American 6813 Division History October 1945 Page 10

Tony Sale's Codes and Ciphers

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Mediterranean area.


Direction-Finding Section. The D/F section of Sixta was an

elaborate one, relying on several British stations for its information
and producing highly satisfactory results. No Americans were employed in
this section.


Control. Another activity of Sixta was that of maintaining

constant contact with all intercept stations and advising them on cover
desired from a W/T standpoint. This was essentially a part of Control
which was run from Hut Six by Mr John Colman, but the sixta
section under Captain Lovett was separate. In the latter section Captain
Lovett found the assistance of Sgt Benjemin R. Carroll so valuable that
he was made second in charge of the section and was eventually commissioned
because of his good work.


Wireless Telegraphy Bureau. The W. T. Bureau under Major

Morrison employed at least one American at all times in addition to Lt
Fehl who served as liaison between the Bureau and Hut Three. (Vide infra.)


Technical Section. The work of the Technical Section of Sixta

is fully covered in the Sixta History. Consequently only thos phases
in which American participation figured directly will be touched on here.

Capt Magilavy joined this section in ugust of 1944. After a

period of orientation he took over the subsection which had just been
set up to deal with the reconstruction of frequency tables employed
by the German Army in the West and in Italy. This project was carried
on with some success until November 1944 when the German Army began
using enciphered call signs. It was possible up until the time of the
change to confirm and in some cases establish identities solely on the
basis of frequencies. Considerable assistance was rendered the Control
Section and log-reading party in maintaining continuity over the three-day
frequency change then employed by the Germans.

About the middle of November 1944 Capt Magilavy was given the

task of setting up a completely new section to deal with the fusion of
information and intelligence on the German landline network. It was
hoped that the results obtained would provide intelligence of strategic
importance. An accurate picture of the enemy landline net was soon
built up from decodes, MI-8 reports, Derce?? listings and from circuit
numbers


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