Authentic BDU/U-Boat transmissions Intercepted by the Allies

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by Thomen

You can also try and contact the National Cryptologic Museum at Fort Mead.
http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic...um/index.shtml

They have some Enigmas on display and visitors are allowed to play around with them. They might be able to give some more detailed information on the formating and stuff. When I was there last year, I picked up some booklets about the Enigma, but I do not remember if they tell you much about the actual formating.

That's who I contacted at NSA. This is the response I got:

Dear Bill,

The Center for Cryptologic History does not have any raw intercepts of U-Boat messages in its possession. Nor does it have any guide to U-Boat message formats. There is a good possibility that such material resides at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. There are two records groups where such material might be found: RG 457, The Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, Entry 9032, "Historical Cryptographic Collection." In this collection there are about 12-15 boxes of material dealing with the U-Boat problem. Anothee place may be in RG 38, Records of the Chief of Naval Operations, Commander Naval Security Group. There are several collections within this record group, notably the mistitled "Translations", Entry 1040, which has severl aboxes of material on the U-Boats, some of which are translations, but many boxes hold other material related to the U-Boat problem.

Sorry, we could not be of more help. It might be helpful to know that the British retained the "lead" on this problem, and while the processing of U-Boat intercepts was done both in the US and the UK, primary responsibility for intercept belonged with the British. Original intercept rarely was kept by the Americans, except for training purposes. But with the end of the war, there was little incentive to retain such material. As for the Britsh, what originals they retained is unknown.

Bob Hanyok
Historian

I didn't and still don't have the time or money to go waltzing down to Maryland to search through the National Archives, though. If someone in the area has the time, I would personally appreciate it if they could check.


I did contact Bletchley Park to see what they had, and I got an acknowledgement of the e-mail from the reception desk saying they would forward the request to the archives, and nothing afterwards. I never got a reply from GCHQ at all.