123-662: The Allied oil campaign of World War II was an aerial bombing campaign conducted by the RAF and the USAAF against facilities supplying Nazi Germany with petroleum , oil , and lubrication (POL) products. It formed part of the immense Allied strategic bombing effort during the war . The targets in Germany and in Axis -controlled Europe included refineries , synthetic-fuel factories , storage depots and other POL-infrastructure. Before
246-711: A "vital centre", and in February 1941, the British Air Staff expected that RAF Bomber Command would, by destruction of half of a list of 17 targets, reduce Axis oil production capacity by 80%. Although the Butt Report of August 1941 identified the poor accuracy and performance of RAF bombing at the time, Air Chief Marshal Charles Portal maintained at the 1943 Casablanca Conference the great importance of oil targets in Axis territory. The first US bombing of
369-609: A European target was of the Ploiești refineries in Romania on 12 June 1942 and the oil campaign continued at a lower priority until 1944. Priority fell with the need for attacks on German V-weapon targets (" Operation Crossbow ") in France and then the attacks on lines of communication in preparation for the invasion of France (described as the " Transportation Plan "). In March 1944 the "Plan for Completion of Combined Bomber Offensive "
492-958: A common Anglo-American vision of the postwar world, as formalized by the Atlantic Charter . At the Second Inter-Allied Meeting in London in September 1941, the eight European governments in exile, together with the Soviet Union and representatives of the Free French Forces, unanimously adopted adherence to the common principles of policy set forth in the Atlantic Charter. In December, Japan attacked American and British territories in Asia and
615-460: A contemporary, documentary view of a leader on Ultra's importance: July 1945 Dear General Menzies: I had hoped to be able to pay a visit to Bletchley Park in order to thank you, Sir Edward Travis, and the members of the staff personally for the magnificent service which has been rendered to the Allied cause. I am very well aware of the immense amount of work and effort which has been involved in
738-462: A day or two, yet the Germans remained confident of its security. After encryption systems were "broken", there was a large volume of cryptologic work needed to recover daily key settings and keep up with changes in enemy security procedures, plus the more mundane work of processing, translating, indexing, analyzing and distributing tens of thousands of intercepted messages daily. The more successful
861-612: A domination of the world completely different from any known in world history. The domination at which the Nazis aim is not limited to the displacement of the balance of power and the imposition of the supremacy of one nation. It seeks the systematic and total destruction of those conquered by Hitler and it does not treaty with the nations which it has subdued. He destroys them. He takes from them their whole political and economic existence and seeks even to deprive them of their history and culture. He wishes only to consider them as vital space and
984-524: A formalized group upon the Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942, which was signed by 26 nations around the world; these ranged from governments in exile from the Axis occupation to small nations far removed from the war. The Declaration officially recognized the Big Three and China as the "Four Powers", acknowledging their central role in prosecuting the war; they were also referred to as
1107-549: A key role in achieving victory. A series of conferences between Allied leaders, diplomats, and military officials gradually shaped the makeup of the alliance, the direction of the war, and ultimately the postwar international order. Relations between the United Kingdom and the United States were especially close , with their bilateral Atlantic Charter forming the groundwork of their alliance. The Allies became
1230-581: A large number of bombs on oil targets that failed to explode: 19% and 12% respectively. Allies of World War II The Allies , formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during World War II (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers . Its principal members by the end of 1941 were the " Big Four " – the United Kingdom , United States , Soviet Union , and China . Membership in
1353-664: A massive air attack on Germany, but Stalin kept wanting more. Although the U.S. had a strained relationship with the USSR in the 1920s, relations were normalized in 1933. The original terms of the Lend-Lease loan were amended towards the Soviets, to be put in line with British terms. The United States would now expect interest with the repayment from the Soviets, following the initiation of the Operation Barbarossa , at
SECTION 10
#17327661130521476-517: A new message with a previous one. The indices included message preambles, every person, every ship, every unit, every weapon, every technical term and of repeated phrases such as forms of address and other German military jargon that might be usable as cribs . The first decryption of a wartime Enigma message, albeit one that had been transmitted three months earlier, was achieved by the Poles at PC Bruno on 17 January 1940. Little had been achieved by
1599-736: A refinery in Norway in April 1945. During the war the effort expended against POL targets varied, with relative priority moving between the other objectives within the Allied Combined Bomber Offensive such as to defeating the German V-weapon attacks, the destruction of the German air force , or to attacking transport links in preparation for the invasion of western Europe in 1944 . The British had identified
1722-669: A separate colony. British Malaya covers the areas of Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore , while British Borneo covers the area of Brunei , including Sabah and Sarawak of Malaysia. British Hong Kong consisted of Hong Kong Island , the Kowloon Peninsula , and the New Territories . Territories controlled by the Colonial Office , namely the Crown Colonies , were controlled politically by
1845-490: A single mission found the Axis ships every time. Other deceptive means were used. On one occasion, a convoy of five ships sailed from Naples to North Africa with essential supplies at a critical moment in the North African fighting. There was no time to have the ships properly spotted beforehand. The decision to attack solely on Ultra intelligence went directly to Churchill. The ships were all sunk by an attack "out of
1968-465: A smaller total tonnage than the USAAF 8th and 15th Air Forces together, it delivered more tonnage in fewer attacks than the 8th AF which was also operating from bases in eastern England. The USSBS believed that Bomber Command's heavy bombs – 4,000-pound (1,800 kg) Blockbuster bombs – were more effective than an equivalent weight of smaller bombs. Both RAF and USAAF dropped
