ULTRA MEMOIR

The ground echelon, which included intelligence officers, went on the

Queen Mary. The living was not posh. There were seventeen thousand troops

on the Queen Mary, more people than it had ever carried before or since.

The Ist Infantry Division, the entire division, was aboard. I was appalled

when we sailed out of New York Harbor in broad daylight. I was then a

first lieutenant, and I found myself assigned as the last man to a stateroom

that normally accommodated two people, and there were fifteen other people already there. They had put bunks four high. I had one up next to the

ceiling.

I was the commanding officer of the ground echelon of my squadron,

so I was in on the daily briefing by the captain of the ship. After we had

been out about three and a half days, he told us that the Admiralty had

advised-and it may have been UL TRA-that there were U-boats in the

normal route. We then went all the way north of Iceland or made a big turn

in that direction. We were a day and a half late getting to England. Our group

ended up on a base in East Anglia. It was a temporary air base not far from

Norwich. I took my wife back there four or five years later, and we could

not find it at first. We finally did locate the runway. We trained there not

knowing what we were going to do because we were in a twin-engine bomber

group, not a four-engine group, and it seemed curious to be operating out

of England against Germany with that type of aircraft. It turned out that

England was just a stop for a couple of months on the way to North Africa.

Army Col. Egmont F. Koenig receives old Harrisburg Academy keys.

3



UL TRA MEMOIR

Powell's unit "messing" at Tafaraoui air base. Courtesy Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

Powell: I thought this information came-as it often did-from Coastal

Command reconnaissance, but I really did not know. I'll move on, and then

I'll answer your question in a different way. When my group was taken out

of operations, sometime in late February of 1943, rather than go back to

Morocco, where the group was to rest and refit with additional planes and

fresh crews, I was sent to the Twelfth Air Force headquarters and was put

into its operational or combat intelligence unit. I have no idea why I was sent

to headquarters, but was happy to avoid the inaction of refitting my group.

Twelfth Air Force was then headquartered in Algiers. After I was there

for only a brief period, it was moved to Constantine, a fascinating city in

the Atlas mountains, perhaps fifteen miles north of Telergma, where my

group had been based. General Spaatz had come down from England and

succeeded General Doolittle, and then General Cannon became commander

of the Twelfth Air Force.11 George McDonald was its chief intelligence

IIBrig. Gen. James H. Doolittle (1896- ) assumed command of the Twelfth Air Force

(12th AF) on September 23, 1942, in England. Five months earlier, he had led sixteen B-25s

on the daring raid over Japan for which he won the Medal of Honor. He was promoted to

major general in November 1942, while commanding the 12th AF in North Africa.

Maj. Gen. Carl A. "Tooey" Spaatz (1891-1974) succeeded Doolittle as commander of the

12th AF on March 1, 1943; two weeks later he was promoted to lieutenant general. He also

commanded the newly established Northwest African Air Forces (NW AAF), which included

the 12th AF.

Maj. Gen. John K. Cannon (1892-1955) replaced Spaatz as 12th AF commander on

December 21, 1943; he also commanded the Mediterranean Allied Tactical Air Command and

was responsible for all air operations for the invasion of southern France in August 1944.

7
UL TRA IN WWII

Maj. Gen. Carl A. "Tooey"

Spaatz (left) and Air Chief

Marshal Arthur Tedder .

officer. 12 Before the Germans surrendered in North Africa in early May, as

I recall, the Northwest African Air Forces were formed.13 At least for air

12Brig. Gen. George C. McDonald (1898-1969) became the Director of Intelligence for the

12th AF in December 1942 and subsequently assumed the same responsibility for the NW AAF .

In February 1944 he was named Director of Intelligence for the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in

Europe (USSTAF). During World War I, McDonald was trained as a pilot and served with

the 5th Aero Squadron. His interwar service included assignments with aerial photographic units.

