Is Alan Turing's effort code-breaking effort to the war exaggerated?

If in the autumn of 1941 a Japanese civilian working at the Japanese embassy in Rome and also working for the FBI,would tell Washington that someone (unidentified) had told him that on 7 december Japan would attack Pearl Harbour, who would believe him ?

That was what Sorge was doing and no one in Moscow believed him .Quite rightly .

About Citadel : I do not believe any word of what Hinsley is saying, because he is unable to give ONE proof for his claim . NOT one paper,not one message . Besides : how would Hinsley know ? He occupied only a very subordinate post at BP .

A claim without proof from the spin doctor of Bletchley Park does not convince me .

There is NO proof that BP intercepted any message about Citadel and there is also no proof that information was given to Moscow and there is no proof that such information would have had any importance for Moscow, because Moscow had its own BP,that was as efficient as the British one . All countries had their own BP,and all were as efficient as that one in London .

 

Well I guess the prisoners who wore the pink Star of David really had a string of bad days ahead of them eh?

 

No ones hands were clean but the hands of the Germans and Soviets were magnitudes dirtier/bloodier than those of the US and England.

 

Forgive me Tamino, but I am not the one who took the right turn at Albuquerque by "insanely" stating

Next time, Tamino...Take the left at Albuquerque.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8TUwHTfOOU

 

Enough.

Back on topic or find another thread to spend your time on.

 

There is an anecdote I usually take as a sample of failed reasoning: Once a group of wise peasants were having a smart debate about the number of donkeys teeth. Finally, the smartest among them opened the Holly Bible to find the correct answer. Instead, they could have simply gone into the stable to count teeth in donkeys mouth.

Why should the Russians have asked the Britons how many teeth has a German donkey standing literally in their own stable? Russians had enough own intelligence, reconnaissance, partisans behind the German lines to see what is unfolding in front of their own healthy eyes. Why should they ask Churchill's Station X to decipher the obvious?

But you are free to believe the myth how the Churchill’s’ Ultra has saved Russians, believe – if that makes you feel smarter than a Russian. In reality, Russians outthought, outfought and outplayed the Germans while the Britons were playing with "Hitler's soft underbelly".

 

I guess the Soviets should not have prepared for any attack what so ever at Kursk.

 

An interesting idea Steve. Would you mind to be a bit more elaborate?

 

Did anyone here really say that Ultra saved Russia or even Russians? (It's almost certain that the latter is the case by the way). With intel work you can never really be certain. Or as per your analogy they couldn't actually enter the German stable. What their intel did was give them a view of it from various angles and distances. What ultra did was give them a view from a completely different angle and distance. Independent sources are very helpful in raising the confidence one has in the estimates that the intel people provide. Did it make a huge difference at say Kursk? Probably not. Was it important over the course of the war and especially the war in the East? Almost certainly.

 

Lwd, you're a reasonable man but in this case you're simply incapable viewing the subject from the neutral angle. Please read the Glanzs study I have provided as a link in one of my previous posts. There was no information received from Britons and there was sufficient own information and means to beat the Germans during, and more important, after the Zitadelle was canceled.

 

Ultra information about Kursk (if it existed,which has not been proved ) was unimportant for the Sovjets,and irrelevant for the outcome of the battle .

The Soviets had their own BP,unless one starts from the racist POV that they were only stupid Mongol barbarians .Were the informations of the Soviet BP determining ? More than probably not,because the Soviets were that strong that they did not need any informations .

In june 1941 the Soviets were surprised,and the Germans had some temporary successes,but this was not caused by the surprise ,even if the Soviets were not surprised, the Germans would have had some successes,because the Red Army was not good at all in june 1941: it was worthless..

In may 1940 Oster (of the Abwehr) gave some informations about Fall Gelb,which was as worthless as the paper from von Weichs,and this did not help the Allies . Even with better informations, the result would have been the same .

 

It doesn't suit my preference that you wander off topic making snide comments. Which you do all the time. Then turn around and try to make out like others have wandered off topic, when it was, in fact yourself that opened the can of worms. Every time.

 

You are free to interpret what has been posted in this thread in that manner.

It was not, however, what was stated. Your bias seriously compromises your ability to read.

What was stated, was that the intelligence gathered from Ultra was shared. As stated, the Russians had a very good intelligence service themselves.

Now, you can try to deny that, if that makes you feel any better about yourself.

 

Once again your failure to read has let you down.

I did read the Glantz document. What it stated, was not what you claim, but;

"The GRU controlled an agent network abroad which encompassed the infamous spy networks operating in Switzerland ("Dora," "Lucy"). Although much has been written in a popular vein about these networks, their impact on operations was only marginal. The historian Sir Harry Hinsley, who wrote the official history of British intelligence in the war, has catagorically denied the British used these networks to pass Ultra-derived information to the Soviets.' "

(emphasis mine)

Now we have the information in the interview I linked above from Sir Harry Hinsley himself, stating the information was shared. Significantly, this means the information derived from Ultra, wasn't shared via the networks Dora, or Lucy but by a third way. Furthermore, information on Kursk that came from Dora or Lucy, was not derived from Ultra, but some other means. Tactically, Ultra would've been useless, as the information obtained would be out of date. Hinsley made that clear in the interview, if you bothered to read it.

The context of the quoted text, i.e. when Sir Harry Hinsley stated it, is important.

In neither case, does Sir Hinsley state that "Ultra saved the day." You should re-read what was posted.

So. Information was received in summary. No one claimed it directly affected operations. No one claimed the Russians were lost without their British summary, nor incapable of gleaning their own intelligence.

Stop trying to claim, that there was no information forthcoming from the British. It is petty. What is the threat, with the Russian information is so superlative, that the British shared the relevant information they had? That was all that was stated.

Next you'll state it was a British war crime that they did or didn't share information.

 

Actually I think I'm doing a very good job of that. You seem to be the one who is letting there prejudices define not only the angle you view things from but distorting what people are writing.

As GS latest post confirms this is categorically false. Information was clearly shared. Now how important said information was can be debated. PLS note however no one here seams to be arguing for it being of any great tactical import.

Which is a bit of a straw man isn't it?

 

There are two different things. First it was clear to the Soviets that the Kursk bulge would be the focus of any German operation in 1943. They did not need intel to tell them that so no intel did not save the Soviets in the case. What was important was what troops, the area of assault and such detail that were important to dealing with the attack. That is the intel that the Soviet gathered and as I stated, because the records are not available its hard to know all the sources, but I find it hard to believe that there was not some attempt to share info with the Soviets as far as ultra. The two difficulties were protecting the source and sending the info so Stalin would not just dismiss it as he did just before Barbarossa began.

 

Proof, please, primary source, not just unsupported plain statement.

 

Another problem with this speculation about the Ultra information is that the Zittadelle plan was not unique - that plan has evolved, there were meetings, discussions and several major changes of the plan, delays etc. And finally: do you think that such an important plan has ever been send via Enigma or Lorenz, by radio? Are we so naive or we want to believe myths.

 

Why do you find it hard to believe that there was not some attempt to share info with the Soviets as far as Ultra ?

You start from the unproved and very unlikely claim that BP had any information to share about Kursk .

There is no proof that what the staff of von Weichs did write (besides it was a worthless piece of paper) was sent to Moscow.It was worthless (as most of what BP and its equivalents in Moscow, Berlin, etc discovered ) .Every day thousands of messages were detected in BP and its equivalents and most were classified vertically = they were thrown in the dust-bin . The NSA is doing the same .

 

Sources have already been quoted that support my statement concerning information sharing. You were even touting one of them (at least before GS showed that it contradicted your position).