2091-543: A terrible enemy." Most Ultra intelligence was derived from reading radio messages that had been encrypted with cipher machines, complemented by material from radio communications using traffic analysis and direction finding . In the early phases of the war, particularly during the eight-month Phoney War , the Germans could transmit most of their messages using land lines and so had no need to use radio. This meant that those at Bletchley Park had some time to build up experience of collecting and starting to decrypt messages on
2214-518: A tiny island in the Caribbean Sea , and a British destroyer promptly showed up. The U-boats escaped and reported what had happened. Dönitz immediately asked for a review of Enigma's security. The analysis suggested that the signals problem, if there was one, was not due to the Enigma itself. Dönitz had the settings book changed anyway, blacking out Bletchley Park for a period. However, the evidence
2337-599: A vacant territory over which he has every right. The human beings who constitute these nations are for him only cattle. He orders their massacre or migration. He compels them to make room for their conquerors. He does not even take the trouble to impose any war tribute on them. He just takes all their wealth and, to prevent any revolt, he scientifically seeks the physical and moral degradation of those whose independence he has taken away. France experienced several major phases of action during World War II: In Africa these included: French West Africa , French Equatorial Africa ,
2460-542: Is said to have broken one before the war. German military Enigma was first broken in December 1932 by Marian Rejewski and the Polish Cipher Bureau , using a combination of brilliant mathematics, the services of a spy in the German office responsible for administering encrypted communications, and good luck. The Poles read Enigma to the outbreak of World War II and beyond, in France. At the turn of 1939,
2583-430: Is typically cited as an authority for the two-year estimate. Would the Soviets meanwhile have defeated Germany, or Germany the Soviets, or would there have been stalemate on the eastern fronts? What would have been decided about the atom bomb? Not even counter-factual historians can answer such questions. They are questions which do not arise, because the war went as it did. But those historians who are concerned only with
SECTION 20
#17327661130522706-552: The British West Indies , British Honduras , British Guiana and the Falkland Islands . The Dominion of Newfoundland was directly ruled as a royal colony from 1933 to 1949, run by a governor appointed by London who made the decisions regarding Newfoundland. British India included the areas and peoples covered by later India , Bangladesh , Pakistan and (until 1937) Burma/Myanmar , which later became
2829-554: The Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park . Ultra eventually became the standard designation among the western Allies for all such intelligence. The name arose because the intelligence obtained was considered more important than that designated by the highest British security classification then used ( Most Secret ) and so was regarded as being Ultra Secret . Several other cryptonyms had been used for such intelligence. The code name Boniface
2952-514: The Ruhr . Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris agreed to divert spare effort to oil targets. They were deemed to be of such importance that one raid was staged that consisted only of bomb carrying fighters, to rest the bomber crews and surprise the defenders. In late summer 1944 the Allies began using reconnaissance photo information to time bombing with the resumption of production at a facility. Even with
3075-502: The historiography of World War II . For example, Andrew Roberts , writing in the 21st century, states, "Because he had the invaluable advantage of being able to read Field Marshal Erwin Rommel 's Enigma communications, General Bernard Montgomery knew how short the Germans were of men, ammunition, food and above all fuel. When he put Rommel's picture up in his caravan he wanted to be seen to be almost reading his opponent's mind. In fact he
3198-599: The " Purple " cipher. Much of the German cipher traffic was encrypted on the Enigma machine . Used properly, the German military Enigma would have been virtually unbreakable; in practice, shortcomings in operation allowed it to be broken. The term "Ultra" has often been used almost synonymously with " Enigma decrypts ". However, Ultra also encompassed decrypts of the German Lorenz SZ 40/42 machines that were used by
3321-523: The " trusteeship of the powerful", and later as the " Four Policemen " of the United Nations. Many more countries joined through to the final days of the war, including colonies and former Axis nations. After the war ended, the Allies, and the Declaration that bound them, would become the basis of the modern United Nations ; one enduring legacy of the alliance is the permanent membership of
3444-723: The "European technology mission" ( Plan for Examination of Oil Industry of Axis Europe ) and a report in March 1946, the United States Bureau of Mines employed seven Operation Paperclip synthetic fuel scientists in a Fischer–Tropsch chemical plant in Louisiana, Missouri . In October 1975, Texas A&M University began the German Document Retrieval Project and completed a report on 28 April 1977. The report identified final investigations of
3567-426: The 12 and 28 May trial bombings of oil targets, as well as the confirmation of the oil facilities' importance and vulnerability from Ultra intercepts and other intelligence reports, would result in the oil targets becoming the highest priority on 3 September 1944. In June 1944, in response to Air Ministry query on resources, Bomber Command staff estimated it would take 32,000 tons of bombs to destroy 10 oil targets in
3690-500: The 1920s, culminating in the invasion of Manchuria in 1931. The League of Nations strongly condemned the attack as an act of aggression against China; Japan responded by leaving the League in 1933. The second Sino-Japanese War erupted in 1937 with Japan's full-scale invasion of China. The League of Nations condemned Japan's actions and initiated sanctions; the United States, which had attempted to peacefully negotiate for peace in Asia,
3813-586: The Allies knew from intercepts the location of a U-boat in mid-Atlantic, the U-boat was not attacked immediately, until a "cover story" could be arranged. For example, a search plane might be "fortunate enough" to sight the U-boat, thus explaining the Allied attack. Some Germans had suspicions that all was not right with Enigma. Admiral Karl Dönitz received reports of "impossible" encounters between U-boats and enemy vessels which made him suspect some compromise of his communications. In one instance, three U-boats met at
Oil campaign of World War II - Misplaced Pages Continue
