contrasting source(s) | Enigma World Code Group Forum

andreacallin
New Member

Posts: 1

contrasting source(s) May 29, 2020 9:43:45 GMT

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Post by andreacallin on May 29, 2020 9:43:45 GMT

Hello everyone,
I know that i may be a bit off topic, as in this forum you discuss the code so cryptography. I have a history question about enigma.
I am doing my History essay on how ULTRA affected ww2 and i need to find at least one contrasting source to this statement, as I'm asked to present different views. i would be extremely happy if someone here could help me. I am really struggling.
the statement is the following:

"did ULTRA win the war?
Some writers claim that it did. But even as hyperbole this is nonsense. The Allies would have won without it—though at a much greater cost in men and materiel. Some historians argue that “Without ULTRA … the Allies could not have won the Battle of the Atlantic.” This too exaggerates. So does the view that ULTRA stands “at the top” of the factors that influenced the outcome of the Atlantic battle. The most important factor was the construction of an unbelievable number of vessels by American shipyards—so many so fast that even the total effort of all Dönitz’s U-boats was doomed to ineffectuality. Also more important than ULTRA was air cover, which drove the U-boats under water and thereby slowed them so that they could not keep up with the convoys."
or this one
"What effect, then, did ULTRA have?

Can it at least be estimated how many months of war the solving of the naval Enigma saved? Any answer must be hypothetical, and similar calculations could be made about any wartime activity. Nevertheless, it is illuminating to suggest a figure. Without the shipping saved by ULTRA , forces would have been withdrawn from the Pacific to attempt to keep to the timetables for the invasions of Sicily and Italy and, above all, of Normandy. Calculations of ship production and of logistic problems suggest that these invasions would have been delayed by about three months."
the sources I find are quite unifying around this. i would need someone to tell me:"ULTRA won the war" OR "ULTRA didn't matter at all for the victory of the Allies"
Thank you in advance,
Andrea

johndean
New Member

Posts: 16

contrasting source(s) May 30, 2020 7:42:20 GMT

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Post by johndean on May 30, 2020 7:42:20 GMT

Hi Andreacallin, good luck with your assignment. I am not sure how far you have delved into the newsletters:
12cc219b-5260-13dd-b813-b14e3cfc9182.filesusr.com/ugd/abb462_6546c9530b6f4debbf5f11dbe52a19ba.pdf
You will find a reference to someone who may give some background material.
"Here is February’s Enigma history newsletter—on time and under budget! Let’s call it, “By itself, did Enigma make a
difference?” The source is Dr. Williamson Murray, a history professor at Ohio State University. One of the features of
the article I liked was that Murray put U-boat victories in terms of both ships sunk and tonnage sunk. I don’t know about
you, but I can’t relate to tonnage sunk at all. If some guy says, “There was 202, 820 tons of cargo sunk ---

nilatacb
Junior Member

Posts: 62

contrasting source(s) Jun 1, 2020 2:28:45 GMT

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Post by nilatacb on Jun 1, 2020 2:28:45 GMT

Is is a very interesting discussion. It's a minimum of 2 years and a minimum of hundreds of thousands of lives.

Events helped immensely by ULTRA: basically every "accidental spy plane photo" when they already knew the info/ship was already there. Take the account of an English intelligence officer that said smth along the lines of: "the Germans must have thought he had thousands of airplanes". The D-Day, simply because of the intercepting and decrypting of German traffic showed the landing is safe, the Germans were thinking the main effort will be somewhere else. The sinking of battleships. (German battleships, Gneisenau for examaple)

Here's a quote about the Naval Enigma:
"On March 10, 1943, the Germans added a refinement to the U-boat Enigma key, which blinded the Allied codebreakers at Bletchley Park for 9 days.[62] That month saw the battles of convoys UGS 6, HX 228, SC 121, SC 122 and HX 229. One hundred and twenty ships were sunk worldwide, 82 ships of 476,000 tons in the Atlantic, while 12 U-boats were destroyed.

The supply situation in Britain was such there was talk of being unable to continue the war, with supplies of fuel being particularly low. The situation was so bad that the British considered abandoning convoys entirely"

9 days without breaking it and there's talk about not being able to continue the war.

Here's another quote about the progress made in transmission:

"The fully automated burst transmission Kurier system, in testing from August 1944, could send a Kurzsignal in not more than 460 milliseconds; this was short enough to prevent location even by huff-duff and, if deployed, would have been a serious setback for Allied anti-submarine and code-breaking activities. By late 1944 the Kurier program was a top priority, but the war ended before the system was operational."

Now, imagine the M4 not broken. M3 not broken. And heavy water production in Germany (there were a number of raids in 1942-1943 against the production facility in Norway). Give it two extra years and things could look grim. Everything is an exercise of imagination, and guesses and speculation, but don't make a static analysis based only on ships vs U-boats. 2-3 more years could mean anything in rocket production (V1 and V2 from Pennemunde), heavy water, jet fighters(like the Me-262), new transmission systems from U-boats and so on.

I think your views about 3 months are very wrong.

Oh, and regarding this "Also more important than ULTRA was air cover, which drove the U-boats under water and thereby slowed them so that they could not keep up with the convoys." - that's just plainly wrong. The wolfpacks would be pre-positioned and here's how a night attack would look like:

"However the Admiralty, concerned by the fate of SC 7 and anticipating an attack, rushed reinforcements to the scene; throughout the day a large escort force of 11 warships also gathered to provide cover.
Action

Undeterred by their presence however, the pack attacked as night fell; using the darkness to cover an approach on the surface, Prien penetrated the escort screen from the south to attack from within the convoy, while Endrass (who had learned his trade as Prien's 1st officer), did the same from the north.

Over the next six hours, 13 ships were torpedoed; 6 by U-47 alone (4 of which were sunk). 10 ships were sunk from the convoy, and 2 stragglers were lost later in the day. These were Shirak, which had been torpedoed in the night, and Loch Lomond, sailing with the convoy as a rescue ship. Another, Athelmonarch, was damaged but was able to make port.

HX 79 had lost 12 ships out of 49, a total tonnage of 75,069 gross register tons (GRT).

None of the attacking U-boats were damaged. "

Nonetheless, good luck with your essay!

Last Edit: Jun 1, 2020 3:47:14 GMT by nilatacb