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Class Date: December 17th
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The War Effort
The War Effort
This week we are heading ‘across the pond’ to check out the code breakers of Bletchley Park in England. But before we get there, here is a brief overview of the events of the time:
1917 - The US declares war on Germany
The United States declared war on Germany and its allies, but recognized its need for greater communication that adversaries could not understand. Things like the Zimmerman Telegraph also illustrated the value of coded intelligence. To read more about the significance of the Zimmerman Telegram, click here: https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/wwi/zimmermann-telegram
A new group was created, known as the Cipher Bureau, under the direction of Herbert O. Yardley. Headquartered in Washington D.C., the code and cypher description unit was part of the war effort under the Executive, lacking Congressional authorization or oversight. After the war ended in 1919, Yardley’s Bureau was moved to New York City, as a joint venture between the Army and the State Department. Known as The Black Chamber, it was disguised as a New York City commercial code company. The Black Chamber did sell commercial codes, but it also devoted time to breaking the communication codes of other nations.
1929 - Black Chamber disbanded
Secretary of State Henry Stimson made the decision to disband the organization. He, and others, were uncomfortable with the level of surveillance, especially as the Bureau had deals with Western Union and other telegraph companies to get access to messages coming in and out of the United States. President Hoover also didn’t see the need for peacetime surveillance, so the Bureau was shut down. Yardley was left unemployed and angry that his work was dismissed by the administration. In response, Yardley published a book, The American Black Chamber, about the surveillance conducted by the Cipher Bureau. Excerpts featured in The Saturday Evening Post shocked not only the United States, but countries that had been spied upon.
Though Yardley revealed a shocking amount of intelligence, other organizations were developing intelligence Bureaus of their own. In 1929, the U.S. Army formed the Signal Intelligence Service (SIS). Throughout the 1930s, the SIS opened bases and kept an eye on the Japanese Empire. Their intelligence gathering would prove vital in the American response to the Japanese bombing at Pearl Harbor and throughout the war in the Pacific Theater.
1932 - Franklin D. Roosevelt elected
Roosevelt contracted an illness, most likely polio, in 1921, which resulted in his paralysis from the waist down. After becoming president, Roosevelt helped to found the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which is now known as the March of Dimes. His leadership and advocacy for this issue is one of the reasons his likeness appears on the dime.
Jan 30, 1933 - Hitler appointed German leader
President Paul von Hindenburg named Hitler the chancellor of Germany. Hitler had risen to prominence in 1932, playing on German frustrations with poor economic conditions and a still smoldering defeat in the Great War (later known as WWI). He channeled these frustrations into support for his new Nazi party. After the election of 1932, Nazis and Communists held over half the parliamentary seats in the Reichstag.
For a 3 and a half minute overview of the rise of the Nazi party, click here:
In March of 1933, the first concentration camp was established in Nohra, Thuringia. Using the Reichstag Fire as a pretext for mass arrests, concentration camps were initially used to suppress political opponents.
1936 - Rome-Berlin Axis is announced
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sign a treaty of cooperation together.
1937 - Buchenwald concentration camp established
One of the largest concentration camps, Buchenwald initially housed non-Jewish political prisoners and criminals. Following the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom, more and more Jews were imprisoned at the camp.
1938 - Germany annexes Austria
Known as the Anschluss, or ‘Union’, Germany marched into Austria and encountered no resistance, per design. Other nations protested the annexation, but no one interceded on Austria’s behalf. For more detail, click here: https://www.britannica.com/event/Anschluss
September 1, 1939 - World War II begins
Germany invaded Poland, prompting Poland’s allies, Great Britain and France, to declare war on Germany.For a more comprehensive look at the beginnings of World War II, check out this 7 minute video here: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/rise-to-world-power/us-wwii/v/beginning-of-world-war-ii
November 30, 1939 - March 12, 1940 - Soviet Union invades Finland
The Soviet Union sparked the so-called ‘Winter War’ by invading their neighbor, Finland. Though vastly outnumbered and outgunned, Finland mounted a spirited defense of their Nordic homeland, using the harsh Finnish winter and their knowledge of the terrain to engage in guerilla warfare against the invading Soviets. Finnish ski troops conducted hit and run attacks on isolated Soviets. One farmer, named Simo Häyhä, served as a Finnish sniper and was credited with more than 500 kills. Eventually, Finnish forces were overwhelmed and they sued for peace. Finns were forced to cede 11% of their territory to the Soviets but maintained their independence. To read a little further on the Winter War, click here: https://www.history.com/news/what-was-the-winter-war
1940 - Churchill sets up the Special Operations Executive (SOE)
Great Britain’s Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, set up the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to organize agents and spies abroad. In 1942, SOE began to recruit women. Most often, SOE agents were sent abroad to join resistance movements. When women joined these groups and fought, it was the only time that women served in combat positions during WWII. To read a bit more about the SOE, click here: https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/SOE
June 14, 1940 - Paris falls to the Nazis
Paris falls to German forces. France surrenders 11 days later, leaving Britain largely on its own to resist the Axis powers.
