The Codebreakers: The True Story of the Secret Intelligence Team That Changed the Course of the First World War Read Free Page A

quietly into his office. I think I saw most of the cabinet, and for that matter, everybody else in England of any note.’
    Hall’s unique position owed a great deal to his forceful personality. However, it was the intelligence supplied by his codebreakers that justified his ubiquitous presence in the corridors of power. Credit goes to him for the way he marshalled this eclectic band of civilians, but it was their talent, ingenuity and perseverance that granted him the keys to the kingdom.
    It was Churchill, as civilian head of the Admiralty, who laid the procedural and institutional basis for Room 40. Realising the immense advantages the codebreakers could provide, and equally aware that these would be rendered redundant if the Germans suspected that their communications were compromised, Churchill drew up a charter that guaranteed absolute security: the wireless intercepts were to ‘be written in a locked book with their decodes, and all other copies are to be collected and burnt. All new messages are to be entered in the book, and the book is only to be handled under the direction of the Chief of Staff’, a position occupied by Admiral Henry Oliver, a rigid workaholic who often did a 150 hour week; he was nicknamed ‘the Dummy’ because of his lack of facial expressions and monosyllabic utterances. Oliver would then circulate the decoded material to a handful of high-ranking naval personnel.

    The Old Admiralty Building, Whitehall, home to Room 40
    While this degree of caution was understandable, it was not particularly practical and it placed Room 40 in a straitjacket that was hard to struggle free from, delaying its growth into a fully fledged, proactive intelligence organisation. However, in its chaotic early days, this was the least of Room 40’s problems as it stumbled into being.
    Much of what we know about this period of Room 40’s life comes from one of its first recruits, Alastair Denniston. Born in 1881, Alastair’s father was a doctor who died of TB when he was ten. After performing well at school, he studied abroad, first at the Sorbonne in Paris and then at Bonn University, giving him a thorough knowledge of German, followed by a stint teaching languages at a school in Edinburgh and later at the Royal Naval College on the Isle of Wight: all ideal preparation for life in Room 40.
    His pre-war claim to fame was as an athlete, playing in the Scottish hockey team at the 1908 London Olympics. The opening match took place on 29 October at Shepherd’s Bush Stadium in atrocious conditions and pitted Denniston’s Scotland against Germany. After winning the match 4–0, Scotland then faced England in the semi-final, played on the same day. The old enemy thrashed them 6–1 and went on to win gold by beating Ireland 8–1 in the final. A third-place play-off for the bronze medal between Scotland and Wales was abandoned after the Scots went home that evening; a historian of the sport concluded that ‘the Scotland players had to get back to work’. In the end, a compromise was reached: both teams were awarded bronze and Denniston became the proud owner of an Olympic medal.

    Alastair Denniston, one of Room 40’s earliest recruits
    When Denniston joined Room 40, it only had five other staff. All of them, according to him, were ‘singularly ignorant of cryptography’. Isolated from their boss, they had to carry their results down the corridor to his secretary. By November, this small group were installed in Room 40. Their new home was on the first floor of the Old Admiralty Building in Whitehall. Tucked away, quiet, with a view over an inner courtyard, its discreet location compensated for the cramped conditions.
    A shift system was organised: two staff on duty between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m., then one on night watch, all engaged in the business of translation, sorting and decoding. Initially messages were brought by a ‘never ending stream of postmen delivering bundles’, then by pneumatic tubes (originally