From 1939 to 1941 he was the Assistant Military Attache for Air and the Assistant Military

Attache at the American Embassy in London. During this tour, he reported on the Battle of

Britain. In October 1941 he was appointed to the Military Mission, Office of the Coordination

of Information (later named Office of Strategic Services). During the war, McDonald helped

to establish the Allied evasion and escape system to help downed AAF personnel. After Y-E

day, he became Director of Intelligence for U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), and upon

returning to the United States in January 1946, became Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Intelligence.

In 1947, he was named Director of Intelligence for the U.S. Air Force, a forerunner post to

the present day position, Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence. McDonald retired in 1950 as

a major general.

13At the Casablanca Conference, January 14-23, 1943, attended by President Roosevelt,

Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, and their military advisers, the assault against Sicily,

codenamed HUSKY, was agreed upon. In preparation for HUSKY, the Middle Eastern and

Northwest African theaters were merged, and Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder became overall

air commander for the Mediterranean, under General Eisenhower's Allied Force Headquarters.

NW AAF were activated on February 13, 1943, commanded by General Spaatz, as one of three

subordinate commands to Tedder's Mediterranean Air Command. The other two were Malta

Air Command and Middle East Command. Although the 12th AF aircraft and personnel were

transferred to the NW AAF , its headqu~ers continued to function as the adlninistrative organization for American elements in the NWAAF. See Howe, Northwest Africa, pp 354-55, 486; Wesley

F. Craven and James L. Cate, eds, The Army Air Forces in World War II, 7 vols (Chicago,

1948-58), Yo12: Europe: Torch to Pointblank. August 1942 to December 1943, pp 113-14, 161.

8





UL TRA IN WWII

An AAF intelligence officer in North Africa inspects reconnaissance photograph to

detect enemy activity, 1943.

and disposition of the German Air Force and also of the German army units.

Italian armed services were in total disarray.

When I arrived at the Pentagon, I was told that I was to be on temporary duty at the Army Air Forces Intelligence School to update one or

more of its manuals and also to share my combat experience. I think I was

perhaps the first American intelligence officer who had combat experience

to come back to this country.

It is possible I was called back because I had teaching experience. (1 had

taught economics at the evening school at the University of Richmond for

three years.) I went to the intelligence school, and I did work on the manuals.

I also was sent with one of the professors at the school on a three weeks'

trip to air bases in this country that were training bomber groups to go to

the European theater. I shared what I had learned with the intelligence officers and the operations officers on these bases.

14








UL TRA MEMOIR

Capt. Lewis F. Powell, Jr., in combat gear somewhere in North Africa. Courtesy

Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

23






UL TRA IN WWII~

General Spaatz. The inscription reads: "To Col. Lewis F. Powell, with greatest

appreciation for his splendid work in World War II. Carl Spaatz." Courtesy Lewis

F. Powell, Jr.

30





UL TRA IN WWII

air over England and western Europe there could be no invasion. The first

series of targets, as I recall, were the airframe factories. After the war, I

believe Albert Speer said we should have hit the air engine plants.54 We were

still hitting aircraft factories as one of the ways to bring the German Air

Force up, and bearing in mind that the primary objective was to gain control of the air, the way to do that was to knock the German Air Force out.

By D-Day that had almost totally been accomplished. Very few except Air

Force people ever will give the United States Army Air Forces credit for that.

Our victory in the air made the land invasion possible on D-Day.

Kobo: Indeed, it was the strategic forces in effect that established air superiority, command of the air, for the tactical forces.

Powell: It is important to remember, however, that both the strategic and

tactical air forces complemented and supported each other. Often-prior to

Ruins of Kugeljischer ball bearing factory in Schweinfurt which was hit by AAF B-17s

on August 17, 1943.

