American 6813 Division History October 1945 Page 16

Tony Sale's Codes and Ciphers

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dition of the Watch and Air research Section and formation of the Army
Watch immediately preceeding D-day.


Critique. During the entire period of operations Americams worked

alongside British personnel, carrying out the same tasks under the same
direction. There were no purely American sections. Major Bundy was a head
of shift in the Watch and, as such, directed the work of both British and
Americans within the section. Sgt H. Porter was in charge of the Western
Front Army division of the traffic identification section, and similarly
directed the work of both American and British personnel. Other sections
containing Americans were headed by British. There was not merely inter-
allied cooperation here but complete fusion of effort.


The existence of American bombes, both Navy and Army, in Washing-

ton helped immesurably to ease the tight situation in Bletchley Park. Through-
out the early stages of the war many potential breaking attempts had to be
abandoned because B.P. bombe-time did not permit expense on any but opera-
tional keys. As American bombes were made available it was possible to allot
bombe-time for these hither-to-sacrficed keys and to take longer and profitable
risks in the breaking of current keys. Moreover, the contribution of the
American technitians in cooperation with the British experts was to consider-
able extent responsible for the successful experimentation with E-breaking
methods which put the Allies in such a strong position when the Germans fin-
ally resorted to an almost universal use of this additional security device.


To an American the most striking feature of Hut Six organisation

was the handling of the personnel problem, both the initial selection and
the subsequent treatment of employees. Instead of a small group of expert
cryptanalysts, supplemented by a large number of low-grade clerical workers,
the recruitment policy seemed designed to bring into the Hut highly intelligent
personnel selected from universities and schools for all jobs. This was not
an unmixed blessing. It caused more dissatisfaction than was neccessary with
the unavoidable routine jobs such as message registration, and it resulted
perhaps in a needless waste of intelligent manpower, but it did mean that
there were reserves of capable personnel to meet emergencies and that a con-
sidearble
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