Operational Impacts of Ultra on the Air War?

[Boomerang]

Gentlemen:

I would like to ask a very broad question, which I concede may defy a simple answer i.e. how did the intelligence provided by Ultra actually effect the outcomes of the air war between the RAF, USAAF and the LW?

The value of Ultra as a historical resource is blindingly obvious, but Ultra's contemporary impact on aerial operations is another issue. As one example, Donald Caldwell's JG 26 War Diary describes how LW orders for the conduct of operations in the Normandy campaign were broken very quickly, presumably assisting Allied planners to disrupt such operations. However, if Ultra never existed at the time of this campaign, would the outcomes (total Allied air supremacy, thousands of Jabos swarming over the German lines, LW impotence) been any different?

I can see that there are many factors to consider, such as the significance of Ultra in gathering German operational plans, Order of Battle information, technical data, etc, so I doubt there is a simple answer.

Thanks

Don W

[Larry deZeng]

Here are two fine books on the subject. Sir Ralph Bennett, a Cambridge Univ. mathematics professor, spent the war in Betchley Park Hut 3. So in addition to his scholarly research, he speaks with first-hand knowledge.

Bennett, Ralph. ULTRA in the West: The Normandy Campaign 1944-45. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1979. ISBN: 0-684-16704-2. Hb. Dj. 336p. Maps. Footnotes. Bibliography. Index.
Bennett, Ralph. ULTRA and Mediterranean Strategy. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1989. ISBN: 0-68808175-4. Hb. Dj. 496p. Maps. Appendices. Extensive footnotes. Bibliography. Index.

There is also an excellent Top Secret Ultra postwar study on how signals intelligence, including ULTRA, impacted the strategic air war over Germany and the occupied West.

[RT]

Just to add that the allies victory, is not due to strategy, seems even that they used their "rather" important superiority not very smartly, a bit embarassed with such a mighty power , a bit like germans after the french campaign..

Remi

[Nick Beale]

One answer is (if you have the chance!) to read the original messages and check out all the ones with ZZZZ or ZZZZZ in the heading. The number of Z's = the urgency of the message. Broadly, ZZZZ = something that's happening now, while ZZZZZ = something that's going to happen. You could then follow up to see what the Allies did next.

The value of the majority of the messages though seems to lie in filling in the picture of the enemy's strength, dispositions and so on, or in showing what he was trying to achieve. That obviously informed Allied actions but it's much harder to say that "German message A led to Allied action B."

I've written before that the messages don't mean much if you cherry pick one here and another there. They convey more if you take them in bulk. For instance the ones after the Allies cross the Rhine add up to a vivid picture of the Luftwaffe's organisation falling to pieces.

[Tony Jones]

In HW 5 there was a message that a senior LW Officer felt that the Allies knew of the timing of the mass Ju 52 flights to Middle East so the next day should be the last of these flights. The next day the Ju 52's were met by a lrge Allied fighter force and many shot down. To me this is eveidence that Ultra info was used and the opportunity taken to hit the last planned mass flight

Tony

[RT]

Hello Tony,

At the end of the war some italian officers hv been honoured by the allies for "services rendus" in 1942/1943

Remi

Ultra

[Boomerang]

Gentlemen:

Thanks for those responses and the references you suggest. Looks like quite a lot of reading there.

I must admit that my thinking has been influenced by John Keegan's Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda. Far be it for me to sum this up in a sentence, but my reading is that Keegan argues that, while good intel is a useful adjunct, in the end, battles and campaigns are decided by performance on the battlefield.

I'll do the work to draw my own conclusioins as to how well this applies to the use of Ultra against the LW.

Cheers

Don W