3936-504: The Allies varied during the course of the war. When the conflict broke out on 1 September 1939, the Allied coalition consisted of the United Kingdom, France , and Poland , as well as their respective dependencies , such as British India . They were joined by the independent dominions of the British Commonwealth : Canada , Australia , New Zealand and South Africa . Consequently, the initial alliance resembled that of
4059-682: The American Harry Hopkins . It is also often called the "Strange Alliance", because it united the leaders of the world's greatest capitalist state (the United States), the greatest socialist state (the Soviet Union) and the greatest colonial power (the United Kingdom). Relations between them resulted in the major decisions that shaped the war effort and planned for the postwar world. Cooperation between
4182-530: The Americans, and this difference was a source of friction between them. To disguise the source of the intelligence for the Allied attacks on Axis supply ships bound for North Africa, "spotter" submarines and aircraft were sent to search for Axis ships. These searchers or their radio transmissions were observed by the Axis forces, who concluded their ships were being found by conventional reconnaissance. They suspected that there were some 400 Allied submarines in
4305-465: The Big Three leaders, although they were not enough to break the alliance during wartime. In 1942 Roosevelt proposed becoming, with China, the Four Policemen of world peace. Although the 'Four Powers' were reflected in the wording of the Declaration by United Nations , Roosevelt's proposal was not initially supported by Churchill or Stalin. Division emerged over the length of time taken by
4428-691: The British Government during the Second World War and made part of the British Army structure. It was mostly Greek Cypriot volunteers and Turkish Cypriot inhabitants of Cyprus but also included other Commonwealth nationalities. On a brief visit to Cyprus in 1943, Winston Churchill praised the "soldiers of the Cyprus Regiment who have served honourably on many fields from Libya to Dunkirk". About 30,000 Cypriots served in
4551-571: The British gave the code-name Fish . Several systems were used, principally the Lorenz SZ 40/42 (Tunny) and Geheimfernschreiber ( Sturgeon ). These cipher systems were cryptanalysed, particularly Tunny, which the British thoroughly penetrated. It was eventually attacked using Colossus machines, which were the first digital programme-controlled electronic computers. In many respects the Tunny work
4674-609: The British intelligence services for handling BONIFACE and later Ultra intelligence. The Security Service started "Special Research Unit B1(b)" under Herbert Hart . In the SIS this intelligence was handled by "Section V" based at St Albans . The communications system was founded by Brigadier Sir Richard Gambier-Parry , who from 1938 to 1946 was head of MI6 Section VIII, based at Whaddon Hall in Buckinghamshire , UK. Ultra summaries from Bletchley Park were sent over landline to
4797-655: The Cyprus Regiment. The regiment was involved in action from the very start and served at Dunkirk , in the Greek Campaign (about 600 soldiers were captured in Kalamata in 1941), North Africa ( Operation Compass ), France, the Middle East and Italy. Many soldiers were taken prisoner especially at the beginning of the war and were interned in various PoW camps ( Stalag ) including Lamsdorf ( Stalag VIII-B ), Stalag IVC at Wistritz bei Teplitz and Stalag 4b near Most in
4920-541: The Czech Republic. The soldiers captured in Kalamata were transported by train to prisoner of war camps. After Germany invaded Poland, France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939. In January 1940, French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier made a major speech denouncing the actions of Germany: At the end of five months of war, one thing has become more and more clear. It is that Germany seeks to establish
5043-406: The Declaration was signed by Iraq, Iran, Brazil, Bolivia and Colombia. A Tripartite Treaty of Alliance with Britain and the USSR formalised Iran's assistance to the Allies. In Rio de Janeiro , Brazilian dictator Getúlio Vargas was considered near to fascist ideas, but realistically joined the United Nations after their evident successes. In 1944, Liberia and France signed. The French situation
Oil campaign of World War II - Misplaced Pages Continue
5166-893: The Enigma machine for their most secret communications. The chief fleet communications code system used by the Imperial Japanese Navy was called JN-25 by the Americans, and by early 1942 the US Navy had made considerable progress in decrypting Japanese naval messages. The US Army also made progress on the Japanese Army's codes in 1943, including codes used by supply ships, resulting in heavy losses to their shipping. Army- and Air Force-related intelligence derived from signals intelligence (SIGINT) sources—mainly Enigma decrypts in Hut 6 —was compiled in summaries at GC&CS ( Bletchley Park ) Hut 3 and distributed initially under
5289-736: The First World War . As Axis forces began invading northern Europe and the Balkans , the Allies added the Netherlands , Belgium , Norway , Greece , and Yugoslavia . The Soviet Union, which initially had a nonaggression pact with Germany and participated in its invasion of Poland , joined the Allies after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The United States, while providing some materiel support to European Allies since September 1940, remained formally neutral until
5412-667: The French campaign of 1940. An SLU supported the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) headed by General Lord Gort . The first liaison officers were Robert Gore-Browne and Humphrey Plowden. A second SLU of the 1940 period was attached to the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force at Meaux commanded by Air Vice-Marshal P H Lyon Playfair . This SLU was commanded by Squadron Leader F.W. "Tubby" Long. In 1940, special arrangements were made within
5535-654: The German High Command, and the Hagelin machine . Many observers, at the time and later, regarded Ultra as immensely valuable to the Allies. Winston Churchill was reported to have told King George VI , when presenting to him Stewart Menzies (head of the Secret Intelligence Service and the person who controlled distribution of Ultra decrypts to the government): "It is thanks to the secret weapon of General Menzies, put into use on all
5658-489: The German aircraft industry and lines of communication between Germany and the armies at the front. Following a brief period when German shipping was given priority, oil targets were made secondary priority in mid July under a policy of concentrated attack with five oil refineries listed for attention. Sir Charles Portal was sceptical of the likelihood of success, saying that only a few targets could be located by average crews under moonlit conditions. The RAF viewed Axis oil as
