Churchill's Secret War

by Denniston, Robin

  18 He in turn nurtured his specialists, reducing the stress of their work by instituting short working hours and a six-week holiday, and by writing to the FO of ‘their talents . . . amounting almost to genius’. (PRO HW3/62 X356, 1937). He is said to have been unable to obtain funds for the purchase from the Treasury, so bought Bletchley Park with his own money.

  19 See D. French, ‘The Dardanelles, Mecca and Kut: Prestige as a Factor in British Eastern Strategy, 1914–16’ in War and Society, vol. 5, no. 1 (1987) and ‘The Origins of the Dardanelles Campaign Reconsidered’ in History (1983) and ‘Perfidious Albion Faces the Powers’ in Canadian Journal of History, vol. 28, no. 3.

  20 See Richard Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations, vol. 3 The Anglo-Soviet Accord; Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1972, Chapter 7. Hankey minuted: ‘Marta is a very ingenious cipher which was discovered by great cleverness and hard work. The key of the cipher is changed daily and sometimes as often as 3 times in one message. Hence if it becomes known that we decoded the messages, all governments of the world will probably soon discover that no messages are safe.’ In fact the discovery was made by Fetterlein with two Russian-speaking assistants; a secret memorandum from Trotsky to Lenin reveals the Russians knew Fetterlein was employed by the government in a cryptographic capacity, and that alone would have alerted them to the danger to their cipher security. (Trotsky Archive T/628 of 19/12/20.)

  21 The best account of this ferocious diplomatic confrontation is in Christopher Andrew, op. cit., pp. 266–70.

  22 Howard to Department, 10 July 1937, Registry no. X5264/113/504 of 13 July 1937, Chief Clerk’s Department, Domestic Files 87–225, opened in 1988, PRO FO366/1000.

  23 PRO WO32/4897. Inter-service committee on organisation of cryptography.

  24 PRO WO32/4895. Inter-service committee on organisation of cryptography, which met from 1923 to 20 October 1939. Hugh Sinclair memorandum of 9 May 1924. The file contains memoranda on GCCS by the Foreign Office.

  25 See esp William Friedman, Sources in Cryptologic History no. 3: The Friedman Legacy; National Security Agency, 1992.

  26 See PRO HW3/32.

  27 Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen chaired a committee which reported in the late 1930s on the possibilities of widening the entrance requirements for the diplomatic service and advised against.

  28 See PRO HW3/32 and DENN 1/4, A.G. Denniston, ‘The Government Code and Cipher School between the Wars’, 2 December 1944, and the published version in Intelligence and National Security, vol. 1, no. 1, 1986, p. 50.

  29 Peter Hennessy, Whitehall; London, Jonathan Cape, 1990, p. 103.

  30 Christopher Andrew, op. cit., p. 454. See also notes by J.E. Cooper and Nigel de Grey and comments of F.H. Hinsley in Appendix 5.

  31 See Nigel West, GCHQ:The Secret Wireless War 1900–1986; London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, pp. 38, 123, 174/5, 181, 185, 187, 206–17.

  32 Traffic Analysis. See West, op. cit.; Denniston’s narrative in PRO HW3/32 and G. Welchman, The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes; New York, McGraw Hill, 1982; and D. Kahn, Seizing the Enigma; London, Souvenir Press, 1991, p. 184.

  33 Evaluation – or assessment or ‘discrimination’ (Canadian jargon) – is a complex subject which by 1945 the leading classical cryptographers at Bletchley Park continued to debate. Was their function to provide intercepts – or intelligence? At what point did one shade into the other? Nigel de Grey’s paper on the subject would repay detailed study (PRO HW3/33).

