cm in depth covers the aerial array and fits, flush to the edge of the circular metal plate. 8. The whole unit including the aerials can be made to rotate. This prisoner had never seen the apparatus fitted either to an aircraft or a ship and he did not know the speed of rotation; he has an idea however, that the axis of rotation was at an angle to the geometrical axis of the cylindrical disc, so that in an aircraft the transmission beam would be thrown slightly downwards or in a ship, upwards. TRANSMISSION LOBE 9. The Berlin Gerät has a half-value lobe 10° in width in the plane of the four aerial rods and 35° to 37° in width at right-angles to the plane. The lobe was measured by the normal method; the aerial unit, however, was not resting on a metal surface as it would have done if built into an aircraft. Under these conditions the lobe was symmetrical about the axis of the Aerial array. P/W presumed that if the aerial system were built under the fuselage of an aircraft shadow effects would cause the lobe to be asymmetrical or to be deflected. 10. The experiments which P/W had conducted were in the open air; he had found that when rain covered the Trollitul dome with a layer of moisture, no transmissions could be detected, even at a range of 20 metres, along the line of the axis of the aerial rods. He thought that in these circumstances the whole lobe was strongly deflected. PRESENTATION. 11. This P/W had read the regular reports of the "Rotterdam Sitzungen" - a special committee on centimetre radar - and one of these reports contained a description of the Berlin presentation, including photographs taken in an aircraft flying over Kiel Bay. 12. From this report he could remember that the presentation was on a circular screen; coast-lines of the mainland and of islands showed as white ribbon-like stripes and towns appeared as white areas, whilst individual ships in Kiel bay could be seen as small elongated white blobs. 13. He had the impression that distant towns, although slightly distorted in the picture, still retained their approximate shape. He thought that in the photographs of the presentation an area of about 60 km. in diameter was represented; he did not know, however, at what height the aircraft had flown. RECEIVER MAGNETRON. 14. It was stated by P/W that a weak point of the Berlin apparatus was the receiver valve, which frequently broke down. This valve was a magnetron contained in a glass envelope, with a solid metal anode in which four or six holes had been drilled. An impression of the valve, which P/W believed was called the MD2, appears in the sketch in Appendix I. USES OF BERLIN GERÄT. 15. Apart from its use in giving a panorama of the ground over which an aircraft was flying, P/W knew of no other air uses of the apparatus. He understood, however, that the device was to be installed in U-boats as an aircraft warning device. A.D.I.(K) and U.S. Air Interrogation. S.D. FELKIN 24 February 1945. Wing Commander"
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LUFTWAFFE ELECTRIC ALTIMETERS
"SECRET A. D. I. (K) Report No. 362/1945
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM P/W AS THE STATEMENTS HAVE NOT AS YET BEEN VERIFIED, NO MENTION OF THEM SHOULD BE MADE IN INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OF COMMANDS OR LOWER FORMATIONS, NOR SHOULD THEY BE ACCEPTED UNTIL COMMENTED ON AIR MINISTRY INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OR SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS. RADIO AND RADAR EQUIPMENT IN THE LUFTWAFFE – III. ELECTRIC ALTIMETERS 1. This report in the third of the series dealing with radio and radar equipment in the Luftwaffe. As in the case of the previous two reports (A.D.I.(K) 343 and 357/1945), it is based on interrogation of General Nachrichtenführer MARTINI, Director General of G.A.F. Signals, and a few important members of his staff, and has been supported by a number of relevant documents of recent date which were in the possession of the General’s Chief of Staff. 2. The development of electric altimeters was probably the only field of G.A.F. airborne radar technique in which the Germans approached Allied standards. The FuGe 101 had long been standard equipment and was an entirely satisfactory instrument apart from the fact that height readings were limited to a maximum of 750 meters. 3. Efforts were being made to produce improved and, in particular, more compact electric altimeters which would give readings up to great heights, and it was hoped that the FuGe 104, described below, would meet all current requirements. FuGe 101A. 4. This standard sensitive altimeter which had a range scale of 0 – 150 meters or 0 – 750 meter, is already familiar. By the end of the war it was only built into aircraft flying by night and seems to have been used for checking heights in the approach. FuGe 102. 5. The FuGe 102 was an improved electric altimeter giving height readings ranging from 100 to 15,000 meters. It was developed at Oberpfaffenhofen in 1942. Presentation was in the form of a circular trace on a C.R. tube with the zero mark in the 12 o'clock position. 6. As the aircraft climbed, a break in the continuous trace occurred extending in a clockwise direction from the zero position, and this gave the height measurement. The end of the gap was not clear cut and in consequence accuracy was poor. The presentation unit was considered too bulky as it occupied too much space in the Ju.88 and similar twin-engined aircraft. Only a few were produced and used operationally, chiefly in the F.W.200’s and He.177’s. FuGe 103. 7. One P/W, who had made test flights at Werneuchen in the spring of 1943 with the purpose of testing the FuGe 103, which was known under the code name "Jena", considered it a most successful and reliable instrument. It was designed and developed by Zeiss for use in the He.177 and was tested under the supervision of Stabs.Ing. Dr. KNOSKE. P/W understood that it was part of the standard equipment of the series-produced Ju.188’s. 8. The indicator dial of the instrument was calibrated from 0 – 4,000 meters in a clockwise direction. Height was indicated by a fine blip about 1 cm long which appeared on the circumference of the tube, the forward blip being taken for the reading. The sharpness of the tip was such that height could be read to within 25 metres, although the tube was only calibrated to 50 metre intervals. 9. Heights over 4,000 and 8,000 metres were read on the second and third evolution of the blip, but no "hour-hand" was incorporated, so that the pilot could only distinguish between say 5,000, 9,000 or 13,000 metres by using his common sens. 10. The FuGe 103 indicator unit, although only 10 - 12 cm in diameter and about 35 cm long, was still too bulky and was never used operationally on a large scale. FuGe 104. 11. The FuGe 104 was a scaled-down model of the FuGe 103 and went by the same code name "Jena" and had an identical type of display. It was to supersede the FuGe 102 in all aircraft equipped with the latter, as its accuracy and presentation were as good as the FuGe 103 and better than the FuGe 102, and it had the advantage of being smaller than either of them. It was hoped that it could be the final type of altimeter. 12. In the Signals Equipment Emergency Program reproduced as Appendix II to A.D.I. (K) 343 and 357/1945 it will be seen that under the heading of "234, bombers" both the FuGe 102 and the FuGe 104 are shown. P/W thought that in the table there should either have been an arrow connecting these two sets to indicate that the FuGe 104 was to replace the FuGe 102, or alternatively that 102 was a misprint for FuGe 101A. A.D.I.(K)and S.D. Felkin U.S. Air Interrogation. Group Captain 27 July 1945 Distribution:- same as for report 357/1945"
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EQUIPMENT OF A Y-SITE
"SECRET A. D. I. (K) Report No. 527B/1944
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM P/W AS THE STATEMENTS HAVE NOT AS YET BEEN VERIFIED, NO MENTION OF THEM SHOULD BE MADE IN INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OF COMMANDS OR LOWER FORMATIONS, NOR SHOULD THEY BE ACCEPTED UNTIL COMMENTED ON AIR MINISTRY INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OR SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS. EQUIPMENT OF A Y-SITE. 1. The operational procedure in the control of fighters by the "Y" procedure was described in A.D.I.(K) 525/1944. The interrogation of the two G.A.F. signals officers, who supplied the information for that report, has produced a large amount of information on Y-site and airborne equipment which is of rather more limited interest. The present report, which contains that information, is therefore being given a limited circulation. 2. Captured documents on the "Y" procedure have helped to add further information, and have provided a further basis for interrogation; these documents have been forwarded to A.I.4.(b). TRANSMITTER HUT. 3. Four types of "Y" ground transmitter are believed to be in use. Y-Stations in Germany are said to be equipped with a four-stage transmitter known as Berta I or Berta II, with an output of 80/100 watts and a range of 400/500 kilometres, when controlling aircraft at heights of 5,000/7,000 metres. 4. Another transmitter used in Germany is the S16B (Sender 16 Boden), which is a modification of the FuGe 16, and which has a maximum range of 250 km. when used in conjunction with a Rechlin range-measuring unit, or a range of 250/350 km. when used with the more accurate Siemens range-measuring unit. 5. Y-Stations installed in France employed a Sadir 80/100 watt transmitter, usually also in conjunction with a Siemens range-measuring unit; the ranges achieved by this combination were of the order of 400/500 kilometres for aircraft operating at heights of 5,000/7,000 metres. 6. The transmitter S16B (Sketch I) is operated in the following sequence of steps:- (i) Main switch (1) first to stop Hzg (Heizung = heating) then after two minutes to stop "Ein" (on). Lamps (2) and (3) light up. (ii) Select frequency to be used. Switch (4). Frequency indicated in Window (5). (iii) Switch (6) to stop Test. (iv) Knob (7) (blip intensity) turned until vertical line appears on Cathode Ray tube (8). (v) Definition of line re-adjusted by means of Knob (9). (vi) In the meantime operator of range-measuring unit has switched on "Geber" for production of "Messton" (Modulation tone). (vii) Knob (10) turned to right until the luminous area produced in (3) corresponds to 80% modulation. (viii) Transmitter now ready tuned for transmission to commence. Switch (6) to right (Load). (ix) Transmission is automatic when the switch for the modulation note is depressed by the operator of the range-measuring unit; or for R/T instruction when key for R/T circuit is depressed by the plotter. 7. When taking over a "Y" controlled aircraft from one station to the next, the following procedure for tuning the receiver and transmitter is carried out by the station taking over when using a S16B transmitter. 8. As a first step the receiver of the range-measuring unit is set to the transmitter frequency given for the aircraft. The range measurer then tunes his receiver to maximum audible strength of the modulation tone received ("Hörmaximum"). 9. The 80% modulation image on Cathode ray tube (8) then shows an additional bright vertical line within the area of the image. By turning frequency stop (4) this vertical line is displaced to the right. 10. The operator of the transmitter turns the frequency stop (4) until the line reaches a limiting position, and on further movement of stop (4) tends to re-trace its path to move again to the left. This turning point ("Umkehrpunkt") corresponds to the accurate setting of frequency stop (4), and provides a visual method of tuning the transmitter accurately to the receiver frequency of the "Y" aircraft. D/F'ING CABIN. 11. The D/F'ing cabin consists of an octagonal wooden hut erected on the platform of the receiver pylon; the latter are of wooden construction and according to P/W, are either 15 m. or 25 m. heigh, depending on the location of the site. 12. The present P/W were acquainted with two types of D/F equipment, known respectively as "Heinrich I" and "Heinrich III". The latter equipment is of recent origin, and was only introduced to Y-Stations in France early in 1944. "Heinrich I" D/F Equipment. 13. The aerial array of this equipment, illustrated in Sketch II, consists of four quarter-wave vertical dipoles arranged in pairs at the corners of one side of a horizontal frame about four metres long. In each pair one dipole is mounted above and one below the frame. Two half-wave reflectors are mounted on the opposite corners of the frame. A single quarter-wave dipole is mounted centrally, and is connected to the rangemeasuring unit situated at the base of the receiver pylon. 14. The vertical axis of the aerial system can be rotated about the control axis of the pylon by means of a hand-wheeled drive operated from the interior of the cabin. The vertical axis of the aerial is geared to a graduated disc, marked from 0° to 360° in a box placed centrally on the table of the D/F cabin. Readings are made through a small window carrying a hair line at the back. 15. To the left of the central box is a receiver E16P; this is the normal receiver unit of the FuGe.16, from which the A.V.C. (Regler) has been removed. To the right of the box is a voltmeter. 16. The D/F operator, who is equipped with headphones, sits in front of the box. The modulated note or "Messton" reaching the receiver is audible in these headphones, and having established the minimum position, the operator checks the direction as follows. 17. The aerial is turned out of the minimum position by about 30°, and the reading of the output meter is noted. If, on pressing a switch attached to the output meter, the voltage falls, the direction in which the bearing has been taken is correct. If, on pressing the button the voltage increases, this indicates that the aerial has to be swung by 180° to get the correct direction. 18. The readings should on the average be correct to within 0.5°, and for distances of under 100 km. to within 0.3°. This reading is spoken aloud by the D/F operator, and is recorded by a logbook-keeper (Betriebsbuchführer), who also repeats the reading on a telephone connected to the range-measuring unit and from there to the plotting room. "Heinrich III" D/F Equipment. 19. The Heinrich III, also known as the "Umtastpeiler", is referred to in documents issued by "Hochfrequenzforschung Einsatzstab Holland" as having been developed at the "Flug Funk Forschungsinstitut Oberpfaffenhofen". 20. The Heinrich III differs from the "Heinrich I" in several respects. The aerial system consists of six quarter-wave vertical dipoles, four of which are arranged in pairs at the end of a single horizontal support about 4 metres in length. The fifth dipole is mounted centrally above the D/F cabin, but also forms part of the D/F aerial system. 21. The sixth quarter-wave dipole is placed vertically within the structure of the receiver pylon midway between the D/F’ing cabin at the top and the range-measuring room at the base, and is connected to the range-measuring unit. 22. The aerial system rotates horizontally about the central axis of the pylon, and the vertical axis of the aerial is geared to the central box in the D/F’ing cabin as with the Heinrich I. 23. The D/F receiver used is the El6EP, and this operates in conjunction with an automatic device known to P/W as PUG (Peilumtastgerät), also referred to in documents an ZVG 16 P (Zielflugvorsatzgerät 16 P), and finally with a visual indicator termed AFN 2 (Probably = Anzeiger Frequenzniedrig 2). 24. The PUG is connected to E16EP as well as to a plug connection on the central box. The AFN 2 device has the appearance of a mall box, measuring approximately 20 x 10 x 10 cms., connects to the same plug. 25. The dial on the side of the AFN 2 has a pointer which is directed vertically downwards when the aerial is in the minimum position. The correct direction is now established by turning the aerial a few degrees out of the minimum position. If the pointer deflects in the same direction in which the degree graduations in the small window have moved, the bearing has been taken in the correct direction. If the pointer moves in the opposite direction to the movement of the degree graduations, then the aerial must be swung by 180°. 26. According to P/W, this device allows the D/F operator to fix the minimum position by visual means only, eliminating errors duo to the human factor when aural methods are used. Secondly, the device is automatic and does not require to be switched on each time by the D/F operator. "Heinrich II M" and "Heinrich II U" D/F Equipment. 27. Captured documents make mention of the Heinrich II M. and II U; these versions were unknown to the present P/W, but the II M is shown in a document, issued at Arnheim in May 1943 by Staaatsrat Dr. PLENDL, to utilise an aerial array with three sets of quarter-wave dipoles and reflectors. 28. The II U, mentioned in another document from the same source, and dated July 1943, is shown to be the forerunner of the Heinrich III described above, and to embody the same aerial array as the letter. RANGE MEASURING CABIN. 29. The range-measuring cabin is situated at the base of the receiver pylon, and houses a range-measuring unit. Two types of units are in use, known as Rechlin and Siemens rangemeasuring units respectively. "Rechlin" Range-Measuring Unit. 30. The "Rechlin" unit (Sketch III) was designed by Dr. BECKER of Rechlin, and constructed by a firm named Graetz. It is thus sometimes referred to as the "Becker Gestell" or the "Graetz Gestell". 31. The Rechlin, which is used principally on day fighter "Y" control stations, gives reading accurate to 1 km.; it measures the time required by the transmitted impulse to reach the aircraft and return again to the receiver of the rangemeasuring unit. This time is determined by means of an invisible point which travels along the graduations of the Cathode ray tube, and becomes visible at the moment when the returning impulse reaches the range measuring unit. 32. The tuning and operation of the Rechlin range-measuring unit are carried out ne follows:- (i) Main switch (1) to ON. Dial lamp (2): lights up. (ii) Knob (3) turned to left (Bright), an illuminated area appears on the face of Cathode tube (4). This area is usually off-centre and of irregular shape. (iii) By adjustment of trimmer screws (5) the illuminated area is moved to the centre of the tube and made uniformly circular in outline. (iv) By turning controls (6) the circular area is enlarged until its circumference coincides with the scale graduations on the edge of the Cathode ray tube face. (v) Knob (3) is turned to the right (Dim). The illumination of the Cathode ray tube is now extinguished. (vi) By means of knob (7) the receiver in now set to the transmitter frequency of the aircraft which is to be controlled (that is at 1.9 Mc/s. less than ground transmitter frequency). The frequency is given by the plotter. (vii) Switch (8) is now moved to down position for transmission of the Modulation Note ("Messton"). (viii) Switch (9) controlling test transmitter is then moved to the "On" position. This initiates transmissions from the station transmitter on a frequency automatically reduced by 1.9 Mc/s. The modulation note ("Messton") is audible in the operators' headphones. At the same time a point of light appears on the graduations of the Cathode ray tube (4) near the 13.7 km. graduation. (ix) Fine tubing knob (10) is now turned until the sound heard in the headphones is at maximum. Simultaneously with this adjustment the light point is seen to travel in a clockwise direction, reaching a turning point from which it retraces its path. This turning point coincides with the point of maximum sound reception and provides a visual method of tuning. (x) Phase switch (11) is now moved until the light point accurately coincides with graduation 13.7 km. (xi) Finally knob (12) (Amplitude width) is used to adjust the definition and intensity of the light point. (xii) The range measuring operator can now either switch on to the transmitter for continuous transmission by means of switch (13) or select either an automatic five or ten second transmission by means of switch (14). The latter system has recently been discontinued and on some Rechlin measuring units, switch (14) and the clock above it are not fitted. (xiii) To test R/T circuit the range-measuring operator depresses knob (15). Dial lamp (16) lights up. The operator must now hear his own conversation in his headphones. Turn knob (17) to adjust for correct audible strength. The R.M. unit is now tuned ready for use. (xiv) To go over to aircraft control, switch (9) (Test transmitter) moved to OFF position. (xv) If "Y" aircraft is being controlled then a light point will appear on the graduation of the Cathode ray tube. This gives the correct reading for the last digit. If, for example, the light point appeared on the 12 km. graduation, the digit "2" only is noted. When coarse-control knob (18) is pressed, the light point will spring forward by 10% of the real distance of the "Y" aircraft. That is, if the point advanced by 6.2 km., the correct distance of the "Y" aircraft could be 62 km. (xvi) The tuning transmitter referred to in (viii) forms part of the range-measuring apparatus, and superimposes its own transmission of 1.9 Mc/s. on to that of the station transmitter. This results automatically in a reduction of 1.9 Mc/s in the frequency of the station transmitter. "Siemens" Range-Measuring Unit. 33. The "Siemens" unit (Sketch IV) is found on "Y" control stations controlling night fighters. It is said to permit readings to an accuracy of 200/250 metres, allowing night fighter aircraft lacking search gear to be directed close enough to their target to obtain visuals. 