5781-429: The German plants and interrogations of German scientists by the British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee, the US Field Information Agency (Technical) , and the Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee. Despite its successes, by the spring of 1944 the Combined Bomber Offensive had failed to dislocate the German economy or inflict severe disruptions in the production of vital items; the oil campaign missions were
5904-473: The German war machine. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland ; two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany. Roughly two weeks after Germany's attack, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. Britain and France established the Anglo-French Supreme War Council to coordinate military decisions. A Polish government-in-exile was set up in London, joined by hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers, which would remain an Allied nation until
6027-442: The Germans and Japanese had strong ideological objections to women engaging in war work. The Nazis even created a Cross of Honour of the German Mother to encourage women to stay at home and have babies. The exact influence of Ultra on the course of the war is debated; an oft-repeated assessment is that decryption of German ciphers advanced the end of the European war by no less than two years. Hinsley, who first made this claim,
6150-409: The Germans made the systems ten times more complex, which required a tenfold increase in Polish decryption equipment, which they could not meet. On 25 July 1939, the Polish Cipher Bureau handed reconstructed Enigma machines and their techniques for decrypting ciphers to the French and British. Gordon Welchman wrote, Ultra would never have got off the ground if we had not learned from the Poles, in
6273-434: The Italian Navy, which in early 1941 had started using a version of the Hagelin rotor-based cipher machine C-38 . This was broken from June 1941 onwards by the Italian subsection of GC&CS at Bletchley Park . In the Pacific theatre, a Japanese cipher machine, called " Purple " by the Americans, was used for highest-level Japanese diplomatic traffic. It produced a polyalphabetic substitution cipher, but unlike Enigma,
SECTION 50
#17327661130526396-425: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, after which it declared war and officially joined the Allies. China had already been at war with Japan since 1937 , and formally joined the Allies in December 1941. The Allies were led by the so-called "Big Three"—the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States—which were the principal contributors of manpower, resources, and strategy, each playing
6519-537: The League of Nations mandates of French Cameroun and French Togoland , French Madagascar , French Somaliland , and the protectorates of French Tunisia and French Morocco . French Algeria was then not a colony or dependency but a fully-fledged part of metropolitan France . Ultra (cryptography) Ultra was the designation adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at
6642-501: The Mediterranean and a huge fleet of reconnaissance aircraft on Malta . In fact, there were only 25 submarines and at times as few as three aircraft. This procedure also helped conceal the intelligence source from Allied personnel, who might give away the secret by careless talk, or under interrogation if captured. Along with the search mission that would find the Axis ships, two or three additional search missions would be sent out to other areas, so that crews would not begin to wonder why
6765-410: The Pacific, resulting in the U.S. formally entering the war as an Allied power. Still reeling from Japanese aggression, China declared war on all the Axis powers shortly thereafter. By the end of 1941, the main lines of World War II had formed. Churchill referred to the "Grand Alliance" of the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union, which together played the largest role in prosecuting
6888-581: The Section VIII radio transmitter at Windy Ridge. From there they were transmitted to the destination SLUs. The communications element of each SLU was called a "Special Communications Unit" or SCU. Radio transmitters were constructed at Whaddon Hall workshops, while receivers were the National HRO , made in the USA. The SCUs were highly mobile and the first such units used civilian Packard cars. The following SCUs are listed: SCU1 (Whaddon Hall), SCU2 (France before 1940, India), SCU3 (RSS Hanslope Park), SCU5, SCU6 (possibly Algiers and Italy), SCU7 (training unit in
7011-399: The Soviet Union, were accepted as members of the United Nations as a way to provide greater influence to Stalin, who had only Yugoslavia as a communist partner in the alliance. British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain delivered his Ultimatum Speech on 3 September 1939 which declared war on Germany , a few hours before France. As the Statute of Westminster 1931 was not yet ratified by
7134-506: The Soviets in a way that made it appear to have come from highly placed espionage rather than from cryptanalysis of German radio traffic. The Soviets, however, through an agent at Bletchley, John Cairncross , knew that Britain had broken Enigma. The "Lucy" ring was initially treated with suspicion by the Soviets. The information it provided was accurate and timely, however, and Soviet agents in Switzerland (including their chief, Alexander Radó ) eventually learned to take it seriously. However,
7257-517: The Treaty of Versailles and made claims over German-populated Austria and the German-populated territories of Czechoslovakia. The likelihood of war was high, but none of the major powers had the appetite for another conflict; many governments sought to ease tensions through nonmilitary strategies such as appeasement . Japan, which was a principal allied power in the First World War, had since become increasingly militaristic and imperialistic; parallel to Germany, nationalist sentiment increased throughout
7380-431: The U.N. Security Council , which is made up exclusively of the principal Allied powers that won the war. The victorious Allies of World War I —which included what would become the Allied powers of the Second World War—had imposed harsh terms on the opposing Central Powers in the Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920 . Germany resented signing the Treaty of Versailles , which required that it take full responsibility for
7503-468: The UK and therefore also entered hostilities with Britain's declaration of war. At the outbreak of World War II, the British Indian Army numbered 205,000 men. Later during World War II, the British Indian Army became the largest all-volunteer force in history, rising to over 2.5 million men in size. Indian soldiers earned 30 Victoria Crosses during the Second World War. It suffered 87,000 military casualties (more than any Crown colony but fewer than
SECTION 60
#17327661130527626-460: The UK), SCU8 (Europe after D-day), SCU9 (Europe after D-day), SCU11 (Palestine and India), SCU12 (India), SCU13 and SCU14. The cryptographic element of each SLU was supplied by the RAF and was based on the TYPEX cryptographic machine and one-time pad systems. RN Ultra messages from the OIC to ships at sea were necessarily transmitted over normal naval radio circuits and were protected by one-time pad encryption. An intriguing question concerns