  34 Most secret diplomatic cables to and from the FO were in OTP.

  35 OUP as OTP supplier. The go-between was Edward Travis, c/o Mansfield College. The volume of business he generated was such that HMSO (the paymaster) became the Press’s chief outside account, and many skilled workers were kept busy tapping out random numbers throughout the hostilities. A satellite printing works was set up in nearby Juxon Street to handle OTP business that exceeded the capacity of the main printing works. Retired pressworkers are still reluctant to talk about their secret wartime work, and since no accounts were to be submitted in writing, tracing the production of OTPs has been difficult. PRO FO366/1059 shows that Mansfield College, Oxford, became the ‘construction’ [codemaking] department of GCCS where some seventy Oxford girl graduates were employed by Edward Travis, head of ‘construction’ (i.e. encipherment) at GCCS and deputy head, in supplying the figures to the press. I asked one retired printer, Harold Dotterill, if the comps were allowed to produce their own random figures: the answer was no. (I am grateful to Peter Foden for assisting me through the day books and order books of the war years, and to Mr Dotterill for showing me the ‘code’ and ‘decode’ process whereby print security was guaranteed.)

  36 Nigel West, op. cit., p. 133.

  37 Private information.

  38 In fact HW3 shows that he did not receive all BJs.

  39 Sir Patrick Reilly: private information.

  40 John Ferris, ‘Indulged in all too little: Vansittart, Intelligence and Appeasement’ in Diplomacy and Statecraft, vol. 6, no. 3 (March 1995) pp. 122–75.

  41 See Appendix 8.

  42 House of Lords Library: Lloyd George Papers, file F/209.

  43 See R. Ullman, op. cit., pp. 308–9. This quotes from Trotsky’s Archives T-628: ‘England has organised a network of intercept stations designed particularly for listening to our radio. This accounts for the deciphering of more than 100 of our codes. The keys are sent from London where a Russian subject Feterlain [sic] has been put at the head of cipher affairs having done such work before in Russia.’ For Feterlain read Fetterlein who joined GCCS in 1922 as head of the Russian department.

  44 See ‘The Professional Career of A.G. Denniston’ by the present author in K.G. Robertson, (ed.), British and American Approaches to Intelligence; London, Macmillan, 1986.

  45 Lord Gladwyn [Gladwyn Jebb] remembers taking a BJ to Chamberlain’s office in the House of Commons in 1938. The FO regarded it as further evidence of the futility of appeasement and hoped it would influence Chamberlain. But the Prime Minister simply glanced at it, threw it down and addressed the young Jebb bitterly on the subject of the FO’s disloyal practice of trying to influence the government’s foreign policy by the selective use of diplomatic intercepts. (Private information from Lord Gladwyn.)

  46 PRO HW3/32.

  47 See P. Paillole, Notre Espion chez Hitler; Paris, Laffont, 1985, p. 270. Bertrand here confirms that Capt Braquenie was the head [French] cryptographic specialist. Both he and Col Langer of the Polish secret service signed the Dennistons’ visitors’ book on 9 December 1939, proving that he and Bertrand stayed with Cdr Denniston and worked with him at Bletchley. See also PRO HW3/32: ‘Naturally the Military Section worked in close cooperation with the military intercepting station at Chatham, and it was thanks to this that the section, and GCCS as a whole, had, in 1937, their first glimpse of Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe material and of German police transmissions. Knox failed in his efforts on naval Enigma, led (sic) the team which started to investigate this new problem. Tiltman, deep in other problems, broke in to contribute one vital link. An ever closer liaison with the French, and through them with the Poles, stimulated the attack. Fresh ideas flowed, even from those selected from a university as recruits in the event of war. I think it may be rightly held that this effort of 1938 and 1939 enabled the party at B/P to read the current traffic of the GAF (sic) within five months of the outbreak of war.’ (Draft narrative 2 December 1944, copies in PRO HW3/32, DENN 1/4, and Denniston, op. cit., p. 62).

  48 A.J.P. Taylor, English History 1914–1945; Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1965, p. 4.

  Chapter 3

  1 See D.C. Watt, How War Came: The Immediate origins of the Second World War, 1938–9; London, Macmillan, 1989, pp. 271ff.

