American 6813 Division History October 1945 Page 9

Tony Sale's Codes and Ciphers

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were scattered throughout Sixta and participated in most of its functions.


Log Reading. The bulk of Sixta and the majority of the American

party were at first engaged in reading operator's logs as they were sent
in from British or American intercept stations. The staff were divided
into sections dealing with specific types of traffic or different geograph-
ical areas or various parts of the German Forces. Thus there was the
Eastern Front air section, the Western air section, The Western Front sect-
ion dealing with Army Enigma logs, and a similar section dealing with lower-
grade Army traffic in the East. There were seperate sections for handling
the police network and naval traffic. The armies and air groups in the
Mediterranean were also studied by seperate sections. In each of these
sections, at one time or another there was at least one American.


Search Party. Various operational changes in Sixta gave rise to a

large "search" or log-identification section, and it was here that the
greatest number of American personnel in Sixta was later employed. Except
for the Officers in the Fusion Room the Americans were generally retained on
short-term jobs so that they could be switched from section to section as
the need for extra help developed. Thus it was that with the growing demand
of personnel in the log-identification section Americans were soon shifted.


Fusion Room. The Fusion Room at the beginning was the most exalted

part of Sixta because here all raw information gathered by the log-readers
was evaluated and passed on to higher authority. Gradually the function of
the Fusion Room Officers became more and more closely integrated with that
of the log-readers until eventually the Fusion Room ceased to exist and the
former Fusion Room Officer became head of his own party of log-readers.
Only two Americans worked as Fusion Room Officers; Lt Robert G. Nunn and Lt
Edgar S. Salsberg. Lt Nunn was in charge of the Weston Front Army at the
time of the invasion and for several weeks thereafter. Lt Salsberg was the
officer for the Mediterranean area. He was instrumental in perfecting
a procedure for properly handling and evaluating the contents of teleprints
received daily from the British group in the
mediterranean

* An interim report by Lt Robert Nunn on the scope

and methods of SIXTA treats this subject in con-
siderably greater detail.


4.




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