I remember reading in “The Code Book” by Simon Singh that we often had to pretend we didn’t know things we knew because they weren’t critical watershed battles. Using the enigma too often would give our having cracked it away to the Germans. So did the allied command ever give troops/ships/etc orders that they command knew was basically a death sentence?
I can’t say yes or no, but it sounds like it would have saved lives in the long run if they did.
revtim,
I certainly believe that it did and chalk it up to one of the ugly exigencies of war. I just wonder if some admiral in the navy had to stand in front of some guy and give orders that he knew would meet with an ambush. That’s a tough gig.
Bear in mind the potential for human error involved. A slightest mis-translation by the staff at Bletchley Park, or the slightest misinterpretation by the field staff receiving the alerts, and it could very easily appear that the signals were being deliberately ignored.
I’ve just finished reading a history of the loss of Crete, which argues convincingly that the British and Commonwealth troops could easily have held Crete had the officers not misread a signal about a possible massive seaborne invasion to follow up the parachute troops. Because the officers assumed that this was a definite, they did not place their main defences to fend off an airborne attack, and when the German paratroopers were close to defeat they would not bring reserves and coastal artillery to bear inland to finish them off.
Similarly, the signals warning the Allies of the German assault in the Ardennes in 1944 were believed by most Allied officers to be preparations for a counterattack on any American breakthrough further north:
– Charles MacDonald, The Battle of the Bulge
The only example I can find just now that might indicate commanders deliberately placing soldiers in harm’s way to prevent the Axis from learning of Ultra and Enigma was during the campaign in Normandy. When the Germans counter-attacked at Mortain, the relatively raw and tired US 30th Infantry Division bore the brunt of the attack with little notice, while other troops prepared for a massive Allied counterthrust and aerial bombardment.
If memory serves, one of the biggest cases of this was the bombing of Coventry - IIRC and according to Churchill’s driver, he opened the envelope containing the information while driving out of London and, when he found out, had the car turn around.
No one in Coventry was informed of what was going to happen that same night.
There was a civilian passenger plane that was knowingly sent to its fate because some dumb spy saw someone he thought was Churchill get on it.
I’ll try to find a cite on that.
Um, I don’t mean to be obtuse, but aren’t commanders always sending men to their deaths whenever they plan any battle? After all, don’t just about all battles involve casualties? Isn’t that the nature of war?
Zev Steinhardt
zev,
There is a huge difference between normal war casualties and casualties that could have been avoided by acting on intelligence.
The scenario I speak of is something like this. Let’s say Bletchley park knew that german uboats were planning to surprise engage the British Navy somewhere they typically patrolled. If the Navy didn;t show up, or there were counterattack forces that typically were’nt there, the Germans would know that their plans were compromised. You can get away with this a few times, but after a while, the germans would realize the allies had cracked the enigma. The allies had to “save” the use of the enigma intelligence for key battles. So basically the allies could have knowingly sent their own men into an ambush without forewarning.
Well, the Coventry bombing was known ahead of time. They could have evacuated Coventry.
In the specific matter of operational use of signal intelligence from the ENIGMA Code, it is indeed the case that British High Command refused to issue orders to avoid submarine attacks while it had such information. The reasoning was very sound. The break of the ENIGMA cipher was possible because the implementation habits of the German Submarine Command were sloppy. If it became obvious that information was being intercepted the first, and obvious step was to examine that implementation. A single well implemented directive on the proper use of the machine would have eliminated most of the production from the interception of German Signals.
With the stakes that high, and the response that easy, it was important to use this advantage to the greatest effect. Strategic considerations made it really important to delay that event until the Allies could be in position to make best use of the intercept information to decisively alter the course of the entire war. The choice was clear, save a few supply ships, or save the entire European Theater.
Tris
“War is Hell.” William T. Sherman
Here we go:
http://www.thirdreich.net/Assassination_Hitler.html
Search for “Chenfalls” - he’s the guy who was Churchill’s double.
Well yes Zev - and it’s an interesting question as to why sending ten men to their certain death is thought of differently to sending 100 to a 10% chance of death - but this is about withholding information that would change the chances of a group of people dying. It is, I suppose, the same problem with time and uncertainty thrown in, plus the fact that the inhabitants of Coventry were non-combatants.
Thanks so far, this is good stuff. I’m interested in this idea for a short story. Something along the lines the feelings that a commander had before and after sending a subordinate/friend to a certain death. Ideally there would have been intimate face to face contact as far as the story is concerned, though I don’t know if this situation would have presented itself. Anyone know?
A fictitious young math wiz, and his old Public School chum, One a serving officer in the Royal Navy, escorting a convoy, the other a Blechley Park codebreaker, who knows, and cannot say that the wolf packs are targeting his old friend?
I think it has been done.
Tris
Senior staff officer (i.e. privy to the decrypted signals) and young nurse on a hospital ship in the Mediterranean?
And done very well, IMO.
Kid, read Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. I believe it may touch on the subject of the OP. 
I should clarify that this is not the exact book that Triskadecamus is talking about, but rather one that looks at similar situations.
Doh!
Sometimes I wish ignorance of pre-existing works was an excuse. I’ll check out Cryptonomicon - been meaning to read that anyway. BTW, I like the idea about the cryptanalyst and the nurse.
It’s just my opinion, but there is a difference between ordering people into a situation knowing they will die and ignoring intelligence that would give them an advantage. Both would cause a lot of soul searching but one is knowingly causing death and destruction, the other is basically letting the Fates decide since both sides are on a (intelligence-wise) level playing field.
From the books I’ve read I can remember no reference to people being ordered into harms way just to avoid Enigma from being discovered. There are numerous situations where the information was withheld and the troops had to come to grips with the trouble on their own. When the codes were first broken the British were more willing to act on everything they read, it was only later that they bottled up the information. Early on when they found out about a coming air raid they would send up a “training” flight to “accidently” come across the attack and break it up. Later they had RADAR to announce incoming attacks so they could largely disregard air raid intercepts. There were some claims that the British were still holding back information to avoid breaking secrecy up to the end of the war when it would have made no difference to the final outcome. Some soldiers feel that hundreds of deaths could have been avoided by using this information since there was really no way for the Germans to easily replace their codes by 1945 with little production ability and almost no transportation ability to get anything out to the (shrinking) battlefield.
The Navy made a couple of attempts to intercept submarines during resupply. The Enigma’s message would give a location to meet the supply ship and a British attack would follow. Bad luck prevented a successful attack, and the attack in the middle of nowhere made the Germans suspicious of the Enigma security.
Alan Turing worked on the Enigma code, among a zillion other things. He was a genius in several fields, and harrassed by the British police for being homosexual. He was given hormone ‘treatment’ for his condition, which caused him to grow breasts. I have a theory that he thought women’s bodies were ugly and he was repulsed by his physical change. He committed suicide. A very depressing story.