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Volume 4, Number 2
Winter 2004

Shore High-Frequency Direction-Finding in the Battle of the Atlantic:
An Undervalued Intelligence Asset
by RALPH ERSKINE
-- abstract

This article reviews the operations of British and allied shore HF-DF nets during the Battle of the Atlantic in WWII. It includes Kriegsmarine assessments of shore HF-DF, and describes the measures, including off-frequency and “spurt” transmissions, adopted by the Kriegsmarine to counter HF-DF. It shows that shore HF-DF indirectly advanced the breaking of naval Enigma by about 12 months during 1941 and 1942, and that it was crucial to the breaking of the four-rotor naval Enigma cipher, Triton (codenamed Shark by Bletchley Park), at the height of the Battle of the Atlantic in the first half of 1943.
 


The Journal of Intelligence History is published by the International Intelligence History Study Group, founded in 1993 to promote scholarly research on intelligence organizations and their impact on historical development and international relations.


Last update 7 March 2005 by Michael Wala