54Albert Speer (1905-1981) was Hitler's Minister for Armaments and Munitions and in

his memoirs wrote that in February 1944 the Allies ". ..bombed the enormous airframe plants

of the aircraft industry rather than the engine factories, although the most important factor

in airplane production was the number of engines we were able to turn out. Destruction of the

plants making these would have blocked any increase in aircraft manufacture, especially since,

in contrast to the airframe plants, engine factories could not be dispersed among forests and

caves." See Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (New York, 1970), p 347; Williamson Murray,

Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe, 1933-1945 (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL, 1983), pp 190-91.

36

UL TRA IN WWII

Putney: Were your briefings and activity concerned with day-to-day issues

and operational matters? Did you ever participate in writing a report, a white

paper from Spaatz's office in April of 1944, critical of RAF strategy? The

paper also advocated strategic bombing, as opposed to bombing attacks

against rail transportation and tactical targets?

Powell: I don't think I ever wrote a paper of that kind. There were discussions often of the appropriateness of the target systems as D-Day approached,

and when it was best to attack them. There were many people working on

that, for the most part, back in London and in the Pentagon. Spaatz, of

course, did not as a rule say today that we would hit such and such a target

tomorrow. He would issue directives to the Eighth Air Force and the Fifteenth Air Force, which gave them what in effect was authority to make the

day-to-day decisions as to which targets to hit within the approved categories.

Spaatz reviewed, as did Fred Anderson, the reasons why they attacked one

rather than the other on the basis of UL TRA and photographic evidence.

The single most successful attacks were on the synthetic oil plants. As to

the status of plants already damaged, judgments had to be made as to the

priority of attacks on these plants. Spaatz and Anderson were in touch constantly with Doolittle at the Eighth and Eaker at the Fifteenth Air Force.

We sent intelligence summaries to both of those air forces even though they

had intelligence staffs of their own. We had a broader range of intelligence.

For example, we received most of the ground force UL TRA from the day

of invasion on. That was important for the top people in USST AF to consider in doing their planning.

Hoeing 8-17.

38






ULTRA MEMOIR

Devastated Krupp works of Essen, Germany. Courtesy National Archives.

Germans, as had been planned. We were prepared to fly, but the Soviets

would not allow us to land at Poltava, nor would they move their own ground

forces. They deliberately wanted the Polish underground wiped out, which

the Germans were permitted to do.66

66On August 1, 1944, the Polish Home Army rose against the German garrison in Warsaw. The Russians were advancing towards the city, and it seemed that they would soon be

in the Polish capital. Radio Moscow broadcasts had urged the Poles to rise up against the Germans. After the uprising began, however, the Russian advance towards Warsaw halted, and

over the next few months, the Russians remained about six miles from the city across the Vistula

River. The Russians refused the American request to use Russian airfields built for Operation

FRANTIC for refueling on shuttle relief missions to the Poles. Personal appeals from President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill for use of the airfields were in vain. From August

13 to 16, British and Polish volunteer crews with the RAP and volunteers from the South African

Air Force attempted to supply the Poles with nighttime airdrops on exceedingly difficult round

trip missions from Italy to Warsaw. The loss of crews and aircraft were heavy, and the flights

were suspended, except for Polish crews who continued to fly the nearly suicidal missions. In

spite of these missions, the situation for the Poles was desperate by early September .

The Allies renewed appeals for use of FRANTIC airfields for relief and resupply missions.

The Soviets finally consented on September 13, and on the same day, they themselves dropped

American canned food over Warsaw and publicized their assistance. They made other drops

over Warsaw in September, often without using parachutes, which damaged many of the supplies and made them useless. The American shuttle mission with its large heavy bomber fleet

and fighter escorts occurred on September 18. In daylight, 110 B-17s circled Warsaw, dropping 1,284 containers of ammunition, weapons, food, and medical supplies. Unfortunately fewer

than 300 containers reached the Poles. At the end of September the Allies made another appeal

for a shuttle mission, but the Soviets refused. In the first week of October, the Germans finally

crushed the Polish insurgents, who suffered some 10,000 killed and 7,000 wounded. Ninety percent

of Warsaw was destroyed. See Craven and Cate, Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol 3,

pp 316-17; Peter J. Calvocoressi and Guy Wint, Total War: The Story of World War II (New

York, 1972), pp 482-84; Richard C. Lukas, The Strange A/lies: The United States and Poland.