34. The tuning and operation of this unit is effected as follows:- (i) Main switch (1) to "On" position. Dial lamp (2) lights up. (ii) Select frequency by means of knob (3). Instruct operator of station transmitter to transmit (a tuning transmitter is not incorporated in the Siemens unit). (iii) Switch (4) moved to "On" position. (iv) Switch (5) to "On" position, modulation note now being transmitted. Green dial lamp (6) lights up. (v) Tune for maximum audible signal strength by means of fine control knob (7). (vi) Turn knobs (8) and (9) until an image appears in the Cathode ray tube (10). Knob (8) controls light intensity and knob (9) controls definition of image. (vii) Control (11) now turned until the shape of the illuminated area in the Cathode ray tube is approximately circular. (viii) Using switch (12) (Wechselspannungs Diode) and switch (13) (Wechselspannung Empfänger) the approximately circular area now made fully circular and adjusted to a diameter of 3/4 cm. (ix) Control (11) now turned until the accurate reading pointer (14) records 13.7 km. The circle on Cathode ray tube (10) should now have become a line approximately at an angle of 45° from left bottom to right top of the face of the tube. If the circle shrinks only to an ellipse, trimmer knob (15) is used to reduce the ellipse to a line. (x) Switch (17) now moved down to coarse reading position. Turn knobs (18) (Intensity) and (19) (Definition) until a sharp image appears in Cathode ray tube (20). (xi) The coarse reading pointer (22) is then moved to the 413 km. position by turning control (11). The image in tube (20) should now be a line. If not, adjust by means of trimmer screw (21). (xii) This completes the tuning of the Siemens unit. "Y" control can commence as soon as the receiver frequency is lowered by 1.9 Mc/s. to bring the receiver frequency in line with aircraft transmission. (xiii) To take over control of an aircraft the following procedure is carried out:- Switch (17) moved to bottom coarse setting position. Control (11) turned until blip appearing in left tube (20) forms a diagonal line. If switch (17) now moved up into up (fine setting) position the line disappears in left tube and reappears as a flat ellipse in the right tube (10). On slightly turning control (11) the ellipse is converted into a line. (xiv) Distances can now be read off. The coarse reading scale is calibrated to read from 0 to 500 km. in 5 km. intervals. The fine reading scale has calibration readings from 0 to 100 km., which are divided, according to P/W, in 250 metre graduations. A very skilled operator is said to be able to estimate fairly accurately to 100/200 metres. (xv) As the distance of the aircraft varies, control (11) has to be used to maintain the blip in the form of a thin line. After the first setting, the coarse reading is only taken again at intervals. (xvi) Adjustment of the fine control knob (7) of the receiver unit as described under (v) also controls the "steepness" of the line image in the Cathode ray tube. The position of maximum steepness coincides with maximum audible signal strength and represents the turning point of the line image. This provides a visual check for tuning correctly. (xvii) The controls shown at the bottom of a Siemens unit are not touched by the operator. They are set by the makers of the instrument initially, using Deutschlandsender transmissions. (According to one captured document, a special transmission at 1040 hours daily by Deutschlandsender can be used for this purpose). The controls are subsequently reset by special test personnel. AIRBORNE R/T EQUIPMENT. 35. The R/T set used in Y-controlled aircraft is a modification of the FuGe 16-Z, in which the receiver unit of the set is linked to the transmitter unit in such a way that all signals received on the carrier frequency ("Gemeinschaftswelle") are automatically re-transmitted on another lower frequency ("Messwelle"), which is usually 1.9 Mc/s. below the first. 36. The automatic re-transmission of all signals received enables the aircraft to be plotted by bearing and range measurement without any reference to the personnel of the aircraft. 37. Two modifications of airborne FuGe 16-Z R/T sets are used in the "Y" procedure. FuGe 16-ZE. 38. The original modification of the FuGe 16-Z used for Y-control was the FuGe 16-ZE, which incorporated the "Zielfluggerät" (Z). 39. This set had the disadvantage that it caused a phase displacement ("Eigenphasenverschiebung") equal to a reading of 13.7 km., which had to be allowed for in the calibration of Siemen or Rechlin range-measuring units working in conjunction with it. FuGe 16-ZY. 40. In this modification of the FuGe 16-Z, the phase displacement of the apparatus is eliminated. Hence, when using Rechlin range-measuring unit, an attachment to this equipment is used which has the effect of cancelling the calibration allowance of 13.7 km., and causes the light point on the Cathode ray tube to start all readings from the zero graduation on the tube. 41. When the Siemens range-measuring unit is used in conjunction with FuGe 16-ZY, a second pointer marked "Y" is fitted in the former apparatus on the fine and coarse reading dials, in addition to the existing pointer marked "E" on both dials. The pointer marked "Y" added to the accurate reading scale is set back (to the left) of the pointer marked "E" by a number of scale graduations corresponding to the reading of 13.7 km. Therefore, when pointer "E" of the Siemens unit is on the 13.7 km. mark, the pointer "Y" is opposite the zero graduation. The additional coarse-reading pointer is similarly set back to approximately the 413 km. graduation, so far as P/W can remember. A.D.I.(K) S. D. Felkin. 25 Sept. 1944. Wing Commander."
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G.A.F. SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE
"SECRET A. D. I. (K) Report No. 402/1945
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM P/W AS THE STATEMENTS HAVE NOT AS YET BEEN VERIFIED, NO MENTION OF THEM SHOULD BE MADE IN INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OF COMMANDS OR LOWER FORMATIONS, NOR SHOULD THEY BE ACCEPTED UNTIL COMMENTED ON AIR MINISTRY INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OR SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS. G.A.F. SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE IN THE WAR – I. Organisation. 1. This report is the first of a series of ten comprising a study of the G.A.F. Signals Intelligence Service from the time of its inception onwards. Beginning with the broad principles and organisation, this series will cover the early history, the monitoring of signals and radar, countermeasures, cryptography, advance warning and route tracking, and intelligence of callsign and frequency systems. In some cases the various fronts in the war will be taken separately and dealt with in greater detail. 2. The information has been obtained mainly from the interrogation in England of senior staff officers of Abteilung 3, General Nafü and of Chi-Stelle Ob.d.L.; further evidence from captured O.K.L. documents has, however, been helpful in supporting these interrogations. FOREWORD. 3. One outstanding characteristic of the G.A.F. Signals Intelligence Service as reflected in P/W statements and captured documents is its constant improvisation and reorganisation to enable it to cope firstly with continually expending and later with contracting but more highly complex theatres of operations. This improvisation was clearly the natural result of the progress of the war as a whole, and had its origins in the Germans original calculations that their Blitzkrieg methods would finish the war quickly; this basic concept of a lightning war gave birth to a correspondingly short-term Signals Intelligence organisation. 4. Up to 1940 emphasis was necessarily laid on the tactical rather than the strategic side of the war, its external manifestation being the preference given to R/T rather than W/T traffic. The monitoring of W/T traffic hypothesises the existence of a large and efficient cryptographic organisation, and despite creditable achieve - ments by certain sections of the Chi-Stelle Ob.d.L. and the W-Stelle it is clear that a completely satisfactory central crypto Organisation did not exist. 5. As the war fronts expanded, the Signals Intelligence Service tended to become decentralised, so that as much work as possible should be done near the intercept stations. This of course demonstrated a considerable degree of elasticity in organisation, but it is obvious that it was forced on the Germans by sheer geographical necessity and by the diversity of problems presented by such different enemies as the Russians and the Western Allies. 6. The activity of the G.A.F. Signals Intelligence on the eastern front most nearly approximated to the original German concept in so far as Russian air activity was chiefly in support of the army, and the Signals Intelligence was able to concentrate on R/T and D/F. Russian radar was very elementary compared with the centimetre radar of the Anglo—American allies, hence the chief problems on the eastern front were those of distance rather than technical complexity. 7. By way of compensation for the inferior cryptographic results, the degrees of efficiency achieved by the G.A.F. D/F service was extraordinarily high, many of their best results being obtained by this means. It is certain that a large proportion of their most valuable long—term intelligence was obtained from D/F rather than cryptographic results (cf. Part V). The one is admittedly an inferior substitute for the other, but it is impossible to over-emphasise the contribution of the G.A.F. D/F service to strategic intelligence. 8. It will be seen in Part II of this series of reports how the origin of the German Signals Intelligence Service was due to an accident occurring, shortly before the battle of Tannenberg in the last war, and how it was developed in a desultory manner until the collapse in 1918. But in 1924 a small party of civil servants did their best to salvage what they could of the former Imperial Army's "Y" Service by studying current cryptographic problems and evaluation methods. 9. When the G.A.F. was expanded in 1936, it was able to utilise the signals intelligence and intercept experience gained by its Army counterpart; the Army's tendency was, however, centrifugal, each theatre of operations and major unit, such as Army Group, Army, Army Corps staff and even Divisional staff having its own almost self-contained Signals Intelligence unit. This army organisation was copied fairly faithfully by the G.A.F., so that all major units of the G.A.F. had their own Signals Intelligence organisation, the best-known of these in the first phase of the war being the Ln. Rgt. Legion Condor Nr. 3 working with Luftflotte 3. 10. It is almost a truism that Signals Intelligence has its greatest value when a war is going badly and is of least importance when all is going well. Thus Germany’s lightning successes were a great handicap to the future development of its Signals Intelligence, for they rendered almost superfluous the help which it could have given if duly appreciated and developed. All that seemed necessary was to listen to enemy R/T traffic while the German Army and the G.A.F. were hammering their way forward, so that as late in 1942 Referat B found it very difficult to induce certain intercept stations, to cover valuable but not so productive W/T frequencies rather than very productive R/T frequencies (cf. Part V). 11. Relations between intelligence sections and cryptographic sections working together appear, according to several of the present P/W, to have been none too cordial, as the former accused the latter of not getting the results which they could have done with greater effort and which they stated were not nearly as good as those achieved by the army. The real reason was not the incompetence of the individual cryptographers so much as the fact that they were not supplied with a sufficient depth of W/T traffic and that the crypto service should have been centralised; the output of a large centralised crypto service exceeds the sum total of the contributions of its individuals members and is higher in quality. 12. It is possible that this centralisation may have been achieved had the war taken a different course, but when the protraction of the war carried operations to widely separated fronts, the Signals Intelligence Service, always closely connected with the operational commands, began to be diffused. The first unit to move into remote parts was III/Ln. Rgt. 5, with W-Leit 5 as a nucleus (later Ln. Abteilung 355) started to operate with Luftflotte 5 at Oslo about the middle of May 1940, and continued to monitor both Anglo-American, and Russian traffic and radar transmissions in that area until the end of the war. (cf. Part I.) 13. The opening of the campaign on the eastern front in 1941 made an expansion of the Signals Intelligence service in that theatre absolutely necessary to cover the enormous front involved. 14. The front resolved itself into three major sectors - the Leningrad, Moscow and Southern Sectors. These sectors coincided to a certain extent with the static intercept stations of Insterburg (later Kobbelbude), Glindow and Pulsnitz of 1936-1937 and the later I, II and III Abteilungen respectively of Ln. Rgt. 353. On the southern sector a considerable volume of information will be found in Part No. VIII of this series. Very little information is available from P/W’s. on the central and western Sectors. 15. The war in Italy developed into a war very much on its own from the Signals Intelligences point of view, excepting from a technical and equipment aspect, where information obtained in one theatre of operations was of necessity of value to all theatres. Certain cryptographic results, as for example the grid system mentioned in Report V, obtained in this theatre was of value later on the Western Front. 16. It must be clearly realised that the G.A.F. Signals Intelligence Service did not resolve itself into a large number of small self-contained units but that, just as the German armies were spread out ever more thinly, the expansion of the war compelled the service to become centrifugal and prevented it from achieving that degree of centralisation and concentration which would undoubtedly have increased its efficiency. 17. The technical ingenuity of the Western Allies and development of radar on the western front continually presented new problems for the G.A.F. Signals Intelligence, making the setting up of new specialised units very necessary. As Germany's war situation deteriorated so it naturally expanded its organisation to cover all forms of Allied radio and, especially, radar activity. Thus arose the Funkmessbeobachtungsdienst, which, although carrying out some of its initial experiments in the East, concentrated on obtaining as much intelligence as possible from radar transmissions in the West. 18. This side of G.A.F. Signals Intelligence continued to increase in importance to the end of the war and, because of the tightening of Allied R/T security especially, became equal in importance to radio interception. In this respect it is interesting to notice how units of the Ln. Rgt. Legion Condor No. 3 were gradually adapted to cope with these new developments as Funkhorch Regiment West, and how eventually towards the end of the war a comprehensive organisation which included all fronts was set up, but much too late to be of real value (cf. Part VIII). 19. When in 1944 deep R.A.F. bomber penetrations into Germany became possible, they were accompanied by a very complex system of countermeasures and "spoof" attacks, very largely carried out by 100 Group. Thus the Signals Intelligence Service was further expanded by the inclusion of specialist radar technicians. Specialisation became the order of the day and each unit was allocated a specific function. Thus Ln. Rgt. 351 became responsible for monitoring Allied air activity in the West - except for heavy bombers, which became the primary task of two specialist Abteilungen 356 and 357. 20. No aspect of Allied countermeasures was more important than radar jamming, both passive and active (Window and noise modulation). This became so important as a potential means of obtaining early warning and route-tracking that a special Abteilung (359) was set up to deal with it. 21. The channels of communication varied according to the type of traffic involved. In the case of low-grade R/T or W/T tactical traffic, as for example A.S.P. traffic, the work was often done entirely on the fighter unit as in the case of the Horch Verbindungskommandos (= warning squads) described in Part V. As far as strategic bombing was concerned, a much more complicated system was necessary to coordinate the results of all forms of radio interception, radar observation and countermeasures. Where the work was being done within the framework of the Signals regiments, results were passed from the intercept units to the Meldekopf and thence to the competent fighter authorities, usually the Zentrale Gefechtsauswertung of Jagdkorps I, and ultimately to the Operations Staff via IC who co-related the results of signals intelligence with other forms of intelligence (see A.D.I.(K) 394/1945). 22. Always bearing in mind the fact that the picture of the G.A.F. Signals Intelligence Service was constantly changing in conformity with the changing war situation, the Appendices to this report set out the functions, locations and chains of command of the Regiments and Abteilungen of the Service. 23. Appendix I shows the connection between the component parts of the regiments and the referats of Chi-Stelle Ob.d.L., and the relations on a higher level with the Army and Navy Signals Intelligence Services, the Funkleitstand, the Leitstelle der Funkaufklärung and the G.A.F. Operations Staff IC. 24. Appendix II illustrates the expansion of Signals Intelligence in the West from its beginnings in Ln. Rgt. Legion Condor No. 3 in 1941 to the Funkhorch Regiment West in 1942, and then to its final form of Ln. Rgt. 351 and Ln. Funkaufklärungs Abteilungen 356 and 357 in 1945. 