Christos military and intelligence corner

This year I’ve added a new essay on the Compromise of Polish codes in WWII.

In WWII Poland fought on the side of the Allies and suffered for it since it was the first country occupied by Nazi Germany.

Last year I did a lot of research on the Typex and M-209 cipher machines.

Cipher machines were extensively used by both the Axis and the Allies during WWII.

Recently new information was published on the M-209 cipher machine and this information coupled with all the material that I have collected over the years led me to write a new essay on the M-209 cipher machine and its exploitation by the German and Japan…

At the start of WWII, the US armed forces used various means for enciphering their confidential traffic.

I’ve been posting here since 2011 and during that time I have covered a variety of subjects on military and intelligence history.

Since I no longer have any active cases I think it’s time to write a summary of my experience with the US freedom of information act program.

My two remaining FOIA cases were filed in 2015 and 2018.

"Слушают или нет?.."

The proceedings of the International Conference on Historical Cryptology 2020 are available here.

Cryptologia: Enigma: the spoils of Gustave Bertrand, or “par où tout a commencé” by Jean-François Bouchaudy Abstract As early as 1931, Gustave Bertrand of the French intelligence services received from the traitor Hans Thilo Schmidt documents concerning t…

International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence: ‘Japanese Navy’s Tactical Intelligence Collection on the Eve of the Pacific War’ by Naoki Saito.

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Again thanks to Dermot Turing, who copied the TICOM report M-15, it was possible to identify the titles of the TICOM M reports 1-15.

Here is a list of the TICOM I reports 1-213.

Craig McKay has written a book on General Onodera, the Japanese military attaché to Sweden during WWII, and his intelligence gathering activities.

When I started researching cryptologic history in 2010 I didn’t expect I’d still be doing it 10 years later.

In 2019 I was able to research some cases of cryptologic history plus there were some interesting articles and presentations that presented new information.

Interesting posts from the page of the Greek Signal Corps museum.

Another interesting essay by Coldspur on Cold war espionage.

Frode Weierud has posted copies of cleartext and enciphered radio messages transmitted during the Nigerian civil war (also called the Biafran war).

In the essay The French War Ministry’s FLD code I’ve added the following information: Identifying the FLD codes We can try to identify the cryptosystems used in the FLD radio network by looking at Huettehnain’s statements and various TICOM documents.

It seems that the upcoming book ‘Behind the Enigma: The Authorised History of GCHQ, Britain’s Secret Cyber Intelligence Agency’ has been delayed till October 2020.