Morse code was used extensively by
both sides during the War in Europe from 1938-1945. Transmitters were
relatively small and easily carried by a wireless operator, avoiding
the long wired telephone connections of World War I. Communication was
the key to deployment and logistics and played a major role in the
eventual victory on the battlefield.
Prior to WWII, Germans improved upon
a machine that became known as “Enigma,” built in the 1920’s enabling a
message to be encrypted before it was sent and then the process
reversed to decipher it upon receipt. These machines could easily be
carried in ships, submarines, airplanes and to army field headquarters
operations. The machine utilized a series of rotating four inch wheels
that scrambled plain textual messages into unreadable gibberish. Since
the wheels could be set into billions of positions, an unlimited number
of combinations provided the German high command the ability to
transmit and receive Morse code messages without concern that the
Allies would intercept and know the operational plans. During the early
years of the War, Hitler’s armies enjoyed a tremendous advantage
through utilization of this method.
However, British and Polish
mathematicians, who had acquired a machine prior to the War and
stationed at Bletchley Park, England were able to eventually break the
code. Two Englishmen, Alan Turing, (after whose name the coveted prize
for artificial intelligence is named) and Gordon Welchman developed
another machine called “The Bombe” using the fact that common words and
phrases, such as names and weather were coded into most messages. The
Bombe was able to single out these parts of communications and that
gave leverage in figuring out the remainder of the message.
After the War ended, a great shield
of secrecy kept information about the Allied deciphering efforts from
the public eye for more than fifty years. In 2009 Prime Minister
Gordon Brown of the UK broke the silence to honor one of the last
surviving code-breaking operatives, Margaret Fick. She had been sent
to the Isle of Man, while just 17, to learn Morse code and join the
secret German Intercept Service. From the listening station near
Harrogate, she along with other listeners, copied thousands of coded
messages and passed them along to the Bletchey Park group for
deciphering. This whole operation was guarded and the Nazi high
command never realized that the Allies knew their secret plans within
hours. This fact allowed the Allies to test their plans for the D-Day
invasion of France by sending out false messages and seeing the
reaction from the German generals. This deception allowed the Allies
to invade while the bulk of the German resistance was centered far
away.
Hardly recognized as War heroines,
these Morse code listeners played a tremendous role in shortening the
war and bringing peace to Europe. Their contribution should be
remembered and honored.