194/-1945 (Knoxville, TN, 1978), pp 61-85.

45
UL TRA IN WWII

I was at Rheims on May 8, 1945, the day the Germans officially signed

the surrender agreements. At a rather open-ended buffet luncheon in General

Spaatz's residence, there were mixed emotions. Of course, there was deep

satisfaction that the war with Nazi Germany had ended in total triumph.

In the informal discussions there also were some concerns expressed. There

was regret that decisions made at the Washington level had permitted the

Soviet forces to occupy Berlin and a large part of West Germany. Although

I cannot quote General Spaatz or any particular person, there certainly was

a consensus that we had the capability to take Berlin and much of the territory that is now in East Germany. Another negative was the sobering experience we had had with the Soviet Union with respect to the use of the

air bases in Russia. It was perfectly clear then that the Soviet Union was not

an ally in any sense comparable to the western allies, and that Communist

doctrine was antithetical to democracy.

Kobo: Did we ever share ULTRA information, to your knowledge, with the

Soviet Union?

Powell: Never, as you probably know.

Kobo: Well, I raise it because it is always a question as to what degree we

helped the Soviet Union. For example, there is often raised the question of

whether Churchill warned the Soviets in 1941 of the coming German invasion.

Powell: He did.

Kohn: Yes, I'm just wondering where UL TRA figures in that.

Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker holds

a bouquet presented to him

by the Russians shortly after

the first FRANTIC mission.

Beside him is U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union

Averell Harriman.

46


ULTRA MEMOIR

underground. Then photographic reconnaissance began to pick them up when

the sites were created or built on the coast. At Bletchley I saw photographs

of these launching sites, and there was some speculation then as to what type

of V -weapon would be launched. It could not be a rocket by the way these

sites were constructed. It was soon realized that it would be the buzz bombs.

You know, of course, that Peenemunde was blitzed very successfully by the

RAF, and the intelligence on which that opportunity became available

developed before I arrived at Bletchley. Again my understanding is that the

first tip that the British had about Peenemunde was from a Norwegian who

had worked either at or near Peenemunde and had gone back to Norway,

and through the underground up there, tipped the British. Even though most

of Peenemunde was covered with camouflage netting (apart from the runways), the British used agents plus ULTRA plus reconnaissance to make sure

that that was the main base. Then the mission, as I recall, involved a lot

of deception in itself, so I think the Germans thought we were going to bomb

Berlin or some other major target. That set the V -weapon program back six

to nine months, perhaps longer. 70

The V -weapons would have been devastating against the invasion forces

that were crowded in southern England. I went down there with George

A V-l Buzz Bomb still intact except for a wing and motor which were probably lost

upon impact with the ground. Courtesy National Archives.

7~he British originally learned about V-weapons from informants, agents, prisoners of

war, and photographic reconnaissance. ENIGMA intercepts confirmed that both types of V

weapons were under development. See Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second Wor/d War,

Voll, pp 99-100, 508-12, Vol 3, part I, pp 357-455.

V-I and V -2 weapons were developed, built, and tested at Peenemiinde on the Isle of Usedom

in the Baltic Sea. After deception about their planned target, 597 aircraft of the British Bomber

Command attacked Peenemiinde the night of August 17-18, 1943. After the devastating raid,

the Germans dispersed, but continued, V-weapons development. The scientific officer on the

staff of the Air Ministry estimated that the Peenemiinde attack delayed V -weapons development by about two months. See David Irving, The Mare's Nest (Boston, 1965), pp 93-146; R. V.

Jones, The Wizard War: British Scientific Intelligence, 1939-1945 (New York, 1978), pp 412-61.