  2 See Chapter 2.

  3 Eden did not assume the full title Secretary of State for War until May 1940.

  4 See John Ferris, ‘Vansittart, Intelligence and Appeasement’ in Diplomacy and Statecraft, vol. 6 no. 1 (1995), pp. 133ff.

&n
bsp; 5 See Selim Deringil, Turkish Foreign Policy in the Second World War; Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. 92ff, 205–6.

  6 David Dilks (ed), The Cadogan Diaries; London, Cassell, 1971 p. 255.

  7 See Gerard Mangune (ed), The International Straits of the World; Dordricht, 1987.

  8 AIR23/6935; see also Hinsley, op. cit., vol. 1.

  9 Martin Gilbert, op. cit., vol. 6, pp. 677–8.

  10 Gilbert, ibid p. 880.

  11 PRO FO195/1239; Deringil, op. cit., p. 93.

  12 PRO FO195/1239, PRO WO190/893/22832 (see folder at back).

  13 PRO FO195/2462, Hugessen to Nichols, 7 July 1940.

  14 Though France was out of the fighting Anglo-French sigint co-operation was to continue effectively for another two years. From 20 May 1940 until 14 June the French cryptographic team at Bruno intercepted and decrypted 3,074 German Luftwaffe messages, and on 21 May the first intercepts were sent from Bletchley Park to the British Military Mission in France. Hugh Skillen, Spies of the Air Waves; London, Skillen, 1988, p. 103.

  15 Deringil, op. cit., p. 102.

  16 WO 190/893/22832.

  17 PRO FO195/2462, Rendel to Department, 15 January 1940.

  18 FO371 30076.

  19 PRO FO371/30153, Sargent’s handwritten minute, 20 August 1940.

  20 Franz Halder, The Halder War Diary 1939–42 (ed. by Charles Burdick and Hans-Adolf Jacobsen); New York, Greenhill Books, 1988, p. 65.

  21 Halder, ibid.

  22 Quoted in Deringil, op. cit., p. 105.

  23 Quoted in Deringil, from the 3-volume Kriegstagebuch; Kohlhammer, 1964, vol. 2, p. 151.

  24 PRO FO371/330076, Sargent’s handwritten minute.

  25 See James Marshall-Cornwall, Wars and Rumours of Wars; London, Leo Cooper/Secker and Warburg, 1982.

  26 Eden memorandum on Turkey: Hugessen told the FO, ‘This will have been seen by No. 10’ – i.e. Churchill read a BJ report on Eden in Turkey. See PRO FO371/30076, 4 January 1941. This is one of the few references to Turkish intercepts in the FO files.

  27 Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: vol. 3 The Grand Alliance; London, Cassell, 1950, p. 9.

  28 Halder, op. cit., p. 118.

  29 Irving, op. cit., p. 128.

  30 DO(41) 6th meeting of 20 January quoted in Hinsley, op. cit., vol. 1 p. 443.

  31 Hinsley, op. cit., vol. 1 p. 443.

  32 Churchill, op. cit., p. 18.

  33 Irving, op. cit., pp. 126–27.

  34 Hinsley, op. cit., p. 352.

  35 Churchill, op. cit., pp. 30–1. An Enigma decrypt of 18 January shows German hutments being shipped to Bulgaria and a Luftwaffe mission in Romania discussing long-term fuelling arrangements. See Hinsley, op. cit., p. 355.

  36 Hinsley, ibid p. 355; Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1003, n. 3.

  37 PRO WO190/893/22832, nos 3A and 5A, 15 January 1941; Hinsley, op. cit., p. 446.

  38 Hinsley, op. cit., p. 358.

  39 WO190/893.

  40 Hinsley, op. cit., p. 404.

  41 Dalton’s diary, lodged in the London School of Economics.

  42 PRO WO190/983/22832, 79A, 6 February 1941.

  43 Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1003.