7749-485: The United Kingdom and the United States had cooperated in a number of ways, notably through the destroyers-for-bases deal in September 1940 and the American Lend-Lease program, which provided Britain and the Soviet Union with war materiel beginning in October 1941. The British Commonwealth and, to a lesser extent, the Soviet Union reciprocated with a smaller Reverse Lend-Lease program. The First Inter-Allied Meeting took place in London in early June 1941 between
7872-453: The United Kingdom and the United States was especially close and included forming a Combined Chiefs of Staff . There were numerous high-level conferences ; in total Churchill attended 14 meetings, Roosevelt 12, and Stalin 5. Most visible were the three summit conferences that brought together the three top leaders. The Allied policy toward Germany and Japan evolved and developed at these three conferences. There were many tensions among
7995-404: The United Kingdom). The UK suffered 382,000 military casualties. Kuwait was a protectorate of the United Kingdom formally established in 1899. The Trucial States were British protectorates in the Persian Gulf. Palestine was a mandate dependency created in the peace agreements after World War I from the former territory of the Ottoman Empire , Iraq . The Cyprus Regiment was formed by
8118-420: The United Kingdom, the four co-belligerent British Dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa), the eight governments in exile ( Belgium , Czechoslovakia , Greece , Luxembourg , the Netherlands , Norway , Poland , Yugoslavia ) and Free France . The meeting culminated with the Declaration of St James's Palace , which set out a first vision for the postwar world. In June 1941, Hitler broke
8241-536: The Western Allies to establish a second front in Europe. Stalin and the Soviets used the potential employment of the second front as an 'acid test' for their relations with the Anglo-American powers. The Soviets were forced to use as much manpower as possible in the fight against the Germans, whereas the United States had the luxury of flexing industrial power, but with the "minimum possible expenditure of American lives". Roosevelt and Churchill opened ground fronts in North Africa in 1942 and in Italy in 1943, and launched
8364-418: The alleged use of Ultra information by the "Lucy" spy ring , headquartered in Switzerland and apparently operated by one man, Rudolf Roessler . This was an extremely well informed, responsive ring that was able to get information "directly from German General Staff Headquarters"—often on specific request. It has been alleged that "Lucy" was in major part a conduit for the British to feed Ultra intelligence to
8487-420: The ambassador (in one case, of Normandy beach defences), and reports of long interviews with Hitler. The Japanese are said to have obtained an Enigma machine in 1937, although it is debated whether they were given it by the Germans or bought a commercial version, which, apart from the plugboard and internal wiring, was the German Heer/Luftwaffe machine. Having developed a similar machine, the Japanese did not use
8610-410: The blue", arousing German suspicions of a security breach. To distract the Germans from the idea of a signals breach (such as Ultra), the Allies sent a radio message to a fictitious spy in Naples, congratulating him for this success. According to some sources the Germans decrypted this message and believed it. In the Battle of the Atlantic, the precautions were taken to the extreme. In most cases where
8733-427: The code breakers were, the more labor was required. Some 8,000 women worked at Bletchley Park , about three quarters of the work force. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US Navy sent letters to top women's colleges seeking introductions to their best seniors; the Army soon followed suit. By the end of the war, some 7000 workers in the Army Signal Intelligence service, out of a total 10,500, were female. By contrast,
8856-544: The codeword "BONIFACE", implying that it was acquired from a well placed agent in Berlin. The volume of the intelligence reports going out to commanders in the field built up gradually. Naval Enigma decrypted in Hut 8 was forwarded from Hut 4 to the Admiralty 's Operational Intelligence Centre (OIC), which distributed it initially under the codeword "HYDRO". The codeword "ULTRA" was adopted in June 1941. This codeword
8979-598: The commercial Model D was first used by the Reichswehr . The German Army , Navy , Air Force , Nazi party , Gestapo and German diplomats used Enigma machines in several variants. Abwehr (German military intelligence) used a four-rotor machine without a plugboard and Naval Enigma used different key management from that of the army or air force, making its traffic far more difficult to cryptanalyse; each variant required different cryptanalytic treatment. The commercial versions were not as secure and Dilly Knox of GC&CS
9102-463: The conclusion that German cryptanalysts understood that cryptanalytic attacks against Enigma were possible but were thought to require impracticable amounts of effort and investment. The Poles' early start at breaking Enigma and the continuity of their success gave the Allies an advantage when World War II began. In June 1941, the Germans started to introduce on-line stream cipher teleprinter systems for strategic point-to-point radio links, to which
9225-624: The declaration; the Big Four were listed first: The United Nations began growing immediately after its formation. In 1942, Mexico, the Philippines and Ethiopia adhered to the declaration. Ethiopia had been restored to independence by British forces after the Italian defeat in 1941. The Philippines, still owned by Washington but granted international diplomatic recognition, was allowed to join on 10 June despite its occupation by Japan. In 1943,
9348-477: The defeat of Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, the Tunny story has become much less well known among the public than the Enigma one. At Bletchley Park, some of the key people responsible for success in the Tunny effort included mathematicians W. T. "Bill" Tutte and Max Newman and electrical engineer Tommy Flowers . In June 1940, the Italians were using book codes for most of their military messages, except for
9471-463: The difficulties of counterfactual history in attempting such conclusions, and some historians, such as Keegan, have said the shortening might have been as little as the three months it took the United States to deploy the atomic bomb . The existence of Ultra was kept secret for many years after the war. Since the Ultra story was widely disseminated by Winterbotham in 1974, historians have altered
