Overview of 2014

As the year comes to a close it’s time to look back at some of the top essays that I wrote in 2014, plus the ones that I extensively rewrote using new information.

Cryptology

United States cryptologic security failures in WWII

Compromise of Soviet codes in WWII

Soviet pre-arranged form reports

British cryptologic security failures in WWII

The British Typex cipher machine

Decoded US diplomatic messages from 1944

Compromise of OWI - Office of War Information communications

Compromise of US M-209 cipher machine prior to the invasion of Normandy

State Department’s strip cipher – reuse of alphabet strips and key lists

Naval Enigma compromise and the spy in the United States Department of the Navy

Case ‘Wicher’ – Information from the war diary of Inspectorate 7/VI

The US AN/GSQ-1 (SIGJIP) speech scrambler

The French War Ministry’s FLD code

Professor Wolfgang Franz and OKW/Chi’s mathematical research department

Reich security service and OKW/Chi reports

German special intelligence, the M-138 strip cipher and unrest in India

Decoded messages in the Finnish national archives

Typex cipher machines for the Polish Foreign Ministry

The epic quest for the Carlson-Goldsberry report

The German intercept stations in Spain

The Japanese J-19 FUJI code

The codebreakers of the Japanese Foreign Ministry and the compromise of US codes prior to Pearl Harbor

Svetova Revoluce and the codes of the Czech resistance

Allen Dulles and the compromise of OSS codes in WWII (added new information)

The US TELWA code (added new information)

The British War Office Cypher (added new information)

The Soviet K-37 ‘Crystal’ cipher machine (added new information)

Soviet partisan codes and KONA 6 (added new information)

French Hagelin cipher machines (added new information)

The RAF Cypher (added new information)

The British Interdepartmental Cypher (added new information)

The American M-209 cipher machine (added new information)

US Military Strip Ciphers (added new information)

US diplomatic codes A1, C1, Gray and Brown (added new information)

The British railways code (added new information)

Soviet Diplomatic Code 26 and the elusive Dr Roeder (added new information)

Swedish Army codes and Aussenstelle Halden (added new information)

Wartime exploitation of Turkish codes by Axis and Allied powers (added new information)

The secret messages of Marshall Tito and General Mihailović (added new information)

German intelligence on operation Overlord (added new information)

T-34 tank

WWII Myths - T-34 Best Tank of the war (added new information)

Spies

General Onodera’s intelligence bazaar

Abwehr agent Marina Lee and the Norway campaign

Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle and the radio network of the French Communist Party

Book reviews

Recommended reading on the Eastern Front

New books on Soviet cryptology in WWII

New book on the Italian codebreakers of WWII 

Australian codebreakers of WWII

I was able to find lots of new information in the government archives of the USA, UK, Germany and Finland and I got lucky with some of my freedom of information act requests to the NSA. Again I have to thank the people who helped me by giving me files and information and/or collaborating with me in locating interesting reports. I wouldn’t have been able to find so much without your help! As we say in Greece ‘η ισχύς εν τη ενώσει’.

Is there anything left to cover in 2015? Actually there is. I’m waiting for several TICOM reports to be declassified by the NSA and there also some files from NARA and the UK national archives that I need to locate/copy. Regarding historical cases I need to cover:

1). Τhe compromise of the codes of the Resistance movements in occupied Europe by the Agents section of Inspectorate 7/VI (German Army signals intelligence).

2). The compromise of the DFC - Division Field Code of the US 29th Infantry Division, prior to the Normandy invasion in summer ’44.

3). Find more information on the Polish diplomatic and military attaché codes of WWII (indicator MILITPOLΟGNE)

4). Continue to investigate the compromise of the State Departments strip cipher.

5). The compromise of the communications of General Barnwell R. Legge, US military attaché in Switzerland during WWII.

6). Add new information regarding the compromise of the Bell Labs A-3 speech privacy system.

7). Find more information on Goering’s Forschungsamt.

With a bit of luck I should be able to uncover a great deal of interesting information.