Far East Combined Bureau The Far East Combined Bureau , an outstation of the British Government Code and Cypher School , was set up in Hong Kong in March 1935 , to monitor Japanese , and also Chinese and Russian ( Soviet ) intelligence and radio traffic . Later it moved to Singapore , Colombo ( Ceylon ) and then Kilindini ( Kenya ) . Hong Kong . The FECB was located in an office block in the Naval dockyard , with an armed guard at the door ( which negated any attempt at secrecy ) . The intercept site was on Stonecutters Island , four miles across the harbour , and manned by a dozen RAF and RN ratings ( plus later four Army signallers ) . The codebreaking or Y section had Japanese , Chinese and Russian interpreters , under RN Paymaster Arthur ( Harry ) Shaw , with Dick Thatcher and Neil Barnham . The FECB was headed by the Chief of Intelligence Staff ( COIS ) Captain John Waller , later by Captain F . J . Wylie . Shaw had been dealing direct with GC & CS and the C - in - C Far East in Shanghai , but found that Waller expected that everything should go through him , and paid little regard to keeping sources secret . So by 1936 the two most senior naval officers were barely on speaking terms . Colonel Valentine Burkhart found when he arrived in 1936 that the bureau was involved in “ turf wars ” , although they eventually accepted that they had no control over the use of intelligence reports . Initially the Y section was to focus on the three main Japanese Navy codes and cyphers , the Japanese Naval General Cypher , the Flag Officer code and the “ tasogare ” or basic naval reporting code used to report the sailings of individual ships . In 1938 a section was set up to attack Japanese commercial systems and so to track supply convoys . From 1936 many messages were sent back to London , to be deciphered by John Tiltman , who broke the first version of JN - 25 in 1939 . Singapore . In August 1939 , shortly before the outbreak of war with Germany , the FECB moved to Singapore on HMS Birmingham for fear of Japanese attack . A skeleton staff of a codebreaker ( Alf Bennett ) and four intercept operators were left at Hong Kong , and they were captured by the Japanese on Christmas Day 1941 . FECB went to Seletar Naval Base , and the intercept station to Kranji . An RAF " Y " interception unit , 52 Wireless Unit , arrived in Singapore in early November 1941 . As Bletchley Park was concentrating on German Enigma cyphers , many of the Japanese naval section in Hut 7 moved to FECB , Singapore . By May 1940 there were forty people working solely on JN - 25 , who could read simple messages . The new codebook JN - 25B was introduced on 1 December 1940 , but was broken immediately as the additives were not changed . There was interchange with Station CAST at Corregidor , which was better placed to intercept IJN messages , as FECB could only receive the Combined Fleet in home waters at night . FECB also collaborated with the US Army Station 6 intercept site at Fort McKinley near Manilla . FECB was sent one of the American Purple machines from Bletchley Park in a warship . Supposed to be sent only by warship or military transport , it was trans - shipped at Durban to the freighter " Sussex " . The ship ’ s Master said he landed it at the Naval Store Singapore at the end of December 1941 , but the Naval Stores Officer denied any knowledge of it ; hopefully it was destroyed or dumped in the sea ! But the Hollerith tabulating machine ( minus a key part , which had to borrowed from the Indian State Railways in Bombay ) arrived safely in Colombo . FECB also cooperated with Kamer 14 ( Room 14 ) , the Dutch unit at the Bandung Technical College in Java . Initially some of the FECB people went there after the fall of Singapore . Lieutenant - Commander Leo Brouwer RNN , a Japanese linguist at Kamer 14 was evacuated to Colombo , then Kilindini , and later Hut 7 . Colombo , Ceylon . With the Japanese advance down the Malay Peninsula , the Army and RAF codebreakers went to the Wireless Experimental Centre in Delhi , India . The RN codebreakers went to Colombo , Ceylon in January 1942 , on the troopship HMS Devonshire ( with 12 codebreakers ' cars as deck cargo ) . Pembroke College , an Indian boys school , was requisitioned as a combined codebreaking and wireless interception centre . The FECB worked for Admiral Sir James Somerville , commander - in - chief of the Royal Navy ' s Eastern Fleet . Kilindini , Kenya . In April 1942 most of the RN codebreakers at Colombo moved to Kilindini near Mombasa in Kenya , because of a Japanese task force attack on Colombo . Two codebreakers and the civilian wireless operators were left in Colombo . An Indian boys school at Allidina about a mile outside Mombasa and overlooking the Indian Ocean was requisitioned , hence the name " HMS Allidina " . Radio reception was even worse than at Colombo , with only the strongest Japanese signals received , and the belligerent Fabian at FRUMEL reluctant to exchange material . But in September 1942 they were able to break the Japanese Merchant Shipping Code , JN - 40 , because a message was sent twice with extra data . It was a transposition cypher , not a super - enciphered code like JN - 25 . They also broke JN - 152 a simple transposition and substitution cypher for navigation warnings and the previously inpenetratable JN - 167 , another merchant shipping cypher . These successes enabled Allied forces e . g . submarines to attack Japanese supply ships , and resulted in the Japanese merchant marine suffering 90 per cent losses by August 1945 . Return to Colombo . FECB then moved back to Colombo ; the move began in August 1943 , with the advance party arriving in Ceylon on 1 September . The location chosen was the Anderson Golf Course six miles from Colombo HQ , hence the name " HMS Anderson " . Bruce Keith had wanted an up - country site for better reception , but the Chief of Intelligence staff for HQ Eastern Fleet insisted that the codebreakers should be within easy reach of headquarters . While reception was better than at Kilindini , it was affected by a nearby 33 Kv power line and the Racecourse Aerodrome . Conclusion . Smith wrote that : " Only now are the British codebreakers ( like John Tiltman , Hugh Foss and Eric Nave ) beginning to receive the recognition they deserve for breaking Japanese codes and cyphers " .