49






UL TRA IN WWII

Heavy incendiary bombs from 8th AF fall on Dresden, February 14, 1945.

Dresden by the RAF and the American Army Air Forces. He asked if we had

target information or maps on Dresden, and particularly the marshalling yards.

I responded that we did not, and that I had understood that Dresden was

off-limits so far as any objectives of the American Army Air Forces were concerned. General Anderson agreed fully, and said that this was the uniform

view of senior American commanders. He stated that the Soviet Union, as

early as at Yalta-and thereafter-had urged the Allies to attack Dresden.

The argument was that the Germans were using the Dresden marshalling yards

for the assembly by the Germans of reinforcements and supplies for the eastern

front, a front on which the Soviets were mounting a wide-ranging offensive.

We all have read, I suppose, that Winston Churchill and British Bomber

Command thought that attacking Dresden would somehow shorten the war .

But the prevailing view at our headquarters was that the Soviet Unionprobably by request from Stalin to Churchill or to Roosevelt-urged these

attacks. Of course, it is true that after the Germans had blitzed English cities

by indiscriminate fire bombing at night, the British felt free to retaliate in

the same way. British Bomber Command, with a large fleet of bombers

capable of operating only at night, did destroy large portions of most of the

major German cities. It was not the policy of the Army Air Forces to bomb

cities indiscriminately. We sought to attack military targets in the daytime,

and were, with some exceptions, highly successful in pursuing this policy.

I have a correspondence file on Dresden, containing letters from some

Americans who were in positions to know about the attacks: General Eaker ,

Robert Lovett, and John McCloy.79 All of these understood that the Allies

79During the bombing of Dresden in February 1945, Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker (1896-1987)

was Commander of the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces, Robert A. Lovett (1895-1986) was

the Assistant Secretary of War for Air, and John J. McCloy (1895- ) was Assistant Secretary

of War. For their correspondence with Powell concerning Dresden, see Powell Papers, USAF

Historical Research Center, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL.

56



UL TRA IN WWII

Kohn: My last question has to do with the history on ULTRA (Haines Report)

that we gave you that was written at the end of the war .Perhaps you can

give us some background on that report.

Powell: Yes. Let me tell you about the little unit at the British Air Ministry,

because it was composed of very able people. When I reached Bletchley, I

learned that we had, I think, four officers at the British Air Ministry, all

of whom had been indoctrinated in UL TRA by the British. The senior of

those was Kingman Douglass; he later became Deputy Director of the

CIA.87 He had been a partner in Dillon, Read, one of the major investment

banking firms in New York. Then there were Bill Haines, Stewart McClintic,

and Ken Beeson-all able.88

Lt. Col. William W. Haines (left) and Lt. Col. Lewis F. Powell. Jr. Courtesy Lewis

F. Powe//, Jr.

87Col. Kingman Douglass, Sr ., (1896-1971) had served as a pilot in the Army Air Service

in World War I. With America's entry into World War II, he joined the AAF, serving in the

European theater with the 8th AF and as liaison officer with the RAF, and in the Pacific theater

as the Chief of the Allied intelligence section group which selected targets for Allied bombardment. After the war, he helped to establish the Central Intelligence Group, the forerunner to

the CIA, and in March 1946, became its Deputy Director, holding that post until the end of

the year. From 1950 to 1952 he served as Assistant Director of the CIA. He then joined Dillon,

Read and Company, investment bankers, and continued his career as a financier .

88Lt. Col. Stewart McClintic (1904-1982) was a graduate of Sheffield Scientific School of

Yale and was employed by the Mellon Bank and Trust Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,

prior to his joining the AAF in early 1942. By the summer of that year he was in England assigned

to the U .S. VIII Bomber Command. He was later assigned to USST AF , and in December 1944

remained in England in charge of Rear Headquarters of the Directorate of Intelligence when

the Main Headquarters moved to St. Germain, France. He subsequently was assigned to

USSTAF's Intelligence Division at the British Air Ministry. After the war, he returned to Pittsburgh and the Mellon Bank.