  44 Gilbert, ibid p. 649.

  45 Pierson Dixon, Double Diploma: The Life of Sir Pierson Dixon, Don and Diplomat; London, Hutchinson, 1968, pp. 57 and 66.

  46 Irving, op. cit., p. 172.

  47 Churchill, op. cit., p. 65.

  48 PRO PREM3/206/3 and 173, Confidential Print of 29 September 1941.

  49 Deringil, op. cit., pp. 119–20.

  50 Churchill, op. cit., p. 86.

  51 Churchill, op. cit., p. 109.

  52 Churchill, op. cit., p. 109.

  53 Halder, op. cit., p. 358.

  54 See Documents of German Foreign Policy, Series D, vol. 12, p. 286.

  55 Hinsley, op. cit., p. 413 and PRO CAB105/4. This was the first time that Luftwaffe Enigma decrypts were sent to Allied field commanders (Hinsley ibid p. 407; also PRO AIR40/2323, pp. 828–904.

  56 Churchill, op. cit., p. 119.

  57 Halder, op. cit., p. 373.

  58 See HW3/62.

  59 Churchill, op. cit., p. 149.

  60 Churchill, op. cit., pp. 149–50. Italics added.

  61 Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1073.

  62 Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1052, and Frantiscez Moravec, Master of Spies; London, Bodley Head, 1975, p. 204.

  63 WO190/893, 22832.

  64 Hinsley, op. cit., pp. 410, 412 (BJ).

  65 PRO WO190/893/22832. See folder.

  66 PRO WO190/893/22832. See folder.

  67 Deringil, op. cit., p. 120.

  68 Churchill, op. cit., p. 227: see also Warren F. Kimball, Churchill and Roosevelt: the Complete Correspondence; vol. 1: October 1933–November 1942, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1984.

  69 Churchill, op. cit., p. 127.

  70 Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1086.

  71 Hinsley, op. cit., p. 71.

  72 Hinsley ibid p. 422. See also PRO CAB105/4.

  73 PRO FO371/30153.

  74 Hinsley, op. cit., pp. 407–8; see also PRO CAB105/4.

  75 Hinsley, ibid p. 319.

  76 See Ronald Lewin, Ultra Goes to War; London, Hutchinson, 1978, pp. 104ff.

  77 Halder, op. cit., p. 404.

  78 See Deringil, op. cit., p. 121.

  79 Hinsley, op. cit., p. 278.

  80 Hinsley, op. cit., pp. 379–427.

  81 PRO HW1/6, decrypted 24 June 1941.

  82 Hinsley, op. cit., p. 154.

  83 Halder, op. cit., p. 155; Harvey, op. cit., p. 156.

  84 PRO FO371/30068. R139D/650/G44, Clutton, minute on supplies to Turkey, July 1941.

  85 Irving (ed), op. cit., p. 132.

  86 Gilbert, op. cit., pp. 138; HW1/13.

  87 Irving (ed), op. cit., p. 132.

  88 Hinsley, op. cit., vol. 2 pp. 82–3.

  89 Hinsley, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 840.

  90 Hinsley, op. cit., vol. 2. passim, especially p. 836 for Churchill and BJs.

  91 See Frank Weber, The Evasive Neutral: Germany, Britain and the Quest for a Turkish Alliance in the Second World War; Missouri, Missouri University Press, 1979, p. 109.

  92 Harvey, op. cit., p. 168.

  93 Halder, op. cit., p. 517.

  Chapter 4

  1 James Marshall-Cornwall, Wars and Rumours of Wars; London, Leo Cooper, 1984.

  2 PRO FO371 44064 Dill to Churchill dated 5 January 1944. Also PRO PREM3/447/6, p. 330, no. 387: Grand no. 125. Churchill’s doodle suggests he was giving the suggestion some thought.

