Today I read a review of Max Hastings' latest book and it seems he writes that resistance and the secret  side of espionage and code breaking and such were not as important in the final result of WW2 as being more related to Hitler' strategies and his inability to take advice. That brought on considerable morning discussion in this house. What do board memberrs think of this notion? I had better read  the book!

I'm not sure I know enough to make a judgement. I have heard it argued, though, that the code breaking work at Bletchley Park was not as important as often made out, since so much of the information was already out of date by the time it was decrypted. Judgements on the importance of Hitler's direct input seem to fluctuate: for example, traditionally it was said that the Me 262 was delayed because of Hitler's insistence on converting it into a bomber (even though he already had a more than adequate, purpose-built jet bomber in the Arado 234). More recently, though, greater emphasis has been placed on technological issues, such as problems with the engines.

I'll have to read Max Hasting's latest work myself, typically his work is a good read and informative. But it is difficult to be comprehensive on such a topic.

You won't find a smoking gun indicating that this or that battle was won exclusively because of Ultra (or breaking of the Japanese or Italian codes) because the Allies carefully avoided using it that way. It would have given away the advantage. And besides, it is in the nature of intelligence that its effect is cumulative, and information from Ultra and espionage was combined with other sources such as photo-reconnaissance. What is undoubtedly true is that for most of the war, Allied intelligence was far superior to Axis intelligence, and thus was a contributory factor to the success of Allied war plans. Not that Axis intelligence services did not have tactical successes, including the breaking of Allied codes, but their strategic intelligence was very poor. Major Axis intelligence failures occurred during the Battle of Britain, the D-day landings, and several Soviet offensives on the Eastern front, everytime with disastrous  consequences. Allied intelligence has a much better record and Ultra helped a lot.

One should not underestimate the importance of strategic and long term intelligence, of reading the enemy's intentions -- or not. Pearl Harbour is perhaps the most obvious and notorious example: The local US commanders had at their disposal all the potential advantages of a state-of-the-art air defence system, a large fleet, and significant reconnaissance and intelligence resources. And then the unthinkable happened and they were not prepared for it. Less well known is "Weserübung", the German invasion of Norway and Denmark in 1940, which took the Allies completely by surprise although they themselves were planning an intervention in Scandinavia. 

As to the role of Hitler's decisions, the Führer was the archetypical military amateur and airmchair general, big on weapons systems, but ignorant of logistics. He probably was not without talent, as attested by general officers who worked with him. In early years his sense of urgency, his willingness to take enormous risks, and his penchant for the unconventional probably worked for him and contributed to German victories. In later years his blindness for the finiteness of German resources, his callous waste of good soldiers for goals of no lasting value, his theatricality and interference in all levels of command definitely contributed to Germany's defeat and destruction. I think a good case could be made that Hitler himself was a major cause of the defeat of the axis and more harmful to it than Allied intelligence efforts were.

Mutatis Mutandis wrote:

One should not underestimate the importance of strategic and long term intelligence, of reading the enemy's intentions -- or not. Pearl Harbour is perhaps the most obvious and notorious example: The local US commanders had at their disposal all the potential advantages of a state-of-the-art air defence system, a large fleet, and significant reconnaissance and intelligence resources. And then the unthinkable happened and they were not prepared for it.

A significant part of the success of Operation Drumbeat (the U-Boat attack on the USA 1941-42) was down not so much to a failure of intelligence as a failure to believe intelligence. The US Admiral overseeing defence against such operations was arrogant and Anglophobic - he refused to believe that the Germans could carry out their plan, and ignored British intelligence that the 'Drumbeaters' were en route (as well as ignoring their advice on how to deal with the threat). When they finally arrived the Americans were hopelessly ill-prepared: ships were not in convoy and sailing with their lights on, there was no coastal blackout, the Navy and Air Force were desperately short of craft suitable for submarine hunting... It's little wonder that the Germans came to refer to Drumbeat as 'the Atlantic Turkey Shoot'.

The Kriegsmarine was the German service with the highest awareness of communications security, and twice (in late 1941 and early 1943) they launched investigations into the possibility that Enigma -- more precisely, the enhanced naval version of it -- had been compromised and was responsible for a period of lack of success in U-Boot operations. Ratcliff gives a good summary in "Delusions of Intelligence", but basically the naval intelligence service systematically "explained away" signs that Enigma M messages might had been read by the enemy, blaming spies, leaks, and (real) British superiority in radar and direction finding. 