April 26, 1941 - Donovan proposes the first US centralized intelligence agency
William J. Donovan proposed the first centralized U.S. intelligence agency to the President. He was officially appointed as Coordinator of Information for The Office of the Coordinator of Information in July of 1941. He was authorized to “collect, analyze, correlate, and make available to the President and certain Government agencies information bearing upon national security; and to carry out…supplementary activities designed to facilitate the obtaining of information important for national security and not otherwise available to the Government.”
June, 1941 - The Axis invades the Soviet Union
Though Germany had signed a Nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union in 1939, Hitler had always planned to take over parts of Soviet Union, especially resource-rich Ukraine. To read more about this invasion, named Operation Barbarossa, click here:
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/operation-barbarossa
July 31, 1941 - Hermann Goering orders officers to plan the “Final Solution”
To this point, there is not systematic policy for the mass murder of all Jews, but Nazies are looking for a final answer for the “solution to the Jewish question”. SS officers developed the policy that will become known as the “Final Solution”, which is the systematic and widespread mass murder of all Jewish people.
October 1941 - Munson Report is commissioned by President Franklin Roosvelet
Headed by Curtis B. Munson, the commission is dispatched to gather information on Japanese American loyalty. The report concluded that Japanese Americans were loyal to the United States and posed little threat to the United States, should there be a war between the two nations.
March, 1942 - Joint Psychological Warfare Committee created by the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff had been created in February of 1942 to coordinate the armed forces and also to streamline information and cooperation with the British. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill urged the Joint Chiefs to embrace psychological warfare, including subversion and sabotage, behind enemy lines. Donovan’s newly established intelligence agency, Office of the Coordinator of Information, was brought into the fold in an attempt to consolidate and streamline information gathering and the planning of unconventional warfare. To read more about this and the establishment of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), click here:
https://www.nps.gov/articles/a-wartime-organization-for-unconventional-warfare.htm
April 19, 1943 - The Bermuda Conference
Increasing public pressure led to the Bermuda Conference between the United States and Great Britain to discuss the issue of wartime refugees. But the organizers do not allow anyone to mention Jewish refugees, in particular, and neither government will discuss the “Final Solution”. The conference yields no action and does nothing to save any Jews facing extermination.
That is where our timeline leaves us for the week! Tune in to learn more about the time period and the people in it!
Recommended Reading
Recommended Reading
To read more about this period, here are some great books to get you started:
For kids:
Bletchley Park Puzzles and Brainteasers for Kids by Sinclair McKay
Wren Rook Bletchley Park Puzzles and Brainteasers Could YOU be a top secret codebreaker? (Childrens Edition) ABISBOOK Wren Rook.
The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
Remember, you are bound by the Official Secrets Act…
Summer, 1940. Nineteen-year-old Jakob Novis and his quirky younger sister, Lizzie, share a love of riddles and puzzles. And now they’re living inside of one. The quarrelsome siblings find themselves amid one of the greatest secrets of World War II—Britain’s eccentric codebreaking factory at Bletchley Park. As Jakob joins Bletchley’s top minds to crack the Nazi's Enigma cipher, fourteen-year-old Lizzie embarks on a mission to solve the mysterious disappearance of their mother.
The Battle of Britain rages and Hitler’s invasion creeps closer. And at the same time, baffling messages and codes arrive on their doorstep while a menacing inspector lurks outside the gates of the Bletchley mansion. Are the messages truly for them, or are they a trap? Could the riddles of Enigma and their mother's disappearance be somehow connected? Jakob and Lizzie must find a way to work together as they race to decipher clues that unravel a shocking puzzle that presents the ultimate challenge: How long must a secret be kept?
For adults:
The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything—beauty, wealth, and the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses—but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, and puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Imperious self-made Mab, product of east-end London poverty, works the legendary codebreaking machines as she conceals old wounds and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Both Osla and Mab are quick to see the potential in local village spinster Beth, whose shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and soon Beth spreads her wings as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts. But war, loss, and the impossible pressure of secrecy will tear the three apart.
1947. As the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip whips post-war Britain into a fever, three friends-turned-enemies are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter--the key to which lies buried in the long-ago betrayal that destroyed their friendship and left one of them confined to an asylum. A mysterious traitor has emerged from the shadows of their Bletchley Park past, and now Osla, Mab, and Beth must resurrect their old alliance and crack one last code together. But each petal they remove from the rose code brings danger--and their true enemy--closer...
The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park
The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park
At Bletchley Park, some of Britain's most talented mathematicians, linguists, and intellectuals were assembled to break Nazi codes. It was kept secret for nearly 30 years, but we have now come to realize the crucial role that these codebreakers played in the Allied victory in World War II.
Written by Dermot Turing - the nephew of famous codebreaker Alan Turing - this account provides unique insight into the behind-the-scenes action at Bletchley Park. Discover how brilliant and eccentric individuals such as Dilly Knox, Alan Turing, and Joan Clarke were recruited, the social life that grew up around the park, and how they dealt with the ever-present burden of secrecy.
Including a foreword by Professor Christopher Andrew of Cambridge University, author of MI5's official history The Secret World, this book brings to life the stories of the men and women who toiled day and night to crack the seemingly unbreakable enigma code.
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