9594-501: The end of German armaments production." It has been stated to have been "effective immediately, and decisive within less than a year". Luftwaffe Field Marshal Erhard Milch , referring to the consequences of the oil campaign, claimed that "The British left us with deep and bleeding wounds, but the Americans stabbed us in the heart." The following statistics are from the British Bombing Survey Unit. Figures are for
9717-1032: The end of the war, there were about 40 SLUs serving commands around the world. Fixed SLUs existed at the Admiralty, the War Office , the Air Ministry , RAF Fighter Command , the US Strategic Air Forces in Europe (Wycombe Abbey) and other fixed headquarters in the UK. An SLU was operating at the War HQ in Valletta, Malta. These units had permanent teleprinter links to Bletchley Park. Mobile SLUs were attached to field army and air force headquarters and depended on radio communications to receive intelligence summaries. The first mobile SLUs appeared during
9840-749: The end of the war—the United States were not looking to support any "postwar Soviet reconstruction efforts", which eventually manifested into the Molotov Plan . At the Tehran conference , Stalin judged Roosevelt to be a "lightweight compared to the more formidable Churchill". During the meetings from 1943 to 1945, there were disputes over the growing list of demands from the USSR. Tensions increased further when Roosevelt died and his successor Harry Truman rejected demands put forth by Stalin. Roosevelt wanted to play down these ideological tensions. Roosevelt felt he "understood Stalin's psychology", stating "Stalin
9963-614: The end. After a quiet winter, Germany began its invasion of Western Europe in April 1940, quickly defeating Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. All the occupied nations subsequently established a government-in-exile in London, with each contributing a contingent of escaped troops. Nevertheless, by roughly one year since Germany's violation of the Munich Agreement, Britain and its Empire stood alone against Hitler and Mussolini. Before they were formally allied,
10086-421: The factories in good bombing conditions, 12% when using a mix of visual and instruments but only 5% when it had to use instrument-only bombing techniques; and 80% of their tonnage was delivered under partly or fully instrument conditions. The RAF bombing by night with Pathfinder techniques averaged 16% inside the factory. Bomber Command's efforts against oil were more efficient in some regards – although delivering
10209-505: The final collapse of the German economy. Several prominent German military officers, however, described the oil campaign as critical to the defeat of Nazi Germany. Adolf Galland , wrote in his book "the most important of the combined factors which brought about the collapse of Germany", and the Luftwaffe's wartime leader, Hermann Göring , described it as "the utmost in deadliness". Albert Speer , writing in his memoir, said that "It meant
10332-547: The first targeted attacks to accomplish these goals. The US strategic bombing survey (USSBS) identified "catastrophic" damage. German industry in and of itself was not significantly affected by attacks on oil targets, as coal was its primary source of energy, but in its analysis of strategic bombing as a whole the USSBS identified the consequences of the breakdown of transportation resulting from attacks against transportation targets as "probably greater than any other single factor" in
10455-642: The fronts, that we won the war!" F. W. Winterbotham quoted the western Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower , at war's end describing Ultra as having been "decisive" to Allied victory. Sir Harry Hinsley , Bletchley Park veteran and official historian of British Intelligence in World War II, made a similar assessment of Ultra, saying that while the Allies would have won the war without it, "the war would have been something like two years longer, perhaps three years longer, possibly four years longer than it was." However, Hinsley and others have emphasized
10578-501: The importance of Germany's fuel supplies before the war in their "Western Air Plan 5(c)". The focus of British bombing during 1940 changed repeatedly in response to directives from the Air Ministry . At the start of June, oil targets were made a priority of night bombing with attacks on other war industry to be made on dark nights (when the oil targets could not be located) but with the proviso that "indiscriminate action" should be avoided. On 20 June oil targets were made third priority below
10701-408: The liaison officer or his deputy was to pass Ultra intelligence bulletins to the commander of the command he was attached to, or to other indoctrinated staff officers. In order to safeguard Ultra, special precautions were taken. The standard procedure was for the liaison officer to present the intelligence summary to the recipient, stay with him while he studied it, then take it back and destroy it. By
10824-492: The main advocates of appeasement, decided that Hitler had no intention to uphold diplomatic agreements and responded by preparing for war. On 31 March 1939, Britain formed the Anglo-Polish military alliance in an effort to avert an imminent German attack on Poland; the French likewise had a long-standing alliance with Poland since 1921 . The Soviet Union , which had been diplomatically and economically isolated by much of
10947-505: The nick of time, the details both of the German military Enigma machine, and of the operating procedures that were in use. At Bletchley Park, some of the key people responsible for success against Enigma included mathematicians Alan Turing and Hugh Alexander and, at the British Tabulating Machine Company , chief engineer Harold Keen . After the war, interrogation of German cryptographic personnel led to
11070-655: The non-aggression agreement with Stalin and Axis forces invaded the Soviet Union , which consequently declared war on Germany and its allies. Britain agreed to an alliance with the Soviet Union in July, with both nations committing to assisting one another by any means, and to never negotiate a separate peace. The following August saw the Atlantic Conference between American President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill , which defined
11193-502: The oil campaign in the last year of the war. Number of attacks by the RAF and USAAF against oil targets: Short tons dropped on oil targets: The efficiency of the bombing was lacking. Working from German records for certain sites, the USSBS determined that on average 87% of Allied bombs fell outside the factory perimeter and that only a few percent struck plant or equipment inside the boundary. The USAAF could put 26% of their bombing within
11316-432: The parliaments of Australia and New Zealand, the British declaration of war on Germany also applied to those dominions . The other dominions and members of the British Commonwealth declared war from 3 September 1939, all within one week of each other; they were Canada , British India and South Africa . During the war, Churchill attended seventeen Allied conferences at which key decisions and agreements were made. He