They did not believe that Enigma was unbreakable, only that such break-ins would be rare events limited by the trial-and-error processing of every possible setting. And significantly, they made the assumption, which was simply wrong, that any deciphered signals would only be of short-term tactical value and that as these had to be a rare occurence, it was not of fundamental importance. Thus they comforted / tricked themselves into assuming that even occasional evidence, or at least strong hints, of Allied Enigma decipherments were of no great concern.

Somewhat ironically, X-B-Dienst also concluded that German ciphers were safe because any such codebreaking was not mentioned in the Allied messages that it was itself decrypting, and surely, if the British could read the German messages, they would thereby realize that their own cryptography had been broken into? It remained unfazed when the Allied codes were changed.

Priscilla wrote:

Today I read a review of Max Hastings' latest book and it seems he writes that resistance and the secret  side of espionage and code breaking and such were not as important in the final result of WW2 as being more related to Hitler' strategies and his inability to take advice. That brought on considerable morning discussion in this house. What do board memberrs think of this notion? I had better read  the book!

Not code breaking as such, but deception plans like Operation Fortitude ( tricking the Germans into thinking D-Day would be in the Pas de Calais, and the Normandy landings were a feint) were highly successful and definitely contributed to the Allied war effort.


The Russians have a word for this type of operations, Maskirovka.

Cold War rather than WW2, news article on the disappearance of "Buster" Crabbe;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34605107

Triceratops wrote:

Cold War rather than WW2

There is a view that D-Day actually marked the start of the Cold War. This was hinted at by Max Hastings on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the other day. Whereas President Roosevelt had assumed that a second (i.e. Western) front would be opened in 1942 only a few months after Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill had strenuously opposed the idea. A whole 2 years elapsed with embarrassingly slow Allied progress in North Africa and Italy before the Normandy landings were attempted. Even then it was the rapid advance of the Soviet army in the east following the battle of Kursk which seems to have hurried the Western allies into action:

D-Day: 75 years

(about 2:30:00 in)

There was suddenly the real prospect that, if D-Day didn’t take place in that summer of 1944 or if it took place and failed, then 1945 wouldn’t just see Stalin’s forces arrive in Berlin but also in Brussels and Bayeux and Brest and Bordeaux.

Vizzer,

yes from what I read Stalin was always asking for a second front and if I recall it well, Roosevelt wanted to start directly in France, but Churchill was able to convince him to start operation Torch in North Africa?
And also, again if I am right, Roosevelt was trusting Stalin, more than Churchill ever did. Churchill was much more aware about what happened in Europe than Roosevelt. And saw much more in advance the start of the post WWII, Cold War. And yes it can be that both Roosevelt and Churchill were both alerted by the rapid advances in Central Europe. I think that the staying by of the Russians during the Warsaw up rise was also a warning for Churchill...

Vizzer, perhaps can we open a thread about the 1944 landings and the consequences for Belgium and The Netherlands (Dirk?) with the long "hongerwinter" (hunger winter?)
I, nearly one year old, was  bombed together with the family by a nearly miss of some yards. It was an American plane, perhaps flown by an Brit...I discussed it on the BBC with "Thick as a plank"...and in that time phoned with witnesses, who still lived, now some 15 years ago...

Kind regards from Paul.

Operations Sledgehammer andRoundup,  proposed for 1942 and 1943.
These would have been a serious gamble given the available landing ships and craft, also the Luftwaffe wasn't crippled until the air battles of Spring 1944.

There was a plan, may have been part of Roundup, to rush as many divisions as possible onto the Continent in the event of a German collapse.

This site has lots of operations, Allied and Axis, which were proposed during WW2. Only some of them were implemented, in the case of Operation Pike, probably just as well:

Codenames

Triceratops,

thank you so much for this site. I already put it in my favourites.
BTW. I want to start a thread about the "Liberation" in Belgium and The Netherlands. If Dirk can help me? I suppose he was there in the North of the Netherlands during the "hongerwinter". Dirk?
And perhaps Abelard had family in the North of France, who endured the bombing before the landing, as Caen?
And if the British members of this forum have family on duty during the landing? I know from Tim of Aclea, but I think his father was still in the Mid-East?

