It’s not German and It’s not Enigma
Cairo was a gossipy town during World War Two, full of spies, many working for more than one side at once.
This made the job of gathering reliable intelligence and keeping it sufficiently secret all the more difficult. The new episode of the Bletchley Park Podcast, It’s Not German and It’s Not Enigma, tells the little-known story of how an outpost of the Government Code and Cypher School, set up in a former flora and fauna museum, supported the operation to push the Italian invading force back out of Egypt.
General Wavell, the Commander in Chief responsible for Operation Compass, knew how leaky Cairo was and constructed a deception to protect the real plan. Bletchley Park’s Research Historian, Dr David Kenyon, describes Wavell’s feint “He tells very few people, he has hardly any orders written down. At the same time they release the rumour and produce radio messages and logistical paperwork saying they’re going to pull troops out of the desert and send them to Greece. So when they attack the Italians, it’s a complete surprise for everybody concerned, not only the Italians but also some of the troops involved. But that’s why the operation is a success.”
Harry Hinsley, the former Codebreaker who went on to write the official history of British Intelligence in WW2 said the contribution of signals intelligence to Operation Compass “was of decisive importance”.
Even before the war with Italy began, the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park had ‘all but completely mastered’ Italian ciphers. Unfortunately for GC&CS the Italian armed services changed all their code books at the outbreak of hostilities in June 1940. But by October, the Codebreakers had broken into the new system.
Dr Kenyon says “You have to appreciate the determination of the people involved. These teams had spent years gradually working out what each code number meant and assembling dictionaries of all the terms and how it all worked, and in June 1940 it all changed and they had to start again. That doggedness and ability to accept that kind of setback and just crack on is, I think, really impressive.”