11439-482: The priority of oil targets was lowered. To prevent oil supplies from Romania reaching Germany, the RAF had extended its aerial mining activities to the Danube. Despite the RAF and Harris claims regarding the great importance of oil targets, Harris had opposed assigning the highest priority to oil targets but acknowledged post-war that the campaign was "a complete success" with the qualifier: "I still do not think that it
11562-524: The second half of 1941 30,000 Enigma messages a month were being deciphered, rising to 90,000 a month of Enigma and Fish decrypts combined later in the war. Some of the contributions that Ultra intelligence made to the Allied successes are given below. Rommel was appointed Inspector General of the West, and he inspected all the defences along the Normandy beaches and send a very detailed message that I think
11685-480: The severity of the economic crisis on the Treaty of Versailles. The far-right Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler , which had formed shortly after the peace treaty, exploited growing popular resentment and desperation to become the dominant political movement in Germany. By 1933, they gained power and rapidly established a totalitarian regime known as Nazi Germany . The Nazi regime demanded the immediate cancellation of
11808-640: The start of the Allied campaign in Norway in April. At the start of the Battle of France on 10 May 1940, the Germans made a very significant change in the indicator procedures for Enigma messages. However, the Bletchley Park cryptanalysts had anticipated this, and were able—jointly with PC Bruno—to resume breaking messages from 22 May, although often with some delay. The intelligence that these messages yielded
11931-817: The theory that the Lucy ring was a cover for Britain to pass Enigma intelligence to the Soviets has not gained traction. Among others who have rejected the theory, Harry Hinsley , the official historian for the British Secret Services in World War II, stated that "there is no truth in the much-publicized claim that the British authorities made use of the ‘Lucy’ ring ... to forward intelligence to Moscow". Most deciphered messages, often about relative trivia, were insufficient as intelligence reports for military strategists or field commanders. The organisation, interpretation and distribution of decrypted Enigma message traffic and other sources into usable intelligence
12054-481: The unchallenged Japanese expansion in the East, particularly considering their defeat in previous wars with Japan; the Soviets also recognized, as the U.S. and Britain had suggested, the advantages of a two-front war . Franklin D. Roosevelt , Winston Churchill , and Joseph Stalin were The Big Three leaders. They were in frequent contact through ambassadors, top generals, foreign ministers and special emissaries such as
12177-461: The various radio networks . German Enigma messages were the main source, with those of the Luftwaffe predominating, as they used radio more and their operators were particularly ill-disciplined. " Enigma " refers to a family of electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines . These produced a polyalphabetic substitution cipher and were widely thought to be unbreakable in the 1920s, when a variant of
12300-573: The war as it was must ask why it went as it did. And they need venture only a reasonable distance beyond the facts to recognise the extent to which the explanation lies in the influence of Ultra. Winterbotham's quoting of Eisenhower's "decisive" verdict is part of a letter sent by Eisenhower to Menzies after the conclusion of the European war and later found among his papers at the Eisenhower Presidential Library. It allows
12423-562: The war, Britain could remain the sole great power in Europe facing the Communist threat, as it was in 1940 and 1941 against Nazism. During the early part of 1945, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, Uruguay, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria (these latter two French colonies had been declared independent states by British occupation troops, despite protests by Pétain and later De Gaulle) and Ecuador became signatories. Ukraine and Belarus , which were not independent states but parts of
12546-515: The war, Britain had identified Germany's reliance on oil and oil products for its war machine, and the strategic bombing started with RAF attacks on Germany in 1940. After the US entered the war (December 1941), it carried out daytime " precision bombing " attacks – such as Operation Tidal Wave against refineries in Romania in 1943. The last major strategic raid of the European theater of the war targeted
12669-488: The war, lose a significant portion of territory, and pay costly reparations, among other penalties. The Weimar Republic , which formed at the end of the war and subsequently negotiated the treaty, saw its legitimacy shaken, particularly as it struggled to govern a greatly weakened economy and humiliated populace. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , and the ensuing Great Depression , led to political unrest across Europe, especially in Germany, where revanchist nationalists blamed
12792-545: The war. The alliance was largely one of convenience for each member: the U.K. realized that the Axis powers threatened not only its colonies in North Africa and Asia but also the homeland . The United States felt that the Japanese and German expansion should be contained, but ruled out force until Japan's attack. The Soviet Union, having been betrayed by the Axis attack in 1941, greatly despised German belligerence and
12915-492: The weather limitations: "This was the big breakthrough ... a plant would be wounded ... by successive attacks on its electrical grid—its nervous system—and on its gas and water mains." (author Donald Miller). However, due to bad fall and winter weather, a "far greater tonnage" was expended on Transportation Plan targets than oil targets. The benzol (oil) plant at Linz in Austria was bombed on 16 October 1944. In January 1945,
13038-517: The world, had sought an alliance with the western powers, but Hitler preempted a potential war with Stalin by signing the Nazi–Soviet non-aggression pact in August 1939. In addition to preventing a two-front war that had battered its forces in the last world war, the agreement secretly divided the independent states of Central and Eastern Europe between the two powers and assured adequate oil supplies for
13161-494: Was "the most important of the Allied leaders during the first half of World War II". British West Africa and the British colonies in East and Southern Africa participated, mainly in the North African, East African and Middle-Eastern theatres. Two West African and one East African division served in the Burma Campaign . Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing colony, having received responsible government in 1923. It