25. The final form of the chain of command in 1945 is shown in Appendix III. The radar observation service had by this time become so important under Abteilung 3, General Nafü, that it had to be coordinated in service matters along with the ordinary radio intelligence by a still higher authority. FUNCTION, LOCATION AND COMPOSITION OF UNITS. Ln. Rgt. 351 (Formerly Funk Horch Rgt. West). 26. The germ or this Regiment lay in the Ln. Rgt. Legion Condor No. 3 at Paris-St. Cloud in 1940/1941. Its function was to observe the Allied Air Forces in the West, excepting for the heavy bombers, which was done by Ln. Funkaufklärungs Abteilung 357 in co-operation with 356. 27. Its chief interest thus lay with the R.A.F. 2nd T.A.F. and U.S. IX Air Force, whereas R.A.F. Bomber Command and the U.S. 8th Air Force were dealt with by the specialist Abteilungen (356 and 357). To all intents and purposes Ln. Rgt. 351 was responsible for monitoring the combat areas, but it was not always possible in practice to avoid overlapping on someone else’s territory, especially as work was often duplicated by the Ln. Rgt. organisation and the evaluation sections of the Chi-Stelle Ob.d.L.; Referat 5, for example, was housed at Limburg in the same building as Ln. Rgt. 351. and was also employed in supplying intelligence directly to the IC of the Operations Staff. 28. Ln. Rgt. 351 consisted of 3 Abteilungen - I/351 at Limburg II/351 at Heidelberg and III/351 at Burg Schwalbach. I/351 was composed of an evaluation Company (25/351) a W/T Company (26/351) a Technical Company and a short-rang intercept company for picking up A.S.P. traffic, etc. The second and third Abteilungen had 2 - 3 shortwave reception companies. 29. The tactical R/T, W/T and Fu.M.B. messages were sent at once either by landline, teleprinter or, where not available, by R/T to the appropriate H.Q.s of the G.A.F., the Army and the Navy, as well as to the Zentrale Gefechtsauswertung at Jagdkorps I. This was done by Meldekopf at 25/351 (The origin of the Meldekopf is discussed in Part V of the present series). 30. The organisation of Ln. Rgt. 352 (Italy and Yugoslavia), 353 (Eastern Front) and Ln. Rgt. 355 (Norway) will be dealt with in special reports as they became special problems on their own with less direct influence on the course of events in the West. Ln. Abt. 356 (Formerly Funkaufklärungs Abteilung Reich). 31. Abteilung 356, with its H.Q. at Berlin-Wannsee, consisting of five Kompanien - 1/356 at Wannsee, 2/356 at Hamburg for monitoring approaches to the North-West and North, 3/356 and 5/351 at Stuttgart- Böblingen for incursions to the South and 4/356 for watching the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force. This Abteilung was a pure radar observation unit, operating within the Reich. Its task was to monitor and evaluate Allied airborne radar transmissions for the use of the Reich defence authorities in route-tracking of raids. The individual outstations transmitted the results of their observations to their Meldekopf for use in the air situation picture. Ln. Abteilung 357 (Formerly I/Ln. Fu. H. Rgt. West). 32. Abteilung 357, consisting of six Kompanien with H.Q. at Heiligenstadt/Harz, was responsible for monitoring the Allied heavy bomber formations and had to provide early-warning and route-tracking data for use in the defence of the Reich. The results of observation by this Abteilung were evaluated by Meldekopf I, who passed them on to the central report centre at Jagdkorps I. FINAL ORGANISATION. 33. In the final stages of the war the following radio intelligence units were in operation:- West. (a) Ln. Funkaufkl. Abt. 351 with three Abteilungen. Task: Observation of Allied Air Forces in the West. (b) Ln. Funkaufkl. Abt. 357. Task: Observation of the heavy bombers and route-tracking in collaboration with Ln. Abt. 356. Germany. (a) Ln. Funkaufkl. Abt. 356. Task: Following routes of enemy formations over Germany (cf. Ln. Abt. 357). (b) Ln. Funkaufkl. Abt. 359. Task: Radar jamming in the West and in Germany. (c) Ln. Funkaufkl. Abt. 350. (with Chi-Stelle Ob.d.L. and Funkleitstand Ob.d.L. Task: Concentration and final evaluation of all radio intelligence. (d) Ln. Abt. 358. Task: Training of replacement personnel for the radio intelligence units. South (Balkans and Italy). Ln. Funkaufkl. Rgt. 352 with 3 Abteilungen (Major FEICHTIER). Task: Observation of Allied Air Force in the Mediterranean. EAST. Ln. Funkaufkl. Rgt. 353 with 3 Abteilungen (Oberst DICK). Task: Observation of the Russian Air Force. North (Norway) Ln. Funkaufkl. Abt. 355. Task: (a) Observation of the Allied air forces over Norway. (b) Observation of the Russian air force in Northern Norway. - - - - - A.D.I.(K) and S. D. FELKIN. U.S. Air Interrogation. Group Captain. 25th October 1945"
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General der Nachrichtenführer MARTINI
"A. D. I. (K) Report No. 334/1945
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM P/W AS THE STATEMENTS HAVE NOT AS YET BEEN VERIFIED, NO MENTION OF THEM SHOULD BE MADE IN INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OF COMMANDS OR LOWER FORMATIONS, NOR SHOULD THEY BE ACCEPTED UNTIL COMMENTED ON AIR MINISTRY INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OR SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS. THE GAF SIGNALS ORGANISATION IN THE WAR. 1. This report results from the interrogation in England of General der Nachrichtenführer MARTINI, the Director General of G.A.F. signals from the time of the formation of the Luftwaffe until the end of the war. A feature of this interrogation was General MARTINI's rather surprising lack of detailed knowledge of signals and radar equipment in use in the Luftwaffe, but his knowledge on matters of broader policy of the signals organisation was naturally considerable. 2. The gap in his detailed knowledge has to some extent been filled by the chiefs of his subordinate formations, and it is intended in due course to issue a further report dealing with employment of radio and radar equipment. The present report confines itself to the main events during the war as they concerned the signals organisation, and shows that General MARTINI himself was not free from the intrigues which beset the whole of the General Staff. 3. The information has been divided into five parts, each of which is, as far as possible, dealt with in historical sequence; the parts are:- 1. Expansion of the G.A.F. Signals Organisation. 2. Navigational aids for G.A.F. bombers. 3. Defensive radar. 4. The success of Window. 5. Wireless intelligence and Signals developments. I - EXPANSION OF G.A.F. SIGNALS ORGANISATION. 4. To meet the growing needs of the G.A.F., General MARTINI developed the Signals Organisation from a small force with about 300 active officers at the outset of the war, to an army of about 350,000 of which 10,000 were officers and 100,000 women. 5. In the early autumn of 1940, GOERING, appreciating the part played by G.A.F. signals, ordered the force to be doubled. As Germany conquered fresh territories the Signals Organisation had to be constantly expanded. Early Campaigns. 6. General MARTINI was of the opinion that all the early German campaigns were prepared with great speed. When the German marched into Austria, he and General Feldmarschall von REICHEMACH were at a radio conference in Cairo. Neither of them had the slightest idea that Austria was to be invaded. They were both informed at Cairo that German troops had marched into Austria. Similarly, General MARTINI heard only at the last minute that German troops were to invade Czechoslovakia. 7. Some days before the Polish Campaign was opened, German land-air exercises were being carried out on a large scale, and the G.A.F., signals organisation was assuring interservice communications, in particular between RICHTHOFEN's Stukas and the Army. On the outbreak of war considerable strain was put on G.A.F. Experimental Regiment KOETHEN at the last minute, so as to ensure satisfactory communications for the Stukas in Poland. The British declaration of war came as a general surprise and created great uneasiness. 8. General MARTINI was emphatic in maintaining that he was informed of the intention to invade Norway only six to eight days in advance. He doubted whether HITLER had told more than a very few people of his intentions beforehand and he asserted that everybody appeared to be taken by surprise as arrangements were kept "terribly secret". 9. As soon as General MARTINI was informed of the intended campaign, he flew to his headquarters in Hamburg and selected his best officers for organising communications. They worked at high speed day and night for six days. The organisation proved exceptionally difficult because all the details of the plan had to be kept secret. It was decided that the Army Navy and Luftwaffe would all work on the same frequency at the half dozen points where landings were to be effected. 10. Every Ju.52 which the G.A.F. signals organisation could lay its hands on was transformed into a signals aircraft, and communications Trupps were also sent out on all the transport ships. The success of the G.A.F. communications, the General considered was largely due to the Ju.52 signals aircraft. Invasion of Britain. 11. General MARTINI would not commit himself about the time at which preparations were first made to invade England. Once the Germans held the Channel ports a plan was evolved under the cover-word "Seelöwe" by which barges were assembled in the Channel Ports. The whole plan was so decentralised, however, that the various departments knew only what directly concerned them. For a long time General MARTINI had the impression that the whole plan was a feint. He estimates that the General Staff worked seriously on the invasion plan for two to three months. 12. The plan comprised landings in two different places, but he maintains that he was never told what these places were, and he is not aware that any date was fixed for the invasion. He is certain that if the date for the invasion was fixed and the plan called off, then the High Command deliberately kept up the fiction that it intended to invade England for months after the whole thing had been shelved. Russian Campaign. 13. Support was given to the above contention by the General when he stated that he was informed at least six months ahead of the High Command's plan to invade Russia. Since the Germans wished to avoid fighting on two fronts, the plan to invade England must have been postponed indefinitely at any rate before 1941. When he was informed of the Russian invasion plan, General MARTINI discussed his requirements at a conference with HITLER. 14. This was one of the two or three occasions on which he had personally to report to HITLER. He worked out a plan to build six lines of communication advancing into Russia, each manned by one signals regiment. This required a considerable amount of material and transport. Generaloberst JESCHONNEK appreciated that General MARTINI’s requirements were justified, but the Army put up objections. 15. At the inter-service conference with HITLER which ensued, General MARTINI stated his case. "How quickly will you be able to construct your lines of communication?" HITLER asked him. MARTINI replied "30 kilometres a day". HITLER interposed; "That is far too little. Forty kilometres of railway will be built per day!". 16. MARTINI said that by putting down one telegraph line instead of two, he could assure the construction of more than 40 kilometres a day. HITLER then sanctioned all his requirements, telling the other services not to under-estimate the value of signals communications. 17. A unified method was adopted for signals construction in the Russian advance; field cables were first laid, then ordinary telegraph wires. Inter-service and fast communication such as Met. reports were sent by wireless. The system of G.A.F. Army Liaison officers used in Russia was modelled on that worked out by the Germans in the Spanish war. 18. Telegraphic communications were as a rule reserved for communications between O.K.L. and the Luftflotten, between the Luftflotten and the Fliegerkorps, and between the Fliegerkorps and Army Staff. 19. The German land lines were tapped by the Russians. General MARTINI regretted that the Germans had never succeeded in making a secure telephone scrambler. Ha said that towards the end of the war a satisfactory apparatus was found in a British or American aircraft. He had it tested and found it good. 20. Land lines in Russia also suffered considerably from partisan action. They were guarded every 30 to 50 kilometres by posts of 8 to 12 men, but guard duties were particularly difficult in forested country. When one line was cut, communications were switched onto one of the other lines or put over wireless links. Despite these difficulties, regular communications were maintained throughout the campaign. II – NAVIGATIONAL AIDS FOR BOMBERS. Development of Bombing Beams. 21. At the beginning of the war the G.A.F. tended to neglect its defensive organisation and concentrated on the offensive, General MARTINI was not responsible for navigation as such, but for high frequency radio as an aid to navigation. In 1933 he had calculated that with the navigational aids at his disposal, mainly D/F and compass, he could obtain an accuracy of only about 50 kilometres at is distance of 500 kilometres. 22. At the end of 1933, Dr. PLENDL, who had been introduced to him by the Technisches Amt, told him that if the funds were placed at his disposal he could in some years' time produce, a navigational aid with an accuracy of 500 metres at a distance of 500 kilometres, Feldmarschall MILCH placed the means at his disposal. After several years PLENDL completed his apparatus, and experiments were conducted on the X-System by Versuchs Regiment KOETHEN with the bomber Gruppe which later became K.G. 100. 23. The first operations of the war with mobile X-Stations were on two bombing missions against a munitions factory in Poland. The factory vas foolishly bombed at the same time by ordinary bombers, so that the experts were unable to determine whether or not the X-System was a success. 24. The campaign was over so quickly that no other operational trials with X-beams on Poland could be made. Knickebein Beams. 25. After the Polish campaign, Knickebein and X Stations were constructed opposite the German-French frontier in preparation for the Western offensive. Kampfgruppe 100 was by that time thoroughly trained in the beam procedure, and many highly specialised Signals officers had been incorporated in the Gruppe as navigators. 26. The Norwegian campaign then took place, and Kampfgruppe 100 was thrown into it as an ordinary bomber unit. Most of the crews were killed, and the Gruppe was wasted. The specialists were scarcely required for the French campaign, but the Gruppe had to be re-formed completely with lesser trained crews for the attack on England. 27. The Knickebein system was used at the outset of the attack on England. The apparatus on the Channel coast had been hurriedly set up, however, and there were neither sufficient technicians nor material to make conclusive tests. Dr. MODEL, a former Reichspost official who died during the war, was taken over by the wireless department of the signals organisation and was chiefly responsible for developing Knickebein in collaboration with the Technisches Amt and Telefunken. 28. The crews using Knickebein soon reported that the beam was being diverted, and that British fighters were being vectored on to it. Several weeks were required to prove that the beam was really being diverted. After some weeks, experienced signals officers were sent out with the bombers and reported that countermeasures had in effect been taken by the British. "X" and Benito Bomber Beams. 29. Dr. PLENDL invented both the "X" and "Y" (Benito) systems. The "X" beams were developed under the signals organisation at Köthen by Dr. KÜNHOLD with K.G.100 and General - then Oberst - ASCHENBRENNER, an old and experienced pilot. The Benito system, on the other hand, was perfected by Dr. PLENDL at the Technisches Amt under Feldmarschall MILCH, and General MARTINI had nothing to do with it. 30. It was intended to train a whole Geschwader to navigate on the "X" system. After Kampfgruppe 100, acting as pathfinders for large bomber forces, had been attacking towns in Great Britain on the "X" system for a short time, however, Dr. PLENDL wanted to try out Benito in practice, which he regarded as the better system. 31. At that time Oberst ASCHENBRENNER's younger brother, who was the Kommandeur of Kampfgruppe 100, was ordered to take over III/K.G.26 which had been intended to fly also on "X". Dr. KÜNHOLD always considered the "X" system better than the Benito, and was annoyed with Dr. PLENDL for introducing and pushing the Benito system. 32. P/W from III/K.G.26 stated in 1940 that the Benito system was introduced prematurely because of the countermeasures which the British had been taking against the "X" beam. General MARTINI, however, maintains that the causes for the early introduction of Benito were more complex. He said that he had been responsible for putting into practice the use of beams as navigational aids for bombers, and that he had considerable difficulty in overcoming the objections of the pilots and their commanders. 33. The pilots maintained that they could obtain better results by finding the targets themselves, and those who were obliged to follow the pathfinders felt that they were being relegated to subsidiary tasks. They reported that K.G.100 had bombed in the wrong place, and that they had found the right target by themselves. Despite the good results obtained with "X", anger against the system remained unabated. 34. The aim of operating two whole Geschwader on beams against England was not achieved because of initial distrust and British countermeasures and later because the bombers were earmarked for the Russian campaign. The Benito system suffered chiefly from British interference of the R/T. 35. General MARTINI himself realised from the outset that the beams could be interfered with from Britain, and favoured the introduction of several systems to make countermeasures more difficult. 36. Thus, in the light of later experience, the Benito system was introduced prematurely. The General points out that this was only the beginning of the high frequency war, and they lacked experience about the best measures for forestalling countermeasures. 37. When KG.100 was achieving its successes, GOERING enquired as to who was responsible for the "X" system. On hearing from MARTINI during a long talk on navigational aids that PLENDL had invented it, he said: "Then I shall promote him to Staatsrat!" (State Councillor). GOERING could not understand how the system had been jammed. MARTINI spent two hours trying to explain the procedure of jamming and countermeasures. GOERING asked a number of questions, but was afterwards clearly none the wiser. He grew very angry, and accused MARTINI of fiddling about with patchwork measures. 38. In reading the above statement it must be emphasised that General MARTINI was sometimes confused in his memory between the "X" and "Y" systems. Mobile "X" Stations in Russia. 39. Kampfgruppe 100 later flew in Russia with mobile "X" stations, which were set up with great speed. Cyklop System. 