Lt. Col. John K. Beeson (1907-1980) received his basic AAF officers training at Miami,

Florida, and was assigned to Craig Field, Selma, Alabama, before being sent to England. He

was assigned to the British Air Ministry, where after January 1944 he represented USSTAF

on the Oil Committee. After the war he became president of the Gage and Supply Company

in Pittsburgh, a wholesale supply house servicing steel companies.

60


UL TRA MEMOIR

back to Washington in the late fall. If it was ever concluded, I have never

seen it.92

Putney: We started off with your entering active service in 1942. Were you

still active until February 1946?

Powell: When the war ended in Europe, Special Branch asked me to return

to Washington and become the chief Japanese Air Force specialist of Special

Branch. General Spaatz also had asked me to go with him to the Pacific,

but I had been away from my family for nearly three years. I was given the

third alternative by Special Branch of going to the British Air Ministry as

its senior representative there. I chose that alternative on the understanding

that I would not have to stay at Air Ministry more than five or six months.

I was promoted to full colonel. I thought I had made a good choice. I was

avoiding going to the Pacific or being tied up in Special Branch as chief of

Maj. Gen. Frederick L.

Anderson, Deputy Comrnander of USSTAF (right),

chats with Col. Alfred A.

Kessler, Jr., Deputy Cornrnander of Eastern Comrnand, USSTAF, during an

inspection tour of U.S. bases

in Russia.

~e .'Coffin Report" was prepared at the request of General Spaatz and under the direction of Lt. Col. Caleb Coffin. See Assistant Chief of Staff, A-2, Headquarters, United States

Air Forces in Europe, "The Contribution of Air Power to the Defeat of Germany," 3 vols

and appendices, 7 August 1945 in USAF Historical Research Center, Maxwell Air Force Base,

AL, control no. 519.60lc. See also MacIsaac, Strategic Bombing in World War Two, pp 97-98,

201.

63





UL TRA MISSION

Secretary Stimson believed that the War Department needed to improve

its handling of MAGIC and that the best qualified person to introduce

reforms would be a lawyer, who had experience with organizing and synthesizing numerous facts and complicated issues associated with major law

cases. (As a young man, Stimson attended Harvard Law School and established a law partnership.) He discussed candidates with Assistant Secretary

of War John J. McCloy, who recommended Mr. Alfred McCormack, a

Purple Analog, 1944.

former law partner from the Cravath, deGersdorff, Swaine, and Wood law

firm in New york City.13

Secretary Stimson appointed McCormack as his special assistant to study

the way MAGIC and crypt analytic materials were being handled within the

War Department. McCormack's job was to determine how to expand cryptanalytic operations to meet the requirements of war, while developing

methods for correlating, assessing, and disseminating signals intelligence. Fortunately for the Allies, the Japanese continued to use the PURPLE machine

in 1942 and throughout the war. For two months, McCormack studied

MAGIC material, visited production units, and conferred with Assistant

Secretary of War McCloy, Brig. Gen. Raymond E. Lee, the new Assistant

Chief of Staff, Intelligence, and Lt. Col. Carter W. Clarke, the head of the

Safeguarding Military Information Section of MID.14

I\Q


UL TRA IN WWII

Before moving to the Pentagon in 1942, the Special Branch, MIS, was headquartered

in the War Department Munitions Building. Courtesy National Archives.

