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Enigma foretold coventry bombing raid

Discussion in 'WWII General' started by justin65, Jul 25, 2020.

  1. wm.

    wm. Well-Known Member

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    That's strange.
    I half expected both the Wilde Saus and anti-aircraft fire were concentrated where the bombers were.
    It was quite pointless to hang out above the bomber stream.

    As you needed a burning city for the Wilde Sau to work it's obvious that a large number of the bombers couldn't be targeted - because you had to wait till the city started burning sufficiently.

    The rest couldn't be attacked effectively either - because the bombers spent just a few minutes over the city and the city illuminated the attacker too.
    In this case, the main advantage of the night fighter (it's relative invisibility) was lost.
     
  2. harolds

    harolds Member

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    A single bomber may have spent only a few minutes over a city but even a well concentrated bomber stream took at least 90 minutes to cross the target. Wilde sau fighters came down in a diving attack and them climbed back up on the "perch" to see if another attack was needed. If not, he looked for another target to cross. Attacks took seconds, not minutes. If there was cloud cover, the clouds were backlit by searchlights so that the bombers were shown up "like flies on frosted glass".

    The problems came when they tried to radically increase the number of wilde sau. They didn't have enough pilots well trained in blind flying and these newbies weren't effective and often crashed.
     
  3. ARWR

    ARWR Active Member

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    I don't really want to get into this kerfuffle but I find it interesting that the Brits didn't come up with a something similar as the German "wilde sau" tactic. Using the burning cities to find the bombers was a very useful stopgap measure for the Germans until they came up with radar that couldn't be corrupted so easily. Hurris, flown by pilots skilled in blind flying could have significanly increase the German losses![/QUOTE]
    Indeed - the use of ground radar to vector in non radar equipped night fighters onto German bomber formations was in use. Defiant I fighters scored significant night victories in this manner coming in from below and behind the enemy bomber and firing the turrets guns ahead at a 45 degree angle.
     
  4. Takao

    Takao Ace

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    It was in use, but far from perfected. One pilot was directed to a German bomber, that was supposedly "right off his wing." The pilot chased the phantom bomber most of the way across England, and never did see it. The problem being that the early radar had problems finding height. Also, much use was made of ground observers & sound locators.
     
  5. ARWR

    ARWR Active Member

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    True but the Defiants were able to bring down enemy aircraft as did some Hurricanes operated in a similar manner. Britain was not as without NF cover as some people suggest even if it needed considerable improvement (as would happen).
     
  6. ARWR

    ARWR Active Member

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    Getting back to the main subject - it would seem very unlikely that such intelligence originated from an ULTRA decipher as the Luftwaffe sent most of its signal traffic in France via teleprinter over land lines and this was not picked up by British listening stations. Most SIGINT picked up on the Luftwaffe in 1940/1 was from ground control to aircraft or between aircraft and was not Enigma enciphered. It sounds very much like one of Anthony Cave Brown's stories (see Bodyguard of Lies - not a work to be relied on - entertaining reading though).
     
    Last edited: Aug 7, 2020
  7. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    I don´t know if this was mentioned but I read about one probable theory that Winston knew about the Coventry bombing was coming but could not throw all his planes etc against it because it would have given the Germans reason to doubt Enigma had been broken....????
     
  8. ARWR

    ARWR Active Member

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    Yes that's the theory Cave Brown promulgated. It's very unlikely as Ultra at Bletchly Park was dealing with little or no enciphered Luftwaffe intercepts at the time. British intelligence may well have had an inkling that Coventry was due to be hit but probably through Scientific Intelligence which was on to Germany's navigational beams and where they were being layed - however they would not have been certain enough to warrant risking putting all the defences to protecting one city. As has been said earlier in this thread it's a myth that Coventry was left undefended and some additional cover was provided.
     
  9. Takao

    Takao Ace

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    It was an ULTRA decript that helped clue in the British. It was intercepted on November 9, and decoded within 48 hours. However, it only alerted the British to the fact that a major raid was planned. There was no meaningful information in the intercept as to the target. The intercept is reprinted in full, in Frederick Taylor's "Coventry: Thursday, 14 November 1940", at the beginning of chapter 8.
     
  10. davidbfpo

    davidbfpo Member

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    Slightly off topic. I have walked through Coventry city centre a few times lately and learnt that one reason so much damage was caused is that the buildings dated from the Elizabethan era, so were timber-built and burnt out. The cathedral lost its roof and still stands as a memorial; with the new 1960's cathedral next door and reconciliation is a deeply embedded civic belief.
     
  11. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    I am not saying yes/no myself:
    Churchill Let Coventry Burn To Protect His Secret Intelligence - The International Churchill Society

    The originator of the “prior warning” theory was former RAF Group Captain F. W. Winterbotham in The Ultra Secret (New York: Harper & Row, 1974). This was the first book to reveal that the Allies had broken the German codes–a fact that was until then a closely guarded official secret.

    According to Winterbotham, who wrote entirely from memory, the name Coventry came through in clear type on a decrypt of German messages (codenamed “Boniface,” later “Ultra”) at 3PM on 14 November, the afternoon before the raid, and Winterbotham himself immediately telephoned the news to one of Churchill’s private secretaries in Downing Street (The Ultra Secret 82-84).

    Churchill turned to Sir William Stephenson (“Intrepid”), who advised that “Boniface” was too valuable a source of intelligence to risk. By evacuating the city, the Prime Minister would expose the source and endanger its usefulness in the future – so “Intrepid” told Churchill to leave Coventry to burn and its people to their fate.

    In the early hours of 12 November, Dr. Jones received a decrypt of a new German message which indicated that there was to be a raid against Coventry, Wolverhampton, and Birmingham. But there was nothing in this new message to connect it with “Moonlight Sonata,” and no such connection was made (P.R.O. AIR20/2419). As early as the morning before the raid, the Air Ministry were still expecting a raid on London.

    Colville was not the first to reveal the truth. Former private secretary, John Martin, who had been with Churchill in London on the fateful night, awaiting the bombers that never came, recalled the facts in The Times on 28 August 1976, when the charge was first circulating. A quarter century later, Christopher Hitchens in The Atlantic wrote that no Churchill defender has ever challenged the story. Historians Norman Longmate, Ronald Levin, Harry Hensley, and David Stafford are just four historians who as early as 1979 explicitly dismissed the Coventry story for the nonsense it is.

    -----------------------
    The Coventry Blitz 'conspiracy'

    Mr Charman says the RAF did indeed detect the the navigation signals over Coventry, but tried to intercept and then jam them; one theory suggests this failed because the wrong frequency was chosen.

    Plus, he argues, there would have been very little the British authorities could have done to protect the people of the city even if they had been forewarned.

    "Even if you had put every air raid defence in the country around Coventry it would still have been devastating," he adds. "People prefer to think of things as a conspiracy.

    "But even if Churchill had known at that short notice (that Coventry was to be targeted) imagine the logistics of evacuating a city the size of Coventry - it would have been enormous."
     

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