British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, Volume II

History of the Second World War: British Intelligence in the Second World War #2

by F.H. Hinsley, Edward Eastaway Thomas, C.F.G. Ransom

British Intelligence in the Second World War provides the only reliable account yet published — or ever likely to be published — of the part played by British intelligence in allied strategy and operations in the Second World War. No such account could have been written without the unrestricted access which was afforded to Professor Hinsley and his colleagues to the full range of British government intelligence records and to political and military archives of the war and before. Their work will be published in three volumes: Volume I will carry the story to the summer of 1941; Volume II to the summer of 1943; Volume III from the invasion of Sicily to the end of the war.

The first volume necessarily devotes some space to analysing the evolution of the British intelligence organisation in response to the needs of war. In doing so, it illustrates in fascinating detail the several levels and directions of intelligence, from the wresting of information from the enemy to the point where the distilled and evaluated information was presented to political leaders and military commanders. Above all, this history is concerned with the influence exerted by intelligence on the decisions of those leaders and commanders, and in volumes II and III this theme will become still more dominant.

This volume and its companions cannot fail to be of exceptional interest in their contribution to the definitive history of the Second World War. As they explain in the Preface, the authors have, subject only to minimal restraint, been able to make unfettered interpretations of their reading of the British government archives. Their judgments are therefore their own, and, on all of the available evidence, they have been at pains to make these judgments firm and as objective as possible.

All three volumes are bound to stimulate controversy. Doubtless, other judgments will be proposed in the independent histories which will follow when most of the archives on which they are based are transferred to the Public Record Office, as they eventually will be. Meanwhile, this Official History will be the standard authority on this fascinating subject for many years to come.

Genres: History

866 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1981

About the author

Sir Francis Harry Hinsley OBE, was an English historian and cryptanalyst. He worked at Bletchley Park during the Second World War and wrote widely on the history of international relations and British Intelligence during the Second World War. He was known as Harry Hinsley.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

By the summer of 1941, Great Britain’s intelligence-gathering apparatus had adapted to the demands of the Second World War. Over the previous year and a half chronicled by F. H. Hinsley and his co-authors in the first volume of the official history of British intelligence during the Second World War, their intelligence services had expanded while compensating for the loss of allies and assets. Taking their place was a variety of new sources, from photo reconnaissance to prisoner-of-war interrogations and newly-built networks of agents in occupied Europe collecting information whenever possible – and most importantly, the growing if erratic bounty collected by the cracking of the Enigma cipher used by Germany.

With all of this, the challenge was often not how to get information about Axis operations, but how best to utilize it. This was complicated over the second half of 1941 by two new developments: a sudden alliance with the Soviet Union after the start of Operation Barbarossa, and increasing collaboration with the United States on intelligence matters. This soon proved a tale of contrasts: while the relationship with United States intelligence services blossomed over time, that with Soviet Union remained stunted thanks to the Soviets’ unwillingness to reciprocate. Even when agreements were reached, such as between the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the NKVD over collaborating on subversion and propaganda, it was soon evident that the Soviets expected cooperation rather than provided it, to the point where, as the authors note, the British were better able to follow events on the Eastern Front through decrypted signals intelligence than through information from official Soviet sources.

Summaries of intelligence were shared with the Soviets nonetheless out of necessity. While the authors cannot detail the ways in which the Soviets used it, the quality of it makes it difficult to believe that it was ignored. So many different German Enigma systems were cracked by this point that the British were enjoying extensive – if not always timely – coverage of the growing difficulties the Germans were facing in waging an expanded war. One of the most interesting parts of the book, though, is the consideration of what information was lacking. Details could be pieced together to understand what was going on behind enemy lines, but this did not always translate into understanding of their enemies’ policies or their intentions. The absence of information about atomic weapons development, for example, could easily be interpreted as a recognition of the need for utmost security, while information about the constant preparation by field forces for gas attacks frequently stoked fears that the Germans were about to turn to chemical warfare. In the end, neither anxiety proved justified.

A more realistic ongoing concern was in disguising from the Germans and Italians the extent of British information, particularly from Enigma intelligence. Here delays in decoding messages often helped, as not every revelation could be exploited in time. Hinsley and his associates stress that there was never any question of sacrificing units or bypassing opportunities to attack Axis operations. This increased the need to disguise the source of the information, which was often accomplished by peddling misinformation, or by giving reconnaissance units helpful directions as to where to look. These efforts, coupled with the Germans’ confidence that their Enigma-coded signals were unbreakable, ensured that their enemy remained none the wiser.

The majority of the text thus consists of an accounting of how intelligence was used to inform British operations during the approximately two-year period of the war covered in this volume. These operations took place on three fronts: on the seas, in the skies over German-controlled Europe, and in North Africa and the Mediterranean theater. In each of them, the authors explain what intelligence was collected, how it was disseminated, and the ways in which it shaped events. While for the most part the authors are honest about the limits and failings of the intelligence efforts, a defensive tone creeps into the text periodically as Hinsley and his collaborators highlight the times when defeats could have been avoided had better use been made of the available intelligence. Even in their passively dry way, they are determined to fight their corner.

The book ends in the summer of 1943, with the Axis driven out of North Africa and the British preparing to invade Sicily with their American allies. The authors make a convincing argument that no small amount of credit for reaching this point was due to the intelligence services, whose information-gathering efforts proved invaluable to Allied commanders. Where the book falls short is with their inexplicable neglect of British intelligence operations in Asia against the Japanese, especially as the authors make clear the insistence of the services to maintain control of operations in London. Simply waving it off as something that was treated as the Americans’ remit not only does a disservice to the men and women employed in those operations, but it ignores a vital element of the role this series was created to address. Hopefully the later volumes address this deficiency.

[John Geddes]

“From the spring of 1942 until February 1943, when it ceased to be sent by W/T, GC and CS decrypted in another cypher a daily return of prisoners at Dachau, Buchenwald, Auschwitz and seven other concentration camps - not all of them, but a good cross section.* The daily return consisted of a series of unheaded, unexplained columns of figures which GC and CS worked out to mean (a) number of inmates at the start of the previous day, (b) new arrivals, (c) departures by any means, and (d) number by the previous day. It also specified the various categories of prisoner, such as politicals, Jews, Poles, other Europeans and Russians. GC and CS interpreted column (c) - ‘departures by any means’ - as being accounted for primarily by deaths. The returns from Auschwitz, the largest of the camps with 20,000 prisoners, mentioned illness as the main cause of death, but included references to shootings and hangings. There were no references in the decrypts to gassings.
*Belsen did not exist at the time of the messages”
- p.673

W/T=Wireless Telegraphy
GC=Government Code
CS=Cypher School