never been processed to any extent. Both to relieve this backlog and process

new material, the staff of SIS was increased, and in the fall of 1942, it moved

to Arlington Hall. At the same time, the Special Branch relocated to offices

on the ground floor of the "E" ring of the new Pentagon building!1

While Colonel Clarke worked with SIS, Colonel McCormack concentratedon recruiting a suitable staff for the Special Branch and on acquiring

and disseminating "intelligence" from the mass of intercepted "information" flowing to the branch. Using "Cravath" hiring methods, McCormack

recruited and hired many lawyers from prestigious law firms.22

McCormack's attempts to acquire well-educated, talented men for intelligence work met with considerable resistance. He constantly faced denials

that intelligence work required the sharpest and most talented individuals;

a lack of appreciation for intelligence on the part of the War Department

General Staff; a drive by Congress to keep the number of officers in

Washington to a minimum; the Army's "heavy-handed" methods for handling personnel; and the "stupidity" of the Civil Service system, as McCormack characterized it. McCormack described the type of intelligence officer

he sought: "To do the work well, a man must have not only a broad

72


UL TRA MISSION

played a spectacular role in the American victory at the Battle of Midway.

PURPLE was still producing excellent Japanese diplomatic traffic, especially

from the Japanese ambassador to Germany, Hiroshi Oshima, an army officer who sent a constant stream of reports from Berlin to Tokyo. The three

Americans traveled to England confident and knowledgeable about brilliant

American achievements in signals intelligence warfare.31

Nevertheless, the magnitude of the operation of the Government Code

and Cipher School, the efficiency of the people who worked in it, and the

timeliness and quality of the intelligence they produced greatly impressed

McCormack, Taylor, and Friedman. McCormack in particular noted that in

Britain, intelligence was given a high priority and the intelligence service had

a first call on talented military and civilian personnel.32

The Government Code and Cipher School was headquartered at "station X," which was Bletchley Park, a Victorian Tudor-Gothic mansion and

a few acres of grounds located about fifty miles northwest of London, outside the railroad junction of Bletchley in Buckinghamshire. In addition to

the large red brick mansion and stables, there were one-story huts of various

shapes and sizes built to accommodate the thousands of men and women

who worked there around the clock. The workers were billeted in a fifteenmile radius of Bletchley Park, or "BP" as it was often called. Members of

the Royal Air Force (RAF) guarded the fenced perimeter of the grounds.33

Col. Alfred McCormack. The

inscription reads: "To Bill

Friedman, to whom Military

Intelligence owes a great debt.

Alfred McCormack, Col.

GSC."

75



UL TRA MISSION

A captured German ENIGMA

machine. Courtesy National

Archives.

German cipher clerks using an

ENIGMA machine. Courtesy

National Archives.

79



UL TRA MISSION

were to be given full access to all decodes. Also, the two Allies were bound

to notify each other immediately if either had information from any source

indicating the compromise of any code or cipher used by the other. corrective action was to be carefully considered to prevent the compromise of the

source of the information, and if possible, mutual agreement sought before

action taken.56

Finally, special intelligence from enemy high-grade ciphers was not to

be intermingled in reports with general intelligence from other sources. If

it was necessary to do so, the whole report was to be treated as special intelligence, and given the same strictly limited distribution. Under no circumstances was it permissible to pass such intelligence in a code or cipher

which could be read by other than the authorized recipients. Because intelligence from enemy lower-grade ciphers was closely related to special intelligence, a high degree of secrecy had to be maintained in handling and

acting upon the former .57

Two appendices, "Special Provisions Regarding Work on German

Machine Cyphers" and "British Security Regulations for Special Intelligence"

were included. All recipients of intelligence from enemy high-grade ciphers,

whether American or British, were bound by the regulations from the second

appendix, which were currently in force in the theaters of war where British

forces were operating.58

The Converter M-134-C or

SIGABA machine.

83



UL TRA MISSION

MID and MIS structure was needed to organize his command effectively.

