THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 1, 1995 TAG: 9511290136
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Olde Towne Journal
SOURCE: Alan Flanders
LENGTH: Long : 140 lines
``PURPLE-MAGIC'' and ``Enigma-Ultra'' might sound like code words in a James Bond movie script, but they were actually names for the German and Japanese secret codes and the machines that worked those codes.
For those interested in learning more about Naval history during World War II, a new Mariner's Museum exhibit offers a first time walk behind the once-closed doors of America's top secret world of code breakers.
``Carriers, Codes, Silent Ships'' focuses on a small, tightly knit group of multinational ``code breakers'' who deciphered both the German and Japanese top secret military codes early in the war.
But far from the ``cloak-and-dagger'' stereotype commonly found in B-grade spy thrillers, historians only now are finding out just how important was the contribution of the sequestered code breakers of London's Bletchley Park and northern Virginia's Arlington Hall.
The exhibit's historical consultant, Old Dominion University history professor Carl Boyd, calls them the true unsung heroes of World War II. Boyd has just finished a companion book to the display entitled, ``American Command of the Sea through Carriers, Codes and the Silent Services.''
``We knew all along that intelligence played a critical role in winning major campaigns like the Battle of the North Atlantic, Coral Sea and Midway during World War II,'' said Boyd. ``But the story behind the scenes of how we broke both the German and Japanese military codes, called `Ultra' and the equipment we did it with have remained somewhat of a mystery cloaked in official secrecy until recently.
``It was incredible how little we knew about those who became the code breakers,'' Boyd said.
``Thanks to the former Deputy of the Central Intelligence Agency Admiral Bobby Inman, that information, once closely guarded in locked security boxes, is now public because of his effort to liberalize classification restrictions to historical documents from World War II.''
Indeed, many of the artifacts in the exhibit are on loan from the National Security Agency collection and most paper documents bear top secret stamps.
In the introduction to his book, Boyd writes:
``The American public has long been aware of the important roles played by submarines and aircraft carriers in World War II. Indeed, in the aftermath of World War I, imaginative military strategists recognized the tremendous potential of these two weapons for future war. Yet the role played by signal intelligence in promoting the effectiveness of submarines and carriers remained murky until the recent declassification of tons of World War II radio communications documents. Now, more than 50 years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, historians are systematically investigating perhaps the greatest secret of the war - the relationship between the Allies' ability to read enemy codes and ciphers and their ability to bring the war to an end in 1945.''
As each new batch of information about Allied code breaking was declassified, Boyd was among a highly select group of scholars able to begin shedding light on what he called ``the creme de la creme of clandestine intelligence operations and achievements.''
He emphasizes in his book that the very outcome of World War II might have been vastly different without the ``solving of codes and ciphers (cryptanalysis), and the reading of another government's secret communications. . . .
``Never has an adversary had the opportunity to peruse so systematically and thoroughly the most secret communication of an enemy,'' he wrote.
The Mariners' Museum exhibit, which incorporates an earlier photographic collection called ``The Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation,'' clearly reveals the critical importance of this area as a supply depot and convoy rendezvous from the very beginning of the war.
From Craney Island to both the Portsmouth and Norfolk waterfronts, an uncountable number of men and tons of supplies were shipped primarily to England from 1939 to 1944 during President Franklin Roosevelt's program to turn America into the ``Arsenal of Democracy.''
A more sobering portion of the exhibit details the number of Allied navy and merchant ships sent to the bottom by German U-boats during the first months of war. World War II-veteran shipyarders in our area will be vividly reminded of the number of Allied Navy ships that limped secretly into the Norfolk Naval Shipyard after being torpedoed.
Photographs, captured German charts and equipment show how lethal the always present U-boats were once the convoys departed Virginia waters on their way to cross the North Atlantic.
Visitors will get a real sense of how desperate things were in 1941 and 1942 as period charts and maps show the vastness of German and Japanese conquests in both the Atlantic and Pacific.
The design, construction and further development of the German U-boat to prowl America's shores is contrasted with the development of the convoy system as a way of protecting the vital shipping lanes and the development of the United States Navy's ``hunter-killer teams'' that brought a combination of surface and air weaponry against the German submarines.
The Norfolk Naval Shipyard was at the center of the struggle to protect the otherwise helpless convoys by producing a series of destroyer escorts that served as picket boats surrounding the convoys.
But technological development leading to the German and Japanese code machines - and the story about how they were first captured, then ``broken'' or deciphered - are at the heart of the exhibit.
Artifacts like World War II-era radar, radio range/direction indicators, pennants and signal lights - once ``state-of-the art'' equipment - appears crude when compared to today's standard communications equipment.
But the ``crown jewels'' of the exhibit are the displays of both the German Navy's Enigma cipher machine and the principal part of a Japanese government's Purple coding machine.
As simple as they appear, Mark Friedman, a Chesapeake resident and Mariners' Museum Manager of Information Systems, marvels at their sophistication.
``You have to give both the Germans and Japanese credit for ingenuity when you examine these machines,'' said Friedman. ``Some of the Enigmas were capable of producing an estimated 150 thousand trillion variations of a single character. Yet they were portable, and apparently readily serviceable.
``Certainly you can say with some assurance that Enigma and Purple and the equipment it took to decode them marked the beginning of the `computer era' we now live in.''
Even though literally hundreds of Enigmas were made and survived after the war's end, according to Boyd only 30 Purple cipher machines were made with only three incomplete parts remaining.
The Mariners' Museum show marks the first time they have both been displayed together outside of Washington, D.C., Boyd said.
The exhibit lives up to its claim to be the most complete array of World War II communication and signal intelligence equipment now on display anywhere in the nation. In fact, it already has drawn the attention of distinguished historians. They include Dean Allard, former director of Naval History, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations; retired Navy Capt. Edward L. Beach, author of ``Run Silent, Run Deep''; and retired Adm. Ralph Cousins, former Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (NATO) and Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet.
During a recent panel discussion concerning the overall effect of breaking the Enigma and Purple cipher machines, all agreed that it made the difference between victory and defeat for the Allies.
The exhibit runs through April. For more information, call the museum at 595-0368. ILLUSTRATION: Photos by ALAN FLANDERS
LEFT: At the Mariners' Museum, ODU history professor Carl Boyd looks
at a map showing the battles of Midway and Coral Sea in the Pacific,
which saw the introduction of aircraft carriers.
RIGHT: Boyd, who is the historical consultant for the exhibit
``Carriers, Codes, Silent Ships,'' studies a model of a German
U-boat.
by CNB