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You are here: Home / Article topics / Publications / Naval Historical Review / HMAS Sydney Inquiry (Letter No. 2)

HMAS Sydney Inquiry (Letter No. 2)

Letter Writer · Jun 20, 2000 · Print This Page

Author
Letter Writer
Subjects
WWII operations
Tags
code breaking, Kormoran
RAN Ships
HMAS Sydney II
Publication
June 2000 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)

A further detailed letter has been received from member James Eagles, ex-RAN Communicator, documenting many instances of the Germans decoding British naval and merchant ship signal traffic in 1941, etc. He previously has also come to the conclusion that a compromised secret callsign played a part in the raider Kormoran’s subterfuge.

The many examples of codebreaking and compromises quoted to us by James Eagles come from study of the German records by well-known author David Kahn and others in that field – though he points out that many of B-Dienst’s records were destroyed in an allied bombing raid on Berlin in November 1943. We should note however that the Germans had no less than nine independent signal intercept agencies during the war – leading to much duplication – but also to more complete coverage of allied weaknesses.

Unfortunately our correspondent’s submission is too lengthy for reproduction here but will be held on file of course for any interested persons to consult.

From our own study of author Kahn’s work – “Hitler’s Spies” – we can add two points – Early in the war the branch of the German Naval War Command Intelligence Organisation reporting on “Foreign Navies” was expanded to include a “most important section” keeping track of all foreign commercial vessels “individually”. This should have been impractical to fulfil completely but shows how thorough the German aims were.

Initially they may well have matched British efforts in this regard when their codebreaking efforts in this field are also included – German security was also very effective following an early compromise of a sensitive plan in an air crash in Holland. Hitler personally issued a Basic Order No. I dictating a strict “need to know” with limited distribution and improved safeguards for all such matter in the future. No doubt this order was repeated and reinforced frequently thereafter and author Kahn observes that it provided an alibi for many a German to deny any knowledge of wartime secrets later. -Editors

Naval Historical Review, WWII operations code breaking, Kormoran

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