  3 Hinsley, op. cit., p. 173.

  4 For the letter and Milner-Barry’s comment, see Intelligence and National Security vol. 6 (1986).

  5 Letter to the present writer from the Archivist at Government Communications Headquarters of 2 February 1995.

  6 See Appendix 2 for alphabetical list of countries targeted, call signs, frequencies in kilohertz, which ‘Y’ station provided interception and which countries received the messages.

  7 See Chapter 1 in connection with the crisis in Smyrna in October 1922.

  8 See Appendix 2.

  9 A captured German codebreaker called Schmidt, under interrogation, told British authorities that ‘the intercepted messages of the Turkish embassy in Moscow and the American Embassy in Berne were deemed of especial value’. He also asserted that Turkey was among the thirty-four countries whose secret communications the Germans were reading at this time. (Deringil, op. cit., p. 61).

  10 See Trumbull Higgins, Winston Churchill and the Second Front: 1940–43; Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1957, pp. 77–78.

  11 See Richard Lamb, Churchill as War Leader; New York, Carroll and Graf, 1991.

  12 PRO FO371/30124. Also Marshall-Cornwall, op. cit., pp. 178–79.

  13 PRO FO371/30068.

  14 See Pierson Dixon (ed), Double Diploma: The Life of Sir Pierson Dixon, Don and Diplomat; London, Hutchinson, 1968, pp. 42–44 and addendum pasted into the prelims giving an account
of the imagined talk between Mustapha Kemal and Loraine which was written by Sir Charles Mott-Radclyffe, as a fantasy on the voluminous telegrams sent back to London by Loraine in the 1930s.

  15 PRO PREM3/445/2 Ismay to Churchill, 8 August 1941.

  16 Most people called the country Iran, as now, but Churchill was keen to use the traditional name Persia, so out of deference to the war leader, this author will do the same!

  17 PRO HW1/38, BJ 095069, Moscow to Ankara, decrypted 1 September 1941.

  18 David Irving (ed), Breach of Security;, op. cit., passim; also Deringil, op. cit., p. 61.

  19 Documents on German Foreign Policy (DGFP), Series D, vol. 12, doc. no. 113, pp. 201–2.

  20 H.R. Trevor-Roper (ed), Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–4; London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1953.

  21 PRO DIR HW1/38, BJ 095114, Ankara to Rome, decrypted 5 September 1941.

  22 PRO FO954/324 folio 388.

  23 DGFP, Series D, vol. 12, p. 179.

  24 Trevor-Roper, op. cit., p. 339.

  25 Principal War Telegrams and Memoranda; London, Kraus, 1976. See also PRO PREM3/446/10, no. 573, 29 January 1943, Jacob to PM: ‘The Foreign Office have always maintained the relations with Turkey are so delicate that they should not be handled in any way by the Minister of State [Macmillan].’

  26 PRO HW1/49, BJ 095195: Kabul to Rome, decrypted 5 September 1941.

  27 PRO HW1/49: Churchill to Eden, 6 September 1941.

  28 PRO HW1/64, BJ 095419: Kabul to Rome, decrypted 13 September 1941.

  29 PRO HW1/64: Ankara to Tokyo, decrypted 13 September 1941, BJ 095419.

  30 PRO HW1/64, BJ 095419: Sofia to Rome, decrypted 13 September 1941.

  31 PRO HW1/67, BJ 095417: Churchill to Pound on BJ decrypted 15 September 1941.

  32 Churchill, op. cit., p. 412.

  33 Gilbert, op. cit., p. 1196.

  34 Churchill, op. cit., p. 767.

  35 PRO HW1/93, BJ: Washington to Ankara, decrypted 26 September 1941. Diplomatic distribution (i.e. MEW, not service ministries, PID, DoT, Sir R. Hopkins).

  36 PRO HW1/93, BJ: London to Tokyo, decrypted 27 September 1941.