A glimpse at war in a pre-digital age
I think this is a pretty cool story about codes and code breaking:
German spies hid secret messages in drawings of models wearing the latest fashions in an attempt to outwit Allied censors during World War Two, according to British security service files released on Monday.
Nazi agents relayed sensitive military information using the dots and dashes of Morse code incorporated in the drawings.
They posted the letters to their handlers, hoping that counter-espionage experts would be fooled by the seemingly innocent pictures.
But British secret service officials were aware of the ruse and issued censors with a code-breaking guide to intercept them.
The book — part of a batch of British secret service files made public for the first time — included an example of a code hidden in a drawing of three young models.
“Heavy reinforcements for the enemy expected hourly,” reads a message disguised as a decorative pattern in the stitching of their gowns, hats and blouses.
The files reveal other ingenious ways spies tried to send coded notes through the post.
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The capture of two German agents in 1942 uncovered two such codes which British intelligence had repeatedly failed to crack, the declassified files reveal.
Britain’s wartime spy chief David Petrie described the failure as “somewhat disturbing.”
The code was used in a letter from “Hubert” to “Aunt Janet” to conceal the message: “14 Boeing Fortresses arrived yesterday in Hendon (London). Pilots expect to raid Kiel (Germany).”
As the war went on, counter-espionage officials developed ways of spotting suspicious letters.
You do realize that, nowadays, the Times, upon learning that our allies had broken a code, would immediately have spread the story over the front page, no doubt with stories of how the Allies had tortured the captured German agents by making them watch Three Stooges movies over and over again in an utterly inhumane way; how the Germans were forced to wage war against us as a result of their victimization under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles; how our soldiers were killing too many Japanese, the German’s fellow Axis members, which further reinforced German hatred; and about the fact that none of this would have happened if we’d just talked to the Germans and reached a cease fire (sort of like in the Sudetenland.)
I should note one bizarre thing about the online report on this story: it’s illustrated by a fashion page from WWI, not WWII. I assume that the picture, not the story, is in error.
Filed under: Media matters, World War II
You left out the obvious, Book: British intelligence was reading peoples’ private mail. Eeeeek! How dare they.
Danny, so were we. Every letter even those from the military coming and going to the U.S. were read and censored during WW2. A neighbor fluent in Polish was part of it and she tells of the agonizing content of some of letters.
You say, “it’s illustrated by a fashion page from WWI, not WWII,” and you assume the picture but not the story is in error? We know Reuter’s recent gaffes with pictures in Lebanon, so that’s hardly a safe assumption!
Noooo… that could be a fashion page from WWII. Note that the lady in the long dress has her ankles showing. During WWI, women’s feet didn’t show, their skirts swept the floor. And the lady seated on the right has short hair in finger waves, definitely a ’30s style. This could be a page of fall fashions from Europe, late ’30s, judging from the long sleeves and the short cape on the woman in the long dress.
Just my guess, though :). The idea that it’s from WWI is MUCH more amusing!
Download the image and zoom in on it. It seems clear to me that this is from an instruction manual on how to identify hidden messages and *not* an actual example of intercepted communications.
Also, consider: “Heavy reinforcements for the enemy expected hourly,” in a message hidden in a fashion drawing. That’s a message that would require quick attention, but if it has to be hidden in a drawing, obviously it’s not going to get there in time!
Hrm, cloak and daggers don’t work on couriers. This wasn’t the Byzantine age. Once their handlers acquired the information from their contacts in Britain, the information would be relayed via Enigma coding to Intel Headquarters. Crunched and then acted upon. The fact that Britain broke the Enigma code, screwed both German counter-spy operations as well as spy-espionage operations in Britain.
It would actually be more dangerous to send updated copies to the dead drop location or the spy’s handler. The reason being, if you are using regular versions of fashion, it becomes a pattern. Patterns are what cracks spy rings and hidden cells. It also can be compared to other copies and determined whether it was “altered” or not. You’d have to commandeer the printer of these fashion pictures, to change the original. Can we say, not good tradecraft? You’re trying to get past censors and counter-espionage agents, they are going to be paying extra attention to printers that print stuff that are sent overseas.
It makes more sense for it to BE WWI. That way, it is an antique, no common copies people can find to compare it with, and it can be sent at “irregular” intervals, which break pattern recognition techniques. A suouvenoir, or gift item, these things are irregular and hard to check because of its uniqueness.