40. Towards the end of 1943, the Knickebein system was developed on a new basis with mobile stations under the cover name CYKLOP. This system was used extensively by Fliegerkorps IV, in Russia and was to have been set up on the Channel coast for attacks on England, but the General was not sure whether it was actually used. 41. Cyklop had a range of 300 to 350 kilometres as against the 450 kilometres of Knickebein. It was developed by Dr. KÜNHOLD at Köthen. Hitler Demands a Demonstration of the "X" Beam. 42. About the summer of 1942, when General MARTINI was at his headquarters in South Russia, he was suddenly ordered to fly over to Hitler’s general headquarters near Kalinovka some 12 miles away. HITLER had heard that the Krupps works had been hit in an attack at night throw ten-tenths cloud by R.A.F. bombers flying with navigational aids. He could not believe it, and said that there must have been a gap in the clouds; GOERING was troubled, and General JESCHONNEK - his Chief of Staff, who also had no faith in high frequency aids, was also sceptical. So HITLER ordered them to call in MARTINI. 43. Asked by HITLER whether such accurate bombing was possible on beams, MARTINI said it was. GOERING, who saw trouble ahead for himself, interposed saying: "Yes, my Führer, but we also have such systems." 44. HITLER asked MARTINI how the "X" system worked. In an attempt to simplify the explanation, MARTINI spoke about impulses and echoes. HITLER asked for more and more details, calculating for himself everything that MARTINI explained. The General thus found himself thoroughly involved and confused. 45. "Now I want to know", HITLER said with some impatience, "if you were to attack Munich main railway station from Leipzig on your system, whether you could hit it?" MARTINI, taking good care not to commit himself too deeply, said; "I should estimate that Munich is about 400 kilometres from Leipzig. If that is correct, and if the station is 1,000 metres long by 300 wide, then I believe that some of the bombs would hit the target." 46. HITLER replied: "I hope this is correct. I don't trust high frequency. I went on a flight in South Germany, and ended up in North Germany by mistake with your high frequency." He reflected for a moment and said: "I order a demonstration to be carried out with the "X" System in Germany, just as if it were an operation, to show me whether these things really can be done. 47. This was the last that MARTINI heard on the subject from HITLER himself, but a long time afterwards he was rebuked by GOERING for taking so long to prepare the demonstration; preparations actually took about nine months. 48. At the time the "X" apparatus was undergoing trials for improvements, and the aircrew who had used airborne apparatus had to be replaced in the aircraft, the "X" stations set up in the neighbourhood of Vienna, and new pilots trained. General MARTINI did not know all details of the trials, since they were put into the hands of Dr. PLENDL and the Air Officer for Bombers who was also Inspector for Navigation. 49. The actual bombing demonstration flight was from Austria to an unpopulated spot near Grafenwöhr in the neighbourhood of Bayreuth, and was a success, but it cost enormous effort. Disappointment over Erika. 50. Explaining why "Erika" stations had been built on the Channel coast but had not been used, General MARTINI said that the system proved far more difficult to perfect than had been supposed. 51. Moreover it necessitated a large airborne apparatus, and a very large ground installation, and this took years and years. In the final stages an inaccuracy was observed which had been previously overlooked. 52. There was besides the continual danger that it could be easily jammed. "I worried a great deal over it", the General said. 53. Professor von HANDEL, whose great passion it was, had claimed that it would be more accurate than the "X" system. He worked at it as feverishly as PLENDL worked on his "X" system. 54. The two men fell out and MARTINI went to great pains to get them to work together, and finally succeeded. He hoped that they would combine the "X" and "Erika systems, but this never happened. Sonne Beacons in Spain. 55. Talking of other air navigation systems, General MARTINI said that besides using Sonne beacons themselves in Spain, the Germans made over some Sonne apparatus to the Spaniards. III - DEFENSIVE RADAR. First Information on British Radar. 56. Discussing British and German ground radar, General MARTINI said he was aware before the beginning of the war that great radar stations had been put up on the coast of England, and that they had very long range. It was known that the impulses were 25, 50 and 1000, and that height measurements could be obtained. It was not known whether the radar could really determine the number of aircraft approaching. 57. Just before the war the Graf Zeppelin flew along the coast of England during an experimental flight. The main object of that flight was to test ultra-short wave receivers. Incidentally it was thought that British radar stations might be D/F'd. General MARTINI said he did not know exactly what experiments were made during the flight, but he had heard that the high frequency receivers were not satisfactory, and results were uncertain. First German Radar. 58. In General MARTINI’s opinion, the two men chiefly responsible for the invention of radar in Germany were Dr. RUNGE, of Telefunken, who worked on a 50 to 60 centimetre wavelength, and Dr. SCHULTES, of GEMA, who worked chiefly with 80 centimetre and 2.4 metre waves. 59. Radar apparatus was first developed in Germany by the Naval Experimental Institut and GEMA in 1936 or earlier. General MARTINI was shown a Freya by the Navy, and saw that it could achieve results over the sea. He hoped that the G.A.F. would be successful with it over land and foresaw that it could have a great feature in aircraft reporting, blind landing and other spheres. 60. Just before the invasion of Czechoslovakia he had a Freya placed in the Sudeten mountains. "I hoped", he said "that with our Freya in the mountains we would be able to pick up aircraft taking off in Czechoslovakia, but we failed to obtain any results". 61. At about the same time the firm of Telefunken began trials with Würzburg apparatus. They claimed that it could pick up aircraft, but their demonstration failed. 62. The General said that he had ordered about 200 Freyas and 800 Würzburgs for the G.A.F. before the war, but he had obtained only a small number by the time hostilities had begun. A very few Freyas were set up on the North Sea coast and these worked satisfactorily, being instrumental in causing heavy R.A.F. losses over Heligoland in the bombing attacks in 1939. 63. Freyas were not used during the Norwegian campaign, but were set up after the Luftwaffe had established itself on the Norwegian coast. The signals organisation was obliged to hand over all the Würzburgs intended for the aircraft reporting system to the Flak arm, because the radar apparatus brought out by Lorenz which was used for Flak aiming had proved a failure. Fighter Control. 64. From the reports of his Signals Intelligence Service, the General concluded that the R.A.F. aircraft reporting system and radar were used principally to aid the ground control of fighters. For a long time the Luftwaffe was unable to organise ground control of day fighters, because of the opposition of most of the pilots, who insisted on free-lance fighting. 65. The change was introduced very slowly and was influenced by the discovery by the German Signals Intelligence Service that the R.A.F. was using Pip-Squeak. The Pip-Squeak aircraft apparatus was later captured. The procedure seemed a good idea to the German pilots, who wanted a Pip-Squeak of their own, and began to realise the advantages of fighter control. 66. Actually, German industry had for a long time been working on a similar apparatus, but failed to bring out a satisfactory one. Later the Pip-Squeak apparatus was copied by the Germans, but it was never used operationally. 67. The organisation of radar for fighter defence suffered both before and during the war from inter-departmental difficulties and intrigue. 68. The main reason why radar was not developed earlier for ground control of fighters, General MARTINI said, was that until the summer of 1941 the Luftwaffe concentrated on offensive tactics to the neglect of fighter defence. The decision to subordinate aircraft reporting and radar to fighter ground control was reached at a stormy conference in Russia in the early stages of the campaign. MOELDERS and GALLAND insisted that the only way to improve fighter interception and cut down losses was to introduce satisfactory ground control. Research, Industry and Intrigue. 69. General MARTINI had a constant struggle to obtain the technical improvements necessary for carrying on the high frequency war. Except for a period of less than a year, during which he was given special responsibilities by GOERING, General MARTINI had no authority to make demands either from the scientists or from the industrialists. 70. Until 1937 he and his subordinates had been allowed to keep in close contact with the wireless industry, and to state their requirements, but merely for information. After that time Feldmarschall MILCH strictly forbade these contacts, and ordered that requests and enquiries should be made by the signals organisation through the Technisches Amt, of which he was head. Feldmarschall MILCH knew just as little about high frequency matters as GOERING. 71. MILCH issued his veto during a scandal in 1937 over the sale of the FUGe.7 to Switzerland, in connection with which a number of prominent scientists at Telefunken were arrested. P/W had the feeling that the scandal was worked up to prevent free collaboration between industry and the services, and to place the big firms under the supervision of the Technisches Amt. 72. Relations between MARTINI and MILCH were strained for years, even if the two men were outwardly polite to each other. MILCH was a great opponent of the General Staff, and particularly of the Tactical Führungsstab. He attempted to have the whole signals organisation placed under his command, but MARTINI resisted this strongly. 73. Thwarted in his empire-building, MILCH carried on an underground war against the signals organisation. On one occasion, in the presence of MARTINI, he said to GOERING: "It is a great crime that this signals organisation has been set up!" MILCH tried to prevent Luftwaffe officers from working in the Technisches Amt, and made liaison with MARTINI extremely difficult. For a time MARTINI had a representative at the Technisches Amt but he requested to be posted back to the signals organisation, saying that it had room only for engineers and not for officers. 74. MARTINI had engineers in his Experimental Regiment, the L.N. Versuchsregiment at Koethen, working together with the officers, but the engineers in the Technisches Amt refused to co-operate with them. When the Versuchsregiment brought out something new and stated its requirements, the Technisches Amt engineers said that their work was all wrong. 75. Even during the time that UDET was head of the Technisches Amt, MILCH in P/W’s opinion, really held the reins because of his position as GOERING's representative. 76. Feldmarschall MILCH made a point of co-operating with the signals organisation from the summer of 1941 for about nine months, during which MARTINI had GOERING's backing. Because of MILCH's opposition, MARTINI was still given no authority over the scientists or the industrialists, but he was given special powers to hold conferences with them, and with representatives of the Technisches Amt. 77. He had GOERING's authority to discuss his requirements in the utmost detail. When agreement had been reached on which developments could be carried out by the industry, the General had to make written requests to the Technisches Amt to put through the required orders. Thanks to GOERING's backing, MARTINI was able to force the Technisches Amt to place these orders. Role of the Versuchsregiment. 78. The Versuchsregiment had the task of conducting experiments with signals apparatus, and stating the technical or tactical requirements of the Luftwaffe with regard to it. Their reports went to the Technisches Amt. When the apparatus was delivered to the signals organisations the Versuchsregiment carried out operational tests with it and often made improvements. 79. The Versuchsregiment Koethen acted as a fillip to the wireless industry, sometimes producing new apparatus which the industrialists were unable to manufacture. 80. For example, the height measuring attachments on the Freya were built and produced by Koethen. Whenever work of this nature was handed over to Koethen, MARTINI had to obtain the sanction of the Technisches Amt. Despite the rivalry with the Versuchsregiment, this sanction would be given. Feldmarschall MILCH once or twice indicated that Koethen should be directly subordinated to him, but never pursued the matter. 81. General MARTINI described Dr. KÜNHOLD, the Technical Chief of the Versuchsregiment, as exceptionally able and at the same time very modest scientist. He was responsible for all the technical work done at Koethen. Oberst LÖWE, Kommandeur of the Regiment, was responsible for administration and discipline. He was also a good technician. He had formerly been a Captain in the Signals section of the Landes Polizei and had been taken into the Luftwaffe signals organisation in 1934. 82. The work of the Versuchsregiment at Koethen embraced all branches of the signals organisation; its work on radar was in practice restricted to ground apparatus. 83. The experimental station at Werneuchen restricted its research to radar and concentrated on airborne apparatus. Whereas Koethen, under the signals organisation, trained the experimental detachments which were incorporated in the signals regiments, Werneuchen was restricted to engineers and was subordinated to the Technisches Amt. 84. Oberstleutnant HENTZ, at the end of the war head of General MARTINI's Radar Section, the VI Abteilung, was formerly Kommandeur of Werneuchen responsible for its growth. 85. Co-operation between Werneuchen and the signals organisation was always better than that of the Technisches Ant itself with the signals organisation. Industry's need of Technicians. 86. At the end of 1941, it became obvious that the wireless industry did not have a sufficient number of technicians to carry out the requirements of the signals organisation. 87. Realising the danger of defeat in the high frequency war, MARTINI offered the industry up to 15,000 technicians from his Signals Regiment. He started by having 7000 to 8000 men transferred to industry, and then persuaded GOERING to transfer back to the industry and research organisations about 15,000 technicians from both the Army and Luftwaffe. 88. While the transfers were being carried out, the manpower crisis occurred on the Russian front and the process was reversed. Thus the best experienced technicians were being sent from industry to the Russian front, while less capable men were coming home and required at least a year to be trained. Countering of Allied Countermeasures. 89. The very nature of the high frequency war with countermeasures, measures to overcome countermeasures and constant changes in the apparatus, led to demands from the wireless industry which it could not meet. Thus the Versuchsregiment was frequently called upon by MARTINI to make the alterations itself. 90. For instance, when Freyas were manufactured with only one wavelength, MARTINI told the industrialists that it would be useless without a wave band. The industrialists replied that such a change would be colossal work which would require a very long time. "At any rate", MARTINI interposed, "bring out the next series of Freyas with two wavelengths, the one after with three, and gradually get a reasonable frequency band". The industrialists made objections, saying that the work was too fiddling. 91. MARTINI then ordered the Versuchsregiment to make the required modifications in the Freyas. Thus, despite British jamming from high-powered transmitters, the Versuchsregiment modified a sufficient number of Freyas for some to operate without being jammed. 92. Gradually all the Freyas were modified at Koethen under the covername "Voll-Wismar" and the wireless industry finally produced Freyas with an adequate frequency band. 93. Similar difficulties were experienced with FuG.16. The signals organisation asked the Technisches Amt for the apparatus to be constructed with 100 two-way channels, but through a misunderstanding it was produced with 100 one-way channels. 94. In the ensuing discussions, the industrialists considered that they would not be able to produce the apparatus with the required frequency band for about two years. FuG.25 and 25A. 95. The failure to organise the mass production of the German I.F.F., the FuG.25A, at an early date was attributed by the General to the weakness of his position in relation to the Technisches Amt. He was first shown the apparatus, which had been constructed by Dr. SCHULTHES, in September or October 1939. He was delighted with it and requested the production of two or three thousand. 96. These unfortunately were not produced, the General said, because too many people had a say in the matter. "Shortly afterwards a high official at the Technisches Amt told me quite by chance that 30,000 FuG.25 were already in production. That was terrible; it was my greatest worry. But Reichsmarschall GOERING said to me "It is the easiest problem of all and you haven't even solved that for me!" Switching on of I.F.F. 97. The General had heard the explanation from British bomber pilots that they kept their I.F.F. switched on to dowse searchlights, but he did not believe it. 98. He thought that there must have been some important reason this procedure which allowed the Germans to pick up the approach of R.A.F. bombers. He asked whether it was maintained with the object of eventually being of use to night fighter escort aircraft. He pointed out that it was of exceedingly great value to the Germans. The Panorama Apparatus. 99. About September 1942, somebody, whose name MARTINI never discovered, told GOERING that the signals organisation had neglected to develop the Panorama search apparatus. GOERING in a fit of temper told MARTINI that he had sabotaged the Panorama apparatus and MARTINI retorted sharply. That same day GOERING appointed Oberst KNEEMEYER as his Wireless and Navigation Officer, and put an end to MARTINI’s special functions in high frequency developments. 100. MARTINI continued to hold conferences with the scientists and industrialists on behalf of the Chief of the General Staff, but without GOERING’s authority he laboured under great difficulties. 101. The production of a German Panorama apparatus was delayed largely because at the beginning of the war tests were unsuccessful, and afterwards the wireless industry neglected it to try and satisfy other demands regarded as more urgent. The first Panorama, which was put up to the West of Berlin, could not be made to work and its development was shelved. 102. At the beginning of 1943, General MARTINI insisted that he should be shown what the apparatus was worth. He was told that the apparatus, which worked on one of the Freya frequencies, had not yet been perfected. He sent two members of his staff to try and overcome the technical difficulties and three months later he was asked to inspect the apparatus as it was at last working. He spent two hours looking at it, but the demonstration failed. 103. A second prototype, which worked on decimetre waves, was burnt out just after being completed. Centimetre Wave Research. 104. The failure to develop radar on centimetre waves was due, General MARTINI said, partly to Feldmarschall MILCH’s lack of understanding of the problem, and partly because the wireless industry could not cope. He himself had demanded in 1937 that research should be carried out on centimetre waves. 105. Staatsrat ESAU made experiments with ultra-short waves at first with a milliwatt, which he later increased to a watt. The scientist said that it was not his business, but that of the industrialists to continue the work with higher power. The industry, however, had too many other orders on hand, and Feldmarschall MILCH, who could have put the research in the hands of the Technische Amt, did not realise the implications of the high frequency war. 106. In the summer of 1942, GOERING suddenly decided to replace Dr. ESAU by Dr. PLENDL, whom he promoted to the rank of Oberst Ingenieur, saying: "I appoint you chief of all high frequency research in Germany". Dr. ESAU complained to General MARTINI of being cold shouldered, but the General had not even been informed of GOERING's decision beforehand. 