N.I.D. 25

From The Dreadnought Project
Revision as of 17:27, 2 February 2011 by Simon Harley (Talk | contribs) (Room 40)

Jump to: navigation, search

Naval Intelligence Division, Section 25, also known as I.D. 25 was the section of the Naval Intelligence Division of the British Royal Navy responsible for monitoring and deciphering Imperial German Navy signals.

Room 40

At the outbreak of war on 4 August, 1914, a series of coded naval signals were picked up by the Admiralty's wireless station at Stockton. On 5 August the British cable ship Telconia started cutting Germany's telegraph cables, forcing her to resort to wireless telegraphy and foreign cables. Some wireless messages were picked up and recorded by the General Post Office, the Marconi Company and ham operators, which were then forwarded to the Director of Intelligence Division at the Admiralty, Rear-Admiral Henry F. Oliver. Oliver later recounted his version of the creation of the codebreaking effort in his 1946 memoirs:

For some time before the 1914 war the Intelligence Division had been trying without success to decode [G]erman cypher intercepted by wireless. Fleet Payr. Rotter seemed to be the most useful at the work but I wanted to get a big brain on it. The day after War began I met Sir Alfred Ewing the Director of Naval Education and we walked together to the U.S. [United Services] Club. It occurred to me he was the very man. He had been at a German University and had been a professor at Glasgow University of Engineering[,] he was L.L.D.[,] F.R.S. and D.S.C. and an authority in the electrical world and spoke [G]erman fluently. I asked him to take on charge of a Dept. to unravel the [G]erman cyphers and he agreed as he said the War had closed his schools etc. and he was rather at a loose end.

After lunch we saw Mr. Churchill and he agreed to give Sir Alfred a free hand to put up W/T intercepting and directional Stations and to engage staff etc. Room 40 was handed over to him and Fleet Payr. Rotter as assistant and Sir Alfred got some of the Dartmouth masters and others as Staff. In three or four weeks they were producing some results and as time went on they got more and more perfect. To maintain secrecy Mr. Churchill would not allow anyone to know about the decyphering ability without his permission.

In the Admiralty the following were "in the know" The Secy., The 1.S.L., The 2nd S.L., The C.O.S., The D.O.D., The A.D.O.D., the D.I.D., the A.D.I.D., and the C.O.s, 3 Duty Captains. The 1st Lord[']s Private Secy. and his Naval Asst. Outside the Admiralty The C-in-C Grand Fleet, The Adl. Dover, and the S.N.O. Harwich Flotilla and the Capt. in charge of Submarines. The 1st Lord may have told the Prime Minister but I never saw signs of it. The information from Room 40 was circulated to the Heads of Department entitled to it in Red Despatch Boxes with special locks and keys.[1]

Footnotes

  1. Oliver. II. ff. 102-103.

Bibliography

  • Gannon, Paul (2010). Inside Room 40: The Codebreakers of World War 1. Hersham: Ian Allan Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7110-3408-2.