13284-436: Was 70,000 characters and we decrypted it as a small pamphlet. It was a report of the whole Western defences. How wide the V shaped trenches were to stop tanks, and how much barbed wire. Oh, it was everything and we decrypted it before D-Day. The Allies were seriously concerned with the prospect of the Axis command finding out that they had broken into the Enigma traffic. The British were more disciplined about such measures than
13407-439: Was a subtle task. At Bletchley Park, extensive indices were kept of the information in the messages decrypted. For each message the traffic analysis recorded the radio frequency, the date and time of intercept, and the preamble—which contained the network-identifying discriminant, the time of origin of the message, the callsign of the originating and receiving stations, and the indicator setting. This allowed cross referencing of
13530-413: Was carried out by MI6 , which operated Special Liaison Units (SLU) attached to major army and air force commands. The activity was organized and supervised on behalf of MI6 by Group Captain F. W. Winterbotham . Each SLU included intelligence, communications, and cryptographic elements. It was headed by a British Army or RAF officer, usually a major, known as "Special Liaison Officer". The main function of
13653-524: Was especially angered by the invasion and sought to support China. In March 1939, Germany took over Czechoslovakia , just six months after signing the Munich Agreement , which sought to appease Hitler by ceding the mainly ethnic German Czechoslovak borderlands; while most of Europe had celebrated the agreement as a major victory for peace, the open flaunting of its terms demonstrated the failure of appeasement. Britain and France, which had been
13776-557: Was more difficult than for the Enigma, since the British codebreakers had no knowledge of the machine producing it and no head-start such as that the Poles had given them against Enigma. Although the volume of intelligence derived from this system was much smaller than that from Enigma, its importance was often far higher because it produced primarily high-level, strategic intelligence that was sent between Wehrmacht High Command (OKW). The eventual bulk decryption of Lorenz-enciphered messages contributed significantly, and perhaps decisively, to
13899-402: Was never enough to truly convince him that Naval Enigma was being read by the Allies. The more so, since B-Dienst , his own codebreaking group, had partially broken Royal Navy traffic (including its convoy codes early in the war), and supplied enough information to support the idea that the Allies were unable to read Naval Enigma. By 1945, most German Enigma traffic could be decrypted within
14022-550: Was not a rotor machine, being built around electrical stepping switches . It was broken by the US Army Signal Intelligence Service and disseminated as Magic . Detailed reports by the Japanese ambassador to Germany were encrypted on the Purple machine. His reports included reviews of German assessments of the military situation, reviews of strategy and intentions, reports on direct inspections by
14145-457: Was not a sovereign dominion. It governed itself internally and controlled its own armed forces, but had no diplomatic autonomy, and, therefore, was officially at war as soon as Britain was at war. The Southern Rhodesian colonial government issued a symbolic declaration of war nevertheless on 3 September 1939, which made no difference diplomatically but preceded the declarations of war made by all other British dominions and colonies. These included:
14268-486: Was of little operational use in the fast-moving situation of the German advance. Decryption of Enigma traffic built up gradually during 1940, with the first two prototype bombes being delivered in March and August. The traffic was almost entirely limited to Luftwaffe messages. By the peak of the Battle of the Mediterranean in 1941, however, Bletchley Park was deciphering daily 2,000 Italian Hagelin messages. By
14391-533: Was put forward which found favour with the British Ministry of Economic Warfare . The plan proposed attacking "fourteen synthetic plants [of Brabag ] and thirteen refineries" of Nazi Germany. The plan estimated Axis oil production could be reduced by 50% by bombing—33% below the amount Nazi Germany needed—but also included 4 additional priorities: first oil, then fighter and ball bearing production, rubber production, and bomber output. The damage caused by
14514-427: Was reading his mail." Over time, Ultra has become embedded in the public consciousness and Bletchley Park has become a significant visitor attraction. As stated by historian Thomas Haigh , "The British code-breaking effort of the Second World War, formerly secret, is now one of the most celebrated aspects of modern British history, an inspiring story in which a free society mobilized its intellectual resources against
14637-559: Was reasonable, at that time, to expect that the [oil] campaign would succeed; what the Allied strategists did was to bet on an outsider , and it happened to win the race." Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067 prohibited German post-war production of oil through July 1947, and the United States Army made post-war provisions to rehabilitate and use petroleum installations where needed, as well as to dispose of unneeded captured equipment. After inspections of various plants by
14760-539: Was reportedly suggested by Commander Geoffrey Colpoys, RN, who served in the Royal Navy's OIC. The distribution of Ultra information to Allied commanders and units in the field involved considerable risk of discovery by the Germans, and great care was taken to control both the information and knowledge of how it was obtained. Liaison officers were appointed for each field command to manage and control dissemination. Dissemination of Ultra intelligence to field commanders
14883-416: Was too anxious to prove a point ... he suffered from an inferiority complex." During December 1941, Roosevelt devised the name "United Nations" for the Allies and Churchill agreed. He referred to the Big Three and China as the " Four Policemen " repeatedly from 1942. The alliance was formalised in the Declaration by United Nations signed on 1 January 1942. There were the 26 original signatories of
15006-527: Was used as a cover name for Ultra . In order to ensure that the successful code-breaking did not become apparent to the Germans, British intelligence created a fictional MI6 master spy, Boniface, who controlled a fictional series of agents throughout Germany. Information obtained through code-breaking was often attributed to the human intelligence from the Boniface network. The U.S. used the codename Magic for its decrypts from Japanese sources, including
15129-469: Was very confused. Free French forces were recognized only by Britain, while the United States considered Vichy France to be the legal government of the country until Operation Overlord , while also preparing U.S. occupation francs . Winston Churchill urged Roosevelt to restore France to its status of a major power after the liberation of Paris in August 1944; the Prime Minister feared that after
#51948