107. General MARTINI made about 60 closely inter-connected requests for research on high frequency matters to Dr. PLENDL. He said that PLENDL's work as Chief of high frequency investigations was somewhat disappointing, and criticised him for spending too much time on organising, to the neglect of research. He did not put the same energy into this work as he had done in the development of the "X" and "Y" systems. However, the General did not agree with those critics who accused Dr. PLENDL of combatting the protagonists of the Egon system. 108. In 1944 GOERING became dissatisfied with PLENDL, and reinstated ESAU in his place. The old collaboration between ESAU and MARTINI was then resumed. The Egon System. 109. Dr. SCHULTHES, who first worked with GEMA for the Navy and later with Siemens, had reported early on that the Egon system promised great possibilities. At one of the General's conferences in 1941, he said that exact location up to 350 kilometres could be attained with Egon, but could not give a date for the perfection of the system. Nevertheless those scientists who were opposed to Dr. PLENDL advocated the immediate scrapping of the Benito fighter control system and the introduction of Egon. 110. MARTINI intervened, stating: "The problem is not so simple. We have built up the whole organisation for the Benito system which has definite advantages; it can be used not only for bombers but for fighters with very good results. We must develop Egon with all possible speed, but before it is ready to be used operationally it would be madness to do away with Benito. We must have both systems operating at the same time". 111. In General MARTINI's view, time has justified his point of view. The Benito system had proved itself thoroughly efficient for fighter control, and in the later stages of the war those controllers who used both systems were glad to check up one on the other. With the small fighter force to which the Luftwaffe was reduced, a small error in ground control was fatal. Capture of the British "Gee" Apparatus. 112. GOERING, who was in the habit of cursing the signals organisation, was particularly vehement when he heard that a British bomber had been captured with a fine apparatus on board which was an improvement on anything brought out in Germany. This was the "Gee" apparatus which the Germans named Hyperbel. 113. General MARTINI said that he learned a long time afterwards that the firm of Telefunken had actually worked out a similar system to "Gee" on long waves in 1939. Telefunken which had given the apparatus the cover name "Ingolstadt", had proposed developing it, but the Technisches Amt had turned it down because of an order previously issued forbidding work on any developments which could not be completed by the end of 1940. 114. The "Gee" apparatus was handed over to Koethen for examination and copies. The reason why Gee" was not jammed earlier, the General thought, was because of the German lack of ultra-short wave transmitters. It required a good nine months to construct apparatus, once the prototype had been completed. For a time, he said, the Germans considered that they were successful in jamming both "Gee" and "Oboe", but when these systems were used by the Allies with many wavelengths, the only answer was to build up a great system of jamming throughout Germany. This system was never completed. Jamming – The Feldberg Project. 115. The General recalled an attempt in 1945 to jam Allied airborne radar which ended in disaster. The first new highpowered German ground jamming plant, which was manufactured with great difficulty because of Allied bombing attacks, was finally all assembled inside a tower on the Feldberg with the object of jamming all wavelengths from the one place. 116. The work was carried out by the Reichspost "just as it were peacetime" without a thought to passible consequences of bombing. No sooner had all the apparatus been completed than the tower was destroyed by a fighter bomber attack. The case was brought before a court-martial. H2S Countermeasures. 117. The Germans were not successful in their ground countermeasures against H2S, because they were unable to get such apparatus as they had captured intact to work properly. The apparatus was technically in order, but despite repeated trials the navigators were unable to achieve results with it. Results were finally with a F.W.200 which was fitted with both the H2S and the "Berlin". When flying over the Mark Brandenburg in the spring of 1944, the aircraft crashed for some unknown reason. "Berlin" for Night Fighting. 118. It would have taken a long time, the General said, before "Berlin" could have been put into operational use for bombing on the same lines as H2S for which it was originally constructed. As the Germans were not carrying out bombing raids it was no longer important. It was therefor proposed to adapt the "Berlin" for night fighting, and as such it would have been used operationally within a comparatively short while. 119. The Germans had great difficulty towards the end of the war in constructing airborne apparatus such as "Berlin" small enough to fit into their aircraft. They had scarcely any fourengined aircraft, and the Ju.88 was not roomy enough. In the final stages the wireless industry had to concentrate on apparatus sufficiently small to fit into the Me.262. Me.262 Radar. 120. No Me.262 had flown operationally with radar, but a few successful trial flights had been carried out, using Neptun apparatus which was small to go into the aircraft without being unwieldy. 121. The type used was the forward-looking Neptun. The test aircraft crashed and the observer was killed, but the pilot reported that good blips had been obtained. Me.163. 122. No attempt had been made to operate the Me.163 with ground control. Kammhuber’s Night Fighter Belt. 123. Speaking of the development of German night fighter defences, General MARTINI said that General KAMMHUBER did not at first appreciate the value of radar. Before the latter had taken over the night fighter defences, he had distinguished himself as a good blind flying pilot, but he had no technical knowledge of radar. For that reason he organised the wellknown searchlight belt defending the western approaches to the Reich. 124. About two and a half months after KAMMHUBER had begun to work on the night fighter belt, MARTINI sent him six reporting companies which were then equipped with Würzburgs, because MARTINI considered that this would be the best way of organising night fighter defences. 125. The reason why the night fighter defence sectors were worked out in a perfect pattern was that KAMMHUBER, being a keen organiser, considered that he would benefit by their being all exactly alike. 126. Asked why KAMMHUBER did not organise his night fighter belt to rely on Würzburgs from the outset, General MARTINI said that he himself had not been consulted when the work began. GOERING had ordered KAMMHUBER to organise night fighting, without referring him to MARTINI. KAMMHUBER did not even know what to do with the aircraft reporting companies which MARTINI sent him; however, he studied the whole question of high frequency with much vigour, and soon reorganised the night fighter defences to depend on ground radar. 127. The reason why so many radars were put up on the Kammhuber belt was that the Germans at that time were using the old Würzburgs which could obtain satisfactory results only up to a radius of 35 kilometres. When the Würzburg Riesen were introduced, General KAMMHUBER kept the other Würzburgs for a time so as to maintain the pattern of his organisation throughout the night fighter belt. 128. KAMMHUBER preferred the Seeburg Tisch method of plotting to the Freya-AN system, because he said that the former method of control could be understood by all but the latter could be managed successfully only by special gifted officers. MARTINI was disappointed because he considered that there were enough capable young officers in his organisation to have worked with the Freya-AN. The Removal of Kammhuber. 129. The General said that he did not know exactly why KAMMHUBER was removed to Luftflotte 5. In his own words, taken from shorthand notes during interrogation: "It was a sudden decision of the Reichsmarschall and I imagine that he must have reached it after one of the officers had told him something or other. It happened during a big conference at Deelen during which the Reichsmarschall attacked me sharply because he was determined not to understand why I wanted to maintain the visual and oral aircraft reporting system as well as the radar organisation. I explained that it was important to know what types of aircraft were approaching when there were low-flying attacks. He would have nothing of it and was in a very bad temper. 130. "The next day he took General KAMMHUBER aside, and then came back saying that he was to be A.O.C.-in-C. of the Luftflotte in Norway. Possibly the reason for this was that the night fighters were not gaining so many victories. Outwardly the new post meant a great promotion, for he was a young officer, and as A.O.C.-in-C. he attained the rank of a General-Feldmarschall. 131. "I did not ask him what he personally thought about it. Perhaps he had expected to control all the fighter forces in Germany, and to have become an A.O.C.-in-C. like that. 132. "The change took place at the time of the appointment of a new General Staff. I was to have been thrown out also. They wanted to divide up my work, and I had made it a hard and fast rule that my organisation must not be split up, whatever happened. I had to insist on this several times, and each time said that if the organisation were split up, I should ask for another post. Finally on that occasion too, it was decided that I should..... 133. The Reichsmarschall did not understand the principles of night fighting, but discussed them a great deal with General KAMMHUBER just as he did with me. When I held a different opinion, I told him so quite openly. For a long time he listened to me, and then one day he refused to listen to me at all. It was roughly the same with General KAMMHUBER. He too used to state his opinion openly". IV - SUCCESS OF WINDOW. Not a Surprise. 134. The dropping of Window by Bomber Command over Hamburg in the summer of 1943 did not come as a complete surprise to the German signals organisation. For about a year engineers at the Technisches Amt had studied the question. The scientists had a suspicion of the danger to German defensive radar but said nothing because they did not wish to bring them-selves into disrepute. 135. Six months before the Hamburg raid their experiments had proved conclusively what a menace the metal strips represented. The information was passed to MARTINI, who handed GOERING a two-page report on the subject, pointing out what a terrible danger they might be. GOERING was so upset that he ordered MARTINI to destroy the document at once, and take the utmost precautions to prevent the enemy from learning of the discovery. 136. "It was thus extremely difficult", the General said, "to work out countermeasures because we dared not experiment with the little beasts for fear of their being discovered. Had the wind blown when we dropped the metal strips, people would have picked then up, talked about them, and the secret would have been betrayed". 137. When the Hamburg raid came there was great excitement because the signals organisation had not discovered any countermeasures. GOERING blamed MARTINI again, saying: "The British have now gone and used the metal strips, so they have surely got countermeasures against them and you haven't!" Window Countermeasures. 138. A few days after the Hamburg raid, two scientists independently worked out countermeasures to Window and the result was the Würzlaus attachment to the Würzburg and the Freyalaus attachment to the Freya. When considerable quantities of Window were dropped, the Würzlaus was swamped, however, but the Freyalaus still gave results. Finally a combination of the two, the "K-Laus", was tried out but was found difficult to handle. 139. The General admitted that no really satisfactory answer to Window had been found, and doubted whether there could be one if the strips were dropped in sufficient quantities and places. The Flak batteries never succeeded in using their own radar instruments when the Allied air force used sufficient Window or Chaff, but the aircraft reporting system was at least able to provide them with rough data on height end direction. 140. With Koethen Grau apparatus they managed for some months to get a rough picture despite Window. German night fighters were on the whole not too much affected by Window and at first it frequently even gave them a rough idea of where to find the bomber stream. Their task was then complicated by the countermeasures of 100 Group, R.A.F. Bomber Command, which General MARTINI described as outstandingly good. 141. Explaining the lines on which the Germans developed their radar defences, General MARTINI said that in order to obtain as early a warning as possible. They built bigger and bigger apparatus, as the range of the Allied bombers increased. The Germans thus gradually increased their warning range from 100 kilometres with the Freya to 300 kilometres with the Wassermann, the Mammut and the Elefant. The danger of jamming and bombing was fully realised but the Germans were glad to have the latter types of apparatus when the British introduced Window and airborne jamming, 142. Elefant proved particularly useful as it was not jammed for a long time. Results with Klein-Heidelberg were also good General MARTINI believed that the apparatus had been invented by Oberpostrat SCHOLZ, who had the chief merit for jamming British radar when the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau passed through the Channel. The General attributed the success of this operation to the fact that it was started with very slight jamming which was gradually and almost imperceptibly increased until it became effective. Wilde Sau Night-Fighting. 143. The fact that the Germans began to develop Wilde Sau free-lance night fighting at the very time that the R.A.F. introduced Window was largely fortuitous. Oberst HERRMANN was mainly responsible. He said that the night fighter had to take risks in German Flak areas and shoot down bombers caught by the searchlights or in the glow of the blazing target. He said he was quite prepared to do free-lance night fighting of this nature himself, and did so. 144. GOERING, seeing that far fewer bombers were being shot down because of Window, encouraged the younger night fighters to go up over the targets and fight. V - SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE AND SIGNALS DEVELOPMENTS. SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE. Work of the Intercept Service. 145. The German Signals Intelligence Service (Luft Aufklärungs Dienst) was under the operational command of Oberstleutnant FRIEDRICH, who was subordinate to MARTINI through Oberst MORGENSTERN; the officer responsible for discipline and administration of the service was Generalmajor KLEMME. Coverage of Allied signals was determined by the Intelligence of the Luftflotten in which the signals units operated. 146. GOERING himself was interested in the service and occasionally gave personal orders for some particular activity to be covered. l47. Results from the German Signals Intelligence had, according to General MARTINI, given high satisfaction to everyone until the last phase of the war, when the service, no longer able to cope with the enormous number of Allied raids or to keep track of the continually changing basings of Allied aircraft, also came in for its share of GOERING's displeasure. 148. Up to this point it had never failed to provide, from the Battle of Britain onwards, a current and exact Order of Battle of the British and later of U.S.A.A.F. formations, including subordinations, the number of squadrons operating in each sector, and their dispositions and strength. 149. Valuable information on Allied fighters was given by the interpreters, who were sent up with reconnaissance crews operating from Norwegian and Mediterranean bases. They were briefed beforehand in the locations of Allied fighter units in the operational area, and the frequencies on which the latter were likely to work. The low number of suitable men available, however, had confined their employment to reconnaissance aircraft. The General thought they would have continued to be valuable as long as air to air and ground communication remained insecure. 150. The Germans were able to recognise Allied preparations for taking off, not so much through the pilots' talk as by observation of small details in point to point traffic. The slightest carelessness in procedure between two ground stations, for instance, might suffice to reveal which networks were active. Then, even though the traffic itself remained unbroken, time and time again it became possible to draw definite conclusions concerning the operations involved by the comparison of traffics occurring in similar form. 151. The General admitted that sometimes the German intercept service was tricked by British spoof traffic. 152. The very high standard of R/T discipline shown by British pilots was held up by General MARTINI as a model for German pilots, who, as a result of the example began to show marked improvement in the later stages. He considered American pilots to be about the equal of the German pilots in this respect. Employment of Signal Aircraft. 153. General MARTINI thought that experiments with Signals Ju.52’s had begun in the Spanish war, but in any case exercises with them shortly afterwards had proved their worth, and they were used with success in considerable numbers in the Polish Campaign. 154. Later on, with fighter units being constantly switched from one area to another out of range of their home stations, the signals Ju.52's were used to pass information from Aircraft Reporting Station and ground radar to airborne fighter formations. 155. As the scale of Allied attacks increased, it became impossible to protect these signals aircraft on the airfields. Their signals equipment was therefor made portable, taken out on arrival at the airfield at which it was desired to operate, and set up some distance away. 156. Allied bombing was thus responsible for the abolishing of the signals aircraft, which was used in the later stages of the war as a transport aircraft. Liaison with German Navy. 158. All intercepted signals that concerned shipping were passed immediately to the German Navy, who controlled the costal observation posts. In general, liaison with the German Navy in signals matters was very close indeed, key personnel of both services and the Army often working together on the same problems. High Grade Cyphers. 159. The General did not think that Allied high grad Cyphers had ever been broken, although since he was only concerned with what came cut he could not speak with certainty. Allied Cyphers in general were very secure. 160. Prior to the North African Campaign the Germans themselves introduced the "Sägefisch" for communication over great distances in the event of cable being rendered unserviceable. 161. "Sägefisch" comprised a short-wave transmitter operating in conjunction with an automatic cyphering Machine; it was efficient only over distances of 250 miles or more. Messages were typed into the machine in clear, automatically encyphered and then transmitted. At the other end they were automatically received, decyphered and typed out by the machine also in clear, the entire operation taking only a few minutes. 