Kind regards from Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

Triceratops,

thank you so much for this site. I already put it in my favourites.
BTW. I want to start a thread about the "Liberation" in Belgium and The Netherlands. If Dirk can help me? I suppose he was there in the North of the Netherlands during the "hongerwinter". Dirk?
And perhaps Abelard had family in the North of France, who endured the bombing before the landing, as Caen?
And if the British members of this forum have family on duty during the landing? I know from Tim of Aclea, but I think his father was still in the Mid-East?

Kind regards from Paul.

Paul,

You are quite right , we did live in Friesland ( Northern part of Holland0.

But from September 17th 1944 my father had to go under cover ( onderduiken) and two days later the underground/resistance movement also moved my mother and me to live under cover.

Mother and me were moved to a diary farmer thus there was plenty of food , in other words no hunger winter for us and to be true although there was shortage of food, especially in the West and Central Holland, people in Friesland( agricultural province) could scrape by.

Thus I cannot say that I was ever hungry during the 1944/45 winter.
But I do know it was terrible in the still occupied part of Holland . Many elderly people died of hunger and cold..

Will contribute  more if tread continues.

Dirk

Triceratops wrote:

Operations Sledgehammer andRoundup,  proposed for 1942 and 1943.
These would have been a serious gamble given the available landing ships and craft, also the Luftwaffe wasn't crippled until the air battles of Spring 1944.

There was a plan, may have been part of Roundup, to rush as many divisions as possible onto the Continent in the event of a German collapse.

This site has lots of operations, Allied and Axis, which were proposed during WW2. Only some of them were implemented, in the case of Operation Pike, probably just as well:

Codenames

Triceratops,

  I once read that Winston Churchill was NOT in favour of the Normandy landings but would rather start the invasion via the Balkan, then link up with Russian forces and continue towards Germany .

The reason was to prevent Stalin getting hold of the Eastern and Central  European countries.


Dirk

Dirk, thanks for the immediate reply about the "hunger winter" and yes I am sure that Churchill didn't want the French landings, but wanted a second front: I first thought operation Torch (with the diversion of the man, who didn't exist (operation Cetaph?, there  is even a book about it) to let the Germans think that it would be an Italy landing (I mentioned a documentary about it overhere), but the Balkan? I have to search for it...

Kind regards from Paul.

There's an article about Churchill and Overlord here:

History Extra- Churchill and D-Day

This  thread had interesting opinion - I am now reflecting on the Secret Side of Peace and wonder if there is much difference...... possibly even harder to maintain = one can hardly  hear oneself think for the number of whistler blowers  intent on revealing all. Secrecy is a complex business..... ask Prince Andrew.

The London home  of  executed Noor Innyat Khan of the secret service in WW2 has been marked with a blue Plaque.  A newspaper spiel calls her a princess of the Indian Royal family - I think not and also that she was a sufi too. I  also wonder about the last part. Putting the added gloss aside, this brave young woman - and many other people often unnamed and now becoming forgotten, gave great service to their country. 
Like it or not it could be said that they played their part in making sure that 'Britain never never shall be slaves'.... or at least not for sometime but don't bank on any thing. Slavery is a by product of wartime in some societies to keep their industries going.

Priscilla wrote:

The London home  of  executed Noor Innyat Khan of the secret service in WW2 has been marked with a blue Plaque.  A newspaper spiel calls her a princess of the Indian Royal family - I think not and also that she was a sufi too. I  also wonder about the last part. Putting the added gloss aside, this brave young woman - and many other people often unnamed and now becoming forgotten, gave great service to their country. 
Like it or not it could be said that they played their part in making sure that 'Britain never never shall be slaves'.... or at least not for sometime but don't bank on any thing. Slavery is a by product of wartime in some societies to keep their industries going.

Priscilla, I learned for the first time about her in my thread:
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1231-female-spies-and-some-males
Message from 11 March 2018

Kind regards, Paul.

Paul, I first learned of her in a book from the library circa 1974 but I did not think that of interest enough to post here. The ble plaque however, is new this week and of worthy interest.