Within the next few months, a succession of committees studied the responsibilities, organization, and personnel needs of MID and MIS.71

The recommendations of the various committees culminated in a radical

reorganization of MIS in June 1944. Re-established as the larger component

of MID, the service was the latter's operating agency. MIS was divided into

three directorates: Intelligence, Information, and Administration. The staff

of Special Branch was drastically reduced and its personnel and functions

assigned to the Intelligence and Information Directorates. In effect, the

reorganization ended the rigid compartmentation of Special Branch, allowing UL TRA and MAGIC (which was now also referred to as UL TRA) to

be fused with intelligence from other sources and used by more people whose

geographic and functional expertise could effectively exploit signals intelligence. The new MIS structure remained essentially unchanged to the end

of the war. 72

The reorganization brought changes in the leadership of MIS. Brig. Gen.

Russ Osmun of the Quartermaster Corps was appointed Chief, only to be

replaced a few months later by Brig. Gen. Paul E. Peabody, who had returned

from service as the military attache in London. Colonel Clarke was appointed

his Deputy Chief and the MIS Special Security Officer. Colonel McCormack

became the head of the Directorate of Intelligence.73

In 1945, Brig. Gen. Carter W. Clarke (left) presented the Distinguished Service Cross

to Col. Alfred McCormack. Courtesy National Archives.

87

ULTRA MISSION

A pilot is debriefed on his

return from a reconnaissance

mission over North Africa,

1943.

carrying through his career, including his service as Military Attache in Berlin

and as 0-2 of General Pat ton's army in North Africa. ..and ending up

with a punch line that brought down the house: ' And now I am serving under

the command of a Wall Street lawyer .' " McCormack was satisfied with the

arrangement whereby the Specialists gave the daily intelligence briefing for

the Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, because McCormack disliked the

general's fondness for elaborately staged briefings and was glad to have the

Specialists shoulder the responsibility for the fancy color-coded graphs,

charts, and maps required for each briefing.76

Among the German Specialists was Col. T. a. Lanphier who was responsible for all intelligence on the oAF and for the preparation and delivery

of the daily morning air presentation to General Bissell. Lanphier maintained

continuous contact with the Army Air Forces. Within the German Military

Reports Branch, an air force desk published a weekly estimate of the

capabilities of the oAF for Gen. Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces, and also received, reviewed, and

republished a weekly estimate of oAF order of battle, issued by the British

Air Ministry. 77

In June 1944, the little remnant of the old Special Branch was partially

responsible for administering the Special Security Officer system, although

responsibility for the system was also vested with McCormack as head of

the Directorate of Intelligence and with Clarke, the Deputy Chief of MIS.

The arrangement was not satisfactory, and in February 1945 Clarke assumed

complete responsibility for the administration of the system.78

89





UL TRA MISSION

such as the current regulations. It is fairly patent that security here, where

matters can quickly (and actually have) been bounced around in clear radio

or low-grade codes, is somewhat more vital than all the lavish preparations

in the Pentagon. Everybody walks in and out of ULTRA workshops at GHQ,

FEAF etc; there are no separate working rooms; there are myriad private

arrangements for passing to odd individuals, made on a personal basis over

the years; there is great naivete about the meaning of ULTRA and the impression is general that matters can be fairly freely discussed as long as the

dendai numbers and frequencies are not mentioned, etc.With this background

it is reasonably apparent that the Nip is overwhelmingly likely to get a first

hand account of our operation with UL TRA. ' '97

The Special Security Officers at FEAF did implement UL TRA regulations and by the end of December 1944 could report that security was "not

so bad." Their job, however, was not an easy one as revealed in the following admission: "It is pretty difficult for Capt. Graham to tell Col. Cain or

Gen. Sutherland that they must hustle around and build some special buildings

and also knock some heads together. We know it is difficult because we have

tried, picked ourselves up out of the dust in the street, gone back in and tried

again."98

In the Pacific, Special Security Officers had closer relations with U .S.

Navy personnel and procedures, and throughout the war, according to one

naval intelligence officer, the Navy' 'vacillated between dangerous exposure

of UL TRA and overrestrictive distribution of it. ' , More than one Army

Special Security Officer observed lax naval security. After his trip to Leyte

Maj. Gen. Elwood R.

Quesada.

95