162. Continual watch had been kept by the Germans on their Sägefisch traffic, and whenever possibilities of the Allies breaking down the cypher were observed, countermeasures were immediately taken to render it more secure. Defensive Measures. 163. Towards the end of the war, with the overwhelming superiority of the Allied air forces, special efforts were made to obtain the maximum efficiency from the German Intercept Service, which was accordingly brought into much closer co-operation with the Aircraft Reporting Service, employing visual and radar means for aircraft detection. 164. Radar stations and intercept stations finally worked together, both at Divisional and Sector Battle H.Q.'s. By comparison of the intelligence produced by both services, it was possible to obtain a more accurate picture of the air situation. In this connection, the General said that Allied bomber formations could be D/F's to within 1° of accuracy. 165. To ensure that German signals traffic could not help an eventual enemy to D/F German airfields, General MARTINI laid it down from the outset that transmitters must not be situated in their vicinity. Throughout Germany, therefore, the wireless transmitters were built at least 10 kilometres away from the airfields. One transmitter station was usually built to serve several airfields. To maintain land communications during bombing attacks the decimetre wave point-to-point system, Richtverbindung, for telephonic and/or telegraphic communications was extensively developed. 166. In Italy, Allied bombing frequently made it impossible for the Germans to move along the roads, and telegraphic communications were wrecked. The Luftwaffe, however, was able to help the Army out with its Richtverbindungen. Point-to-Point Communication. 167. The General said that a number of conversations on Richtverbindungen were held which should not have taken place, since this method of communications was not secure. 168. Another difficulty with the Richtverbindung system was that it could be seriously jammed. He believed that the jamming which actually took place was by chance, and that it came from airborne transmitters intended to jam the German ground radars. He even considered organising a raid warning system on the basis of this jamming. Spoof before D-Day. 169. Before D-Day the Germans were tricked by a spoof operation which gave them the impression that a big force was making for Fécamp. 170. Although many aircraft reporting radars along the coast had been put out of action by Allied bombing, the General claimed that there were still sufficient left to maintain the service. (He said that he was not responsible for the Naval Radar Service). • 171. During the last few days before the invasion, the radar operators were often misled to report that something was coming when nothing was there at all. This was partly due to the atmosphere, and the radar operators were accordingly warned to caution when reporting. 172. As a considerable number of jamming transmitters on the French coast had been destroyed by Allied attacks, the Germans had to achieve results with mobile ones which were to jam ground-to-air R/T. They were never used, having possibly been destroyed on the way to the coast or on their arrival. SIGNALS DEVELOPMENT. Allied Bombing. 173. The signals organisation suffered most through the Allied bombing of wireless valve factories; on the other hand the General did not think that decisive results could have been achieved, had the Allies made a concerted campaign exclusively against the valve industry. 174. The Germans started dispersing stocks after Telefunken and Lorenz had been severely damaged. A marked shortage of valves resulted, but according to the General the situation was never critical. The General admitted, however, that during the Mediterranean campaign, for a time fighter aircraft were delivered to Sicily without wireless apparatus. Low Quality of Radar Operators. 175. It was mentioned to General MARTINI that earlier in the war, when the Würzburg was captured on the French coast at Bruneval, the prisoners who were taken with the apparatus were found to have remarkably little technical knowledge. 176. The General ascribed this to the crisis in manpower among wireless technicians, which forced him to use unskilled men and later women as radar assistants. 177. Wireless technicians had to be trained within the signals organisation, because before the war there were no radio amateurs as in Britain and the United States. The activities of all amateurs had been suppressed in Germany "at the time of the Communist danger". Failure of HS.293. 176. Lack of success with the Hs.293 radio-controlled glider bomb was attributed by the General largely to two factors. Firstly, the Technisches Amt, which was responsible for its development and production, kept the weapon entirely for itself. Only when it was realised that there were not enough frequencies on the radio control of the bomb to make it immune from jamming, did the Technisches Amt feel obliged to bring the signals organisation into the picture. General MARTINI insisted on a number of alterations, but the Hs.293 was brought out before the radio control had been perfected to make it free from jamming. 179. Secondly, the Germans had not sufficient numbers of suitable aircraft from which the bomb could be operated. The Do.217 with which it was mainly employed was, moreover, extremely limited in range. 180. The high vulnerability of the Hs.293 to jamming was accepted by the Germans, who decided that it had best be used in a heavy surprise attack in an area where immediate observation by the Allies would be difficult. Norway was considered to offer best chances of success, and it was therefore a very unpleasant surprise to the General to learn that the bomb had been used in the Mediterranean theatre shortly afterwards. 181. Nevertheless, to render Allied countermeasures as difficult as possible and in order to camouflage tuning, radio stations were set up whenever the bombs were being used, and aircraft were employed with the bombers to transmit on other wavelengths while the bombs were being armed. 182. In spite of these precautions the General thought that the Allies might have succeeded in jamming the bomb, owing to the extreme simplicity of the wireless control. 183. Radio-controlled bombs had been conceived solely as an anti-shipping weapon, the HS.293 against large transport, the FX against battleships and armoured vessels of all sorts. They were afterwards relegated to uses for which they were never intended - against bridges and other land targets. Collaboration with Japan. 184. The extent to which the Germans gave their secrets to the Japanese was not known by the General. He said that early in 1945 HITLER ordered that all German technical secrets of short and medium term value should be given to the Japanese. 185. He said that no members of the signals organisation had left for Japan apart from those who were presumably in the Uboat which was intercepted by the U.S. Navy in the Atlantic. 186. From a visit to Germany paid by a delegation of Japanese officers. General MARTINI gained the impression that they were behind-hand in radar. A Japanese told him that they had apparatus with centimetre waves, but he could not remember the details. He regarded the Jagi aerial as very good, but did not know whether or not the Technisches Amt had received it from Japan. He was sure that the Japanese had received at least documents and photographs of German ground radar. A.D.I.(K)& U.S. Air Interrogation. S.D. Felkin 21st June 1945. Group Captain"
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G.A.F. INTELLIGENCE
"SECRET A. D. I. (K) Report No. 393/1945
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM P/W AS THE STATEMENTS HAVE NOT AS YET BEEN VERIFIED, NO MENTION OF THEM SHOULD BE MADE IN INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OF COMMANDS OR LOWER FORMATIONS, NOR SHOULD THEY BE ACCEPTED UNTIL COMMENTED ON AIR MINISTRY INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OR SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS. G.A.F. INTELLIGENCE IN THE WAR. Abteilung Ic (Chief of Intelligence). 1. The present report is the first of a series of three dealing with some aspects of G.A.F. Intelligence during the War and in the series of European incidents which preceded it. Whilst this report covers the vicissitudes of the two Chiefs of Intelligence during the major part of the War, Generalleutnant Josef ("Beppo") SCHMID and Oberst WODARG, the second and third reports will deal respectively with details of sources of intelligence and their value to the Luftwaffe Operations Staff, and with the working of Intelligence during the main incidents preceding the War and in the main campaigns of the War Itself. 2. The information has been supplied by Generalleutnant SCHMID, the Chef Ic from 1938 to 1942, Oberst WODARG, the Chef Ic from 1942 until February 1945 and Oberstleutnant KIEMITZ, who worked under both SCHMID and WODARG and finally took over the latter's post. Some additional information was supplied by Hauptmann ZETZSCHE, chief of one of the Groups in the Ic department of Foreign Air Forces West and from Oberstleutnant OHLETZ who, from January 1941 until March 1943, was Ic of Luftflotte 6 on the Russian front. 3. The main impression gained from these interrogations is one of two distinct phases in the fortunes of G.A.F. Intelligence, each the direct result of the War situation at the time. These two phases fall roughly into the periods of office of "Beppo" SCHMID and Oberst WODARG. 4. The handling of Ic by SCHMID for the furtherance of personal ends and as an obliging and gratulatory adjunct to the G.A.F. General Staff could find no impediment in the rising tide of German success. With the reversal of fortunes and the ever-widening gap between the wishful thinking or the General Staff and insistent reality at the fronts, however, the broad and easy path of SCHMID became a tightrope from which he inevitably fell. 5. It is noteworthy that SCHMID, the close friend of GOERING, departed to the command of Jagdkorps I with undiminished prestige, whilst WODARG, eclipsed by the glow of a former spurious glory, was left to struggle in evil times to obtain recognition of an unpleasant war situation. At times he was forced to the employment of amazing expedients in order to achieve this end. Since the acceptance of defeat could find no place in Nazi philosophy it was never possible for the German Intelligence, which had foreseen defeat as early as 1943, to achieve the prestige, facilities and effectiveness enjoyed by its Allied counterpart. THE FIRST CHEF IC - 1938 to 1942. 6. The 5th Abteilung was established as part of the G.A.F. General Staff on first January 1938 and was to collect information on foreign air forces and to build up target data for appreciation in air warfare. The new department was to combine and systematise functions previously the responsibility of a target data unit and of R.L.M. departments of foreign air forces. 7. Those two organisations were already known respectively as Gruppe II of the first Abteilung and the 5th Abteilung, and were manned by civilians and reserve officers who had large quantities of information from the foreign press and literature at their disposal, but worked with no clearly defined aims; their main policy seemed to be deliberate exaggeration of the strength of foreign countries it order to justify German armament. 8. An appreciation by Generalleutnant SCHMID of the achievements of these two organisations up to January 1938 will be found in Appendix I to this report. 9. The new 5th Abteilung was to be under the command of Generalleutnant, - then Major, - SCHMID, who since 1935 had been employed in a ministerial capacity and had no knowledge of foreign languages. He had, however, been recommended to GOERING by Oberstleutnant JESCHONNEK, at that time Chief of the 1st Abteilung of the General Staff. 10. The first task which SCHMID set himself was to replace his staff by younger and more suitably qualified officers, although these were difficult to obtain. The organisation of the 5th Abteilung, or department Ic of the Ops. Staff as it now became, is shown in Appendix II to this report. After the dismissal of SCHMID in 1944 the department was reorganised by Oberst WODARG to the form in which it remained until the closing stages of the war. This aspect is discussed later in this report and the new organisation appears in Appendix IV. 11. The main departments of SCHMID’s new organisation were set up as a first echelon at the Wildpark headquarters, and other departments as a second echelon at the R.L.M. in Berlin. For 21/2 years SCHMID and his staff lived and worked in the command train which was the "Robinson" headquarters. 12. By the outbreak of war intelligence departments had also been set up in the subordinate commands of the G.A.F., but choice and training of staffs were far from satisfactory, and it was not until 1942 that Ic (Intelligence) officers were appointed down to Geschwader and Gruppe levels. Even then the type of officers chosen reflected a lack of appreciation of the needs of Intelligence. 13. According to Oberstleutnant OHLETZ, the entire Ic service suffered from lack of experience when the war broke out, since the apparatus to meet the demands of war was not brought into being, until that time; from the technical point of view, however, Intelligence had played its part well up to that time, as, for instance, in that the target indices available at the outset were good, as were the political and geographical studies produced. 14. In spite of SCHMID's efforts to introduce younger men into Intelligence at the time when he took office, his specialist staff was still mainly composed of older reserve officers, the majority of whom were lacking in both physical and mental agility. His officers were blindly devoted to him and appeared uncritical of the course he gave them to pursue. 15. Actually there was much disagreement in the G.A.F. concerning the personality of SCHMID. His self-confidence was enormous and his enmity was feared. By virtue of his double office as Chef Ic and GOERING’s personal General Staff Officer, he exerted an influence over GOERING outweighing even that of JESCHONNEK when the latter was Chief of Staff. The strong tension later existing between SCHMID and JESCHONNEK was openly discussed. It was also accepted that SCHMID would not tolerate any officer about him who could become potentially dangerous to his position. 16. The composition of his staff certainly appeared to bear out this conviction. By dint bribery, a persuasive tongue and his proverbial conviviality - was a heavy drinker – he had created about himself a circle of officers who were completely under his thumb. 17. It is only in the light of this state of affairs that the discrepancies between the information from intelligence formations at the front and its dissemination by the Chef Ic to be discussed later in this series of reports can, to some extent, be understood. SOURCES OF INTELLIGENCES. 18. It was impossible for the 5th Abteilung to achieve the ideal solution for the collection of intelligence, namely, the subordination to it of all agencies concerned with the procuring of information. SCHMID’s suggestion to set up an inter-service department of O.K.W, which would build up a complete picture of the military, naval, and industrial potentialities of the enemy met with no more success. The result was that each service produced a partial appreciation from available sources, whilst the S.S. maintained a separate agent and foreign service. 19. The 5th Abteilung sought to administer its own press and attaché service, the technical study of foreign aircraft and the interrogation of prisoners. It also claimed that it should be the channel for liaison with the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Propaganda, should have the right to control sales of German aircraft abroad, and finally that it should have the sole responsibility for a day-to-day appreciation of the situation in war. From SCHMID's point of view, however, few of these matters were arranged satisfactorily. 20. In the spring of 1939 he was able to obtain control of the R.L.M. press department following upon certain blunders in the censorship, and in the few months remaining before the War introduced a tighter discipline. 21. The aims of the press department were to glean information from the foreign press as well as to conduct propaganda for the G.A.F. in press articles, pictures and films whilst maintaining a control of the security aspect and, after outbreak of War, to organise the G.A.F. press publicity units. The wartime organisation was never clearly defined, however, being complicated by the rival intervention of the Propaganda Ministry. 22. Liaison with the Propaganda Ministry produced good results only in the form of films and other comforts for the troops, but in the favourable periods of the War the difficulties of propaganda and censorship were not important. Later, however, WODARG found himself blamed by GOERING or the Chief of Staff for errors in publication over which it was impossible to keep a control – a situation which led to much personal friction. 23. The provision of foreign newspapers was in the hands of the Sicherheitsdienst and the supply of daily papers for intelligence purposes was therefore irregular, although periodicals could be obtained without much difficulty. Liaison with foreign scientific institutes was forbidden and could only be conducted through the Abwehr. 24. The G.A.F. Attaché Service abroad was subordinate to the Chef Ic, and was also responsible for securing the confidence of German-allied and neutral air attachés in Germany. Although the Attaché Service was regarded as a valuable potential source of information, its subordination to the 5th Abteilung was not brought about until the spring of 1939. 25. Its contribution to the information on foreign air forces was very small both in peace and war. Before 1939, when the Attaché Service had been subordinated to the central office at the R.L.M., its chief, Major CRAMON, had refused to regard the obtaining of information as part of his task, added to which GOERING's attitude had always been to send illqualified officers abroad as air attachés. 26. The importance attached by the head of Ic to the Attaché Service did not meet with official approval and the Attaché conferences held at Berlin at which was expressed the dissatisfaction of Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary and Turkey with the lack of German support, were finally forbidden on account of their political character. 27. The Foreign Office declined to pass on military or air information via its officials, and only after outbreak of war was closer liaison effected by setting up a representative (Ic/Pol) who, however, only covered the rather restricted questions of violations of the frontier, exchange of prisoners, free passage of ships and listening to enemy radio. 28. Intelligence officers of all departments had at first been allowed to listen to the enemy radio, but this was restricted in summer 1942 to Ob.d.L. and the heads of the Luftflotten and a list had to be sent to the Propaganda Ministry of all persons to whom this authority was delegated. 29. SCHMID considered the Abwehr department to be the worst functioning institution of O.K.W. and stated that whatever material was supplied by it could not be appreciated at its true value because there was no way of judging the reliability of the agents. The Abwehr was a huge and expensive organization but, according to SCHMID, it was manned by the worst and most unsuitable officers in the services. It achieved very little in peace and only occasional chance results in war. At the beginning of the war it had undeserved larols thrust upon it by the attention paid in enemy countries to the fifth column. SCHMID did not find it surprising that the S.S. took over the whole organisation with apparent ease. 30. At the outbreak of war the special photo-reconnaissance Staffel formerly subordinated to the office of O.K.W. was put under the control of the 5th Abteilung and became the Ob.d.L. Gruppe. SCHMID praised the outstanding reconnaissance work of this unit in all theatres of war, as well as pioneer technical achievements in high altitude flying. The main sources of intelligence were, however, the wireless interception service and the interrogation of prisoners of war although the latter did not produce any outstanding results until towards the closing stages of SCHMID's period of office. 