[14695] in Cypherpunks
Ultra and Coventy
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (smb@research.att.com)
Fri Jun 3 13:27:31 1994
From: smb@research.att.com
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Cc: perry@imsi.com
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 94 13:20:34 EDT
Perry wrote that the British let Coventry be destroyed lest Ultra
be revealed. Kahn doesn't believe that. From ``Kahn on Codes'', p. 110:
Nor, to debunk another story, did Churchill let Coventry
be destroyed because he believed that defensive measures
would risk the secret of ULTRA. Critical analyses of
documents show that this is pure myth.
The footnote cites F.H. Hinsley with E.E. Thomas, C.F.G Ransom, and
R.C. Knight, ``British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its
Influence on Strategy and Operations'' (London, 1979- ), I:528-48;
N.E. Evans, ``Air Intelligence and the Coventry Raid'', Royal United
Services Institution Journal (September 1976), 66-73. I don't have
access to either of those publications, so I can't assess that further.
