The Germans may have let rumors spread about their advanced direction
finding capability. Such rumors would give some cover to other successful
intelligence gathering.

Yep and it works both ways - America's version was that the Army Air Corps
were giving carrots to fighter pilots to improve their eye site and this was
why so many German planes were being shot out of the sky. AAC even had
staged pictures of pilots at a mess hall with plates of carrots and standing
under airplanes chewing "ala Bugs Bunny" carrots. Life magazine ran those
pics and German pilots soon came under orders to eat more carrots.

This was a cover story for the fact that front line bases had started
receiving planes equipped with Radar. Carrots do nothing for eye site but
try telling that to your mother. Funny how these myths are still around.


That brings up another couple of questions. Did the merchant marine have
receivers as good as the US Navy had? Were the Merchant radiomen as well
trained as the Navy radiomen?


Shipboard receiver installations varied widely depending on how prosperous
the shipping company was. Some were every bit as equal to any land
installation while others were little more than (as an old timer once told
me) a Marconi turd with a cat whisker stuck in it.

About training - well first - many Merchant R OPs's joined the Armed Forces
right off - so that left those with age, foot or vision problems or retired
OPs to man the radio shacks. Most of these men were trained by RCA Worldwide
Wireless or Marconi. ALL had many years of practical experience on the high
seas.

Navy on the other hand had a problem - ships were being built at a fantastic
rate and only recently trained "8 Week Wonders" Radio Ops who never had been
out to sea to man the shacks. The Navy had to sprinkle experienced Ham Radio
and Merchant Marines as lead OPs throughout the fleet to keep things moving
till the green horns got up to speed. As it was, there were a number of
comical foulups related to mis-communications.


The survival rate of German submariners wasn't particularly high as the war
came to a close, either.

Yep - Ive heard of stories of passing Convoy ships firing their deck guns on
German Life boats - a big Geneva treaty NO NO. Also heard about s broken
down U-boat with the whole crew lined up outside on top waving white flags.
Passing ship turned toward it, increased speed and rammed it and kept on
going. I think it was safe to say there was some serious hatred there.

I'll also mention code breaking in the anti-sub war.

hmmm ok - where should I start?

We are of course talking about the British breaking the codes being sent and
received by German Enigma Code machines. Brits are proud of saying their
collection of eccentric mathematics wizards and puzzle solving misfits broke
the code in something like 3 or 4 weeks.

What is glossed over is that the front line German Radio OPs were somewhat
lazy and seldom if ever changed the code wheels on the machine. The German
high command believed their code machine unbreakable but even so still
changed the code wheels on a weekly basis for high level comms.

They believed even if front line comms could be broken - they were of little
strategic value to the enemy. Of course we now know, if you broken low level
comms you can follow the messages up the chain and stand a good chance of
breaking that code if you know what is in the message being sent.

The Bits did this and now had access to most of the Germany Armed Forces
comms.

Now what to do with it?

What now follows is my own speculation - much of the story still remains
classified to this day. I can only go back and look at the historical facts
and come up with some fairly logical deductions -

...in other words - I'm guessing...

(1) Clearly - Churchill could have told the Americans early on - He choose
not to do this until much later.

(2) Britan could not directly go after subs and ships. To do so would tip
the Germans that the code was broken and force them to change their wheels
on a daily (or hourly) basis. Remember it took 3 weeks (and I suspect much
more) to break each code. So even though they had a stolen Enigma and the
tools to break the code - it would have been of little use if the code was
changed daily.

(3) America at the time was isolationist. The Brits saw what a single Jap
Attack at Pearl Harbor had done. Almost overnight, America was at war - with
Japan. Most Americans wanted to fight the Japs only - they had no beef with
Germany.

(4) The Lend-Lease convoys were US Merchant Ships carrying U.S. War Material
protected by the U.S. Navy Ships manned by US Sailors. The Brits knew the
exact locations of German subs out to sink the convoys but kept quiet. The
loss of some shipping and American lives would keep the United States
focused and involved with the war in Europe.

(5) As you can imagine - the Americans were livid when finally told. Not so
much for the loss of American life but for the fact they were so well played
by Churchill.

(6) This and the massive defeat ("Heroic Retreat" as the Brits tell it) at
Dunkirk were probably the two major factors in selecting an American as
Supreme Allied Commander.


Of course all this is just idle speculation...

I think the code breaking used in the anti-sub effort came much later when
it was certain America would join the British War effort.

But we may never really know. -B

One comment to Mikes Post - Many WW2 Comm RCVRS didn't have Phasing or XTAL
Filters - Radio OPs were trained and expected to copy CW perfectly even with
a bunch of signals blaring out of the headphones. Just par for the course
back then. Myself - I can copy 30 WPM CW with 5 other stations nearby.

You train your brain to focus on just one tone and filter everything else
out. That ol noodle is a remarkable filter. I often listen to a Halli S-38D
on the 40 meter CW band at night and that's what 6 or 8 kc wide??