31. The wireless interception service was developed in peace-time by General MARTINI and was still controlled by him during the whole of the war. SCHMID recognised the valuable nature of the work done by this department, but depreciated the tendency of the Signals Staff to issue independent appreciations which were necessarily incomplete and unbalanced. In his opinion much more could have been achieved by its subordination to an organisation with a wider horizon and more penetrating aims. This deficiency became even more apparent to SCHMID when later in the war he became the Chief of Jagdkorps I and was concerned with defence of the Reich. 32. An appreciation by Generalleutnant SCHMID from memory, and unaided by documents, of Intelligence covered by the organisations mentioned above appears in Appendices III A to C of the present report. DISSEMINATION OF INTELLIGENCE 33. In the early stages of the war the 5th Abteilung was responsible for drawing up situation reports under the headings of air attacks, air defence and the sea and land situation. These reports were based upon those received twice daily from the fronts by the Ic Report Centre and often had to correct hasty and exaggerated reports which had reached GOERING through In (Operational channels). When Germany began to suffer reverses in the War the distribution of these Intelligence reports was restricted and in the spring of 1942 GOERING forbad their publication altogether. 34. Chef Ic had other tasks which were not purely concerned with the G.A.F. direction in that he passed Intelligence to interested specialist ministers and general staffs of German-allied countries whenever it seemed necessary or opportune, being thereby drawn into conferences outside the G.A.F. 35. At certain intervals reports were issued by Chef Ic containing a survey of the position on individual fronts. There were, however, other bodies which trespassed upon the functions of the 5th Abteilung or overlapped in the issue of intelligence appreciations. UDET's technical office under Oberst Ing. TSCHERSICH (GL/Rü) appeared to consider that its task was to prove that all foreign equipment was inferior to German. His reports on the excellence of German Intelligence, bombs, and weapons were preferred by GOERING, and enjoyed great popularity in the period after the French campaign. This organisation was finally linked up with the Chef Ic in 1940 and was reorganised with good effect under Oberst Ing. SCHWEPKE. 36. The head of the O.K.W. Wirtschaftsstab had announced at a conference in the summer of 1939 that his task in War would include the conduct of strategic air war-fare. This body did in fact issue reports on the sensitivity of foreign countries to air attack. A Ic Wirtschaftsstab was later formed under WODARG, but according to the staff of Oberstleutnant KILLINGER of Dulag Luft the opportunity of interrogation of Allied prisoners on industrial subjects was almost completely neglected; the interrogators could never obtain the necessary briefing or outside interest for such work. 37. An example of the worth of the Ic Wirtschaftsstab in January 1943 in the form of appreciation of British synthetic oil production and Russian oil production has recently come to light in a captured document now in the hands of A.D.I.(K) Document Section (List No.93). 38. In the opinions of KIENITZ, OHLETZ and ZETZSCHE the Ic Service itself suffered from the fact that its Chief did not present with sufficient obduracy a plain unvarnished picture of the situation which was to be concluded from practical experience at the front, and from indubitable facts photographic reconnaissance and captured material, underlined by P/Ws’ statements, outside intelligence and above all by evidence from the wireless interception service. 39. One result of this was that the total numbers of British bombers engaged in night attacks on Germany was not believed, and when the Chief of Ic confirmed the accuracy of CHURCHIL's figure for the 1000-bomber raid on Cologne in May 1942, he laid himself open to charges of defeatism and theorising. His reports acquired the reputation of "Lügenmeldungen" (lies) among members of the Operations Staff, and the Chief of Air Staff finally ordered that the Ic staff should be cut down to lessen the output of unpleasant nonsense. 40. In another instance of this kind, which is described more fully in the final report of this series, disagreement of Luftflotte 6's figures of Russian strength became so acute that JESCHONNEK ordered an enquiry into the methods of appreciation by Oberstleutnant OHLETZ, the Chief Intelligence Officer of the Luftflotte. 41. The strength postulated by Chief Ic for the Russian Air Force was but a fraction of the enemy strength actually encountered at the front and so increasingly worthless did the appreciations become that at the instance of von GREIM, OHLETZ refrained from handing them down to the operational units in order that their faith in the Higher Command should not be further shaken. There were days on which over 100 aircraft were shot down in the area of Luftflotte 6 alone, whilst Chef Ic was estimating the total Russian effort as 150 to 200 aircraft on the entire Eastern front. 42. In order to cover his intelligence officers, von GREIM himself flew immediately to headquarters to put the case personally. On his return he informed OHLEZ that JESCHONNEK had recognised the accuracy of the Luftflotte reports and wished the fact to be conveyed to him; he added that Oberst SCHMID would not remain in office much longer. DISMISSAL OF SCHMID 43. Matters were brought to a hold as far as SCHMID was concerned when in August 1942 an Ic officer of the Attaché Gruppe, Oberstleutnant SCHULZT-BOYSEF, was arrested by the Gestapo, in agreement with GOERING, on a charge of espionage for Russia. A number of other members of Ic were questioned and altogether at least 100 persons were arrested in Berlin in what became known as the "Rote Kapelle affair". 44. It was established that SCHULZT-BOYSEF, had had sources of information in the G.A.F. Technical Office, in the Foreign Office and the O.K.W. although he had not received secret information of any kind from Ic. Nevertheless, SCHMID was reproached by GOERING and the Chief of Staff for having protected SCHULZE-BOYSEF in 1938 and at the beginning of the war against the suspicions of the Gestapo. 45. In October 1942 SCHMID was relieved of his post, officially because of the Rote Kapelle affair; in the G.A.F., however, it was considered that his departure was due to events at the front not having conformed with his predictions. 46. After SCHMID, the task of taking up the reins of Ic was allotted to Oberstleutnant KOEGL who, however, was not suited to his duties and handed them over shortly afterwards to Major WODARG. KOEGL’s short tenure had one good effect in that it brought Oberstleutnant KIENITZ more into the picture. According to OHLUTZ that officer was a very accurate worker, but unfortunately, although undeniably the most valuable of the officers in responsible positions, did not possess the particular gifts necessary to make a successful Chef Ic. WODARG's TENURE OF OFFICE - 1942 to 1945 47. Major WODARG had been deputy head of Ic under Oberst SCHMID and he was also involved in the Rote Kapelle affair and was dismissed at the same time on a charge of failing to maintain adequate supervision. He was saved from further punishment only because it was maintained that meticulous secrecy had been carried so far in the Gruppe Ost and the Operations Staff that supervision by WODARG had been impossible. However, 5 months after the dismissal of SCHMID, WODARG succeeded KOEGL as Head of Ic. 48. He took up his duties with remarkable energy and he soon rid himself completely of the superannuated personal staff of Ic, apart from a small number of experts, and introduced young and highly ambitious General Staff officers. By this means he diffused considerably more energy into the department. Oberstleutnant KIENITZ was available to facilitate the smooth change-over from the SCHMID regime, and with his complete mastery of the methods of the past provided a good liaison with the new generation. 49. A table showing the Ic staff after its reorganisation by WODARG appears in Appendix IV and may be compared with the organisation under SCHMID given in Appendix II. 50. According to KIENITZ, WODARG undoubtedly brought the required ideas and breadth of vision to Intelligence. His methods of evaluating the War situation were completely revolutionary and his appreciations were built up on the basis of front Intelligence, being given out unvarnished and untainted by the methods which had played such a big part with his predecessor. For protection against attempts to oust him from the saddle he relied on a very close relationship with the ministry of Dr. GOEBBELS and the Reichssicherheits Hauptamt (security police headquarter). 51. His work was much hampered by his one outstanding peculiarity, which stamped his department with a certain character. His mind was imbued with a morbid distrust of the whole world and he suffered from a form of spy mania which could almost be described as pathological. This made life very unpleasant both for himself and for those about him. He had his officers watched continually and he checked every possible method and procedure with Amt IV of the Sicherheitsdienst in order to be in a position to cope immediately with any possible threat to himself or his department. 52. In his relations with GOERING Oberst WODARG was made to feel that he was an imperfect substitute for Oberst SCHMID the founder and architect of the Ic Service. WODARG never attended a Führer’s conference, nor was he allowed in HITLER’s presence because of his Jewish appearance - he had Jewish connections in both his own and his wife's family. In the O.K.L. he was the least important personality of the staff and he himself did not consider that he was the right man, especially in view of his ill health, to have played an active part in the shaping of policy and the raising of Ic from its subordinate role in the councils of O.K.L. 53. In spite of the drive which WODARG brought to Ic and in spite of his many ideas the work of Ic was doomed to failure in that it had to be performed at a time when the G.A.F. was at its lowest ebb, when through lack of air reconnaissance and liaison with Mi1itary Intelligence services, the enemy dispositions were becoming increasingly difficult to arrive at. Ides might burst from WODARG in an unfailing flow, but no sooner did some new factor crop up than the situation grew out of hand again. That the department functioned with any regularity at all WOGARD felt was due to Oberstleutnant KIENITZ, who as WODARG’s permanent deputy provided the one stable focal point in the entire organisation. INTERNAL INTRIGUE. 54. From the time of his own implication in the Russian spy affair, WOGARD maintained more or less friendly relations with officials of the S.D. in the Reichssicherheitsdienst Hauptamt, relations which were fostered by the judicious distribution of delicacies from G.A.F. stores. Apart from the confession that these occasional visits provided him with an excuse vis-à-vis the O.K.L. Staff for leisure hours in Berlin or otherwise unauthorised journeys, WODARG gave three examples of his exploitation of these contacts. 55. He passed on as a precaution any reports on officers who seemed to him to arouse suspicion, but often without any further action to be taken as the investigating authorities were too overburdened. In return the S.D. sometimes passed to Ic reports of corruption inside the G.A.F. which were dealt with internally by the O.K.L. without BORMANN being drawn into the matter. 56. After the bomb explosion in HITLER’s headquarter WODARG shortcircuited the S.D.'s investigations into the General Staffs by himself undertaking to watch over O.K.L. by means of GOERING’s Forschungsamt. This telephone eavesdropping was reduced to a farce since there was only one possibility of listening-in on six exchanges with a daily average of 12-18,000 telephone conversations. Discreet personal warnings were passed by WODARG to the Air Staff, and a few weeks later the control was dropped after WODARG had reported to GOERING and so to HIMMLER that the task had been carried out with negative result. 57. In autumn 1944 the Sicherheitsdienst office at Frankfurt charged Oberstleutnant KILLINGER and his interrogation officers with anglophile tendencies, defeatism and transgression of service rules. The S.S. demanded punishment of the offenders and subordination to the S.S. of the prisoner of war interrogation centre, which WODARG interpreted as a move by Amt IV of the R.S.H.A. to steal a march on Amt VI. WODARG claims the credit for having taken successful steps to get the matter settled by G.A.F. court martial instead of in the People’s Court. 58. Through his former activity as G.A.F. censor, he was on good relations with Dr. GOEBBELS, about whom he records the admittedly quite new point of view that he was personally in favour of coming to terms with the Allies long before the catastrophic effects of Allied air supremacy. He had a wholesome respect for Allied statesmen, and warned against the error of underestimating the enemy. WODARG used his contacts in the Propaganda Ministry, the personnel of which was mainly G.A.F. officers, to play off one government clique against another and to secure private information which he claims to have used to protect O.K.L. against the S.S. - until the latter took over all the key positions in the Propaganda Ministry. OBERSTLEUTNANT KIENITZ 59. In February 1945 Oberstleutnant KIENITZ was put in charge of Ic, although he was never appointed Chef Ic. After service as a Gruppenkommandeur with J.G.3 in the early part of the war he held office successively under SCHMID, KOEGL and WODARG, being responsible for Order of Battle first on the eastern front and later in the West. From November 1944 onwards he was WODARG's deputy and right hand man. 60. After taking over from WODARG, KIENITZ very soon came to the conclusion that the G.A.F. had become a purely ground support air force, and he therefore directed all his efforts towards the determination of Allied intentions first in the East, later in the West — as indicated by the position of new airfields, ammunition and fuel dumps, unit movements, etc. For this information he relied mainly on the W/T listening service; the results of his findings he embodied in as air situation report. GERMAN INTELLIGENCE – CONCLUSIONS. 61. The mentality of the German rulers, who had risen to power in internal political strife and were fanatical to the point of despising the intelligence of the so-called "Intellektuellen", was such that they were incapable of appreciating an intelligence service of their own fashioning or of respecting the intelligence service of the enemy. Otherwise according to WODARG, they would have avoided the War in the first place, or having recognised the absolute superiority of the enemy, would have concluded peace earlier - about the beginning of 1942. 62. The General Staff of the G.A.F., in common with the other branches of the armed forces, was in WODARG's opinion too small and untrained to assume effective leadership even if the Chief of Staff had recognised the value of the intelligence service in general or appreciated its work in detail. Since this recognition was lacking, Ic was inadequately staffed in comparison with Ia, the operations department. Moreover, the lack of co-ordination between the sources of information and Ic limited considerably the latter's ability to draw up a complete intelligence picture. 63. The activity of the General Staff and particularly the Ic department was further crippled by HIMMLER's assumption of power over the State and armed forces, and from spring 1944 onwards the General Staff had to struggle for existence against the encroachments of the S.S. 64. Hauptmann ZETZSCHE has summed up the main weaknesses of German Intelligence during the War in the following main points:- A) Within the State. i) There was no hard and fast Ic organisation within the Wehrmacht with boundaries clearly demarcated from those of similar civil bodies. ii) Wehrmachtführungsstab Ic did not co-ordinate the work of the Heeres-, Marine- and Luftwaffenführungsstäbe Ic, but was merely a distributing agency for the Ic reports of the individual Wehrmacht components, exercising practically no authority over them. iii) The large number of intelligence organisations in Germany without clearly defined tasks, including O.K.W./ Amtsgr.Ausland, R.S.H.A. (Mil.Amt), R.S.H.A. (Hauptamt IV) and Reichsministerium Speer (1. Abtlg). (The Propaganda Ministry and the Foreign Office also partly covered the same territory). iv) The lack of a Ministry of Economic Warfare. Military Commands were obliged to cope with the problems without expert knowledge or guidance, (e.g. in the Battle of Britain). With so many independent intelligence organisations and no centrally co-ordinated hand the Germans consequently never saw the enemy picture as a whole. B) Within the G.A.F. i) Again innumerable bodies working over the same ground as G.A.F. Ops. Staff Ic, TLR Rü, Gen. Nafü, Waffengeneräle, Forschungsamt, etc. These departments were not responsible to Ic and on grounds of personal ambition worked by and far for themselves. All this was due to the lack of a “man of stature” as chef Ic (GOERING’s phrase). ii) The not altogether happy organisation of G.A.F. Ops. Staff Ic (Luftwesen, Ic/See, Ic/Bild). iii) The subordination of Ic to Chief of G.A.F., whose decisions were too often swayed by In considerations. iv) Ic was kept as ill-informed on the subject of German weapons, apparatus, etc. that it was incapable of offering suggestions which would otherwise undoubtedly have arisen from Ic knowledge of Allied material. v) Ic's tactical suggestions were mainly ignored owing to the jealousy of the Training Abteilung which again was in no position to evaluate enemy information since in the sphere of training too, there were many figures in the pie (principally those of the Waffengeneräle and Forward Commands). vi) Ic was unable to have its wishes carried out by Forward Commands. It could not order but only request. vii) The poor quality of Ic personnel. Many officers who were not wanted by other branches of the service found their way into the various departments of Ic. viii) Ic was considerably understaffed. Moreover, such staff as it had was unevenly distributed in relation to the tasks. ix) There were no Ic officers with the flying units, so that valuable lessons which might have been drawn from battle experience were lost. x) The lack of intelligence courses for officers xi) The insufficient support of Ic in every sphere, e.g. no aircraft, no cars, no money or additional comforts and drinks (the latter for P/W interrogation centre, Oberursel), insufficient communications with Oberursel. 65. Ironically, the sole organisation to recognise the worth of Ic was the S.S. (since most personnel had connections with foreign countries and were therefor already under suspicion). Hence the efforts of the S.S. (by means of agents) to keep a watch on the entire Ic organisation in Germany and finally even to take it over. A.D.I.(K) and Walter A. Frank U.S. Air Interrogation. for:- S.D. Felkin Group Captain."
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Fighter defence of germany: Control of fighters
"SECRET A.D.I.(K) Report No.525/1944
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM P/W AS THE STATEMENTS HAVE NOT AS YET BEEN VERIFIED, NO MENTION OF THEM SHOULD BE MADE IN INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OF COMMANDS OR LOWER FORMATIONS, NOR SHOULD THEY BE ACCEPTED UNTIL COMMENTED ON AIR MINISTRY INTELLIGENCE SUMMARIES OR SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS. FIGHTER DEFENCE OF GERMANY CONTROL OF FIGHTERS BY THE "Y" PROCEDURE. 1. The Interrogation of G.A.F. fighter pilots in the past has made it possible to form a picture of German tactics against U.S.A.A.F. bomber formations from the point of view of fighter interception force. Knowledge by P/W of the raid tracking organisation on the ground, however, has up to the present been lacking, and many gaps have remained in the picture, particularly where the Fühlungshalter (shadowing aircraft) and the "Y" controlled fighters are concerned. 2. Two G.A.F. Signals Officers, who had been directly concerned with "Y" control sites - one man was a plotting officer - have now described in some detail the method of ground control at present being used in the operation of fighter interception forces and of the shadowing aircraft; their knowledge was chiefly confined to methods practised in France, but they state that the same principles also apply to operations in Germany. 3. Some of the information is of a semi-technical nature, and the present report is therefore divided into two parts; the first part concerns the operational aspect of fighter control, and the second part deals with the equipment and method of operation of the unit of control - the "Y" site. I. CONTROL OF FIGHTER INTERCEPTION. OPERATIONAL CONTROL. 4. In Allied attacks on Germany, the Jagd Division receives and plots all Radar information on the movements of the bomber formations, together with direct reports from the Fühlungshalter aircraft shadowing those formations and the plotting reports from the fighter "Y" control sites. It is primarily on this information that the Divisional commentary and the control of a whole interception action are based. 5. The sole medium for transmission of the Divisional commentary is the "Y" site; the latter is connected by landline to the Divisional plotting centre so that the plotting of an operation is carried out at both those centres simultaneously. 6. An interception can therefore be directed either from Divisional Headquarters or from the "Y" site, but it is normally the plotting officer at the "Y" site who puts out the R/T commentary. 7. The area of control ("Führungsraum") of a "Y" site is limited by the range of the transmitters used, and according to P/W the average range may be taken as 250 to 300 kilometres; the Division therefore controls an operation over its territory by making use of a chain of "Y" sites. 8. The area of R/T control of a "Y" site may be increased by additional ground relay transmitters, known as "Brummer", so that R/T communications with fighters can be continued outside normal range. These stations and their operation are discussed in Part II of this report. 9. The present P/W stated that the Central Operational Headquarters ("Zentral Gefechtsstand"), situated in the Berlin area, receives simultaneous information from each Divisional plotting centre and makes its own plots on that basis; the fighter commentary on the "Reichsjägerwelle" or such orders as are put out on the broadcaster "Annemarie" emanate from that centre, but according to the present P/W are only utilised by fighter interception forces in case of failure of the Divisional commentary, or the breaking up of an interception formation. "Y" CONTROL OF FIGHTERS. General Principls. 10. The principles of "Y" fighter control, whereby the range and bearing of friendly fighter are determined by a "Y" ground station, are already well known. 11. In operations in Germany, the "Y" site, known as a "Stellung", usually consists of five separate stations ("Stationen"), each of which comprises a transmitter hut and mast, and a receiver pylon incorporating a D/F, and rangemeasuring unit. All five stations are connected to a plotting room situated on the site. 12. Each station of the site is allotted a separate W/T channel, known as "Linie", consisting of a transmitter and a receiver carrier frequency; thus a number of individual aircraft can be controlled simultaneously within a given area. 13. In order to extend the control of a single aircraft, such as a night-fighter, to that of a number of aircraft, such as a day fighter interception force, it is only necessary to include a "Y" controlled aircraft amongst the fighters of the formation. 14. In this case the receivers of all aircraft in the formation wi11 be tuned to the ground transmitter frequency to receive R/T instructions from the plotting centre as well as from the fighter formation leader. 15. In this manner up to five separate interception formations can be controlled, each on a different frequency form a single "Y" site. If necessary, all five formations can be brought together to intercept a single bomber formation, or alternatively, each of the five formations can be despatched separately to meet the bombers or their fighter cover at various points. 16. The ground transmitter carrier frequencies, known as the "Gemeinschaftswelle", are distributed over the 40.4 to 42.3 mc/s. band at intervals of .05 mc/s. and the ground receiver carrier frequencies, known as the "Messwelle", are distributed over the 38.5 to 40.4 mc/s. band at the same intervals. A list of such frequencies numbered 1 to 40, appeared in a recently captured Signals Order (A.D.I.(K) 4.68/1944, paras.41-42). 17. In operation, the ground transmitter carrier frequency is modulated by a continuous note of 300 or 3,000 cycles; the receiver/transmitter in the "Y" aircraft (known in J.G.3 as the "Lotse" aircraft) receives its modulation and automatically re-transmits it on another frequency in the 38.4 to 40.4 mc/s. band; the aircraft transmitter frequency is normally 1.9 mc/s. lower than the ground transmitter frequency. 18. The re-transmission from the aircraft is picked up at the "Y" station by the D/F receiver, by which the bearing of the aircraft is than determined. The same transmission is also received by the range-measuring unit, and the distance of the aircraft from the station is determined by measuring the phase difference of the modulation received. 19. The height of the aircraft under control is not measured by the "Y" station, but is obtained over the R/T channel from readings taken in the aircraft, thus all the data required for the plotting of a controlled aircraft, viz. bearing, distance and height, are obtained. 20. There are two methods of controlling aircraft formations by means of the "Y" procedure, and these are illustrated diagrammatically in Sketch I. 21. The first method, known as the "Begleiter", has now dropped out of use, but is repeated here as a matter of interest. By this method, the leading aircraft of a formation, known as the "Führer" aircraft, also acted as the "Y" aircraft, whilst the accompanying aircraft of the formation were known as "Begleiter". 22. In the Führer aircraft the receiver was linked with the transmitter and the receiver frequency was tuned to the ground transmitter frequency, whilst the aircraft transmitter was set to the frequency of the ground receiver. 23. In all other aircraft of the formation the receiver was tuned to the transmitter frequency of the leader, and in none of them was the receiver linked to the transmitter. The formation was thus plotted solely by the position of the Führer aircraft. 24. The Begleiter method has, according to P/W, now been replaced by a newer method known as the "Gemeinschaftswelle", in which the receivers of all aircraft of a fighter formation, including that of the leader, are set to the ground transmitter frequency ("Gemeinschaftswelle"). In this method the aircraft is not the leader of the formation but he flies as N°2 to the leader, with one or more similar aircraft as reserves. 25. Upon referring to the Sketch, it will be seen that the formation leader's instructions are not heard directly by the "Y" station; they are picked up by the receiver of the "Y" aircraft (in this case on 41 mc/s.) and automatically retransmitted (on 39.1 mc/s.) to the ground station. 26. On the other hand, should the pilot of the "Y" aircraft wish to speak to his own formation leader, he must pass his message to the ground station on 39.1, mc/s., and the plotting officer will repeat the message on the Gemeinschaftswelle. Transmission of Commentary. 27. A plotting officer on the "Y" site, or his counterpart on the extended line to the Divisions, is provided with headphones connected to the receiver of the range-measuring unit, and with a microphone which is connected to the transmitter. 28. By depressing a key he can link the microphone with the ground transmitter and can impose R/T speech on the already modulated carrier frequency which it sends out. It is not necessary to discontinue the modulating note, so that D/F’ing and range measuring can therefore proceed at the same time as the commentary. 29. In practice, the fighter interception force is led by the "Y" control officer as far as within sight of the bomber formation, at which point R/T control ceases to allow the formation leader to direct the combat, and is only taken up after combat when the fighters have re-formed for a second interception, and the "Y" aircraft has made fresh contact with ground control. During this time, however, the ground station continues to plot the formation through the "Y" aircraft. Fühlungshalter Aircraft. 30. It will be remembered that when a U.S. bomber force is reported to be entering German territory a special shadowing aircraft, the Fühlungshalter, wi11 be sent to meet and follow that force and report its movements and position. 31. The Fühlungshalter aircraft operates under the control of the "Y" plotting officer in the manner described above. In the opening stages of an operation, the Fühlungshalter is directed to the penetrating formation on the basis of Radar plots, and upon making contacts it takes up a position usually above and to the rear of the enemy formation. 32. The Fühlungshalter then reports strength, type of formation, direction, height and fighter cover of the penetrating force. After the initial report, further information is only sent in the event of major changes in the composition or movements of the U.S. formations. 33. As soon as the Fühlungshalter has made contact with the bomber formation, all R/T control by the "Y" site ceases; the Fühlungshalter aircraft communicates directly with Divisional Headquarters through the receiver of the "Y" station and the "Y" control officer stands by and listens to the R/T traffic whilst maintaining a plotting control by the "Y" procedure. 31. According to P/W, the Divisional Plotting Centre at this stage relies on Radar data for following the formations, and only depends upon the Fühlungshalter aircraft to supply immediate details of such circumstances as withdrawal of fighter cover. II. "Y" CONTROL SITE, AND IT’S OPERATION. "Y" CONTROL SITE. Manning. 35. A "Y" control station requires nine men per shift, or 27/30 men per 24 hour, for its operation and a site consisting of nine stations is normally occupied by a company of 150/160 operators and 50/60 maintenance personnel. The personnel of the "Y" control station is distributed as follows: Transmitter hut: One operator. D/F Cabin: D/F Operator and log-book keeper. Range-Measuring Cabin: A Supervisor, range-measurer and log-book keeper. Plotting Room: Plotter (friendly plots), plotter (enemy-plots) and plotting officer. Communications. 36. Internal: The standard layout of the internal system of commutations in a "Y" site is shown diagramatically in Sketch II. In this Sketch "Station A" shows the general layout applicable to all five stations, while "Station B" shows a diagram of the internal communications which are in reality repeated in all five stations. 37. The internal lines which are shown in the Sketch have the following names and functions: (a) Plotting line (Werteleitung): A telephone connecting the log-book keeper in the D/F cabin to the range-measuring cabin and "Y" plotting room for transmission of bearing readings. (R in Sketch). (b) Telephone (Ringleitung): Connects the D/F cabin, the range measuring room and the transmitter hut for the passing of internal instructions. (I in Sketch). (c) Modulation line (Modulationsleitung): Connects the range-measuring unit to the transmitter for carrying the modulation note. (M in Sketch). (d) Diode line (Diodenleitung): Connects the rangmeasuring room to the transmitter hut; required only when a Siemens range-measuring unit is used. (D in Sketch). (e) Receiving line (Hörleitung): Open line which connects the receiver and the range-measuring unit to the control desk in the plotting room; a parallel line also runs to the Division. (H in Sketch). (f) Transmitter Circuit (Besprechungsleitung): Open line which connects the Division and the plotting room to the range-measuring unit. This can be used as a closed line for internal speech or as an open line for transmission of R/T instructions to the aircraft from the Division or the "Y" plotting officer. (B in Sketch). (g) Keying circuit (Tastleitung): Open line which connects the Division and the "Y" plotting officer to the range-measuring unit and transmitter. Depression of a key at Divisional Headquarters or on the "Y" plotting officer's control desk operates relays to the transmitter and modulation line of the range-measuring unit, allowing R/T instructions from the Division to be transmitted on the carrier wave to the aircraft under control. (K in Sketch). 38. According to P/W, the twenty Channels connecting the five stations of the site to the Division may be carried on two single lines utilising a multi-channel carrier frequency equipment. 39. External W/T Channels: The number of external W/T channels varies, depending on the location of the control site, but usually consists of the following:- (a) Command network star (Befehlsstern d. Ln. Regt.) for reception of tactical orders and general administrative business from and to the headquarters of the Ln. Regt. to which the company operating the "Y" site belongs - a Saram or FuGe.3 set is used for this traffic. (b) Divisional signals star (Divisionsbefehlsstern), used for operational orders and transmissions of range values in the event of failure of the ground lines to the Division. This traffic is also usually conducted on Saram or FuGe.3 sets. (c) Aircraft reporting frequency (Frontflugmeldewelle, or more recently Gerätemeldewelle). On this channel W/T transmissions are received from all Radar search sites giving briefly the important data relating to aircraft activity taking place within the area of the site. This transmission takes place by day and night and supplements and confirms information on enemy activity received from the Divisional Headquarters; messages are written out and handed to the "Y" plotting officer. A pack type W/T set is used for reception of this traffic. Brummer Relay Stations. 40. According to P/W, Brummer relay stations are placed throughout German territory and are employed for relaying R/T speech in cases where aircraft have flown beyond the normal R/T range of the "Y" site. 41. The Brummer stations are connected to the Division H.Q. by landline and are controlled by the Division; should a "Y" plotting officer find that an aircraft under his control is nearing the limit of R/T range, he will request the Division H.Q., to connect with a Brummer station in the relevant area. 42. Whilst making this request, the "Y" plotting officer states the frequency on which the "Y" station is operating, and the Brummer will transmit at that frequency. According to P/W, the R/T traffic on Brummer stations is usually confined to directional and homing instructions, although "Y" control can sometimes continue after the limit of R/T range of the "Y" site has been reached. Plotting Hut and Operational Procedure. 43. The plotting rooms of the five stations belonging to "Y" sites are grouped, in a single hut known as the "Auswertung" (plotting centre). According to P/W there are two types of hut at present in use and a plan view of both these types is shown in Sketch III. 44. The older type of hut contains a separate plotting room and table for each of the five stations, but this type of control contra is said to have offered no satisfactory method of centralised supervision of plots and each plotter had to act on his own responsibility. 45. The improved type of plotting hut has been developed by the Flugmeldedienst (aircraft reporting service) and is believed by P/W now to be widely in use in Germany. In this type of hut a series of six tables is arranged on one side of a rectangular room and each table is fitted with the normal control point and is occupied by an M.C.O. plotter. The chief plotting officer's table and control point are placed behind the row of tables in such a position that he has a view of all proceedings. 46. The reason, for the six plotting tables is that on some "Y" sites the "Egon" method of fighter control is practised in addition to the normal "Y" control and an extra plotting table is set aside for this purpose. 47. According to P/W the Seeburg table has been withdrawn from the majority of "Y" sites in favour of the present simple method of plotting. In front of each group of three tables is a vertical glass screen marked with the German fighter grid and the main outlines of a 1:300,000 map of the area of control. 48. Behind each screen are four plotters, three of whom receive and plot friendly bearing and range values on the reverse side of the glass screen. Plots are compiled from range and bearing data in the range-measuring room of each station and are passed through to these plotters in terms of the fighter grid; the fourth plotter is responsible for receiving and marking enemy plots. 49. All plots are numbered and in addition the courses drawn on the glass screens during each operation are copied on to a sheet of paper for record and reference purposes. 50. The extremely close and continuous contact with the "Y" controlled aircraft enables the plotting control officer immediately to detect any deviation of the aircraft from the correct course and to rectify the error by ordering a slight correction of course when necessary. 51. The plotting officer bases his instructions to the controlled aircraft on the estimated position of the friendly and enemy aircraft; in doing this an allowance is made for a delay varying from five to ten seconds between the times of the observations of enemy aircraft when originally made and when finally received and plotted. By experience, specific allowances are made for the extent of the delay from the various stations supplying enemy plots. 52. When the fighters are nearing the limit of the range of the "Y" site, the "Y" plotting officer is responsible for handing the aircraft over to the next station; he must advise that station, through Divisional Headquarters of the receiver and transmitter frequencies in use, since the new station may have been operating on other frequency channels. This step is taken sufficiently early to allow the new station taking over control to tune in on the R/T traffic of the controlling station. 53. The "Y" plotting officer's task ceases for the time being when the control aircraft or accompanying formation is brought in sight of the enemy or, in the case of night-fighters, when the aircraft is sufficiently close to its target to be able to make an attack with the aid of search equipment. 54. Plotting by the "Y" station continues throughout the sortie and combat of a fighter interception force, and does not cease until the aircraft return to base after combat. A.D.I.(K) S.D. Felkin 23 Sept.’44. Wing Commander"
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